Page 2 of A Highlander for the English Widow

My dear,

By the time you receive this letter I shall be dead. Perhaps this may come as good news to you, for I know you have not liked the way I have treated you these past few years. I have fallen ill. It’s an infection caused by a wound I received when I was out hunting. It’s an ugly thing, filled with pus, and it has darkened my skin all the way up my leg. The doctor said that it’s in my blood and has reached all the way to my heart. I am coughing up blood so dark it looks as though the night has taken residence in my soul. They tell me there is still hope, but I can already feel my strength fading.

I know we have not been close these last number of years, but you are still my wife, so I thought I should speak to you directly. This marriage was not what either of us expected. I was not the husband you wanted and you were not the wife I needed. Perhaps it is best that it ends now rather than lasting all the way to the bitter ends of life, and I just wanted to tell you one final time how disappointed I have been with you. Things could have been so much different if you had only given me an heir. I hope you find the climate in Scotland pleasing, because I doubt anyone else will want to marry you. They all know of our troubles, and what man could want a defective woman?

Regards,

Duke Fernsby

Amanda sat there in shock as her eyes danced across the words. She could hear the duke’s cruel, sneering voice in her mind. Tears swam in her eyes, hot and angry. She placed the letter on the table.

“Is everything well, ma’am?” Ann asked.

“It’s the duke. He’s dead,” Amanda said.

“Oh, I… I’m sorry,” Ann said with hesitation.

Amanda pressed her lips together and blinked away the tears. She gazed into the distance, knowing that by all rights she should have been distraught upon hearing the news of her husband’s death, but he had always been so callous with her that she could not summon any sorrow. There was a candle flickering on the desk. Amanda rose from her chair and held the letter aloft. The paper curled at the touch of the flame, the cream color becoming black and charred as the flames devoured it.

“I suppose now I am officially a widow rather than simply living like one,” she said softly.

Her throat tightened as she knew that her life had changed in a profound way, although she wasn’t yet sure how much that was really going to be the case. She had freedom now, but what was she going to do with it?

She looked down at the wedding ring on her left hand and twisted it away. It left a red ring behind; it had always been a little too tight. She placed the ring on the desk with a dull thud and tried to rouse some sympathy within her heart for her husband, but he had been so cruel to her from the very beginning that she could not conjure the impossible. She had gone from a wife to a widow, but what would she be next?

She looked up at Ann and told her to fetch some wine. Amanda did not make a habit of drinking, but there were some occasions when it was needed more than air.

1

Afew days had passed since Amanda had received the message from England. Her marriage to the duke had lasted eight years. Eight years of her life had just vanished into the ether, just as his final letter to her had been burned and turned to ash. The hollow feeling in her heart only grew. She felt guilty for not being more upset and prayed for penance and mercy, but secretly she wondered how the Lord would ever punish her for not feeling bad.

From the first moment she had met the duke, Amanda had known that he was a cruel person. He had looked down his nose on those that were lower than him, going so far as to say they should be used in hunting to make the streets of the city more palatable to look at. Everything in the world had to be catered to his needs; he could never accept that other people had lives of their own. Their first year of marriage had been rough. Amanda had forced herself to share a bed with him, although there was no joy within it, and no warmth. Thankfully the duke was rather vigorous in his manly duties, so they never lasted long, and he preferred to spend time in his own company rather than be with her. It reached a point where he expected her to be with child, but the monthly bleeding always visited her, and the duke grew more irate, always blaming her, insulting her, telling her that she was less than a woman.

These dark thoughts echoed through her mind and would not leave her. She saw shadows everywhere she looked and, at night, would twist and turn at every little noise, assuming that it was the duke coming to haunt her. There was no ghostly visage, though, only the insults he had thrown at her and the rage within his eyes.

One evening she was drinking wine as Ann relaxed with her. Although the maid was of a lower station, Amanda enjoyed her company and did not think of Ann as a lesser person than her. As such, Ann had a certain way of speaking with Amanda that most household staff did not.

“May I ask ye a question, ma’am?”

“Of course,” Amanda said, sipping her wine. The bouquet had a fruity fragrance and gave Amanda a light, hazy sensation within her mind.

“I know ye dinnae hae much affection for yer husband, and I certainly hold nay judgment for that. I hae known many marriages tae fall intae hostility, but I was expecting ye tae be more upset. Are ye sure that everything is well?”

Amanda wore a wry smile. Candlelight flickered around her, casting her in an amber glow.

“You only met my husband a few times, Ann. Believe me, if you were better acquainted with him, then you would understand why I am acting the way I am. I suppose I should have allowed you to read the letter; then you would know. You would think that in his last missive to me he would talk about his regret about the way he treated me and how he wished he had been a kinder, more sympathetic husband. Perhaps he would have told me how even though we had been distant these past few years, he still thought of me and that now he is sorry we will never get the chance to reconnect. But no, such a thing would not have occurred to him. Instead he took the opportunity to berate me and insult me again, to remind me that I was a failure as a wife and as a woman.” Her voice took on a reluctant tone, and she gazed into the dark liquid, imagining that it was his blood.

“I cannae think of ye as a failure, ma’am.”

“Well, I am. I did not give him a child, and that is all men like the duke care about. After all, are we nothing except the legacy we leave behind? I could not provide him with an heir, and that made me less than nothing. He was never shy of reminding me about it either. I suppose after almost five years of trying he simply got fed up and hoped that I would be so morose that I would take my own life up here. It must really have galled him that I found a new lease on life. I can imagine that he was bitter to have died before me. There would have been nothing better in his eyes than being able to remarry.”

“But why was he sae angry with ye? I can understand him wanting a wee bairn, but surely, well… I apologize for being crude, but it’s nae likely gaeing tae happen with him down there and ye up here. And how does he know ye are the one tae blame anyway?”

Another wry smile touched Amanda’s lips.

“I asked him the same question once. We were having a blazing row and I was tired of him speaking to me as though I was a witch. He just looked at me with all the anger in the world and told me that the problem couldn’t be with him because he already had children. I was shocked, of course, and didn’t understand because I was his first wife. But of course men have ways sometimes… He had illegitimate children running around the city. He spent time with none of them, of course, and did not care for any of them, but they were his all the same, and so there was no denying that I was the issue.”

“Oh, ma’am… I’m sae sorry,” Ann said.