Page 16 of Christmas Wore Plaid

Clara repositioned her babe who was squirming and reaching for her tea biscuit.

Emerson exhaled, handing the babe a biscuit of his own to gnaw on from her saucer. “I may, or may not”—she looked at Clara pointedly—“have been Brady’s first kiss…and he mine.” Clara’s eyes widened. “And you are not to tell a soul!”

“Of course I won’t,” Clara whispered, her grin so wide Emerson knew it to be the lie it was. She had just given Clara a boar’s head feast of juicy information. “But…Emerson Pritchard! How could you withhold something like this from me? When? When did this happen? I want details, my dear. I need details.”

Emerson’s face burned so brightly, she placed a palm over her cheek. Lord help her, the cat was out of the bag, and when Clara departed, the cat would run amuck all over town. Dear God, what had she done?

“I won’t tell you any details, for I fear they might end up in the rumor mill you love so much to grind, dearest Clara, and sold for cheap on market day.”

“You wound me,” Clara pouted, but smiled at Emerson’s grin and held up her finger and thumb. “Not even one, tiny detail?”

Emerson shook her head. “All I’ll say is that we practiced our verses for Romeo and Juliet, and he kissed me once.”

Liar, he kissed you twice, and you loved them both.

“Anyway, it was long ago, and innocent besides,” she continued, if anything, to deflect Clara’s interest from further chipping away at the secret kept all these years. “I married another. Why would I fault Brady even if he did sire a child? Even so, I find it preposterous that he would share his first kiss with me and a year later find himself in a brothel bed with the daughter of one of his family’s tenants.”

Clara frowned. “Well, when you put it like that… Still. I didn’t start these rumors, so it could be true, you know.”

“No, you just bandy them about like leaves on the wind,” Emerson chuckled and placed her needle into the fabric, pulling the thread through.

Clara ignored the remark, or didn’t hear it while she chattered. Either were plausible. “Besides, Colleen was pretty, even if she was poor. And the late Laird MacInnes was adamant about bringing Colleen home. Why else would he be so adamant, unless she was carrying his grandson? Did Brady’s father know about Colleen’s child and keep it from everyone? What’s the conclusion to be drawn from it?”

Emerson tipped her head back and laughed, tossing aside the needlepoint, for it was pointless to focus on it further. The little girl asleep on the settee stirred, and she stifled her outburst. “Clara. Your suggestion is based on hunches you cannot possibly verify unless you asked Brady directly. And, it being none of your business, Brady would be inclined to tell you so. What if it all was purely innocent? Brady’s father simply wished to see this Colleen returned home and plucked from such a horrid profession, where any number of Crieff’s gentleman could be her child’s true sire?”

Emerson resisted the urge to hold her stomach again, and feel the emptiness that lay within. Such sadness was also in the past, the little babe buried beside her father in the family plot in Oxford.

Clara lifted her eyes heavenward. “I suppose the rumors lack substance,” she sighed.

“And furthermore,” Emerson said, sipping her tea again. “What should another’s goings-on matter to you, even if Brady had done such a thing?”

But the thought of Brady doing that with others caused that pang in her chest to bite harder. It shouldn’t bother her, but unease churned within her stomach, imagining him taking another in his arms, kissing her, making love to her when deep down, she’d always wished it had been her—Goodness!What a scandalous thing to put into words! But she’d be a liar if she didn’t admit to thinking about doing such a deed with Brady. When Corbin had deflowered her and each time he had shared her bed thereafter, she had wondered what it would have been like to lie in Brady’s arms, knowing that she would never find out.

But now, she was widowed. Brady had never married. It was still scandalous to think such things, but she wasn’t naïve anymore. If she kept such sentiments to herself, there wasn’t any harm to be done, was there? But why had ailing finances kept Brady from marrying a woman with lesser means? A wave of sadness followed her musings now. Brady had probably never married, because he’d grieved for his parents. And he said he wrote to you. Could it be that he did, and someone intercepted them? Could it be that your letters to him were intercepted, too? What other explanation was there? What a cruel thing for someone to do, to squash the hearts of two young souls by creating years of confusion and mistrust. And if that were true, had he never married because he’d never gotten over her?

All of this is nonsense.

She sipped her tea and pursed her lips. Aunt Bess had never kept her abreast of what was happening with the locals. Now that she saw the sheer poverty, Emerson wondered if her aunt had hoped to spare her the sadness, especially about Brady.

Clara pointed at the sleeping orphan. “Are you really going to keep her?”

Emerson shook her head. “I haven’t thought beyond today. But I dare say I cannot turn the child out when I have a warm roof to put over her head.”

“Careful you don’t grow attached. You plan to sell this property. And then where would she go? It would be cruel to allow her to grow comfortable, only to leave her with nothing again.”

Emerson shrugged. “Maybe she could remain with me. As you know, my daughter was…” She cleared her throat. “I have the means, and could use a companion. I just wish I knew more about her: her name, where she came from, if she has a family.”

“She’s likely orphaned to be sure.”

Emerson thought on her rich life. Corbin had taken care to see her well-financed in his death. On top of receiving an inheritance from her Aunt Bess, a queenly sum, as well as funds from her uncle, she had been bequeathed her pin money—in full—as if she and Corbin had lived an entire lifetime together, even though he’d died much too soon. She would never be able to spend all that money on herself and it was a shame to not use it on another.

She dragged a woolen shawl off the back of her seat and swept aside her curls as she wrapped herself within, kicking her slippers off haphazardly onto the floor—such worthless accessories in this part of the world—and tucked her feet beneath her skirts when her housekeeper, Kate, entered the parlor with a box in her arms.

“My lady,” Kate said, breathless from exertion.

“Aye, Kate? What have you there?”

“The footman was clearing out bins in your Aunt Bess’s study to prepare the house for sale, when he came upon this box in the bottom of a chest. It’s full of personal correspondences. Would you like me to throw them in the burn heap or save them for you to look through?”