Page 5 of Christmas Wore Plaid

“She’s coming back!” Emerson scolded. “Leave at once!”

“Finish the verse.” He folded his arms.

“Nay! Go away!” She pushed at him again, but he only chuckled. “Fine. So I shall say goodnight ’till it be morrow. There—”

He leaned in and brushed a second kiss upon her lips, rendering her dumbfounded once again, then held up something for her to see. A hairpin…

The parlor, the blindfold, his hand on my bow. My missing pin! Her mouth fell wide in an unladylike gape.

He grinned like a thieving fox. “I lied. I already claimed a boon. But I’m selfish and wanted another.”

Then he sat on the dome beneath him and shimmied down, landing softly between his mother’s hedges of dormant rose bushes. He padded across the lawn, braced a hand upon a gate, and swung his legs over, vanishing into the darkness.

The flooring creaked yet again. Emerson threw her efforts into dragging closed the window, then tiptoed to avoid squeaking the planks. She collapsed into bed and yanked the covers up to her chin.

A knock tapped the door. It pushed open again. “Emerson? Did I hear talking?”

Emerson sat up. Her aunt cast the candlelight into her room, looking about like a constable for clues of wrongdoing.

“It’s freezing cold in here,” Aunt Bess said. “Is your window drafty?”

Was it cold? Emerson had hardly noticed.

“I was certain I heard something,” Bess continued.

Emerson took a deep breath. If she acted like a guilty bampot, her aunt would suspect more, and never in a thousand years did Emerson wish to share anything about the unexpected visitor at her window, lest the woman pound on Laird and Lady MacInnes’s bedchamber doors like a battering ram.

“I was abed, Auntie, reciting lines for the play.”

Her aunt looked about once more, certain she’d find a cause for her suspicions, but when everything seemed proper, she pulled shut the door. Emerson flopped backward, exhaling. Her heart hummed. A smile broke out onto her face.

She sighed a long, dreamy sigh, touching her lips again.

Wait until I tell Clara! Brady MacInnes wishes to marry me! No. She couldn’t tell Clara. Clara could be a sour gossip, even about the best of friends, and couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. It would be all over Perthshire before Emerson could eat her Christmas pudding. She would keep this night a secret, locked at heart. He’d taken her hairpin—a memento. She’d promised herself to Brady, and he had asked her to wait for him. She clutched her hands together at her chest.

When sleep finally claimed her, she drifted off to thoughts of Brady MacInnes’s kisses, and future courtships, and frivolous games played at Christmas parties, and Romeo and Juliet at her window. She would remember this moment for the rest of her life.

But weeks later, fever plagued her. Her throat swelled. Doctors came and went in the wee hours of night. And she heard her aunt whisper in the shadows two dreaded words: “scarlet fever.”

Emerson shivered, her body racked with tremors as foul emetics were poured down her throat, inducing violent retching. Her mind grew delirious. Well-wishers were turned away and minutes turned into days, then a week. Brady came to call, but she could hear him being sent off at Aunt Bess’s front door. Vaguely, she was aware of the doctor bundling her in blankets and carrying her to the carriage that would take her south to Oxford, to her Uncle Frederick’s estates, to recover in the milder climate.

As the carriage door was latched shut, Brady came to call yet again, flowers in hand.

“Emerson!” he yelled.

She watched helplessly through the carriage window as the doctor grasped him and pulled him back. “You mustn’t go near her.”

“But I have to see her. Where are you taking her?” Brady pried free from the doctor to defy him when Aunt Bess intervened.

“She’s contagious, young Brady. You must stay away lest you fall prey to the fever, too. I dare say, as your parents’ only surviving child, they’d die of heartache if tragedy ever befell you.”

“Is she going to die?” Brady asked, panic lilting his voice.

The fear Emerson saw on Brady’s face saddened her.

“I pray no,” Bess said. “But she must go away for a while. This is for the best.”

“I’ll write to her,” Brady said, turning to look at her once more and swallowing so hard, his throat bobbed.

Emerson forced a smile, though she was too weak to drag her arm free from her blankets to wave. Her throat was so sore.

“I’ll write to you, too,” she croaked feebly.

He couldn’t hear her through the glass, but he seemed to understand. “And I you, Emmy! Promise me you’ll get well and return home! Promise me! Don’t forget our agreement!”

“I promise,” she replied, feeling tears redden her eyes at his distress.

On his plea now, she knew he still vied to court her. The carriage jostled as the driver climbed up to the bench and slapped the reins upon the team’s rumps. She lurched into motion, pain constricting her chest. She had been pulled from the play, pulled from her burgeoning romance with Brady. Her world had been turned upside down like a doll flung headfirst into a cupboard.

“I’ll write every week until you return!” Brady shouted. She couldn’t see him anymore. “I promise!”

“I promise, too,” she mouthed.

His boots, clopping loudly as he chased the carriage, receded, as did his calls. Emerson shivered with fever but took comfort in his promise, and couldn’t wait to receive his first letter.