Page 43 of To Winter at Wildsyde

He laughed softly and she hated the sound of it, the way it told her his suspicions had been confirmed.

“I want you,” she said, acknowledging his words, holding his gaze though it was the hardest thing to do. “No doubt that makes me less of a lady, but I have never been a lady, Gordy, not really. I’ve always been on the outside, not good enough to marry, not well bred enough, not feminine enough. I lack any blue blood, born into trade. I’m also too big, too outspoken, too managing. Why on earth did you think I was still unmarried despite that vast dowry you were so pleased to get your hands on?” Ruth blinked hard, willing the tears away, fighting to keep her voice steady. “I know I’m difficult and temperamental and I promise to try harder, Gordy, if only you’d meet me halfway. I have no illusions. I know you will never feel the same way about me. I must be very far from the pretty wife you might have liked for yourself, but I understand loyalty. I know what it is to be true to a promise, and no matter what you believe of my feelings for you, I made you a promise before God and I mean to keep it. I will not leave you, Gordy. I will never leave you. So speak to me with cruelty if it makes you feel better, but I’m going nowhere.”

She didn’t stay to see what effect her words had on him. Her eyes were blurry with tears and her composure too close to shattering, so she turned, groped blindly for the door handle, and fled.

Chapter 17

My Dear Ruth,

How glad I was to receive your letter and to hear of all the progress you have made at Wildsyde. It sounds a dreadfully romantic place and your description of the vistas from the castle and the vast expanse of stars in the night sky quite takes my breath away. I long to see it one day soon. I hope you are as happy as your letter would imply and that your husband is as well aware of his good fortune as we all know him to be.

I, however, am at a loss to understand what you mean by your thinly veiled comments. Indeed, I am not hunting Mr de Beauvoir! In my opinion, it is more of a siege.

― Excerpt of a letter from Miss Minerva Butler to Mrs Ruth Anderson.

14th December 1814. Wildsyde Castle, Scotland.

Ruth strode out, ducking her head against the freezing wind that stung her eyes and made them water. The wind buffeted her, snatching at her cloak and trying to make it billow like a sail, but she held tight, refusing to allow it to force her off the path. She must be out of her mind, fighting the elements now as well as her pig-headed husband, though she felt it amounted to much the same thing.

At least she had found some measure of peace, a retreat where she could hide herself away from the castle and what seemed like a relentless stream of people. In normal circumstances, she loved the bustle of a busy house and enjoyed the challenge of keeping a large property well run, though Wildsyde was a fraction of the size of her father’s various properties. Involving herself in every aspect of running of a grand house was what she had been born to do, trained with an eye to becoming the duchess her overly ambitious father had always hoped for. In comparison, Wildsyde was hardly a great undertaking, yet for the past week she had felt weary, unequal to the task and the endless parade of workmen and staff that seemed to need incessant instruction. She could have left it all to Garrick and Mrs Crust, of course, but that would be out of character, and then Garrick would know something was wrong and she’d have to try harder still to hide her unhappiness.

Gordy had kept out of her way since the row she had provoked over the cradle, and she was still cursing herself for her stupidity. He still came to her at night, but whilst his hands on her were no less gentle, he held himself apart, forcing an emotional distance between them she did not know how to breach. It was pointless to keep cursing her own idiocy, but she did it all the same. She had known it would be best to tread gently, had known she would win this battle by increments, not in a blaze of confrontation. Why then had she backed him into a corner? She had trapped him in that room with no option but to face her and listen to what she was telling him. It was hardly surprising he’d snarled and turned vicious in response. The situation called for patience and understanding, and whilst Ruth felt she understood—all too clearly—patience had never been her strong suit.

She knew he didn’t trust her, didn’t even want to try, but she didn’t know how to show him she could be trusted. The only way she could see was to keep her word and stick with him, but he wouldn’t let her do even that. Part of her wanted to confess the whole story to her friends, especially the married ones, and beg them for advice, but Gordy would hate that. He’d hate his history becoming the subject of conversation and it would be a betrayal of trust of the sort he no doubt feared. So she would just have to keep plodding on, making a mess of things and hoping she didn’t ruin any chance she might have with him.

She looked up as the ruins of Bucholie Castle came into view. Guillemots screamed overhead, their raucous cries piercing even over the pounding of the waves that seemed to echo through her from below. It was an eerie place. She’d discovered it whilst out walking a few weeks earlier and thought it dreadfully romantic. The castle had been built on the headland and was hard to distinguish from the rock face of the precipice, built of the same flat flagstones, as though the cliffs had raised the walls of their own accord. She’d been told by Mr Clugston that a Norse pirate called Sweyn had built it in the twelfth century. There was little left now, only the west wall and ragged parts of the southern side. She suspected much of the rubble had been robbed out centuries ago and would be found in the walls of Wildsyde. The vista here and for miles in all directions was as wild as the rest of the landscape. Apart from the dark silhouette of Wildsyde in the distance, the ruins were the only high point for miles, as if daring the storms to do their worst. They had. The flat plains stretched on and on before the ruins, just as the sea stretched to the horizon at its back, land and sea mirroring each other as the wind screamed over the open expanse.

Ruth shivered and huddled against the walls, out of the worst of the gusts while her ears rang with the icy cold. She laughed, the sound whipped away in an instant, carried up with the sea birds that rode the mad buffeting, their own shrieks sounding like a manic kind of amusement. It was exhilarating, making her heart beat faster as she edged closer to the drop, feeling the wind tugging at her cloak, threatening to billow her over the edge. Far beneath her the sea crashed, foaming white against the jagged rocks. Salt spray prickled over her face, a shock of ice cold as she backed up again, admiring instead the glitter of the sun over the endless blue. She felt smaller here, her problems shrinking in the face of what had always been and would be still, long after she was gone. Strange how such an uncompromising landscape should bring her comfort, but it always stilled the constant circling of her brain. The problems which seemed insurmountable inside the walls of Wildsyde became things that needed nothing more than the passage of time to resolve, and she always returned feeling calmer, as if the ferocious battering of the wind and sea had tamed something savage into submission.

She stayed for an hour perhaps, staring out at the dazzling azure sea until she was chilled to the bone, but the violence of her own frustration had calmed to a simmer. Feeling she was in a better frame of mind to face the rest of the day, she turned and began the walk back to Wildsyde. Despite the frigid cold and the wind that made her skin burn, she smiled. The landscape here had captured her heart. It was difficult, untameable, resolutely wild and yet beguiling, rich with a strange, dark magic that called to some previously forgotten part of her soul. She loved the stories that the people told, ghost stories and superstitious tales of witches and fairies and changelings. There was something undeniably ancient here, some connection to the distant past that made her feel solid and rooted in a way she’d never known before. In London she’d always felt adrift, as if she held her place in society by the very tips of her fingers. Not here. Here she was whole and real in a way she could not quite clarify. She’d considered trying to explain this to Gordy, but knew she’d never find the words to tell him how she felt. He’d no doubt be ever more convinced she was nae right in the heid.

“Mrs Anderson!”

Ruth raised a hand at Mr Clugston as he came to greet her.

“Just the woman I needed,” he said, giving her a warm smile. “Would ye come and take a look? I was thinking about what you said, about using the stone from the ruined tower….”

Ruth smiled and nodded, listening as Mr Clugston spoke with enthusiasm. She asked a question or gave her opinion when the need arose. There was an air of optimism in the man that had been absent on her arrival and she felt a sense of having done some good.

“Ye are pleased?” Mr Clugston asked, correctly interpreting the smile she could not keep from curving over her lips.

She nodded, staring about the castle. The outside was still bristling with scaffolding, as though Wildsyde was some manner of huge hedgehog, rolled into a ball to protect itself. Men moved over it, busy as ants, still more thronging the exterior courtyard, back and forth with wheelbarrows and tools, whistling cheerily or bantering together, their breath blowing clouds on the icy air.

“I’m glad to see I have done some good here, or at least that my money has,” she added, not wanting Mr Clugston to think she would take credit for Gordy’s efforts. She blushed, though she doubted it noticed as her face was already red from the cold. How vulgar to mention such a thing as money, she thought too late. A lady would never have done so.

Mr Clugston was giving her a curious look, and she felt her stomach pitch the same way it always did at a ball when she’d said or done something equally gauche in front of the ton.

“Ye cannae think ’tis just yer money that has done this?” he said, his voice surprisingly soft.

“Oh, no, of course not.” She spoke in a rush, mortified. “Mr Anderson must take the credit for making it all happen. He’s achieved so much. I’m very proud of him.”

He gave a huff of laughter and shook his head. “Aye, the laird has done a fine job, but ’tis nae what I meant. Ye have wrought a great change upon Wildsyde, and upon those who work here. I have remarked that many of the English staff have returned to yer father’s properties, and more of the local folk have taken their places. I see too the way Mrs MacLeod and Sheenagh and the others speak of ye with respect. Ye have been here such a short time, and already the people see they have been given a gift.”

Ruth’s closed her mouth with difficulty, suddenly aware she’d been gawking in astonishment and quite at a loss. His opinion mattered, she realised, his and all the other staff here. It meant a great deal to her, and to hear of his approval, of their approval, spoken with Mr Clugston’s gruff, no-nonsense tone was almost enough to reduce her to tears.

“I won’t leave,” she said, with quiet determination.

“I know.” His voice was warm, his blue eyes full of admiration.