Page 55 of Highland Jewel
“Will you forgive me?” she finally asked.
“There’s nothing to forgive.” Morrigan brushed away Maisie’s tears. “And no sad faces. You’ll have plenty of chances to raise your torch and your voice again. And you know now. Next time, I’ll stand beside you.”
Regardless of all the regrets, Maisie needed to hear those words. Morrigan buoyed the hope in her that one day she would return to demanding the rights they were being deprived of as women. That she could figure out a way to still fight, and their battle could be won someday.
“I don’t think Isabella could handle it if she heard us talking like this.”
“You’re right. She couldn’t,” Morrigan agreed. “And she won’t. This is only between the two of us.”
“She thinks she’s taking care of us, that we’re helpless without her.”
“That’s good for her to be thinking that way.” Morrigan looked in the direction of the door. The voices of Isabella and the housekeeper drifted in. “It gives her purpose. It gives her something to live and fight for. She won’t do it for herself, but she’ll do it for us.”
Maisie placed her hands on the other woman’s shoulders and looked into the large dark eyes. “You amaze me. I’ve been so stupid for so long not getting to know you better.”
Morrigan shrugged. “Not so long. Only six years. And we were both stupid.”
They laughed and wrapped their arms around each other again.
“Then we’re friends?” Maisie asked.
“Sisters, I think. I’ve never had one.”
“Sisters,” she repeated.
Maisie had lost so much. Niall, the love of her life. Her friend Fiona. Her life as she’d known it. Her dreams of the future. But now she had two sisters. Isabella wasn’t the only one who needed a purpose to fight. She had now two strong women at her side. Between them, they would survive.
A knock on the outside door jolted the women apart. Maisie scrambled to finish dressing and reached for her knife. Morrigan moved into the outer room.
Maisie rushed out to find the other women standing and staring at the door. The housekeeper’s son went to work at dawn. It couldn’t be him. He called out to them when he came home. The knock came again.
The housekeeper started to say something, but Isabella put a hand on her arm, shaking her head not to answer.
A man’s voice came through the door, low and urgent. “Dr. Drummond. I’m a friend.”
Silence. Morrigan was at the door, her knife ready. This could be a trick.
“My name is John Gordon,” the muffled voice tried again. “I’m a barrister. I’m here at the request of Sir Walter Scott. He sent me to help you get out of the city.”
They all looked at Isabella, who gestured with a nod to open the door.
CHAPTER20
Duns Castle, The Borders
May 1820
For nearly two months Niall had remained in London, with no word of where his sister was being kept. His instructions from Sir Rupert Burney had been clear: “Do not contact us, do as you’re told, and she’ll be freed.” Niall knew he had to find Henry Brougham and get the job he’d refused on the street that night in Edinburgh. But nothing was simple. He couldn’t ask. The lawyer was extremely shrewd. He needed to avoid raising the man’s suspicions. He needed to wait for Brougham to ask him again.
During all this time, his thoughts never strayed far from Maisie, no matter how hard he tried. How long ago had that dinner at Fiona’s house taken place? A lifetime ago. The night he’d kissed her. Proposed to her. Told her of the plans that would secure their future. And how long ago was the last time that he’d seen her? She’d run after him in the wet and the cold the day he was leaving Edinburgh. He’d seen the desire for more in her eyes, but he couldn’t take what she offered.
She still had a future. He had nothing.
London was a bustling city, and it had taken some time before Niall could engineer an “accidental” meeting with Brougham. When he managed it, he’d sadly announced that his engagement had not gone forward. The young lady’s family hadn’t agreed to the match. So he’d come south to the capital searching for the right position. He and Brougham had met several times since their first meeting, but it wasn’t until the first week of May that the lawyer mentioned his earlier offer. Niall knew the details, of course, but he feigned ignorance.
So here he was, finally, in a Borders castle that he thought belonged to a family of Tories. Public versus private allegiances could be quite different, as he well knew.
Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George IV and true queen of England, stood not a dozen steps from him. Never in his life did he think he’d be this close. Niall kept his distance from the other two men Henry Brougham had assembled for an excursion to the Highlands and looked appraisingly at her.
