Heart in the Highlands by Heidi Kimball
Chapter Twenty-Six
Charlotte was missing. Again.
She’d always been a precocious child with a wide streak of curiosity, but Kate was finding such traits vastly more troublesome here at Castleton Manor, with its endless rooms and corridors and the immense acreage surrounding it, than they’d ever been at Rosemont Cottage.
“I vow I turned my back for only a second,” Harriet said. She seemed to take Charlotte’s disappearance as a personal affront to her abilities as a nursemaid.
“It isn’t your fault,” Kate assured her. “She’s disappeared on my watch more than once since we’ve arrived.”
“I have Archie and a few of the other grooms combing the grounds.”
Kate nodded her approval. Only two days prior Charlotte had been missing for over an hour before she’d been found in the hills beyond the back gardens. Her heart thundering from near panic, Kate had given Charlotte a stern rebuke. But instead of contrition, she was met with a huff of dismay from Charlotte. “I didn’t runned away. I just wanted a Highland coo,” Charlotte said in a fully Scottish accent. “They are cute.”
Kate’s pulse had gradually slowed. “Cows cannot be kept as pets,” she informed her daughter. “No matter how cute they are. And you must not leave the house without an adult. Do you understand?”
Now, with her daughter missing once again, Kate sorely wished she’d pressed for more than Charlotte’s answering nod. Not that Kate had any reason to be truly worried—Charlotte rarely got into real trouble. But with all the turns life had presented of late, Kate had been more uptight about her daughter’s whereabouts. There were so many questions of how and when and why that remained between her and Callum. With Charlotte, Kate simply wanted to know where. “What about the staff?” she asked Harriet.
Harriet gave a brisk nod. “I’ve spoken with the housekeeper, and she’s speaking with the maids and the footmen. And I already checked the kitchen myself.”
Kate blew out a breath, racking her brain for ideas of where her elusive daughter might be. “Has someone checked in the duke’s room?”
“The duke’s room?” Harriet’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
“Yes, I found her there once, looking for Cleo and making conversation enough for the both of them. I’ll go. It’s worth a try.”
Harriet turned to leave. “And I’ll see if she’s turned up with Archie.”
Kate hurried up the stairs and down the corridor, pushing open the door to the duke’s room with care. She’d no wish to disrupt his peace if Charlotte wasn’t there. The room was quiet, absent the singsong lilt of Charlotte’s little voice. Wanting to be thorough, however, Kate peeked her head around the corner. And there was her daughter, curled up next to the duke, fast asleep.
Kate was dumbfounded. With hardly a second thought, she stepped forward. “I’m sorry,” she said, reaching for Charlotte. “I didn’t know—”
“P-p-please,” the duke said softly. “L-let her stay.”
His plea took her off guard. Her thoughts flashed back to the night they’d met, his harsh words, the gruffness of his behavior. It was almost impossible to reconcile the man he’d once been with the invalid who lay before her now.
“P-p-please,” he repeated, setting a frail hand on Charlotte’s head.
Kate knew Callum wouldn’t approve. His feelings toward his father remained unchanged. But Kate couldn’t bear the profound sadness that seemed to envelope this shell of a man. Her outstretched arms dropped to her sides.
“S-s-sit?” It was a question, an invitation.
Legs trembling, Kate sat. “Does she come here often?” She nodded toward Charlotte, trying to fill the quiet. “I hope she’s not a bother to you.”
With half of his face drooping, it was difficult to read the duke’s expression. “N-n-no. She’s—” He coughed, the quiet spasm shaking his body. Kate cringed, the sound bringing back painful memories of her grandfather. “N-not a b-bother,” he finished once his cough subsided.
Saliva pooled in one corner of his mouth. Kate hesitated before using a handkerchief on the bedside table to wipe it away. She put the handkerchief back and clasped her hands together.
“W-when Callum was a b-b-boy, he n-never stopped moving. Only in s-s-sleep was he still.” He cleared his throat. “M-m-much like Charlotte.” He smoothed a hand across Charlotte’s brow.
Kate swallowed, at a loss for what to say.
“I was t-t-too hard on him. T-too much like my own f-f-father.” His breath shuddered, regret hanging over the room like a blanket of frost.
It made no sense, but she felt the need to allay his remorse. “Charlotte seems to like you, to trust you. She won’t snuggle up to just anyone.” She laughed softly.
He glanced down at Charlotte. “She is m-more than I d-deserve.”
Such a statement might well be true. Kate knew he’d been harsh as a father, obstinate as a husband. Yet Callum’s mother loved him. Such feelings perplexed Kate. How did she love him after all she’d endured?
The duke’s eyes, though sagging and cloudy, were softer than they’d been all those years ago. Were the changes in him due to his apoplexy? Or something else? And if Callum bothered to notice these changes, would they matter to him at all?
“Thank y-you,” the duke said, bringing her out of her thoughts.
“Pardon me?” she asked, unsure what he meant.
He gave a forlorn sigh, a weighty one that seemed to come from his very soul. “F-f-for bringing home m-my s-son.”
It was later that night when someone shook Callum’s shoulder, bringing him out of a deep sleep. He lifted his head off his desk, immediately aware of the stiffness in his joints, the crick in his neck.
“Son, ye’ve been working too hard.” It was his mother’s voice, her touch that had roused him.
He lifted his head, blinked, and smoothed back his hair, trying to get his bearings in the near darkness. The tapers had burned down to mere nubs, their glow hardly enough to see by. “Mother.” She wore a nightcap and a shawl and held a candle in her hand. “What time is it?” He glanced toward the clock, too bleary-eyed to see.
“It’s after midnight.” She set a hand on his shoulder. “Ye cannot expect tae fix things that have long been neglected, all at once.”
He knew she referred to his multitude of duties pertaining to the dukedom, but it was Katie and Charlotte at the forefront of his mind. His thoughts often drifted to them, despite the other demands on his time and attention. “I owe our people my best effort, do I not?”
She stilled, taking the time to consider his question. “Ye do. Ye are their laird, and it is your duty to look after them. But ye can hire an extra steward or two tae help. There’s no reason for ye tae oversee every task yourself. Besides, I worry about ye.” She gave him a pointed look. “Something tells me Katie wasnae the only one ye neglected these past years.”
Callum rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. He’d forgotten how discerning his mother could be. “Aye, well, I’ve certainly not suffered like some. And if I have, ’twas my own doing.”
He forced air into his lungs and got to his feet, his legs tingling from staying in one position for so long.
She squeezed his arm. “Even if your suffering came by your own hand, ye still deserve a measure of grace.” She gave him a fleeting smile, one that wove its way around his heart. “Don’t forget that, son.” His mother stopped him once they reached the doorway and raised her gaze to the portrait of his father that adorned the wall of the corridor. “Everyone needs grace.”
Looking up into his father’s face, Callum’s heart turned to granite. Stonelike, impenetrable. No doubt his face reflected it.
His mother’s features, on the other hand, were unmarred by hate or resentment. She bore the angelic countenance of a woman who knew the meaning of forbearance. “He’s a different man, Callum. He’s suffered more than ye know.”
The granite of his heart expanded, filling his entire chest. It pushed against his lungs, the pressure such that he could hardly speak. “Has he?” Callum tried to keep the rancor from his voice but wasn’t entirely successful. How could she, of all people, defend the man?
The wrinkle lines around her mouth became more pronounced. “His speech has improved o’er the last week or two. He wants tae see ye, tae speak with ye.” She swallowed. “I ken how ye feel. But even if ye willnae do it for him, will ye not consider doing it for me?”
Every fiber in Callum rebelled at the thought. He couldn’t stomach the way the man had treated his mother. His sire was the very reason Callum’s own view of love was so distorted. Little wonder Callum felt unequal to the task of loving Katie as she deserved to be loved. He ground his teeth together, jaw aching.
“Callum?”
Guilt wormed its way through his gut at the plaintive tone in his mother’s voice. He’d denied her so much these past years. Peace of mind regarding his whereabouts. A way of communicating with him. A relationship with her only grandbairn. Couldn’t he, at least, give her this?
“I will go see him,” he relented at last. “I cannae promise ye when, exactly, but I will do it. But I am doing it for ye, not for him.”
“Thank ye, Callum.” Her arms went around him, her hold so tight he could sense how she’d ached with loneliness these past few years. It wasn’t until several long minutes had passed that Callum realized his mother was crying. Quiet tears. But then, everything his mother did was quiet.
He held her close, enveloping her in his arms and making it clear he would not let go. “I love ye, Mother. I am sorry for whatever pain I have caused ye.”
She held him, tears dripping, until she spoke against his chest. “Ye are my joy, Callum. It is ye I have lived for all these years. I imagine ye feel much the same about Charlotte.” She pulled back a little, looking up at him.
“Aye.” He nodded.
Her gaze grew distant. “But bairns grow up and leave ye. Remember that. When all is said and done, ye and Kate will have only each other.”
Her words echoed in his mind long after he’d retired to bed up in the nursery. He reveled in the sweet sounds of Charlotte’s gentle breathing, all the while wishing it was Katie there beside him.