Portrait of a Scotsman by Evie Dunmore

Chapter 21

The next morning, Harriet woke when Lucian exited the side room, fully dressed and prepared to begin a productive day. She threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. “I should like to come along.”

He halted in his tracks, his gaze roaming over her nightgown. “Whatever for?”

“To talk to the women,” she said, crossing her arms over her breasts. “I thought about it, last night before I fell asleep.”

His dark brows rose. “Why?”

She yawned behind the back of her hand. The room was filled with the bright light of a sunny morning, but it was far too early for her liking, no later than seven, surely. “Because I trust that the women are responsible for the household and the children.”

“They are, yes.”

“We must speak to them, not just to the menfolk, to know how to assist the community.”

Lucian’s brow furrowed in a frown. “We talked to a few women yesterday, Wright and I.”

She padded closer, aware that she was in her nightgown and that her hair was spilling down to her waist in tangles. “Our suffrage work shows that women are more inclined to talk about female issuesto other women,” she said, “and female issues are family issues, and families make a community.”

Lucian seemed to attempt to hide some displeasure, and he at last achieved a merely mildly surly expression. “I tried to explain it yesterday but I didn’t do it well,” he said. “These women, you see, they, too, are not your playthings. They don’t exist for you to feel useful … or for you to indulge in the warm glow of your benevolence.”

It stung. She had to swallow hard before she could speak again. “Am I to not have any purpose, then?” she asked in a low tone. “Because I happened to have been born Hattie Greenfield, I must forever be idle?”

This seemed to take him by surprise. “No,” he said. “But what do you offer that they couldn’t do better themselves? They’ll have to take precious time out of their day to explain their circumstances to you.”

“I know how to organize,” she said quickly. “I help Lucie prepare suffrage meetings and demonstrations, so I could conduct a survey of the women’s needs and orderly collect and record opinions. I’m acquainted with the leaders of charities and societies in London that provide funds and expert knowledge.”

He still looked skeptical. “You said you aren’t good at writing—how would you take notes?”

“I can write, Lucian,” she said, although the mere thought of standing at a blackboard made her die a little inside. “Or do you think the women here will do it better?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Unless they are union members?” She only thought of this now. “In which case, they would know all about organizing themselves.”

“They’re not, but I’d like them to be,” he said, looking quite keen now. “Why don’t you speak to them about that, joining the union.”

She eyed him curiously. “Wouldn’t that run counter to your interests?”

A cynical look passed behind his eyes. “No. I like to know when enough is enough.”

What a strange man she had married. “What of recruiting the women to the suffrage cause?” she asked.

“They’ll let you know what they think about that,” he said with a smirk.

The shadows were lengthening and the air had cooled by the time she went to the village. Mhairi had suggested visiting community spokeswoman Rosie Fraser after the day’s shift to request a meeting with the women of Drummuir. To Hattie’s embarrassment, the main door of Mrs. Fraser’s cottage opened straight to the small kitchen, and they barged right into communal cooking activities. A wall of warm, damp air greeted them, and the chatter of seven or eight women and the rapid chopping of vegetables around the crowded table ceased. Assessing eyes narrowed beneath sweat-gleaming brows.

“Good evening,” Hattie said, her voice sounding high-pitched to her own ears.

A teapot whistled faintly into the silence. Outside the kitchen window, a red-haired young man swung an ax with fluid grace, followed by a dull thud.

Thankfully, Mhairi stepped forward and explained. Unlike Gaelic, which was spoken in the Highlands, the Lowland Scots had a fair semblance to English on paper, but hearing it spoken was confounding.

Rosie Fraser had a neat kitchen: tiled walls, pretty ornaments on the dresser, dried herbs hanging in bunches from a polished rack …. A middle-aged woman who wore a blue handkerchief around her head detached from the group. “Welcome to my home, Mrs. Blackstone,” she said in English as she wiped her hands on her apron. “I’m Rosie Fraser.” Her cheeks were ruddy with webs of fine red spider veins; her green eyes were sharp and clear.

“How do you do, Mrs. Fraser.”

“You did a drawing of wee Anne yesterday,” Rosie Fraser said. “It’s a lovely drawing. Her mum was well pleased. Would Ma’am like some tea?”

There was a sudden explosion of activity; some women cleared a part of the table and urged her to sit, while another took the teapot off the stove and Rosie Fraser disappeared into the adjacent parlor to fetch a finer china cup.

“We can do an assembly after mass tomorrow, after the lunch,” Mrs. Fraser suggested while Hattie politely sipped the scalding brew. “We’re cooking the lunch now, you see. But what I’m thinking is, could you perhaps do some more sketches?” The women flanking her nodded.

Hattie put down the cup. “I suppose so?”

“Of my Hamish,” Mrs. Fraser said and tipped her chin at the young man who was working in the yard. Mhairi had been craning her neck in that direction for a while; now she quickly looked away.

“If you’d be so kind, Mrs. Blackstone, I’d like one of my Archie and my Dougal,” said an older woman who was clasping her tea mug to her chest with raw hands.

“Certainly?” Hattie said.

Mrs. Fraser looked at the other woman askance. “I think Mary Boyd should have one before you have one.”

The woman made a face. “Och.”

“Mary’s only got one left,” Rosie said, and the others murmured in acquiescence.

“One left?” Hattie asked.

“One son,” Rosie explained.

“Oh. I am sorry.”

A solemn nod. “Her Domnhall was hit by rocks last year.”

“I’m sorry,” Hattie stammered. The women were deliberating in hushed voices, and while some were speaking Scots, she gathered they were discussing who had suffered a loss and how long back various accidents dated, to determine who was to be prioritized for a sketch. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach by the time Rosie Fraser turned back to her and said, “So we have an assembly tomorrow, and get some sketches in return, aye?”

“It’s a deal,” she replied with forced cheer.

Her mood was subdued on the way back to the inn. “Do they not have photographs?” she asked Mhairi, who had a spring in her step and swooped to pick sprigs of heather here and there to put them into her apron pocket.

“Photographs,” the girl now said, her blue eyes surprised. “You mean of the dead?”

“Or the living.”

Mhairi laughed. “But no. They’ll keep locks of hair. Having a photographer come here, to photograph the dead, all the way from Auchtermuchty? Too expensive, ma’am. But of course”—and now she became serious—“of course a lock isn’t the same, is it? The truth is, the memories of a face fade no matter how badly you want to remember, don’t they? Then you feel bad, for forgetting.”

What a harrowing visit it turned out to be. “Are accidents in the mine commonplace?”

“I s’pose?” the girl said. “If you count the small ones, yes. Explosions, not so often these days.”

“What counts as a small accident?”

Mhairi thought about it. “I’d say, fingers getting crushed, and arms breaking. Not fatal but puts you out of work. Then there’s deadly missteps when going up or down in the heapstead, or stones falling off the ceiling. Or tubs breaking loose from a pony and going over someone who wasn’t in a safety hole fast enough.”

Before her mind’s eye, she saw the scars on Lucian’s body. Perhaps the silvery ones across his abdomen were from his harness, when he used to pull the tubs as a boy ….

“But most miners don’t die from accidents,” Mhairi said. “The black lung gets them, with them breathing in coal dust all day long.”

“I imagine so,” Hattie said, when truly, she couldn’t fathom it.

Mhairi hummed an incongruously merry Celtic tune until they reached the entrance door to the inn. “Mrs. Blackstone?” she then said.

“Yes?”

She hemmed and hawed. “You think you’d have time to draw Hamish Fraser?”

“The lad who was chopping wood?”

Mhairi’s cheeks turned pink. “Aye.”

“Do you worry for him?”

Mhairi’s gaze dropped into her heather-filled apron pocket. “No, ma’am. No harm will ever come to him.”

Hattie wrung her hands. “How many miners work in Drummuir?”

Mhairi glanced up. “Three hundred or thereabouts?”

She tried to envision herself setting up an easel and a case full of water or oil colors in the damp school and have the villagers sit for her, one after the other. Impossible. The miners had little time to themselves during daylight hours except Sundays, and she’d have to stay here for months to paint them all. She supposed she could have them sit only for sketches, and then color them in at her studio ….

She shook her head. “I might have a better idea.” And it involved speaking to Lucian.

She took her leave from Mhairi and rushed up the stairs and barged into their room, propelled by brightly burning determination. She came to an abrupt halt. The tub was back in the room. And Lucian was in it. His naked wet shoulders and his knees loomed over the rim; he fair overcrowded the vessel with his size. Her eyes squeezed shut reflexively.

“Sorry, love,” she heard him say, his voice a relaxed drawl. “I stop short at taking a bath in the dining area.”

Heather-and-pine-scented heat wafted toward her from the tub. Well, drat. She could flee and return when he was no longer so very naked. But her excitement would not be contained, and they were married, after all, were they not?

She opened one eye. “Do you mind?” she said.

His chuckled. “No.” Steam was rising off his skin in lazy swirls. With his thick hair wet and slicked back, nothing softened the hard contours of his face. He had never looked more like a vagrant, and rarely more intriguing. She gave a shake. “I need a camera,” she remembered.

He slanted his head. “What for?”

“The miners,” she said.

“The miners.”

“They don’t seem to have the habit of keeping photographs of their loved ones.”

“In a community remote and impoverished like this?” he said. “Not usually, no.”

She was trembling a little. How dramatic you are, Pom Pom. She paced a circle before the tub. “Imagine working in such a dangerous profession and then living with the added guilt of forgetting your loved one’s face.”

“Yes, imagine.” Lucian adjusted his position, sending water sloshing over the tub rim. “What did the women do to you?”

“Nothing,” she said defensively. “They were perfectly amiable.”

He was contemplating her with a mildly amused expression. She thought of his scars, below the waterline.

“The black lung,” she said. “It’s why you don’t smoke, isn’t it?”

“You’ve noticed.”

It had occurred to her during the walk back. “I have. I have not once smelled smoke on you.” It was probably why his scent was always fresh and his teeth still white. “Nearly all the men of my acquaintance are partial to cigarettes. They even claim they are healthful.”

He huffed. “Easy to claim anything. I’ve seen what breathing in black smoke does and I doubt there’s much of a difference in different kinds of smoke.”

She wondered whether being coated in dust and soot for years was the reason why he kept himself so fastidiously clean. He washed in the morning and at night, and the shower in his house in Belgravia was state-of-the-art.

She pulled a chair away from the table and sat, feeling overwhelmed.

Lucian was watching her closely now. “I’ll ask Mr. Wright,” he offered. “He has a camera.”

She shook her head. “I want a portrait of each one of them, and I’d rather not have the pressure of someone waiting for their camera. It’s over three hundred portraits.”

“You know how to operate a camera?”

“No. But I can learn. I feel …” She hesitated. “I feel this is something I must do myself.”

“I see.” There was a splash when he fished for the flannel. She watched from beneath her lashes, how he languidly drew the wet cloth over his skin and the muscle beneath—forearm, shoulder, chest, the back of his neck—and her mind stilled. Her eye, trained to analyze the composition of objects and the human form, was hopelessly riveted, for while Lucian had a brawny rather than an elegant build, the details of him were wonderfully, precisely done: the distinct lines of the pectoralis, the clean curve of his deltoid, the finely tuned interplay of his biceps and triceps as he worked the flannel. She wanted to paint him. Not as Hades, but as Hephaestus, god of the precious metals and mines, as he swung his hammer to forge weapons for the righteous …

“Why don’t they leave?” Her voice was scratchy. “Do something else?”

Lucian’s eyes were heavy-lidded. “It’s difficult to leave all you know,” he said. “Even if it is what kills you.”

“You have done it.”

“Yes, and I was dragged away from it kicking and screaming,” he said. “You’ll find no greater brotherhood than in a mining community. They’d share their last shirt with you and their last penny when hardship strikes, ’cause no one outside gives a damn. But try stepping out of line. Try eating your porridge differently, wearing your cap differently; think of extracting the coal differently, and your own people will knock you about and mock you, afraid you’re better than them, that you have ideas above your station. Then the upper classes won’t have you because you eat and dress and think differently, and because you have ideas above your station.” He flicked his hand dismissively. “Nah, don’t blame anyone for not leaving; blame the circumstances that make staying hell.”

She flushed. “I wasn’t apportioning blame.”

She had, however, made no secret of her concerns over his lack of manners and breeding and his detrimental effect on her social standing. She had done it partly because her base attraction to him had disturbed her. Was disturbing her still. She had tried to make him feel less than over her own lust. Shame.

“Wright is off to St. Andrews on Monday to purchase parts for the water tanks,” he said, commanding her attention back to his face. “If you like, we’ll go, too, and have him advise you on a camera that’s right for you.”

“Yes,” she said quickly, “yes, I would like that very much.”

He smiled, faintly but it was there, and she realized she had forgotten that she was angry with him. Instead, she remembered clutching his nape and how exciting his tongue felt in her mouth. Her limbs became very warm. He carelessly rose from the tub, and she looked away.

That night, Harriet dreamed she was watching Lucian chop wood on the street of Heather Row, or perhaps he was throwing punches at a sandbag. His chest was bare and glistening with sweat in the sun, and when he noticed her, he paused and wiped his brow with his forearm. She knew she was dreaming because next, they were in a bedchamber and she opened her nightgown at the front to show him her breasts. She would never do that, awake and of sound mind. She wouldn’t cup and lift them for him, and revel in the fullness spilling over her small hands and the velvet-soft feel of her skin. But in the twilight? She arched her back. Do you like them? She knew he did. She knew he was starving for her. It was in the way he looked at her throughout the day when he thought she took no notice, and in the deliberate care he took not to touch her. She wanted him to touch her now. She sank back into the pillows. He stood at the foot of the bed, hungry and waiting. Come to me. He crawled over her, his shaggy head bent, and the feel of his hair trailing over her bare chest sent heat fanning through her belly. His teeth grazed the tip of her left breast, and she arched up against his lips until he gently bit down. She moaned, in her dream, or in truth, who could tell? She writhed beneath the wet, hot pull of his mouth. Her hands settled on his hard shoulders and she pushed him down, and lower …. She felt him nuzzle her where it ached. Do you want this? he asked. She made a fist in his hair. Kiss me, Lucian. At the first soft stroke of his tongue, she gasped with relief. He did it again, gently. Too gently; it was light, fleeting licks until she canted her hips, seeking more friction. He wouldn’t give it. When she made to clamp her thighs around his head, her touch went through him as if he were smoke.

“Harriet.”

He was dissolving; she could merely hear him. She let out a sob of frustration.

“Harriet.”

She emerged disoriented, damp and prickling from her lips to her toes. Sheets had snaked around her limbs as though she’d thrashed around in her dreams. His voice still rang in her ears, very much real.

She must have woken him.

The awareness came over her bright and terrible. Save her erratic breathing, the room was too silent. He was indeed awake; his gaze penetrated the dark with such focus, it tingled on her face.

Her mouth went dry. “It was a dream,” she said.

He was quiet, in the controlled, drawn-out way that made it meaningful.

She licked her lips and tasted salt. “A nightmare.”

“I must have been bloody to you, then.” His voice was raw.

“You were not in it.”

A pause. “You were saying my name.”

Moaning his name, rather. Kiss me, Lucian.

She shivered.

Sheets rustled as he rose on his elbow. “Are you cold?”

She couldn’t tell—goose bumps were prickling over the surface of her skin, but inside she felt heated. “A bit,” she said.

He was more shadow than solid form, his eyes a faint glitter in the dark. “Lie closer to me,” he said. “I’ll warm you.”

She gave a shaky huff. “That’s not all you want.”

“No,” he said after a moment. “I want to touch you.”

She couldn’t seem to catch her breath. “Just touch me?”

He held himself very still. She had breathed the words so softly she had not expected him to hear them. “It’s all I’d do,” he murmured. In the velvety dark, still humming with unspent desire, his ragged words promised pleasure. The dull ache between her legs became a yearning pull.

Slowly, slowly, she rolled to her side to face the wall.

Lucian was silent.

She inched her hips back toward him.

It was the only invitation he needed. He embraced her from behind; one strong hand slid under her chest, the other over her, his fingers spreading over her belly as he pulled her against the hard length of his body.

She gasped—he slept naked. “I don’t—”

His hold on her eased. “I heard you.”

Her heart still beat rapidly beneath his palm. She was aroused by transgression and risk; it was the only explanation for why she had pushed her backside up against a naked, virile man. His hair tickled her cheek, then he lightly kissed the side of her neck. At her soft sigh, his hand on her belly slid up over the curve of her hip and lingered, and when she remained still in his arms, he stroked slowly down her thigh. Heat bloomed beneath the warm pressure of his palm, then all attention pooled where his fingers inched under the hem of her gown. The wicked touch moved over her bare leg, up, and up. He gently kneaded her breast that filled his other hand, and her cheek was hot against the pillow. No thoughts, just sensations. The steady flow of his breath. The rustle of her gown. Her body gathering pleasure wherever he moved his confident fingers. He caressed the downy-soft skin high on the back of her thigh until she shifted to ease the building tension. From behind, his hand slipped between her legs. She was panting when he rubbed over the most delicate spot.

His warm lips brushed her ear. “Does it feel good?”

She couldn’t speak. His hand was working small, firm circles. She could barely hold on to thoughts. “Y-yes.”

A twinge of pleasure-pain stung her nipple and her back arched, pushing her breast more fully into his palm. He pinched her again, and down below his fingertips sank into her as if through water. Dangerous. Delicious. She still disliked him, but images flashed of him naked and aroused with his knee between hers on the bed, and her body clenched over dissatisfying emptiness. They would have fit very well indeed. Her nails dug into the mattress.

His finger entered her, slid in smoothly. “Yes,” she heard herself say. He wouldn’t be hurried, but he gave it to her, in a leisurely, steady rhythm, winding her tension tighter with each push of his fingers until her hips were moving, chasing the promise of a pulsing release …. His other hand stroked from her breast down her belly and lower, and then he pressed with his fingertips in counterpoint to the plunge of his fingers from behind. A powerful rush of heat overtook her, and she gave an anxious cry. She felt his teeth graze the side of her throat. Then he bit down. The tension between her legs snapped in a shower of stars, and she cried out again.

She lay wrung out in his arms, feeling both light as air and heavy as lead. Her mind was reassembling slowly, one breath at a time. She became aware of Lucian’s need, simmering beneath his warm skin, seductive in its leashed urgency. She supposed she could roll onto her back and open her legs. He could enter her relaxed body easily, not causing her much discomfort, and he could take his pleasure, too. For a moment, it was tempting. But he was a man of his word, and unless she asked him for it as he had told her she must do, he’d probably not do it. He’d rather endure his unspent lust. That, too, was tempting.

“Do you remember?” she said drowsily.

He shifted, carefully withdrawing his hands. “Remember what?”

“On our wedding night, when I said I wouldn’t like it if you kissed me, down below.”

Her eyes were drifting shut by the time he said, “I remember.”

“I said I wouldn’t like it.”

He was quiet, allowing her to return to sleep.

“I think I have changed my mind,” she whispered.

The bed creaked as he rolled away from her. “Noted.”

The dark warmly welcomed her back.

He lay next to her, motionless while a hard pulse beat away in his neck. When her breathing had become even and deep, he rose and went to the washroom. He sucked her taste off his fingers, then wrapped his wet hand around his cock. He kept his eyes on the stars winking through the window slit as he worked himself. It took only moments until his vision blurred, for the long-held tension to coil tightly at the base of his spine. Her wet heat, her throaty cries. He hovered in perfect stillness for a second, then hot release exploded through his body with such mind-obliterating violence, he gritted his teeth and slapped his other hand against the stone wall, once, twice. He came to hoping she had slept through it, oblivious.