Temptation

Temperance was in her bedroom, where she was often since she and James had had their quarrel. She busied herself with making notes on what she’d observed in McCairn and tried to make a plan of what she could use when she returned to New York.

When she heard a knock on her door, she looked up and said, “Come in.”

An older woman stood there, and it took Temperance a moment to place her. She was the mother of Finola.

Temperance gave the woman a smile, but she wanted to get back to her papers and besides, she knew exactly what the woman wanted. “Oh,” she said, “it was your daughter who made the sketches for the dresses. Yes, I’m going to get to them soon. I just haven’t had time.”

“No,” the woman said. “I didn’t come about that. We want to invite you to dinner.”

“Dinner?” Temperance said distractedly. “Yes, dinner. See Eppie in the kitchen; she’ll give you something to eat.”

When the woman didn’t move, Temperance could feel her staring. Annoyed, Temperance put down her pen. “I really will get to the sketches,” she said to the woman. “I won’t forget.”

The woman didn’t lose her smile. “I’m sure that you will, and I’m sure that you’ll do with my daughter what you did with Grace, but right now, how’d you like to have something to eat?”

For a few moments, Temperance just sat there blinking at the woman. In all her years of helping women, she couldn’t remember even one occasion when someone had invited her to dinner. When she went to visit a person in need, Temperance always showed up with a basket full of food—and she had come to realize that such an offering was expected of her.

“Don’t tell me you don’t eat dinner?” the woman asked, looking at Temperance in disbelief.

“No, I do; it’s just that . . .”

“If you’re waitin’ for James to show up, ye’ll have a long wait, as he’s up on the mountain, keepin’ his pride company.”

At that Temperance laughed. “You know, I am hungry. I’ll just stop in the kitchen and get—”

“No you won’t,” the woman said, her jaw rigid. “You come empty-handed or you don’t come at all.”

“Well, then,” Temperance said as she stood, “I guess I’ll go empty-handed.”

As Temperance walked behind the woman, out of the house, and down toward the village, they met half a dozen children on the way. In the weeks since they’d been skating, Temperance hadn’t seen much of the children. In fact, lately her time had been so taken up with hats and writing her observations that she hadn’t been outside often.

As they walked toward the village, the children chattering beside her, Temperance tried to suppress a smile. They were obviously planning a sort of celebration, and she was the guest of honor. She wondered what they had prepared: speeches and tributes of various sorts? Would she be embarrassed by their effusive thanks? Truthfully, she did hope that they didn’t go on too long, as she had work to do.

The woman stopped at one of the whitewashed cottages, opened the door, and went inside, then stood there for a moment while she waited for Temperance to enter. For a moment Temperance hesitated. They couldn’t get many people inside that small house, could they? Where was everyone going to sit?

But then Temperance decided that this particular party wasn’t up to her to organize and she wasn’t going to hurt this woman’s feelings by pointing out the obvious. They’d all soon see the need for more space.

Inside the house a peat fire burned in the hearth, and two children, a boy and a girl, were seated at the table, the younger child, the boy, diligently making marks on a slate tablet, while the girl was reading a book. How quaint, Temperance thought.

“Sit and make yourself at home,” the woman said.

The boy looked up at Temperance when she was sitting on a chair on the other side of the table. “Mam felt sorry for you bein’ up at the big house all alone,” the boy said.

“Hush!” his mother said as she bent over a big iron pot hung in the fireplace.

Sorry for me? Temperance thought but only smiled. Where were the other people? “What are you reading?” she asked the girl.

“Homer’s Iliad,” the girl said.

“Oh,” Temperance said, surprised. “Isn’t that a bit difficult reading?”

“Oh, no,” the girl answered. “Master says that a person only learns when he strives for the best.”

“I see,” Temperance said, but she couldn’t imagine old Hamish as anything except a pest—but then, maybe there was another side to him. “And what else does Hamish say?” Temperance asked the girl; then her eyes opened wide as she heard the answer.

Melanie McCairn walked right past her daughter and didn’t recognize her.

“Mother!” came a familiar voice, but when Melanie turned, what she saw was a scene out of the children’s story of Heidi. Her sophisticated daughter had her long hair, not in its usual neat upswept style, but in braids that hung down over her shoulders. And in place of one of her beautiful dresses that had been made specifically for her, Temperance was wearing a plaid skirt that looked as though it had been washed in a mountain stream for the last five years and a rough-textured linen blouse.

But for all that Temperance looked very different, Melanie had never seen her daughter look so full of health.

“Temperance?” Melanie asked, eyes wide.

“Don’t look so shocked,” Temperance said, laughing, as she handed a bowl of what looked like milk to a waiting child.

Melanie looked from Temperance to the goat tethered near her, then back to her daughter, then at the child holding the bowl of milk, then back at her daughter.

“Yes, Mother,” Temperance said, laughing, “I have just finished milking a goat.”

Since Melanie could think of no words to reply to that bit of news, she stood there and stared in openmouthed astonishment at her daughter.

“Would you like a drink of milk?” Temperance asked. “There’s nothing quite like it fresh from the, ah, source.”

“Not really,” Melanie said, backing up. “James’s aunt and I have come here to talk to you two about something important.”

“Of course,” Temperance said, then gave her mother a warm hug, and when she moved away, she kept her arm about her mother, and they started walking down the village road toward the house.

“I have a carriage,” Melanie said, looking out of the corner of her eye at her daughter.

“No, let’s walk, shall we?”

Melanie was further puzzled because her daughter didn’t like to walk anywhere. Temperance said it was faster to go by carriage, and Temperance loved to do everything as quickly as possible. But this Temperance, the one with her hair worn the way she had it when she was twelve, was someone her mother didn’t know.

“What have you been up to!?” Melanie said at last, her voice full of her curiosity.

Temperance laughed, her arm still around her mother’s shoulders. “You held out longer than I thought you would. What do you think of this?” Temperance asked as she pulled away and twirled about in her long, faded skirt. There was a wide leather belt at her waist, fastened with a heavy pewter buckle.

Temperance turned to look at her mother; then, with her eyes on the village and her mother, she started walking backwards. “I’ve had the most extraordinary three days of my life, that’s what’s happened.”

“Milking goats?” Melanie said, an eyebrow raised.

Turning, Temperance looked back up the trail, and she slowed down her walking, for which Melanie was grateful.

“Yes,” Temperance said after a few moments. “I . . .” Trailing off, she looked toward the big house and thought about the last few days; then as they slowly walked along the path, she began to tell her mother about her last days, starting with when Finola’s mother had invited Temperance to dinner.

“It was such a simple thing, but it was extraordinary to me,” Temperance said. “I’m used to dinners and speeches and—”

“But this was ordinary,” Melanie said, watching her daughter closely.

“Yes, it was,” Temperance said with a sigh. “No one cared who I was or what I could do for them. Instead, they were doing things for me.”

“Tell me every detail,” Melanie said eagerly. “Don’t leave out one word.”

At that, words began to tumble out of Temperance as she walked with her mother, sometimes slowly, sometimes backwards, sometimes stopping to look back at the village as she remembered something unusual of the last days.

“I guess that in my line of work it’s easy to see that I could forget that there is happiness in the world,” Temperance said. “I tend to see only the women who’ve had dreadful things happen to them. And the men . . .” She smiled. “I think that sometimes I forget that not all men on the earth are deadbeats or drunks.”

“You told me that James works,” Melanie said softly, but when her daughter’s mouth tightened at that name, Melanie changed the subject. “So you were invited to dinner?”

“Yes,” Temperance said, smiling again. “And I thought it was for a ceremony or something. That’s usually why I’m invited to dinners. But this was just a family dinner, and when my skirt caught on fire, I—”

“What?!”

“I wasn’t hurt, but my dress was ruined, so Finola’s mother pulled this from a trunk and it’s, oh, so comfortable.”

“And quite becoming too.”

“Yes,” Temperance said thoughtfully. “They’re nice people,” she said softly. “They care about anyone they accept as their own. Let me tell you about the children.”

Melanie watched her daughter and listened as she launched into a lovely story of spending a day with the children of McCairn.

“The children said that I’d given them so much that it was their turn to give to me. They said this from their hearts. No adult prompted them to come up with this idea. Can you imagine such a thing?”

Melanie was afraid to reply to that question. From the time her daughter had been fourteen and her father had died, it was as though Temperance had taken a vow to give up all pleasure in life. Sometimes Melanie thought that her daughter believed that she had caused her father’s death, that if she hadn’t been so frivolous, or so concerned with the birthday party of her best friend that day, maybe her father wouldn’t have died. But whatever the cause, since that awful day when Temperance’s father had gasped, then slumped forward on his desk, dead, Temperance had devoted herself to good works and good works only. Melanie knew that her daughter had never attended any party ever again without there being a redeeming theme behind the party.

But now, here was Temperance, at nearly thirty years old, talking as though she were fourteen again and the last years hadn’t happened. She was talking about how the children had shown her birds’ nests and oddly shaped rock outcroppings and tiny hidden springs.

“I think I thought they were deprived because they’d never seen a pair of roller skates,” Temperance said, “but . . .”

“But there are other things besides modern entertainments?”

“Yes,” Temperance said, smiling. “The children are part of each family. They have jobs and responsibilities, and everyone knows about everyone else.”

Temperance paused to take a breath. “And, also, there’s Hamish.”

“HH?” Melanie teased. “Horrible Hamish?”

“I think I misjudged him. He was—at first anyway—he was difficult to like. He’s so pompous, but I’ve discovered that he had the idea that I’m a . . .”

“A big-city girl here to corrupt his charges?”

“Yes, exactly,” Temperance said. “But he works hard for these people, very, very hard. He makes lessons for each child, and he knows exactly what a child is good at and what she or he can’t do. And that’s another thing, he makes no distinction between male or female. I thought his wife gave him a sleeping draft at night to keep him away from her, but now I think he needs it to make him stop working.”

They were at the big house now, but Melanie wanted to go on listening to her daughter. She’d not seen Temperance so . . . so . . . happily excited, is the only way she could describe it, since . . . well, since before Temperance’s father had died.

But Rowena was standing inside the entryway to the house, and she led them through to the dining room, where James was waiting for them. And the second that Temperance saw James, her good mood left her. Of course it didn’t help that James looked Temperance up and down, his eyes wide in surprise to see her in braids and tartan, then gave a little sneer and said, “Mixing with the heathens?” and in the next second Melanie thought they were going to get into a fistfight.

With a great sigh, Melanie took a seat at the table and waited for Rowena to begin.

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,” Temperance said. “Who could write such a stupid will?”

“A man has a right to do whatever he wants with his own property,” James said, glaring at Temperance, his lips in a tight line.

They were sitting at the dining table in James’s house in McCairn, a fire glowing in the hearth. Across the table from them were James’s aunt Rowena and Temperance’s mother, Melanie. The two women had just told James and Temperance of the will that said that James must marry for love before his thirty-fifth birthday or he loses everything.

Temperance had sat there blinking in disbelief when she’d been told of the will, not really able to comprehend what her mother was saying.

“He can have it,” James said, his arms crossed over his chest. “Let Colin have the bloody place. Welcome to it.”

That brought Temperance out of her thoughts. “You have to be the most selfish man in the world,” she said under her breath, glaring at him. She hadn’t seen much of him in the last weeks, not since the night they had . . . That they had . . .

“It’s not just you involved, is it?” she said to him, angrier than she meant to be, but she didn’t want to remember that night they had spent together. “What about the other people here? Don’t you have any idea what a wonderful place this village is? It’s a perfect little jewel where people care about each other. But you want to give it away! If your wastrel of a brother gambles the place away, who takes care of the people of McCairn?”

“And when did McCairn become any of your business?” James shot back at her. “You can’t wait to get out of here and go back to New York, to the people who really need you.” Every word was a sneer. “And what do you know of my brother to call him names? It was your father who—”

Temperance came out of her chair. “How dare you use my father’s name? My father was a saint, an absolute saint, especially when compared to yours. My whole family is—”

James stood, leaning toward Temperance, ready to shout her down.

“None of us is quite ready for sainthood,” Melanie said loudly, making both of them turn toward her. Melanie looked at her daughter. “And, Temperance, perhaps before you start throwing stones, you should remember Aunt Isabella and Uncle Dugan.”

Instantly, Temperance’s face turned red; then she sat down, as did James.

“Hmmm,” Rowena said, looking from James to Temperance, then back again. “I was hoping that we could settle this in a civilized manner, but it looks as though you children can’t behave long enough to discuss anything. Melanie, dear, I think we should leave.”

“Yes, of course,” Melanie said as she prepared to stand.

“Wait!” James and Temperance said in unison, then glanced at each other, then away.

“I . . .” Temperance began, “I think we should discuss this. The will is stupid—” She put up her hand to ward off whatever James was about to say. “It is stupid, but it does exist, and even though I have no idea why a man would write such a thing, we need to deal with it, as you said, in a civilized manner. First of all, I think it is a given that Colin cannot have the place. I haven’t met him, but I’ve certainly heard enough about him.”

She turned to James, her face cold. “Is that agreeable to you? Or do you really want to turn all of your beloved sheep over to a gambler?”

“Better a gambler than an American do-gooder,” James muttered.

“What was that?” Rowena asked loudly, her hand to her ear. “Speak up, James, you know I’m a bit hard-of-hearing.”

“I know no such thing,” James said quietly, narrowing his eyes at his old aunt. “You can hear the servants sipping your precious brandy from three floors away.”

At that Rowena smiled and leaned back against her chair. “So what do you two want to do?”

“Save the place,” Temperance said quickly. “A person must make sacrifices for others.” Turning to James, she looked at him with her eyebrows raised in question.

He took a long while to look into her eyes; then after a while he gave a curt nod, and Temperance turned back to look across the table at her mother and Rowena.

“All right,” she said softly, “we will marry. Not because we want to but to keep the village together. There are people involved who are more important than us.”

At that Rowena and Melanie looked at the two of them with blank faces; then they turned to each other, then back to James and Temperance.

“But, dear,” Melanie said after several moments, “we aren’t asking you and James to get married.”

“You aren’t?” Temperance asked in surprise. “But I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“Heavens no!” Rowena said loudly. “You two would have a worse marriage than James’s grandfather and his wife, and look what happened to them! She killed herself to get away from him.”

“No, she didn’t.” James and Temperance again spoke in unison, then glanced at each other and away again.

“Well, whatever. You can tell me about that later,” Rowena said. “We have more urgent business now. The key words in all this are ‘in love.’ I think, James, that you should know that I believe that that scoundrel brother of yours coerced your father into adding that—as Temperance so rightly says—stupid clause to his will. You know what Colin is like. He thought that you’d been married off to that awful girl and that when the time came, everyone would know that there was no love between the two of you. Colin just had to wait until you and he reached your thirty-fifth birthday, then all of McCairn would be his.”

“Such as it is,” James muttered.

“The land is worth something, I’m sure,” Rowena said.

“All right,” James snapped, “what is it that you want of me?”

“To marry Kenna, and for Temperance to plan the wedding,” Melanie said sweetly.

“Who?” James asked while Temperance stared at her mother in wide-eyed silence.

“Kenna, you dolt!” Rowena shouted at her nephew. “Kenna. The girl you loved when you were a boy, the one you wanted to marry, but your father hauled you off to London. Remember?”

“Oh,” James said after a moment. “Kenna.” At that he smiled, then looked out of the corner of his eye at Temperance, but she jerked her head back around to stare at her mother.

“Kenna,” Temperance said flatly.

“Yes,” Melanie said, smiling at her daughter. “I must tell you the truth, that I had hoped that you and James would . . .Well, you can guess a mother’s hopes, but I can see now that it didn’t work out as I wanted. I never saw two people dislike each quite as much as you two do, and, Temperance, dear, your last letters have veritably reeked—begging your pardon, James—of your deep dislike of all things McCairn.”

“You told your mother you hated McCairn?” James asked softly.

“I did not!” Temperance said quickly. “Mother, I said no such thing. I said that McCairn needed to be pulled into the twentieth century, but, truthfully, after my last few days, I—”

“Oh, I see,” James said, cutting her off. “It’s just me you hate.”

“And why not?” Temperance shot at him. “After what you thought of me!!” She turned toward her mother. “He thought that I came here to marry him. When I helped the children or Grace, he thought I was doing it because I was after him, like some floozy who—”

“We’re going to get nowhere at this rate!” Rowena shouted. “Now listen, you two, the last thing I care about at this moment is who thought what about whom. That doesn’t matter to me at all. What does matter is saving McCairn so the next generation can take care of the place.”

Leaning across the table, she glared at Temperance and James. “For all that you two seem to hate each other, I think you agree that you don’t want the land sold and the people driven out of their homes. Am I right on this?”

“Yes,” Temperance said softly. “To destroy this place would be a sin.”

“Aye,” James said as he looked at Temperance in speculation, again looking at the way she was dressed.

“James, it’s good that you can overcome that hateful pride of yours to admit that,” Rowena said. “Now the problem is that we have very little time before James’s birthday and he must be married for love by then. Since all my brother Angus’s tricks to find you a wife have failed, now the ox is in the ditch and it must be taken out.”

She glared at James. “Do you understand me, boy? You must do something, or this precious land of yours is going to be gone. Then what will you do? Move into Edinburgh and get a job? I’m sure Angus would let you work for him. Something behind a big desk for fourteen hours a day?”

James didn’t bother to respond to that but sat in stony silence.

“Any other questions?” Rowena asked, looking from James to Temperance.

When neither of them said a word, Rowena leaned back against her chair. “As Melanie said, we had hopes for the two of you, but since that is obviously an impossibility, and—” She stopped when both Temperance and James started to speak.

“If either of you again tries to make the sacrifice of marrying each other just to save this place, I shall myself testify to the king that you hate each other and therefore don’t fulfill the terms of the will. I will not have more marriages in this family based on hatred. Do I make myself clear?”

James just sat there and looked at his old aunt, while Temperance nodded her head.

“Does this woman Kenna want to marry him?” Temperance asked after a moment.

“Heavens yes!” Rowena said. “She was deeply in love with him when they were children. Remember, James, how you two used to climb the cliff side of the mountain and look for birds’ nests? You two were inseparable.”

Temperance turned to look at James, but he had his eyes on Rowena. “I remember,” he said softly.

“The girl’s heart was broken when you left her behind to go to London. Your mother felt so sorry for her that she took on the responsibility of educating the girl in hopes that she’d make a good match.”

“And she’s going to, isn’t she?” Temperance said. “Whatever little money the McCairn has, I’m sure it’s more than what she had if she grew up here.”

“Maybe she was ashamed of being from McCairn,” James said, his voice low, menacing, sarcastic. “Perhaps—”

“Oh, no,” Melanie said loudly. “That’s not the case at all. Kenna married a widower who, unfortunately, died just a few years after their marriage, but he left Kenna well provided for. She has no need to marry anyone at all, but she’s agreed to this because she says she loves James and always will.”

“She doesn’t know him!” Temperance said. “She hasn’t seen him in what? Twenty years? She must be old by now.”

“Not quite twenty years. She’s two years older than you are, dear,” Melanie said calmly, smiling at her daughter. “And she is quite lovely. Beautiful actually. Wouldn’t you say that she is beautiful, Rowena?”

“Quite the most beautiful young woman I’ve ever seen. I was telling your dear mother that Kenna should have been painted. Do you think that Gainsborough could have done her beauty justice?”

“If she’s so damned gorgeous, why does she want to marry a man she hasn’t seen in half a lifetime?” Temperance asked, her teeth clenched shut.

“She loves me,” James said brightly. “Always has. Always will. True love never dies. Doesn’t even fade, from what I’ve heard.”

“And what would you know of love?” Temperance snapped at him. “If it’s not furry and four-legged, you don’t even know what it is.”

James arched one eyebrow and lowered his voice. “You seemed to think I knew something about love, didn’t you?”

“Has something happened between you two that I should be told of?” Rowena asked loudly.

“Temperance, dear, you do want to go back to New York, don’t you? They need you there so much,” Melanie said.

Temperance looked away from James’s eyes and into her mother’s. “Yes,” she said, “I want to go back to New York.” Unfortunately, Temperance’s voice broke in the last half of the sentence—but she was glad to see that no one but she heard it.

“That’s good,” Rowena said. “Everything is going to work out perfectly.” She looked at Temperance. “Your mother has told me of what you’ve done here in McCairn, and I commend you. You’ll explain everything to Kenna so she can take over. I’m sure that she’ll do a marvelous job, since she was born and raised here.”

“And she’s had a lovely education,” Melanie added.

“Not to mention her great beauty,” Temperance put in.

“Oh, that’s for James alone,” Melanie said sweetly.

Could a daughter hit her mother over the head with a cast-iron firedog and still get into heaven? Temperance wondered. But she kept the smile plastered onto her face.

“So? Is everything settled?” Rowena asked, looking from James to Temperance, then back again.

“I’m not sure I understand everything,” James said slowly, frowning as he looked at his aunt.

Temperance turned on him with a face full of fury. “What’s to understand? You have to marry for love, or you lose McCairn to your gambling brother. So these women, my mother included, have dug up an ancient love for you to walk down the aisle with. This woman is educated, beautiful enough to start wars, and she will do a great deal better job at managing the businesses I started than I have. What part don’t you understand?”

James’s eyes were glittering in anger, and the smile he gave to Temperance was cold enough to freeze fire. “I like all of it,” he said. “I like every bit of it. There isn’t one small part of it that I don’t like. I especially like that you have to make all the arrangements for the wedding. I want my . . .” He looked Temperance up and down. “I want my bride to have the best of everything. See to it, housekeeper.”

With that he got up from the table and left the room.