The Bonny Bride

“I don’t know,” he admitted, “but I’m willing to entertain suggestions.”

Jenny did not immediately reply.

Harris grasped desperately for something to fill the silence and hopefully prime the conversational pump. It seemed absurd to be making small talk when, at any moment, they might die in each other’s arms.

“I think the rain has eased.” He tossed his head to twitch back the sodden hank of hair that clung to his brow. At the same time he chided himself for being the most unoriginal creature on the planet—commenting on the weather at such a time.

“I wonder if this is how folk in the Old Testament felt when God sent the flood?” mused Jenny. “I mind Pa reading the story of Noah to us. All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in dry land, died.”

She shuddered, and Harris knew it was not entirely due to the cold.

“I ken even God took pity on those drowning sinners in the end,” Jenny added. “Didn’t he promise Noah never again to destroy mankind by flood?”

“Better flood than fire.” The words were out of his mouth before Harris could recall them.

For an instant he hoped Jenny had not recognized the significance of what he’d said. Then he felt the back of her fingers slide along his jawline in the most tentative caress.

“Is that how ye came by yer scars? In a fire?”

“Aye. When I was a wee lad.”

“Do ye mind how it came about?”

Harris hesitated. He had never spoken of the fire or its aftermath to another living soul. Under any other circumstances, he might not have divulged anything to Jenny, either. But this second brush with mortality had dredged up long-buried memories of his first. Besides, there was something about the blind physical contact between them that inspired confession.

“I don’t recollect much about it,” he admitted. “At least not when I’m awake. I have dreams though, of the smoke and the burning. I wake up drenched in sweat with my heart pounding like I’ve run a mile.”

“Did yer ma die in the fire?”

Somehow, Harris sensed she had not meant to ask this impossibly painful question. Yet, for reasons he could not fathom, he felt compelled to answer.

“Die? No. For all I ken, she may be living yet.”

“I don’t understand, Harris. How can ye not ken whether yer ain ma is dead or alive? Whereabouts is she?”

“I haven’t a notion. She ran away after the fire, so Father said. We never heard from her again.”

“I’m sorry, Harris.”

She was, too. He could feel it emanating from her fingertips and soaking into him. He could feel as she turned her face and pressed her cheek over his heart. He could feel it in the subtly different way she held on to him. Almost as though she wanted to cradle his lanky frame in her arms.

“Do ye mind anything of her at all?”

“No.” That was not quite true, and though he could not think why, it was suddenly very important to him that Jenny know the truth. “At least, I never tried to. There are one or two memories that come to me now and again, though, when I least expect them.”

“Aye?” It was a question, and a prompt for him to continue.

“I can hardly remember what she looked like, yet I sometimes get a flash of the way her chin tilted when she laughed. And sometimes, when I’m half-asleep, I can smell her scent and feel the brush of her kiss on my forehead…”

His voice choked off. Lifting his face to the night sky, he let the rain scour it like a torrent of tears.

“Harris?” There was cold fear in her voice. “The water’s getting deeper again, isn’t it?”

She was right. Even in the troughs between waves, the water level was higher than it had been.

“The tide must be rising.” He strove to keep the disquiet from his own voice—without success.

“I can’t die now, Harris. I’ve never lived until these past six weeks.”

Harris fought to quench the flicker of hope her words engendered. She must mean her anticipation of wedding Roderick Douglas. “You’re not going to die, Jenny. You’ve too much pluck. Mind about Mr. Douglas. He’s waiting for you in Chatham and ye don’t strike me as the kind of lass who’d disappoint her bridegroom.”

He expected her to launch into a litany of Roderick’s virtues. Harris braced himself to bear it. At least it would distract her from the peril of their situation.

“What made yer ma run off, Harris?” she asked instead, with quiet gravity. Her question took him so much by surprise he fairly staggered.

“That’s the one other thing I mind about her, Jenny. Her eyes whenever she looked at me after the fire. She left because she couldn’t bear the sight of me.”

What made him think anything had changed? He still bore the marks of the fire, and once again a woman he cared for was about to walk out of his life. Without a backward glance. Leaving behind nothing but sweetly taunting memories and wounds upon his heart that would scar him all over again. It made him long to give up the struggle and simply lapse beneath the waves with Jenny in his arms.

“I don’t believe it.” Her words stirred Harris from his painful reflections. He struggled to grasp what she meant.

“No mother would do such a thing. She may have had other reasons a child would never ken.”

“Such as…?”

Jenny fought to put it into words. How could a man understand the ceaseless drudgery and soul-consuming isolation? Perhaps the fire that scarred Harris had also wrought destruction on the Chisholm croft, making his mother’s lot harder than ever. But enough to leave her son behind? Jenny found that hard to credit.

“Ye don’t mind how it is for a woman, Harris. I ken well enough what it’s like to crave something different. Something better. It could be yer ma felt that way, too.”

Her words met with silence at first.

Then came a low, thoughtful murmur. “Aye, lass. I reckon it could be.”

She couldn’t bear the thought of Harris dwelling on such bitter memories in what might well be his last hours. Jenny berated herself for raising the subject in the first place. Recklessly she cast about for any diversion.

“Do ye mind what I wish, Harris?”

“Aye, lass.” He sighed. “I’m yer fairy godfather, after all. Ye wish to wed Mr. Douglas and live prosperously ever after.”

“Besides that.”

“Aren’t ye being a mite greedy to wish for more besides?”

“It’s not that kind of wish, anyhow. More a…regret.”

“Ah, regret.” His voice lingered over the word. “There’s something I know about. What do ye regret, Jenny? Besides setting foot aboard an unlucky vessel like the St. Bride.”

“I regret…” Her whole consciousness suddenly fixed upon the two warm spots on her body. Her bosom, which nestled against his belly, and the shifting spirals on her back described by the caress of his hands. “I regret that I never got to know ye better while we lived in Dalbeattie. Who knows but we mightn’t have made a match?”