think of leaving everything you know for a man you met less than a month ago?”
“I’ve never known anyone like him,” Katrine said simply. “There’s a brightness in him, a fire that pulls me.” She looked directly at Janet Douglas. “Surely you know how it is, Mother? You married Father despite the disapproval of your families. I’m your daughter. Isn’t it possible that I know my own mind as well as you knew yours?”
Janet wrung her hands. “It isn’t the same at all. George and I are Scots. We share the same loves and loyalties, the same history and customs. The match would have been welcomed by both clans if it were not for—” She stopped and bit her lip.
“Go on,” Katrine said curiously.
Janet sighed and sat down in the comfortable, unfashionably wide chair that she refused to leave home without. They were in the refurbished sitting room attached to her bedchamber. Despite her preference for everything Scottish, she preferred this room to any other at Scone, and it was decidedly English in flavor. Over the fireplace, the doors and bookcases, and in the marble-topped console with its carved eagle support, the impact of the Palladian revival was evident. Heavy pedimentation and richly framed mirrors accented the room. Niches filled with painted ivory, porcelain, and jade from China were set into the peach-painted walls. An Oriental lacquered screen shut out the light from one of the long windows and a large portrait of Sir David Murray, the first Lord Scone, hung above the fireplace. The only fault Janet could find with these Inigo Jones reproductions were the chairs. They were spindly and narrow with embroidered cushions that looked like the heavy tapestries that had covered the walls of Blair-Atholl for centuries.
Janet was a fashionable woman in all things except her comfort. The wide, high-backed chair with its sturdy arms had been with her most of her life. Here, at her mother’s knee, she learned to set the neat, perfect stitches that had brought her fame in Edinburgh. It was to this chair that she brought the first glimmer of her love for George Murray, burying her flushed face against the worn upholstery, wondering if he felt the same heat that surged through her veins. Here she had nursed her children, coming to know the exquisite ache of a tiny mouth searching for sustenance. Curled up in the warm softness, she taught them their prayers, encouraged their dreams, listened to their confidences, and bandaged their hurts. In this comforting sanctuary from her childhood, awash in the happiness of her second pregnancy, she had experienced the onset of the terrifying nightmares.
She looked at her daughter. Katrine’s light-filled eyes studied her as if she were an exotic bird perched on the mantel. “Are you all right, Mother?” she asked.
Janet’s hand trembled as she smoothed the brocade of her skirts. “What will you do if your father forbids the match?” she asked.
Katrine’s lips tightened. “He wouldn’t. There is no impediment to the marriage. Father knows that. Richard is suitable in every way.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“If I have to, I shall wait until I’m of age,” said Katrine stubbornly. “Two years isn’t such a great deal of time.”
“We may soon be at war with England, my love. Would Richard agree to wait?”
Katrine’s smile was both tender and proud, and her answer was very sure. “He will wait for as long as it takes. There is no one else for either of us, Mama.”
Janet stared into the lovely, heartbreakingly earnest young face and relented. Perhaps it would be all right. Richard Wolfe could have no connection with an ancient Scottish prophecy. And even if he did, the course of fate could not be changed. “I’ll speak to your father,” she said at last. “However, it would help if your young man pleaded his own case.”
“Richard rode to Edinburgh to see Papa this morning.”
The light that burned inside Katrine flamed into a joy so intense, so vitally alive, that Janet couldn’t bear to look at her. Turning away, she blinked back the tears that welled up in her eyes.
***
Less than one month later Katrine Murray married Richard Wolfe on the twenty-fifth day of July in the small, intimate chapel at Scone. It was a private ceremony with only family members present. Richard’s family was not in attendance. They had not been expected. The political climate was too unsettled for a journey north. Janet held up well, smiling mistily through a veil of tears. Katrine’s brother, Alasdair,