Part 19 (1/2)
The look on his face as he lowered the lid, coming face to face with his mother's miniature, made Emma's own heart clutch in her breast. ”I've never seen her before,” he whispered. ”She's even more beautiful than I imagined. But where did Mags find it?”
”She left me with the impression that your mother had trusted it into her keeping but that someone else had taken it from her after your mother's death and buried it to keep it from being discovered.”
Their eyes met, both of them realizing in the same breath exactly who that someone must be.
”Why?” Jamie asked hoa.r.s.ely. ”Why would my grandfather do such a thing? Why would he pretend to love me, yet lie to me with his every breath?”
Emma shook her head helplessly. ”I have no idea. Perhaps he was afraid of losing you to the Hepburn. If the earl had known from the beginning that you were his legitimate heir, he might have tried to claim you for his own. Perhaps your grandfather felt he had no choice but to bury it-along with the truth.”
”Then I wish to h.e.l.l it had stayed buried!” Before Emma could stop him, Jamie hurled the box to the floor.
The rotting wood gave way, splintering wide open to reveal a false bottom and sending a necklace spilling out at Jamie's feet.
Chapter Twenty-eight.
THE NECKLACE WAS A tarnished Gaelic cross on a chain of braided pewter. Even before Jamie knelt to gather it into his hand, Emma recognized it from the miniature on the lid of the box. tarnished Gaelic cross on a chain of braided pewter. Even before Jamie knelt to gather it into his hand, Emma recognized it from the miniature on the lid of the box.
It was his mother's necklace.
The necklace she had been wearing when the artist sketched her likeness. The necklace that had vanished on the night she died, ripped from her throat by the hand of her murderer.
But both the chain and the clasp of this necklace were intact, as if someone hadn't torn it away from its wearer but tenderly removed it from her lifeless body.
Emma heard Jamie's words echo through the room as clearly as if he had just uttered them: It was naught more than a worthless trinket.... It wouldn't have been of value to anyone but a Sinclair. It was naught more than a worthless trinket.... It wouldn't have been of value to anyone but a Sinclair.
Jamie slowly lifted his eyes to hers. It wasn't the emotion in the arctic wasteland of those eyes that froze her soul, but the d.a.m.ning lack of it. Without a word, he straightened and went stalking from the chamber, the chain of the necklace dangling from his clenched fist.
Emma stood staring at the empty doorway in dumb shock for several precious seconds, then went racing after him, fearing this was one murder she might not be able to prevent.
EMMA'S THROBBING SHOULDER FORCED her to slow down on the narrow spiral stairs that wound down into the heart of the tower. When she reached the long, high-ceilinged room that must have once served as the great hall of the keep, it was to discover that the large oak door at the far end of the room was standing wide open. her to slow down on the narrow spiral stairs that wound down into the heart of the tower. When she reached the long, high-ceilinged room that must have once served as the great hall of the keep, it was to discover that the large oak door at the far end of the room was standing wide open.
She hurried across the hall, afraid she might already be too late. If Jamie reached his grandfather before she reached him, she feared he would be lost forever, not just to her but to himself.
She emerged from the gloom, blinking in the bright suns.h.i.+ne. As her eyes adjusted, she saw Jamie just topping a small rise to the east of the keep. She called his name but he kept walking as if he hadn't heard her, his stride as ruthless as his countenance.
She lifted the hem of her gown and hastened after him. When she reached the top of the rise, she saw Ramsey Sinclair tilling the stony ground of the slope below with a heavy iron hoe, his snowy white mane of hair blowing in the wind.
Fearing the hoe could end up being used as a weapon, she quickened her steps.
”So are you burying more secrets, auld mon? Or perhaps some actual bodies this time?” Stopping right in front of his grandfather, Jamie lifted his fist to dangle the tarnished necklace in the man's face.
Ramsey Sinclair didn't even look surprised, only resigned. It was as if he had been waiting twenty-seven years for this moment to arrive and now that it finally had, it was almost a relief.
”Jamie, please,” Emma said softly, stopping a few feet from the two men.
He took his eyes off his grandfather just long enough to point a finger at her. ”This is none of your concern, la.s.s. And don't you dare swoon! Because if you do, I'm bluidy well not going to catch you.”
Emma held her tongue. Despite Jamie's warning, she knew that if she keeled over at that very moment his arms would be around her before she could hit the ground.
To her keen relief his grandfather moved to sink down on a rounded boulder at the edge of the garden, laying the heavy hoe aside. With his shoulders stooped beneath the weight of Jamie's contempt, he looked every minute of his age.
”I adored yer mother, ye know,” he said, squinting up at Jamie in the sunlight. ”She was all I had left after the fever killed your grandmother. It broke my heart nigh asunder when she ran away with that rogue.” He shook his head, his craggy face lined with sorrow. ”I searched for months to no avail. I might have never found them until they wanted to be found if Mags hadn't managed to get word to me that Lianna's babe had been born. But by the time I reached the crofter's hut, it was too late. They had already gone.”
”So you hunted them down.” Jamie's flat words were not a question.
Anger flared in the elder Sinclair's eyes, making them look eerily similar to his grandson's. ”How can I expect ye to understand when ye've ne'er had a daughter o' yer own? My Lianna was always a good girl. And he was just another miserable greedy Hepburn used to takin' whate'er he wanted, no matter the cost. It wasn't the first time a Hepburn had preyed upon an innocent young la.s.s he happened upon in the woods. Why, yer own grandmother-my sweet Alyssa-” He broke off, his voice strangled by rage and remembered anguish.
Emma closed her eyes briefly, understanding all too clearly how this legacy of hatred had been pa.s.sed from generation to generation.
”I knew the young rogue had seduced my Lianna. Maybe even raped her. Made her his wh.o.r.e.”
”She wasn't his wh.o.r.e!” Jamie thundered. Jamie thundered. ”She was his wife!” ”She was his wife!”
His grandfather lifted the back of one trembling hand to his mouth. ”I didn't know that then. I didn't find the page from the weddin' register in the pocket of his coat until after they were dead. By then, it was too late.” His voice faded to a choked whisper. ”Too late for all of us.”
Emma wondered how he had borne it all these years-knowing he had murdered his daughter and her husband for a crime neither one of them had committed. No wonder his heart was finally failing beneath the crus.h.i.+ng burden of his guilt.
The Sinclair turned his beseeching eyes back to his grandson. ”I never meant to hurt her, lad. I swear it! I just wanted to bring her home. When I caught up to them in the glen, I drew my pistol, thinkin' it might frighten that young whelp into givin' her up without a fight. But he shouted that she was too good, too fine to spend the rest o' her life with the likes o' the Sinclairs. That she belonged to him now. That he would never never let her go. Then everythin' went red and all I could hear was the roarin' in my ears as I lifted the pistol and pointed it at his heart. At the very instant I squeezed the trigger, she threw herself in front o' him.” let her go. Then everythin' went red and all I could hear was the roarin' in my ears as I lifted the pistol and pointed it at his heart. At the very instant I squeezed the trigger, she threw herself in front o' him.”
Jamie pressed the fist holding the necklace to his lips as his grandfather continued. ”I'll ne'er forget the look in her eyes. The shock, the betrayal and worst of all, in those last precious seconds of her life-the pity.”
The elder Sinclair bowed his head, as if already knowing he had forever relinquished any right to his grandson's pity. ”Hepburn caught her as she fell, just sat there rockin' back and forth with her in his arms, weepin' like a babe. I couldn't believe what I'd done. But all I could think was if not for him, if not for all the Hepburns who had p.i.s.sed all over the Sinclairs through the centuries, my precious baby girl would still be alive. So I walked over to him and put the mouth of my pistol right between his eyes. He didn't even fight. He just gazed up at me as if daring me-no, begging me-to pull the trigger.”
”So you did,” Jamie said bleakly.
”Aye. And there they lay. Dead in each other's arms.” His grandfather's jaw hardened. ”I couldn't bear the thought o' him still touchin' her, tryin' to lay claim to her even in death. So I pulled them apart. Made sure he would ne'er touch her again. I was about to turn the pistol on myself when I heard it.”
”What?” Emma asked softly, well aware that both men had probably forgotten her presence. ”What did you hear?”
He c.o.c.ked his head as if haunted by the echo of a moment long past. ”A gentle cooin' like that of a dove. I walked over to the bushes and there ye were. They must have tucked ye away when they heard my horse approachin'.”
The look on Jamie's face broke Emma's heart anew. ”I was there in that glen on the night they died? But you told me they'd left me with Mags.”
His grandfather shrugged. ”What's one more lie added to a thousand?” A shadow crossed his face. ”For one dark moment, I was tempted to kill ye, too-to destroy the last remainin' evidence of their love. But when I reached down to do it, ye just looked up at me without cryin '. Without blinkin'. Then ye grabbed my finger in yer tiny little fist and held on for dear life.” The old man turned his face to Jamie, tears of remembered wonder glazing his eyes. ”In that moment, I knew ye weren't theirs after all. Ye were mine.”
When Jamie continued to gaze down at him, his face as beautiful and merciless as an avenging angel's, the Sinclair swiped away the tears, his hand growing ever more steady. ”I didn't want to live with what I'd done. But I knew I had no choice if I was to look after ye. So I took ye back to Mags at the crofter's hut and swore her to silence, then returned to the glen late that night with my men so there would be witnesses when yer par-” He swallowed. ”-when the bodies were found.”
Jamie's voice was dangerously dispa.s.sionate. ”And I suppose it was easy enough to blame their murders on the Hepburn. After all, he and his kin had been responsible for most of the ills around these parts for centuries.”
”Aye. That was the only part of my divilment I couldn't bring myself to regret. At least not until now.”
Emma's heart nearly stopped when he reached into a hidden fold of his kilt and withdrew an ancient-looking pistol with a flared muzzle. But he simply offered it to Jamie, b.u.t.t forward.
”Go on, lad. Take it and do what I should have had the courage to do all those years ago.”