Temptation

Three days, Temperance thought. It was only three days until James McCairn was to marry Kenna. In the days since she’d met Kenna, Temperance had never worked so hard in her life as she had to prepare for this wedding. There were flowers and food and guests to see to, plus a thousand other details.

And Temperance was doing it all on her own, for Kenna had no interest in any of the proceedings, not even in her own gown. Nor did she seem to have any interest in James. As far as Temperance could see, the two of them never spent any time together. James was always on top of his beloved mountain, and Kenna . . . Well, it seemed that Kenna mostly made messes.

“I don’t want to have to clean up after her again,” Eppie said with her old arms tight across her bony chest. “What’s she lookin’ for anyway?”

“I have no idea,” Temperance said tiredly.

“Treasure,” Alys said. “Everyone wants the treasure.”

Temperance had thrown up her hands in despair. The last thing that she cared about was treasure.

In truth, Temperance was doing her best to not care about anything in the entire world. She was, according to Grace, “hiding” inside the big McCairn house, not leaving to walk up the mountain, where she might see James, and not going into the village, where she’d have to hear about how happy they were that “one of their own” had returned to them.

“Don’t think,” Temperance told herself at least four times a day. “Don’t think and don’t feel.” She tried to focus her mind on one thing and that was getting back to New York and to her real work. She tried to remember what she’d wanted to accomplish when she knew she was going to go to McCairn. She’d learned a lot here, and she could use what she’d learned in New York.

“I’ll be able to help women get jobs rather than just charity. A way to support themselves will last longer than low rent,” she had said to Grace as they were going over the guest list and trying to figure out where to put people. James had so very many relatives. “Now that I’ve seen what I can do when I make an effort, I won’t rely so much on others.”

“We’ll miss you,” Grace had said quietly.

Temperance wasn’t going to think about that. She wasn’t going to think about individual people in McCairn and the laughter she’d shared with them. She grabbed another list and looked at it, but her eyes blurred. She remembered one evening she’d gone to Blind Brenda’s cottage and sat with half a dozen children and listened to a story about when giants ruled the earth. James had quietly come into the room halfway through the story, and he’d sat by the fire and smoked a long clay pipe. She’d never seen him smoke before.

While she was sitting there, a two-year-old asleep on her lap, Temperance had thought, I never want to leave this place and these people.

“Did you hear me?” Grace asked.

“No,” Temperance said honestly. “I was thinking about something else. Do you think she’s going to make a good wife for him?”

“No,” Grace answered just as honestly, “but it’s not really a love marriage, is it? It’s to fulfill a will, and it’s to make her respectable. They’re both getting what they want. Are you?”

“Am I what?”

“Getting what you want?”

“Oh, yes,” Temperance said quickly. “I want to return to New York and do what I was meant to do. It’s just that right now I’m feeling a little . . . nostalgic, I guess, because I’ve enjoyed my time here and I’ve come to care about the people here, but once I’m back there, I’ll be fine. But I . . .”

“You what?”

“I think I’ll do things a bit differently,” she said. “I might—”

“There’s someone coming!” Alys yelled as she ran up the stairs, causing Temperance to break off her sentence. “And she’s beautiful!”

“Tell her the McCairn already has a bride,” Temperance shouted toward the door, making Grace smile.

“No,” Alys said when she reached the doorway. “She’s come to see you.”

“Me?” Temperance said. “I hope it isn’t an early wedding guest,” she said as she followed Alys down the stairs.

“Her name’s Deborah Madison and she’s from America.”

At that Temperance stopped on the stairs. At first she wasn’t sure where she’d heard the name before; then it hit her hard. The Contender, she thought, for that’s what the woman’s name had come to be inside her head. This was the woman who wanted to take away what Temperance had started and had built. This was the woman whom Temperance was going to have to fight as soon as she returned to New York and to her real work.

Deborah Madison wasn’t beautiful; she was cute. She had lots of reddish hair, an upturned nose, freckles, and a littlegirl mouth. As she stood on the stairs and looked down at her, Temperance knew that she was the kind of woman who’d always look twenty years younger than she actually was. And Temperance could also see why men adored her. She had no doubt that Miss Madison could look up at a man with those big green eyes, bat her lashes, and make the weakest man feel strong.

“There you are,” she said, looking up. “I would have known you anywhere.” Her voice was that of an excited child’s.

“Won’t you come in,” Temperance said cautiously.

“So you do know who I am,” the girl said, for Temperance could only think of her as a “girl.” Already, she was making Temperance feel quite old. However, the way she said “who,” as in “who I am,” made Temperance even more cautious.

“Yes, I’ve read about you. Perhaps we should go in here and sit down,” Temperance said, opening a door on a rarely used drawing room. The room was quite shabby, and she hadn’t bothered to do much with it, as it was so seldom used.

“I heard that you’d been exiled, but this is ridiculous,” Deborah said, looking around her as she unpinned her hat and set it on a round table in the center of the room. “My hat’s not as big as yours, but then, it’s not my trademark,” Deborah said, looking at Temperance as though they shared some secret.

Silently, Temperance motioned toward a deep sofa, and Deborah sat down. “Why are you here?” Temperance said once they were seated.

“I was sent for; didn’t you know that?”

“No . . .” Temperance said slowly. “Who sent for you?”

“I thought you did.” Before Temperance could answer, Deborah stood up and began to pace about the room. “You’re my hero, did you know that? Of course I plan to surpass you, and now that you’ve given up everything—”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You are staying here in Scotland, aren’t you?”

“No, actually—”

“Well, good then,” Deborah interrupted. “I can stand the competition, but I warn you that I do indeed plan to give you a run for your money.”

“Pardon me,” Temperance said, “but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Compete with me about what?”

Deborah stopped pacing and looked at Temperance for a moment; then she picked up her bag off the sofa and opened it. “I do hope that you don’t mind that I smoke. Willie—you remember him, don’t you?—Willie says that smoking makes me look more sophisticated.” At that she took out a short, fat cigarette and lit it with a match. However, she started coughing so hard that she had to stub it out, unfortunately on a Meissen plate.

“They take some getting used to. Now where was I? Oh, yes, competing. Dear,” she said to Temperance, “you and I are competing for the history books. You know that, don’t you?”

“No, I had no idea we were competing at all, so why don’t you explain this to me?” Temperance sat still, her hands folded on her lap, and listened to this woman she’d never met before talk about famous women in history. Deborah Madison included Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, and Catherine the Great in what was an obviously well-rehearsed speech. In conclusion, Deborah said that she planned to add herself to that illustrious list.

All in all, Temperance was feeling very stupid. First of all, she couldn’t figure out who had summoned this woman and what she wanted from Temperance. That she wanted something was a sure bet, because already Temperance could see that Deborah Madison didn’t do anything without receiving something in return. It was obvious that Miss Madison was one ambitious young lady.

“However, if you don’t mind, I plan to borrow some ideas from you. You have your hats, and I’ll . . . Actually I haven’t come up with my trademark yet, but it’ll be something like your hat, something that makes people notice and remember me.”

“I used the hat to help call attention to the people I was trying to help,” Temperance said softly, but her teeth were clenched. This girl was not going to make her angry!

“Yes, yes, of course you did,” Deborah said quickly. “All those destitute women. I know. The prostitutes, the drug addicts, all those illegitimate children. But then we never really touch them, do we?”

“Yes,” Temperance said firmly. “They are people, and they need—”

“A bath,” Deborah said, then laughed at her own joke. “Yes, I know that at first you had a great deal to do with them, but then you were just starting out and couldn’t help it, but later, you learned to deal with the mayor and the governor—the important people. Willie says that I should set my sights on the president, and that I should try to get him to create some position for me. He said—and you’ll die at this—you do remember how funny Willie is, don’t you? He said that I should have the president form a House of Prostitution and I’d be the director of it. Get it? House of Prostitution?” When Temperance didn’t seem to understand, Deborah pushed. “Like the House of Representatives, but since we work with prostitutes and where they work are called houses . . .”

Temperance still didn’t smile. She didn’t remember Willie as being particularly funny. In fact, she couldn’t seem to remember Willie as much of anything except a nuisance.

“So, anyway,” Deborah said, “I was sent for, so I’m here.”

“But why and by whom?” Temperance asked.

“I have no idea. A lawyer visited me and handed me tickets for the first ship out. He said I was to get to Edinburgh pronto. I had four long days on the voyage over to think about all this, and I decided that maybe, instead of competing, we should form a team. I could be the one in front of the cameras, and—”

“I could be the old cow in the background who does the work,” Temperance said with a smile.

At that Deborah laughed. “Willie said that you had a great sense of humor, and he was right.”

“Tell me, Miss Madison, what would you advise a young, unmarried woman who told you she was in the family way?”

“Well, first of all, I’d let Agnes handle her. You remember Agnes?”

“Yes,” Temperance said, then thought with embarrassment of the night that she’d thrown her hat into the audience and how she, Temperance, had enjoyed the adoring look Agnes gave her. That seemed so long ago. Had she needed worshipers?

“Well, Agnes handles all those women, but if I had to advise her, I’d tell her that she should have controlled herself. If you know what I mean.”

“I see,” Temperance said, then realized that she’d seen more than enough, so she stood up. “It has been so nice to meet you and I do hope you can stay for the wedding of the McCairn to Miss Kenna Lockwood. And although I’d like to invite you to stay here, I can’t, as we will have a full house.”

As Deborah stood, she looked about her. “That’s all right. I’d be afraid of bedbugs anyway. No, the ticket included a good hotel in Edinburgh, so I’ll be going back there tonight, then sailing home tomorrow. You know, I think I like you,” Deborah said. “You don’t say much, but I think maybe you’re smart, and I think that together we can put ourselves into the history books.”

“I’m sure we could,” Temperance said softly as she opened the door to the drawing room for the young woman, then stood there and watched until she walked out the front door.

For several minutes Temperance stood where she was, her back against the doorframe, not moving. But suddenly her chest began to heave, and there were sobs inside her throat that she couldn’t hold back. James, was all she thought. All her life she’d lived with women and Grace was upstairs, but Temperance didn’t want to talk to her. No, right now, the person she needed most in life was James.

With tears blurring her eyes, she turned and ran down the hall, through the kitchen, then outside across the stable yard and toward the mountain. She was halfway up when she saw James coming down.

“I heard you had a visitor from America,” he said, “and I wondered who— What’s this?” he asked when she flung herself into his arms. “Ah, lass, you aren’t crying, are you?” he said softly as he began to stroke her hair.

“Yes,” she blurted. “I’ve just seen myself, and I hated me. Really, really hated myself.”

“This isn’t about those wrinkles, is it? Personally, I like them.”

“No!” she said, pulling away from him; then when she looked up at him, she could see that he was teasing her. It was then that she began to cry in earnest. Maybe it was all the emotion that she’d been holding inside over the last weeks, but tears began to come out of her at a prodigious rate. When James saw that she was serious, he picked her up and carried her off the path. He knew every inch of the mountain, so now he took her to a private little glade, where a tree overhung them and a tiny stream formed a trickling fall of water.

Gently, James set her down on the ground, her back against a rock; then he pulled a handkerchief from his sporran, dipped it into the water, and began to wipe her face. But when she continued to sob, he sat beside her, and Temperance put her head in the hollow of his shoulder. For a while he just held her, but then gradually her sobs decreased and he pulled her head away to look at him.

“Now, tell me what’s happened,” he said softly.

“My mother,” Temperance said, then hiccuped.

James bent to one side and scooped up water in his hand, then held it out for her to drink. Putting both her hands on his, she sipped water from his cupped hand, then tried her best to sit upright. Taking his handkerchief, she wiped at her eyes.

“I didn’t mean to do this,” she said. “I don’t usually fall apart.”

“But the wedding—”

“This has nothing to do with the wedding!” she snapped. “I’m sorry, it’s just that . . .”

“Go on, tell me what’s happened.”

“My mother sent a woman here to visit me. At least I think my mother sent her. It’s like something she’d do.”

“Who was she?”

“She’s the woman who wants to take my place in New York.”

“But no one can take your place because you’re going to go back there and take your own place, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I . . .”

“But what is the problem?”

“Me,” she said, looking up at him with red eyes and a swollen nose. “It’s me. I saw myself. She is me.”

James smoothed a strand of hair back from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “That couldn’t be too bad then, could it?”

“You don’t understand,” Temperance said, moving away from him. She dipped the handkerchief in the icy mountain stream and held the cloth to her face. Now that she was calmer, she was able to think better. Why had she run crying to him? Why not to Grace? Why run crying to anyone, for that matter? What happened to the rational woman she used to be? But then, the woman she used to be was just the problem, wasn’t it?

Turning back to James, Temperance took a deep breath. “Her name is Deborah Madison, and she is exactly like what I used to be. Is that what I was? Is that how people saw me? She’s awful. Terrible. She’s so sure of herself, so full of herself. And I’m a snob just like she is.”

At that, James reached out and pulled her back against his chest. “You’re not a snob. You came here and cleaned the house with your own hands.”

“But only because no one else would do it.”

At that James laughed softly. “Because no one else will do it is no guarantee that someone else will,” he said, smiling. “Did I ever tell you how lazy my wife was? She lived in squalor because she was too lazy to do anything. She was stupendously lazy. Others feel guilty for not doing something, but not my wife. When she dropped her hairpins, she used to call Eppie in to pick them up for her.”

“You’re making that up,” Temperance said, but she smiled against his chest. She’d never before been comforted by a man, and it was . . . well, it was nice. And maybe she didn’t want to leave McCairn. Maybe . . .

“That girl, that Deborah Madison, can do my job in New York,” Temperance said softly. “I’m replaceable in New York but not in McCairn.”

At these words, Temperance felt James stiffen, but he said nothing, and she had no idea what he was thinking. He certainly wasn’t encouraging her, that’s for sure. “Sometimes,” she said tentatively, “I think it’s more rewarding for me here in McCairn. I seem to have made some true friends here, but in New York I don’t think I was a real person. I think I was like her, like that girl, Deborah, but I told myself that I was helping people. But now I’m not so sure that I was. And, anyway, my absence hasn’t halted the work I was doing, so I’m not sure they do need me.”

When James still didn’t say anything, she pulled back to look up at him. He was ramrod stiff, and he was looking at some distant point over her head. Temperance knew that she’d said enough. She wasn’t going to beg him to say something, to say anything. And her pride certainly wasn’t going to allow her to beg him to ask her to stay in McCairn and forget about going back to New York!

For a while they sat there in silence, Temperance looking down at the damp handkerchief in her hands, James staring at nothing above her head. At long last he said, “What is Kenna doing now?”

At that Temperance’s heart started pounding. Was he going to go to Kenna and tell her the wedding was off because he’d just realized that he was madly in love with Temperance? And was that what Temperance wanted?

She tried to lighten the moment. “We think that she’s tearing the house apart looking for the treasure,” she said with a smile.

But James didn’t smile. Instead, he nodded. “Yes, I know,” he said after a while. “So perhaps she knows something that we don’t.”

It took Temperance a while to realize that for all the understanding that was passing between them, they might as well have been on different planets. She was talking about life; she was hinting that if he asked her to stay, she would. But all that was on his mind was the treasure. That damned treasure that might not even exist.

“I am so sorry to have bothered you,” she said coolly, then slowly stood up.

“Temperance, I . . .” he said, still sitting, looking up at her.

“Yes?” she asked. “You have something to say to me?”

“Just that— No, I can’t say anything now. Not yet.”

“I see,” she said, but she was lying. She didn’t see anything. “I’ll be here,” she said, trying to sound as though there were nothing wrong in the world, “until after your . . . wedding, then I’ll be leaving for New York.”

James looked at her, but he didn’t speak again, so Temperance went down the mountain.

After she left, James hit his hand with his fist. What he’d just done had been nearly impossible for him, but it had to be done. He knew Kenna well enough to know that she’d come back for a reason, and he’d guessed that she had some information, something that would lead her to the McCairn wealth. If James did anything now to make Kenna think that she wasn’t going to get her pretty little hands on the loot, she’d stop searching. And what would make her stop more than an announcement of marriage between the McCairn and Miss Temperance O’Neil?

“Three more days, sweetheart,” James said aloud. “Just give me three more days.”