“Worthy indeed,” Katherine uttered, pushing the memory away.
Above the clop of horse hooves and the sing-song commands of the driver, Katherine heard deep within her heart yet another sacred word: Jamaica. It was her mother’s birthplace, the land of damp warmness, where the endless sun urged a bounty of flora to blossom the year round, where the sea was so lucid that it held no secrets either to the pristine life beneath its surface nor to the bacchanalian life that floated on the edges of its blueness. Jamaica, where darker-skinned happiness tolerated the bland white conformity of European merchants. But Katherine knew naught of her mother’s Jamaica. She knew only of Scotland.
It seemed like an eternity before the carriage stopped at the lawyer’s address. Katherine stared out of the window at the grey brick building and felt a sudden surge of apprehension. She disembarked, climbed the steps, and read the plaque on the door. For one indecisive moment, she stood with her hand on the door knob.
“I could hail another carriage and return to work,” she uttered, “and I’d be none the worse for it.” But then she would never know why she was summoned and nothing in her life would change, and she desperately wanted something to change.
So squaring her shoulders, Katherine entered the solicitor’s office.
* * *
An uneasiness consumed May-Jewel Belwood. She looked past the swaying velvet tassel of the carriage which, as it maneuvered through the sinuous thoroughfares of Edinburgh, transported her to an unknown future. A dense fog hunkered down over the city, shrouding the buildings and coating the streets until they were slick with moisture. As she shifted about on the cracked leather seat, May-Jewel wondered at her quick decision to leave her homeland and to cross the ocean unescorted, to meet with a solicitor named Neal Jameson. Her mind filled with doubt. Should she have waited for Jeremy? Perhaps he was right. Perhaps it was a mistake to leave Boston, the concrete and the physical, for a dream as intangible as the mist that now swirled around her vehicle.
“No, Jeremy,” she whispered, frowning, “it was not a mistake to come!”
Adjusting the silky folds of her lavender skirt, May-Jewel yielded to a sudden sense of guilt over the lovely shade of her dress. A strange mourning dress, she thought. But why does society dictate that one in mourning must wear black? I look dreadful in black and Robbie would have me present myself in my loveliest frock, not in some drab, colorless rag. A slight pout formed on her full lips as thoughts of Robert Craig’s demise forced tears through thick, dark lashes. But as teardrops might stain her dress were they to fall, she dabbed her eyes. May-Jewel put Robbie’s death from her mind and withdrew from her satin handbag the lawyer’s letter inviting her to Scotland. Her capricious violet eyes scanned the words she had all but memorized. But it was the last line, “for purposes to be disclosed upon your arrival”, that electrified her young heart with excitement. She had given much thought why she was summoned, but each happy conclusion was over-shadowed by Jeremy’s words because he hadn’t wanted her to go to Scotland.
Sweeping a raven ringlet from her face, May-Jewel closed out the surrounding scene, remembering their last meeting and the heated discourse that forged her decision to leave her home. Though Jeremy Dumond was her guardian, she was more than aware of his possessiveness toward her and of his fierce temper. He would, if she let him, turn her into a fine respectable lady and mold her into a polite, but dull Bostonian, as unbending as the pillars that supported the porch of his grand home.
“Poor Jeremy,” she sighed, “he took his charge over me so seriously. That’s why he was always so angry. Well, my leaving made him understand that I’m a grown woman capable of making my own decisions.”
But Jeremy’s last words on the eve of her departure weren’t words of understanding.
“You get a letter from a man you don’t know,” his face was crimson with anger, “asking you to come to a country that you’ve never been to, half way around the world, and off you go. You cut ties with anyone here who has ever meant anything to you just because the attorney of one of your mother’s lovers sends for you. That’s gratitude! For the past two years, since your mother’s death, you have been my first consideration. My only consideration! How can you leave?” Grabbing her shoulders, he forced her to face him. “What about my compensation?”
May-Jewel’s cool, impervious eyes met his steamy green ones in silence before she spoke. Half attempting to appease his wrath and ignoring the tight set of his jaw, she flatly stated, “I’ll be back.” But her weak promise didn’t loosen his bruising grip on her. She looked at him through anger-slotted eyes.
“Robbie meant a lot to my mother and to me,” she squirmed against his hold. “I loved him. And if he wished for me to go ‘half way around the world’, then that is exactly what I intend to do!”
“Not if I say you can’t!” He released her. “I’m still your guardian, at least for another year, and you’ll do as I say.” He stared into her passionate eyes. She was a spirited young woman. But her youth was his enemy. He knew that she saw happiness in terms of wealth and adventure, not a duty. If only she would wait until he was free to go with her, then they could get married in Scotland. But once
