Besides, she’d witnessed enough suffering and disappointment; he didn’t want to add one more thing to burden her shoulders. Not after he’d vowed to defend her against further woes. He would take the troubles on himself if only to spare her. One day he would tell her, as he’d promised honesty on their wedding day, but not until the storm had passed.
He gently slipped his hand out from hers in a move made to look like he was adjusting his hat. Her hand was too trusting, and the weight of such responsibility was more than he could bear. Glasgow’s gray cityscape passed in a blur outside the taxi window, but he saw only his failure in the eyes of a dead man. “Another time. Perhaps.”
Chapter 21
Svetlana eyed the bundles of laundry stacked in the corner of the cramped hovel and tried not to breathe through her nose. A cauldron bubbled over a fire in the center of the room, its pungent smoke wafting through a hole in the thatched roof.
“’Tis the peat that be givin’ off the smoke. Best not to keep yer eyes open too long without a blink, aye.” Mrs. Douglas, mistress of the hovel, busied herself at a rickety table set near the middle of the room. A plain woman with dark hair streaked in silver and creases lining her face, she wore the expression of a hard life, but she couldn’t have aged past forty.
“I have never heard of this peat. Is it common to Scotland?”
“We’ve it all over here in the bogs. All the dead ’uns scamperin’ or growin’ round get compressed right down together and sealed in tight with water, so they do. Good for heatin’. Burns long too.” Mrs. Douglas poured water into a teacup and stirred it with a wooden spoon. “Me man cuts peat for the distillery near Bothwell. Or did afore the war took his hand. They give him work when they can, but who be needin’ a one-handed man for cuttin’ and stackin’?”
“Too many of the returning soldiers find themselves in similar circumstances.”
“Aye. Go off to fight for king and country, they do—only their country canna use them no further when they get home. What thanks is that I ask ye after what they sacrificed?” Placing the cup and saucer on a wooden tray, Mrs. Douglas brought it to where Svetlana sat on a bench, the only seating in the room besides the bed crammed against the far wall. “Drink that right down, Yer Grace. Warm ye up, it will.”
The lady hadn’t poured a cup for herself. The few pieces of mismatched bowls and plates sitting on a shelf behind the table suggested the teacup was the only one of its kind in this humble abode. Though chipped on one side, great care had gone into painting little purple flowers on the sides.
“What beautiful artistry.”
Pink brightened Mrs. Douglas’s rough cheeks. “Me mam was fine with a brush. A real talent she passed on to my lassies.”
Svetlana took a sip of the tea. Mrs. Douglas hovered anxiously. Svetlana swallowed and forced a smile so as not to insult her gracious hostess. “What an unusual flavor.”
“’Tis heather. Same as painted on the cup. A great many uses here in Scotland.”
Svetlana took another polite sip. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t the sophisticated Russian taste she was accustomed to. Like so many other things, it was a difference she needed to learn and accept if she had any chance of being received in the community.
“I find myself amazed at the never-ending resourcefulness of the Scots. Russians tend to limit our creativity to music, dance, and architecture.”
“Been an age since anyone had reason to dance ’round here. Too busy survivin’. ’Twas lucky enough, I was, to take on extra services as a laundress.” Mrs. Douglas hooked her thumb at the piles of laundry. “And me man returned. Not all the wives can say as much.”
“Are the widows able to find work?”
“Some, aye, but not enough for the little mouths they need to feed. Many of them were forced to be givin’ up their jobs to the returnin’ men. I suppose ’tis the way, but some of the lasses don’t want to be returnin’ to the kitchen now they’ve a taste of the freedom.”
“It sounds as if they need opportunities to earn their own way. Especially if they are left as the sole provider for a family.”
“Aye, but take Katie MacKinnon livin’ three doors down. Her man came back, or what’s left of him, and now she’s tendin’ the bairns and him. Savin’ every coin she can to pay for his medical bills whilst hirin’ herself out as a scullery maid down at the pub.”
The back door banged open and in shrieked a pandemonium of four dark-haired children under the age of ten. Like hounds to the scent, they rounded the table and fell on the gift basket Svetlana had brought.
“Out, ye wee rascals! None of that for ye at the now.” Mrs. Douglas tried to shoo them away, but the children ignored her as they tore into wrapped sweets.