The Lady of the Lakes Read online

  © 2017 Josi S. Kilpack

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, ­Shadow ­Mountain®, at ­[email protected]. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of ­Shadow ­Mountain.

  Visit us at ShadowMountain.com

  This is a work of fiction. Characters and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously.

  Library of Congress ­Cataloging-­in-­Publication ­Data

  Names: Kilpack, Josi S., author.

  Title: The lady of the lakes : the true love story of Sir Walter Scott / Josi S. Kilpack.

  Description: Salt Lake City, Utah : Shadow Mountain, [2017] | ©2017 | Includes bibliographical references.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016011057 | ISBN 9781629722269 (paperbound)

  Subjects: LCSH: Scott, Walter, 1771–1832—Fiction. | LCGFT: Biographical fiction. | Historical fiction. | Romance fiction. | Novels.

  Classification: LCC PS3561.I412 L33 2017 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016011057

  Printed in the United States of ­America

  LSC Communications, Harrisonburg, Virginia

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Book design © 2017 Shadow Mountain

  Art Direction: Richard Erickson

  Design: Heather G. Ward

  Cover photos: iStock/Getty Images Plus and Richard Bowden/shutterstock.com

  Other Proper Romances

  by Josi S. Kilpack

  A Heart Revealed

  Lord Fenton’s Folly

  Forever and Forever

  A Lady’s Favor (eBook only)

  Other Titles by

  Josi S. Kilpack

  The Sadie Hoffmiller Culinary Mystery Series:

  Lemon Tart, English Trifle, Devil’s Food Cake, Key Lime Pie, Blackberry Crumble, Pumpkin Roll, Banana Split, Tres Leches Cupcakes, Baked Alaska, Rocky Road, Fortune Cookie, Wedding Cake, Sadie’s Little Black Recipe Book

  For the Walter in my life,

  a creator and romantic in his own right—my dad, Walter Schofield.

  Thank you for all the good things.

  Introduction

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Epilogue

  Conclusion

  Chapter Notes

  Timeline

  Bibliography

  Discussion Questions

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Walter Scott has no business to write novels,

  especially good ones. It is not fair.

  He has Fame and Profit enough as a Poet.

  —Jane Austen

  Sir Walter Scott was a novelist, poet, historian, and biographer who had a profound influence on the world of fiction and is credited as having “given Scotland back its history.” Immersed in the pride of being a Scotsman from a young age, he immortalized the Brave Scot in works like Rob Roy and The Pirate. He pursued the course of his storytelling with a commitment to excellence and was known for his personal morality.

  Before Sir Walter became renowned for his writing, however, he was a young man full of a young man’s passion and the desire to find “the sunshine of [his] soul.” This story covers the years of his early adulthood as he embarked on both his law career and his pursuit of love. This is not a nonfiction, historically perfect accounting of Walter’s life; rather it is a fictionalized version of true occurrences.

  Readers familiar with the traditional pattern of a romance novel will notice the variations I have taken in my attempt at balancing artistry with creation and integrity with true events and timelines. This story became one where truth is stranger than fiction—and certainly not as well-organized. I tried very hard to reflect as much “truth as we know it” as possible, while still focusing on telling a good story with elements that fit a familiar course. It’s my hope that the resulting tale is one that you will enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing—­because I enjoyed building upon the bits and pieces very much.

  At the end of the book is a collection of notes, organized by chapter, which detail what is fact and what is fiction. There is also a bibliography that highlights the nonfiction works I used in my research should you want to further explore this window of time I peeked into. I hope that you will fall in love with these characters the way I did and see them as real people—with strengths and weaknesses, frailties and tempers—and share in my conclusion that, though the course was not easy, everything turned out exactly the way it was meant to.

  Scarce one person out of twenty marries his first love,

  and scarce one out of twenty of the remainder has

  cause to rejoice at having done so. What we love in

  those early days is generally rather more a fanciful

  creation of our own than a reality. We build

  statues of snow, and weep when they melt . . .

  —Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, 1820

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  September, 1791

  I believe in God and Christ and long-suffering, but I do not feel that all three must be so densely mashed together as they are for a Calvinist Sunday sermon. I was glad no one could hear my thoughts. My mother—sitting at St. Andrew’s Kirk on the other side of town—would not be pleased.

  “Now Wattie,” she would say in her soft voice, using the nickname I never minded despite the infernal teasings of my older brothers. They, of course, called me Walter, as did everyone but my mother and Aunt Jenny, who had been a mother to me in my early years. “Sounds to me as though you be needin’ more of such teachin’,” Mother would say if she knew of my complaining. “Then you woont be so at odds with the Guid Word.”

  I smiled at the imagined reprimand, but I would never give her reason to serve it. A fair amount of my life took place in my head, and I was content to keep it that way, for now.

  I returned my attention to Mr. Robertson’s sermon and tried to be attentive but found my mind wandering around the
vaulted chapel and its meticulous craftsmanship until the minister finally finished and took his seat—the full stop at the end of his paragraph. I had attended Greyfriars Kirk before—it was the parish kirk my friend William Clerk belonged to—and I had chosen to attend services here today specifically so I could more easily slip away afterward. The Calvinist Sabbath was a stern day of prayer and meditation in my home on George Street, but my parents would miss me less if they thought I was taking a bit more time getting home from a kirk further away. I needed some solitude, which was hard to find now that I was fully employed beneath the heavy roof of my father’s office. I would be home in time for supper—sheep’s head soup that had been simmering since yesterday so as to avoid too much work on the Lord’s day.

  I resisted tapping my foot during the final hymn, glad that the windows were set too high along the walls for me to see through them from where I sat. It was easier to avoid the seduction of the world awaiting me on the other side of the stained glass when I could not see it. I had planned to while away the autumn afternoon hiking the majestic Salisbury crags around Edinburgh and soaking up imperial sunshine—God’s creations, if ever there were—but the weather had betrayed me. As the sermon had droned on, heavy clouds had darkened the interior of the chapel. Not that rain would dissuade me entirely, but it might keep my ramblings confined to the pedestrian parks and streets of Edinburgh instead of the mighty hills I loved to explore while my mind became lost in the most fantastic stories.

  One day I would try my hand at writing those stories. Father felt the pursuit of writing a foolish endeavor, but Mother encouraged me. She said if I had been born a few centuries before, I’d have been a bard—a reciter of stories, songs, and poetry that kept history alive. I did not see why I could not be a bard now, albeit a modern one. Instead of performing for royalty, I would put the stories on paper so everyone would know the tales of my forefathers and see heroes instead of barbarians.

  Finally the benediction was offered, and the parishioners began to stir.

  “Shall you abridge your afternoon plans on account of the weather?” William asked. The steady patter of raindrops could be heard over the conversations within the kirk.

  “I shall simply enjoy my rambling all the more,” I said confidently. “And let the rain wash away any regrets.” Were I a better friend, I’d have invited William to join me, but I was selfish of my time. And I knew he preferred a fire, a book, and a kettle on Sunday afternoons.

  I was braced for his teasing retort when I saw her—and forgot about sheep’s head soup, hiking the parks, or anything at all. The girl in the green mantle replaced every thought that had sustained me so far that day. She was water, bread, and wine all in one.

  “Och,” I said under my breath, then grabbed Clerk by the wrist. “Who is that?”

  He looked around, confused. “Who is who?”

  “That girl,” I said, my eyes transfixed on the vision as I pointed with my chin. “With the green cloak.”

  Clerk followed my gaze, and then smiled. “Her father is Sir John Belsches. He took a set of apartments off King’s Stable for the Court of Session, and his family’s come ahead of him.”

  “Come ahead from where?” I asked, keeping my eyes locked on the girl, an absolute angel. She exited into the aisle ahead of me but turned to say something to the woman she was with—her mother, I’d wager—allowing me to look at her profile. She had light brown hair, curled in ringlets, rosebud lips, and features as fine as if chiseled from porcelain. The dark lashes framing her hazel eyes gave her face definition and completed the impression of her being quite simply the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, though likely not more than sixteen years to my nineteen.

  Perhaps because of the chill brought on by the bad weather, she had already fastened her green cloak at the base of her graceful neck.

  “Where is she from?” I asked.

  “Perth, I think,” William said, giving me a teasing glance. “You seem rather taken with her.”

  “She is . . . unparalleled.”

  William laughed. “And you, my dear Walter, are apparently besotted without needin’ to know anything more than her fine looks.”

  “Indeed I am.” But I could tell her beauty extended beyond her appearance. I could feel it.

  “Then you should perhaps introduce yourself before some other lovestruck laddie beats you out.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Indeed I should.”

  She exited the building ahead of me, so when I finally stepped into the yard, I scanned the area in fear of having lost her. To my relief, however, she stood to the side at the edge of a gaggle of women gathered safely beneath the umbrellas they had pulled together to form a temporary roof. The girl in the green mantle, I noticed, did not hold an umbrella of her own and instead stood very close to her mother. I tapped my still-folded umbrella twice on the steps in triumph of having brought what might be salvation for us both, then opened it over my head as I stepped out beneath the overhang of the church’s roof.

  Without bothering to find someone for an official introduction, I squared my broad shoulders, lifted my clean-shaven chin, and held my umbrella higher as I crossed the yard, my limp adding an unwelcome, but familiar, cadence to my steps. William’s chuckle from behind did not distract me, nor did my limp undermine my confidence. Nothing could prevent me from making myself known to this woman, this paragon of beauty, this . . . Venus.

  She saw me a moment before anyone else in her party did, and I knew she felt the same awareness I did when our eyes met. I smiled and stopped just outside the circle of women, a few of whom were known to me. My mother would have lectured me on the impropriety of approaching without invitation, but the proper rules of introduction were silly English nonsense I had little use for.

  In Scotland, couples could walk without a chaperone and ride together in a closed carriage. If a man wanted to meet a girl, he need only ask, and vice versa. British matrons, and those noble Scots trying to define themselves within the empire, would need smelling salts if they knew of all the interaction the average Scots allowed between young people. That young Englishmen and women were kept apart at such distance was bizarre to me and my friends. How was anyone to get to know one another if they were hovered over all the time?

  “Good afternoon,” I said to the group of women, nodding to each of them in turn as their umbrellas tipped toward me. I stopped my gaze upon the woman I assumed to be the girl’s mother; I knew better than to discard all matters of propriety. “I am Walter Scott and am pleased to meet you.”

  One of the women tittered, another shook her head, but I was not deterred. Boldness is what had healed my leg and honed my mind. Passivity, on the other hand, had never earned me any reward. Let the English keep their meekness.

  “I am Lady Belsches.” Her eyes were cautious, and I knew right away that while I might disregard formal manners, she, as one of those noble Scots, did not. I would need to find a balance. She waved a graceful hand to her side. “And this is my daughter, Williamina.”

  Williamina. I looked at her again, committing her name to memory. Now that I could see her more closely, I realized she was younger than I first thought, perhaps only fourteen years of age—five years my junior.

  “Mina,” she said, lowering her eyes demurely. Rain ran off her mother’s umbrella in rivulets, creating a curtain of water between us.

  “Mina,” I repeated, rolling it along my tongue and memorizing the sweetness of its flavor. The nickname fit her. I smiled wider.

  “Miss Belsches,” her mother corrected, though she directed her look to her daughter and her tone was not severe. I sensed an ally in Lady Belsches—or at least, she had not already decided she was opposed to me.

  Miss Belsches kept her eyes down. “Yes, of course, Mother.”

  Lady Belsches returned her attention to me and explained that she and her daughter were recently come from Invermay,
their family seat, but would be staying in Edinburgh while her husband attended Session. He was to arrive later in the week from London, where he’d had other business to settle.

  I listened intently and commented appropriately, but my eyes found their way back to Miss Belsches time and again. Had I ever felt such a rush of invigoration? Had my heart ever fluttered quite like this?

  “Might I walk your daughter home, Lady Belsches?” I asked when there was a lull in the conversation.

  Lady Belsches’s eyebrows lifted, and I hurried to explain my hasty offer.

  “Anyone here can vouch for my character,” I said, nodding toward the other women in the group. “And I could supply the aid of my umbrella.” Being as it was Sunday, there were no carriages for hire, meaning that Miss Belsches and her mother would have to huddle together beneath their single umbrella, which was not as wide as my own.

  “Mr. Scott is as fine a lad as they come,” Mrs. Allaway said, earning my eternal gratitude. “His father is a Writer of the Signet, and Walter is apprenticing.”

  Actually, I was working at full capacity—more hours than my father, truth be told—but I wasn’t about to argue.

  Mrs. Duncan added her thoughts as well. “His mother’s father was the late Dr. John Rutherford. A fine physician here in the city and former professor at the University’s medical school.”

  Lady Belsches’s eyebrows lifted. “Rutherford?” she repeated, looking at Mrs. Duncan. “Not Anne Rutherford’s father?”

  “The verra same,” Mrs. Duncan said, her smile widening. She nodded toward me. “Walter is the third of five children belongin’ to Anne and Mr. Walter Scott.”

  Lady Belsches returned her attention back to me. “Five children,” she said in a wistful tone. Her smile was softer. “I know your dear mother, Mr. Scott. We were girls together and companions as we grew. We lost touch after we both married.”

  I knew they would have lost touch due to my mother marrying a Writer of the Signet and Lady Belsches marrying a baronet, but I only smiled wider, grateful for the connection that could only help me. I might be middle-class, but MacDougall and Campbell blood ran through my veins, and I had as much pride in my heritage as anyone who claimed a title.