A Kiss for a Highlander (12 page)

The next day dawned bright and cold. The crisp Northumbrian air blowing in off the sea and over the moors carried with it a scent of salt and heather that reminded Martha of her childhood and brought back bittersweet memories.

“Will you mind very much if I go with Jack to see his home at St. Anton?” Rosie asked her as they ate fresh bannocks for breakfast. “It is a long walk, but he said there is a spot on the hillside where we can look down on the house undisturbed. That will mean leaving you with Fraser for much of the day, and I know how much you dislike him.”

“I will endeavour to tolerate his presence,” Martha said calmly.

It was the strangest feeling, she thought later as, wrapping her cloak around her, she led Fraser across the village green. As if she was straddling both the past and the future. Northumberland was her past. Ahead of her, just across Hadrian’s Wall, lay Scotland and the future. She looked up at Fraser. Did he feature in anything other than her immediate future? There were too many uncertainties associated with the Jacobite cause to even consider the question. As if aware of her eyes upon him, he turned his head.

“Why do you look at me that way sometimes?” The words had left her lips before she had time to consider them.

“What way would that be, lass?”

“As if you don’t know how to feel about me.”

He didn’t answer, but a slight frown creased his brow. They walked on in silence, following a route past Bamburgh Castle. This vast monument to the county’s troubled past sprawled high on a rocky perch above the dramatic coastline. Their path took them along the top of fractured volcanic cliffs that swooped down to wide, curving beaches. Over to the southeast, the Farne Islands rose out of a dour sea, while to the west, the Cheviot Hills marched north to mark the end of the Pennines. The big skies and wide, empty spaces were pure Northumberland. Beyond lay an even wilder scene. This was the approach to Scotland. Martha shivered slightly. Tomorrow she would ride into a land that she had always believed was peopled by a race of barbaric demons. She risked a glance up at the man next to her. Had knowing Fraser changed her mind about the Scots?

“Do you miss this land at all?” Fraser asked, interrupting her thoughts, as they took a path that swung inward toward the flat plain of fields.

“No. My memories are those the reivers made for me. This is no longer my home. Derbyshire became the place I live, but I never allowed myself to call it home. I always knew that, when Rosie and Harry were grown and no longer needed me, I would have to move on and seek a new way for myself. I have never had a place to call home.”

His face was unreadable as he looked down at her. “Did ye never think to marry and make a home of your own?”

The incredulous look she gave him was her answer, and she was glad that he accepted it without further comment. Walking on in silence, they came at last to what remained of Martha’s childhood home. In the ten years or more since she had last been here, no attempt had been made to repair or rebuild the farmhouse. It was still a black, burned-out skeleton, a sad monument to what had once been a happy family dwelling.

“My brother and I used to watch for my father coming down this path each evening,” she said, looking up at the remnants of the house. “When we saw him approach, we’d run out to him, and he’d throw us up or swing us around and then pretend that he’d hurt his back.” A little smile touched her lips at the memory. “And my mother would sit just about there—by the fire—with her sewing, and she’d sing to us before bedtime each evening. They slit her from her stomach to her throat…”

She had told herself that she would not talk about that part of her life here. That, when she came here, she would concentrate only on the good memories. So those words, when they burst from her, startled Martha as much as they did Fraser. Without warning, she hurled herself into his arms. He caught her and held her close while raw, rasping sobs shook her frame as though trying to break her in two. Fraser lifted her and carried her to a fallen tree stump, where he sat with her, rocking her in his lap and holding her head against his shoulder as if she were an injured child, until at last her grief subsided.

“Are you sorry you came back here today?” he asked her much later, when she had dried her eyes.

“No, I’m glad. I feel—” she paused, searching for the right words, “—since that day I’ve felt as though my heart was enclosed behind prison walls. I’m not sure if it’s broken free yet, but I think it may finally be planning how to make its escape.” That was the best she could do to explain how releasing the storm of emotions had left her feeling. Fraser seemed to understand what she was trying to say. She didn’t add that perhaps the process had begun some time ago. Even as long ago as that day when she had touched her lips to his in the dusty darkness of the cellar.

Martha’s step was lighter as she led Fraser back along a different route, past the clifftop convent of St. Justine where she had been taken to recover from her injuries. “When the people from the town arrived and put out the fire, they thought at first that I was dead. Then, when it was found that I was still breathing, they brought me here. The nuns nursed me back to health. I used to wish they had left me to die.”

“Used to?” Fraser asked, studying her face as she looked up at the uninviting convent walls.

The wind tugged a strand of hair loose from its pins and whipped it across her face. Martha brushed it aside. “I haven’t wished that recently,” she said. “Not since the day of the battle at Swarkestone Bridge.” It was the only way she could think of to thank him. Without looking at him, she turned away and continued along the narrow path.

Chapter Twelve

Scotland did not do things by halves. Her scenery was wild, restless and angry with high, towering hills, slashed through with steep valleys and dark, eerie lochs. Her weather ranged in untamed moods from soaring discontent to blazing sunshine with no thought of moderation between. Every blink of the eye, every turn of the head, brought in its wake more drama than anything the English sister this ancient Caledonian land so loved to hate had to offer.

Fraser led the way now, directing them unerringly in a diagonal path across the country from southeast to northwest. They had spent six long, harsh days riding through glens blanketed in white, dotted here and there with stony grey cottages clinging high on bleak hillsides. The crisp scents of pine, heather and frost perfumed the wind. Stormy clouds choked the blue from the sky, and ice lay patchy and hard on the ground. At night they rested in the homes of clansmen sympathetic to the Jacobite cause. These stony-faced people welcomed Fraser and Jack with pleasure and regarded Martha and Rosie with a tight-lipped suspicion that deepened to hostility when they heard their English accents.

Finally, they arrived at a large, bleak, grey-stone manor house, set on a rocky ledge high above a small settlement just north of Fort William. It was a property that made a stark statement. To the Scots, function mattered more than beauty. Its architect had been concerned with ruthless practicality rather than aesthetics.

“Another two days of riding should find us at Inverness,” Fraser said as he guided Martha into the great hall of the house.

She nodded, too tired to speak. Gratefully, she held her ice-cold hands out to the blazing fire. A commotion in the doorway made her look up in time to see a tall young woman with hair brighter than the flames themselves erupt into the room. With a shriek of joy, she hurled herself into Fraser’s arms. He caught her up in a tight embrace and, laughing, swung her round in a circle.

“Gi’ over, ye great gallus besom!” He planted a smacking kiss on her cheek. “I recommend you try these hoyden’s tricks on Jack. He was always more inclined to fall for them than I.”

“Och.” She pulled a mock-disappointed face at him. “From your blethering and bleating, Fraser Lachlan, anyone would think ye were not right pleased to see your little sister.” She cast a measuring glance over at Martha. Her eyes, when they turned to take in Rosie, brightened with interest. Fraser, recollecting his manners, brought her forward to meet them.

“This is my sister, Lady Iona Cameron.”

“’Tis right welcome ye are in my home, ladies, although I could wish the circumstances different. My husband, Sir Donald, will be sorry to have missed you. He left this very day to join the prince at Culloden House.” Iona turned to one of the maidservants and issued a few orders. “Let me get you away to your rooms and we can talk more over dinner.”

The maid led them to their rooms. Martha’s bedchamber was warm and cosy, and she was sorely tempted to fall straight into the bed. Fearful of sleeping through and offending her hostess as well as missing the dinner she so desperately needed, she resisted the temptation. Instead, she washed her face and hands in lavender-scented water, briskly drying them on the soft towel that had been laid out for her. Brushing out her hair, she repinned it and shook out her gown. Feeling restored to something approaching equanimity, she knocked on the door of Rosie’s room. There was no answer, so she continued along the gallery toward the wide sweep of the staircase. Voices coming toward her made her shrink back against the hangings, and she gave a sigh of relief when Fraser and Iona paused around a turn in the corridor. She was still just out of their sight.

“When I saw ye’d two lasses wi ye, I thought perhaps ye’d chosen a new bride at last. Because ye mun, ye do know that?” Iona’s voice reached Martha’s hiding place.

“I do, but I’ll thank ye to leave me be on that score.” Fraser’s voice was level.

“Aye, ’tis all very well for you to look down your nose in that fine, proud way, but ye can’nae take too much time if ye are to have a son to carry the name. Och, I’ll hush then.” Her tone changed. “When I spied the wee, pretty one, I was in a right joyful stushie for ye. But she’s to be Jack’s bride, I hear. ’Tis well matched they are from what I’ve seen.”

“They are that.” Fraser’s deep tones answered her.

“So the other—the wee, dreich plain lass—she is the other’s maid?”

“Not at all. Martha is Rosie’s cousin. She is here for the proprieties.”

“Och, aye. She looks fain for that. Jack’ll no get as much as a foot near his maiden’s door wi’ that one on guard. The milk’d sour wi’ that face, and no mistake.” There was a pause. “Why the scowl, brother mine? She’s nought to you, is she?”

“’Tis not like you to be so unkind about another, Iona.”

“Och, ’tis you and I alone. Since when have I had to mind my tongue with you?” There was another pause. “That’s all she’s here for, then? The proprieties?”

“That is all, Iona. Allow me to be the master of my own business, if you please.”

Their footsteps moved away, and Martha hung back until she was sure they had really gone.
That is all.
Well, he was hardly going to tell his sister about the passionate lovemaking with which he seared the “wee dreich plain lass” both inside and out, was he?

Nevertheless, there was something cold and dismissive about the way he had said those words that made her shiver.
You are being fanciful
, she told herself.
Did you expect a declaration of undying devotion? Just because you admit him to your bed and allow him to take you any time he feels lonely and in need of release? You have no reason to think he lied when he told you you were the only woman he has bedded since his wife. He probably could have a girl in every highland glen and village if he chose, each of them more comely, more buxom and more experienced than you. You are available and need no wooing, Martha Wantage, that is the only thing you have in your favour.

When she reached the main hall, it was crowded, and Martha hesitated for a moment on the doorstep. This was her worst nightmare. To be forced to enter a room where she knew no-one. To face the prospect of having to make conversation with people she had never met before. Then a tall figure in traditional tartan stepped forward, and her heart leapt as Fraser took her hand and led her forward.

“Come in.” His eyes were warm on her face. “Take a seat at the table and let them fetch you some food. You must’nae think us rude if the talk is all of battle, but we are close now to the prince and that is all that occupies our thoughts this night.”

Before long, Martha was gratefully tucking into a bowl of hearty beef-and-barley stew mopped up with thick chunks of bread. She let the conversation—most of which was conducted in English, with the occasional Gaelic phrase or expletive thrown in—wash over her. She learned that they were just north of Glencoe, scene of the dreadful massacre at the end of the last century. The nearest town lay at the head of Loch Linnhe, amid picturesque mountains, including Scotland’s highest peak, Ben Nevis. This settlement had grown up around a hated garrison built to hold this area against the Jacobites. It was named Fort William, after the very king who had given the order to wipe out the MacDonald clan at Glencoe. Locals could not bring themselves to speak the name William of Orange, and around the table that night, the town was often given its Gaelic name of
An Gearasdan
.

“The Great Glen is the key to holding this area against Cumberland,” Fraser was saying to a group of men.

“What is the Great Glen?” Martha asked Iona, who was seated between her and Rosie.

“It is mile upon mile of the grandest glens of Scotland, from the edge of Moray Firth in the north, here to Loch Linnhe in the south. The Great Glen is of strategic importance to the English when it comes to controlling the highland Scottish clans. Over the years, English kings have tried to achieve this by building a series of fortified garrisons along the length of the Great Glen. Fort William is here in the south, Fort Augustus sits in the middle of the glen, and Fort George is just to the north of Inverness itself.”

“Aye,” one of the clansmen was responding to Fraser now. “And we have taken Fort Augustus and Fort George. But, despite our best efforts, Fort William would not fall. ’Tis a fearful omen.”

“Two weeks did we shell the place.” Another voice took up the story. “But they withstood the bombardment from our field guns. At the last, they boldly sent a body of men to take our weapons from us. Then the garrison launched their own salvo down upon us, destroying our remaining batteries. The prince gave the order for us to withdraw and the siege was abandoned. The fort remains in the king’s hands.”

There was much gloom and head shaking at this account. “What was the reason for the worsening change in our fortunes?” Fraser asked.

“Too many of the clansmen were dispirited after what happened in Derby.” Iona spoke up, her clear tones cutting across the conversation of the men. “Din’nae forget, the highlanders wanted to consolidate Scotland, to reclaim our own land. ’Twas never part of
our
plan to march south into England. Bonnie Prince Charlie it was who persuaded our men to follow him. It was he who turned tail and came back when the support he promised did’nae materialise as he thought. A lot of the highlanders went home to their clans once they crossed the border. The Jacobite army has dwindled. The prince can’nae claim the loyalty he once did.”

“But Cumberland will come for all of us. He’ll not just come for the prince,” Fraser said. “The king is after ending our very way of life now. He wants to destroy the clans.”

“We have to stand and fight.” Jack added his voice to the call.

“Aye.” The voices around the table were as one. Goblets were raised in a toast to the prince. He might have proved himself weak in Derby, but he was a Stuart, born of the true line. Scots blood flowed through his veins and—most important of all—he was no Hanoverian.

“Why do you pass your glasses over a bowl of water before you drink a toast?” Martha asked Fraser later.

“’Tis a Jacobite tradition. Before the prince landed, we drank our toasts in secret to acknowledge the ‘king across the water’. We could’nae speak his name aloud back then. The man we believe is King James III is the father of Bonnie Prince Charlie, known to the Hanoverians as the Old Pretender.”

“So that is why the prince is the Young Pretender.”

“And why he does not claim the crown for himself. He is here fighting on his father’s behalf.”

“There is another toast I do not understand,” Martha said. “You also raised your glasses to ‘the wee gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat’. Who is he?”

He laughed. “That is a childish joke in which we allow ourselves to indulge. William of Orange died after falling from his horse when it stumbled on a molehill. We Jacobites raise our glasses and drink a toast to the mole…the wee gentleman in black velvet. He killed the man we highlanders hate more than any other.” He led her to the window. Even in the darkness, she could see white-tipped mountain peaks, decorated with huge, stoic pines pointing into the crisp blue sky. “This is my land, lass. These are my highlands. No lowland plains will do for me.” The words, and the expression on his face, were fierce with pride. She thought there was a deeper message for her in what he was saying. Nothing less than this breathtaking grandeur was good enough for Fraser Lachlan.

They were hidden from the view of the rest of the room, and in that instant, they might just as well have been alone. Martha felt his eyes fasten on the flickering pulse at the base of her throat. As though unable to help himself, Fraser leaned toward her and swiftly circled the tender flesh with his tongue. Martha pulled a startled breath in between her teeth. She made a movement away from him, and he lowered his voice, drawing her back to him with his next words. “Will ye come to me tonight, Martha?”

And, when she raised her eyes to his, it didn’t matter why he wanted her. It only mattered that he did. She nodded.

After the travellers left Cameron House, another day of bone-aching travel followed, broken only by a night spent in another grey Scots mansion. The next afternoon, they took a path that skirted a vast, silver-surfaced loch. This route gave them the best view of the dramatic scenery. A hawk circled high overhead, and the scrubby gold-and-purple heather that covered the hillside steamed in the weak sunlight as the last snows of a harsh Scots winter finally began to melt away. In the afternoon a furious sky turned the lavender clouds to grey haze. Icy, relentless rain drizzled down the backs of their necks and seemed to reach into their very souls. When it eventually ceased, pathetic sunlight made an occasional attempt to sprinkle the new grass with its rays, but a low, obscure mist chased them away.

Martha thought of her parting conversation with Iona. Fraser’s sister had taken her to one side just as she was about to mount her horse.

“The battle lines will soon be drawn. ’Twill be no carnival ye go to up at Lachlan.” She nodded over at where Rosie was looking up Jack, her pretty face shining with love. “I was mistaken when you arrived. I hoped yon lass might be wi’ my brother. Fraser is a fine man, but one who is sore in need of a good woman. Has he told ye about his wife?”

Martha had been unsure how to answer that question. “I know he was married and that his wife and son both died.” It was all she could say…because it was all she knew for sure.

Iona sighed and glanced over at her brother. “’Twas a desperate time for him. I was desperately afeared for him back then. The boy succumbed first to the smallpox and Kirsty soon after. ’Tis doubtful they would have lived anyway, but the English had blockaded the glen to punish Fraser for defying them. The physician was’nae allowed through. They would’nae even allow him to send medicines. Fraser blamed himself, of course. But what could he do? He was half-dead himself from a beating and chained in an English prison cell here in Fort William. By the time they released him, Kirsty and young Ewan had been in the ground a full ten days.”