Amanda Scott (14 page)

“From one of the septs, yes. He is a Bethune. Why do you ask?”

“He is not reliable.”

“How can you say that? He was loyal enough to his master to deny me passage. You heard me tell the others so yourself.”

“Did you tell him who you are? Before you answer, you might as well know that it won’t matter a whit one way or the other. If you told him and he did not help you, he is disloyal to his clan and thus cannot be trusted. If you did not tell him, the likelihood is that he would have helped you if you had. Can you deny that?”

She could not. She had told Bethune only that she was a Maclean of Craignure, not that she was Sir Hector’s daughter. “That is not fair!”

“Life is not fair. Patrick will hire another man. Where is your mother?”

“You cannot expect me to tell you that.”

“I suppose not, although I assure you that I did not approve of her arrest.”

“She was guilty of nothing more than looking after our tenants.”

“They are no longer your tenants.”

“No, they are Crown tenants who were being allowed to die of cold and lack of proper food,” she said with heat. “Mam just did her duty. She did not shirk it merely because Butcher Cumberland and the filthy English seized our land.”

“I’d take care to mind my manners better if I were you, mistress. You do yourself no good by hurling abuse at me.”

“What good would it do me to be nice to you? Can you help my mother? I’ll warrant you want to know where she is just so you can help Red Colin capture her and send her back to Edinburgh in chains.”

“I have no such wish,” he said quietly. “Indeed, from what I have learned of her crime, I believe that her conviction should be set aside. I will see what can be done about that if you like.”

“I wish I could believe you meant that,” she said wistfully.

“I do not make idle promises, mistress. I will do what I can for her ladyship.” He paused, but before she could summon up words to express her wary gratitude, he added unexpectedly, “Do you and your household have sufficient food?”

Astonished, she said, “Aye, sir.”

“And wood to keep you warm?”

“Aye.” She wanted to ask what difference it would make, since Red Colin would evict them in six weeks’ time, but she bit her tongue. With long experience of Campbells to guide her, she did not trust Calder’s promise, but neither did she want to make more of an enemy of him than he was. She would be grateful for any help, particularly if he could arrange for Lady Maclean’s safe return from Glen Drumin. Since her ladyship was presently safe, however, the threatened eviction was a more serious matter, and he had already said he would not help with that.

“Do you frequently help villains escape from justice?” he asked her.

Caught off guard again, she gasped. She saw nothing in his expression to aid her, either, although the flinty look had softened. Still, she could not answer his question without placing herself in more jeopardy.

As he had done before, he waited with an expectant air, clearly prepared to remain silent until she spoke. It was most unnerving behavior.

At last, she said, “A moment ago, you warned me not to play games, sir, but it seems to me that you do so yourself. How can I answer such a question?”

“Truthfully.”

“If I say no, you will not believe me. If I say yes, you may see me hanged. I should thus be a fool to say either one.”

He smiled, and her breath caught in her throat, for not only were his teeth the whitest, most even she had ever seen, but the smile lightened his countenance and brought a sparkle to his eyes. The creases in his cheeks deepened to reveal a tiny dimple near the right one. She wondered what it would be like to hear him laugh.

He touched a finger to the point of her chin, and although his touch was light, it seemed to burn. Entranced, she could not seem to make herself step away.

She said nothing, but she was aware of nothing and no one but him. She could hear his even breathing over the hush of the breeze caressing the trees and stirring the grass in the yard. She felt a pulse beating where his finger touched her chin, but whether it was his pulse or her own, she had no idea.

At last, she said in little more than a whisper, “What will you do?”

“About you?”

She wanted to nod, but she still could not move. Her breath dried her lips, and her tongue felt too big for her mouth.

Looking into her eyes, he said, “That will depend, won’t it?”

“On what?” She licked her lips.

“On how much trouble you give me, mistress.”

Faced with that steady, unblinking gaze, she felt an overwhelming urge to promise him that she would give him no trouble at all. She managed to overcome the impulse by sheer force of will, however, saying instead, “I make trouble only for those who deserve it, my lord. To others, I am as meek as a lamb.”

He grimaced wryly and shook his head. “If only I could believe that. I don’t, of course, for although it is the first day of the month, I am not such an April gowk as to fall into the same trap a third time. Take heed of my warning, mistress. You have already made me look a proper dunder-clunk for believing you in Edinburgh, and for allowing myself to be led from Castle Stalker into ambush. Do not judge my intelligence by those actions, or you will swiftly come to grief.”

His expression hardened, and she could not mistake the menace in his voice when he added, “I am amazed by my restraint. You deserve, at the least, a good hiding. If Patrick Campbell learns what I know, you could be hanged. So take care, for if I catch you at such tricks again, I promise you will come by your just deserts.”

Believing him, she had the good sense for once in her life to say nothing.

He waited, as he had done before, but she felt no pressure in the silence, and when he glanced toward the house again, she began to breathe more easily. Then, turning back, he said abruptly, “I hope you’ve got better sense than to endanger the rest of your family by embroiling yourself in any business you cannot handle.”

He did not wait for a reply then but turned on his heel and strode to Red Colin, still waiting by the gate. Watching him go, Diana realized that her heart was thumping hard again. She realized something else, too, that for once Mary had been wrong. They did have something to fear from Calder, and that was Diana’s unexpected and most disturbing attraction to him.

Rory did not look back. A voice in the back of his head was calling him everything he had told Mistress Diana he deserved to be called. She had done it again. If ever a wench deserved throttling, that one did, and here he was, walking away, having warned her to take care. What manner of witch was she?

Glenure watched his approach, the wary expression on his face showing Rory that at least someone was properly awed by his authority. Certainly Diana Maclean felt no awe of him. She was sassy and sharp-tongued, with no sense of her danger. And he, who ought to have brought that sense home to her in no uncertain terms, had asked instead if she got enough to eat. Just the thought of that now made him grimace with annoyance.

Glenure stepped back a pace.

“Where the devil do you think you are going?” Rory demanded.

“N-nowhere, my lord. I hope ye dinna think I’ve done wrong here,” Glenure added hastily, “because I have not. Sir Hector Maclean—that be the Laird of Craignure, ye ken. Him being attainted after Culloden, his lands was properly forfeited, and just this past sennight, I were sent word that them lands, and Ardsheal’s as well, was to be annexed inalienably to the Crown.”

“Yes, I knew about Ardsheal’s.”

“Do ye ken as weel that the Court awarded her ladyship a hardship grant of nearly one hundred and seventy pounds after the Rising, my lord?”

“No, I did not read that in the record,” Rory said. “I have sat with the Barons’ Court just on two years now, you see.”

“Aye, and so I thought. But since ye’ve met that young vixen daughter of hers, it won’t surprise ye none to learn they be cut from the same bolt of cloth.”

“No,” Rory said with a sigh. “That does not surprise me.” Seeing Thomas approaching with the horses, he gestured to him, adding, “My man will follow if we walk along together. Which way do you go?”

“Back to Glen Ure,” the factor said, stepping aside to let Rory precede him through the gate. “We’ll take the shore road as far as the next glen along. That will save me turning back to walk up Glen Duror. I’ve no wish to encounter James of the Glen again today, I can tell you.”

Remembering that Diana had referred to James Stewart by that appellation, Rory said sympathetically, “He does seem to side with the Macleans.”

“Aye, sure, he would then. He’s close kin to her ladyship, James is, though he did come wrong side o’ the blanket.”

Rory said nothing.

Glenure shot him a look from under his bushy red brows. “You’re thinking I bear a similar kinship to Balcardane, I expect. Well, that’s true enough, though that isna the one that’s usually flung in my teeth when folks dinna like what I do.”

“Your mother is a Cameron.”

“Aye, she hails from Morven, across the loch, and my authority extends to some few estates there, but I do my duty, my lord. None will deny that.”

“Is that why you are attempting to evict Lady Maclean and her family?”

The unbecoming flush told Rory he had hit the mark, but Glenure said, “I do no more than I am told to do. Not only is her ladyship presently a felon evading the law, but she has not taken the oath. What’s more, the grant she received after the Rising didn’t mollify her in the least. She’s a damned difficult woman, my lord. Insisted on managing her deceased husband’s estate, then carried her insolence to the point of felling trees illegally and refusing to disburse her rents.”

“Which is why you arrested her.”

“Aye,
and
why the bailie’s court sent her to prison. To teach her a lesson.”

“A harsh lesson,” Rory said. They had reached the road along the loch shore, but he was still feeling his way in the conversation. Uncertain of Glenure and wondering if the man would see reason if he met it face to face, he wondered, too, what imp made him want to throw obstacles in his path when he was plainly doing his appointed duty.

“’Twas no more than she deserved,” the factor insisted, “but because of it, I’m warned that her son would like to murder me. Don’t believe it myself.”

“She has a son?”

“Och, aye, young Neil—Sir Neil Maclean, as he ought rightly to be called. To give the lad credit, he puts on no airs, and most folks dinna call him so.”

“But if he wants to murder you—”

“Rumors, my lord. I take no more stock of them than I did of rumors that the Barons would not confirm me in my post. I wait for a thing to happen. That’s my way. If young Neil Maclean is a killer, I’ll eat my wife’s best Sunday bonnet. Now if they was to say the same of that heathenish Allan Breck …”

“Tell me about him,” Rory invited.

Glenure shot him an oblique look. “Word is, that fox is loose again.”

“He is.”

Nodding, Glenure said, “Thought as much. They said he’d been run to earth, but I didna believe it. Said I’d wait and see him in chains first. Doubt I’ll ever enjoy that pleasure. As slickery as an eel, is Allan Breck.”

“Is he a killer?”

Glenure shrugged. “He’s more a messenger, my lord. There’s them that say he means to stir up a new rebellion. Don’t think that myself. He isna the sort others follow. The lairds send him to collect their second-rents, and folks here send him back with messages for their exiled menfolk. He spends a deal of time on Rannoch Moor, trying to recruit the rougher lads there for Ogilvy’s French army. Thinks he’s a bigger noise than what he really is, does Allan Breck. He don’t bother me none, nor I don’t bother him.”

A huge brown and white osprey plunged to the surface of the loch so close as to startle both men, then swooped up again with a struggling salmon in its talons.

“I’ll tell you what I think about Lady Maclean,” Rory said, watching the bird. “I think we’d be wise to drop the charges against her.” Looking at Glenure then, he added, “They are devilish unpopular, you know. She seems to have done no more than try to protect people toward whom she feels a strong sense of duty.”

With a suspicious look, Glenure said slyly, “Trying to catch me out, my lord? Still thinking I might favor the damned rebels? I don’t. No one seems to care a whit that I fought against them in the last rising.”

“It is not my intention to question your loyalty, Glenure.”

“Well, be that as it may, the woman is guilty and did not serve her full time. I willna drop the charges, my lord, and if I catch her, back she goes.”

“Those two young women may become destitute if you throw them out of their house,” Rory said, hoping to stir his sympathy if he could not convince him he was not testing his loyalty.

“They won’t have to leave,” Glenure said smugly. “Already got that worked out, I have. The good Campbell family that will move into Maclean House come Term Day will provide honest employment for both those lassies, so they willna starve or go a single night without a roof over their heads. I’m a compassionate man, I am, and if that shows disloyalty to the Crown, then so be it, my lord.”

Rory found himself without a word to say. Although he had seen Diana Maclean act the roles of laundress and maidservant, he could not imagine the proud young woman he had met today working for any Campbell family to earn her daily bread. Mary Maclaine might do so without mishap, but the very thought of the quiet seventh daughter scrubbing floors or waiting on others disturbed him almost as much as the thought of Diana attempting to fill such a subservient role.

Though he would have liked to order Glenure to drop the charges and vacate the eviction notice, he lacked the authority to do either one by himself. Such actions required rulings from the full Barons’ Court, and their next formal sitting was two months away. He would be back in Edinburgh by then, able to exert his influence to protect Diana and her family, but the mischief the dauntless wench might get up to in the meantime made his blood run cold.

D
IANA WAITED ONLY UNTIL
Ian had left Maclean House before declaring, “We must ask James what to do about the eviction notice, Mary.”