Amanda Scott (8 page)

Diana was not so certain that James Stewart would welcome Allan’s arrival. Ever since the new factor had arrived the previous year to take James’s place, there had been increasing enmity between the two, and she knew Red Colin would like nothing better than to learn that James had harbored a fugitive. She would leave that for James to explain, however. Making Allan realize that everyone at Maclean House might not welcome him was more important now.

She, her mother, Neil, and their cousin Mary Maclaine shared the gray stone house at the pleasure of the exiled Laird of Ardsheal, who had the honor to be Lady Maclean’s brother. The late Sir Hector Maclean’s land on the Island of Mull having been confiscated—there could be no other word for it—after the tragic loss at Culloden, Ardsheal had provided his sister and her children with the house known now as Maclean House, at a peppercorn rent. That he had been able to do so was due entirely to James Stewart’s having been Crown factor at the time and having agreed to allow Lady Maclean’s tenancy of the house and the land surrounding it.

It was that sort of thing, Diana mused now, that had got James into trouble with the authorities and had given the powerful Barons of the Scottish Exchequer an excuse to replace him with Colin Campbell. The Campbells and the wicked Duke of Cumberland—a man even the English called the Butcher—had said James was too lenient with rebel families, and perhaps he was. But he was a fair man, too, well loved and respected in Appin country.

People did not like Red Colin. They barely tolerated him, and people across the loch on Cameron lands were actively hostile. Since his mother was a Cameron, they—quite sensibly in Diana’s opinion—considered him a traitor to the clan.

They soon came to Aucharn, James Stewart’s farmhouse nestled in a clearing a mile or so from the mouth of the glen. Before they had crossed the stable yard, James hurried out of the house to greet them. He was a small, wiry man in his late fifties, not much above five and a half feet tall.

“Allan, is that you?” he demanded, striding forward. “Lord bless me, lad, but you’re taking the devil of a chance! They are searching high and low for you. ’Tis only by the greatest good fortune that there are no men watching this place now.”

“Good fortune favors me,” Allan said with a grin, putting out his hand. “How are you, James? As you might have guessed, your prodigal needs a bit of help, but I’ll stay only overnight, then take myself out of your hair. I mean to visit my mother in Rannoch, and see what I can do to drum up recruits there for Ogilvy’s regiment. I trust you will have the second rents for me when I return.”

James grimaced. ‘As to that, lad, I’ll do what I can, but it won’t be as much as last time. Folks haven’t got any extra money, and that’s the plain truth. They did not mind scrimping and scraping to help look after Lady Ardsheal and her children after Culloden, but once she went to join her husband … Well, the truth is, folks are tired of paying their rents twice, and I can do little about that.”

“Dash it all,” Allan said angrily, “they should pay the rent to their lawful landlords, not to the blasted Campbells for the English Crown. Appin folk are a spineless lot, that’s what. They should throw the Campbells out, beginning with that cursed devil’s spawn who took your place. Where is their loyalty to their own?”

“That will do, Allan Breck,” James said firmly. “After living with me for most of your youth, you should know better than to complain of such things. I know what is due to Ardsheal, none better. He is my half-brother, after all. But he is in France, playing croquet on the archbishop’s lawn, not here, facing Colin Glenure.”

Diana held her breath, knowing of old that her cousin’s temper could flare dangerously when someone crossed his will, but although he flushed at the mild reprimand, he did not attempt to argue with James. That was not really surprising, since most people respected James. Not only did he run Aucharn farm but he was a small-scale entrepreneur with a dozen irons in the fire, and he was educated. It was to him that Appin people turned when baffled by legal and financial problems.

James was a kind man, too, and generous. Over the years, he had fostered a succession of orphan children in his household, including Allan himself, for Allan’s father, a man of some notoriety and few scruples, had died when Allan was ten. As a result of James’s knowledge and many kindnesses, he was well known and needed no further identification anywhere in Appin or Lochaber than “James of the Glen.”

As tacksman for Ardsheal, although he was no longer the Crown factor, he was still responsible for vast portions of the estate, including Maclean House. As a natural son of the fourth Laird of Ardsheal, he was half-brother not just to the present laird but also to Lady Maclean.

Allan said now in an offhand way, “I hope you don’t mean to send me away, for I do need a place to sleep tonight, and Diana don’t want me at Maclean House.”

James clapped him on the back. “You know you always have a bed here with me and Margaret and the lads, Allan. Just keep out of sight, and don’t frighten her by saying the Campbells know you’re in Appin country. She knows never to speak your name abroad, so she won’t talk out of turn.”

“I thought you said they searched here already,” Neil said.

“So they did, but Margaret was off walking in the woods with your cousin Mary at the time, and she never laid eyes on them.”

“With Mary, was she?” Allan shook his head. “I’m surprised Mary didn’t see the soldiers in a vision—aye, and me, as well—and warn Margaret all about us.”

Diana said tartly, “You know Mary would not give you away, Allan, so don’t say such things. You also know that her visions don’t come on command, and that she rarely sees things other than extreme danger or death when they strike someone near and dear to her. Faith, she saw my father’s death and those of her brothers at Culloden, which is nothing to mock, sir. I promise you, if you mean to plague her about the Sight, you’ll not find yourself welcome at Maclean House now or later.”

“I’ll pay my respects to your mother nonetheless, my dear,” he said, looking down at her in the superior way he had perfected when they were children.

“You won’t, for she is not there,” Diana said. “I thought someone must have told you that. Red Colin had her arrested for felling trees on our old estate, and for failing to turn over the rents people still insist upon paying her instead of him. He said she refused to show respect for the proper authorities, and he had her cast into Edinburgh Castle prison.”

“He
what?”
Allan’s eyes blazed, and he turned on Neil. “Why the devil did you not tell me of this outrage at once?”

“Thought you knew,” Neil said with a shrug. “It’s ancient news hereabouts, and you never asked about her. You did not ask about anyone, in fact, except Diana. You spent most of last night and the night before telling Bardie and me about your grand exploits in France and how delightful it is there, and how much I should like it if I were to join Ogilvy’s French regiment.”

Diana glared at her cousin. “You must not try to recruit Neil. Just who do you suppose will look after Mam and the rest of us if you take him back with you?”

“He don’t want to go,” Allan said, “but that is of no concern now. I cannot believe anyone would be so daft as to put your mother in prison. Red Colin has much to answer for. Someone ought to spit him and roast him to a slow turn.”

Feeling much in sympathy with that notion, Diana smiled at him and said, “You needn’t take him on for Mam’s sake. She is free now. I meant only that she is not at Maclean House, and won’t be there for some time yet to come.”

“Where is she?”

“She is safe, Allan. You are the one who taught me never to talk about such things, not to anyone, you said, lest I let a cat out of the bag. I make it a practice to tell no one, but though you have no need to know where, I promise you she is safe.”

To her surprise, he nodded and said with a chuckle, “Good lass. Stick to that buckle and thong, and you won’t go wrong. I take it then that the authorities did not release her voluntarily.”

Diana smiled. “No, they did not.”

Allan looked at Neil again. “I never would have thought you’d grow up to such advantage, lad. Who helped you set her free?”

Diana bristled but relaxed at once when she saw Neil’s eyes begin to dance. “I was there,” he said, “but I did not set foot inside the castle walls. Diana did it all. She insisted that we ride to Edinburgh even though snow still lay thick on the ground, especially in Glen—in the higher glens,” he amended hastily with a rueful glance at his sister. Then he looked away from her again and added on a purposeful note, “The fellow that Bardie knocked off his horse earlier …” Though he paused and shot another apologetic look at Diana, he went on determinedly, “You ought to know that Diana met him in Edinburgh, and he recognized her at Castle Stalker.”

Diana had definitely not wanted to discuss Calder with her cousin, but she gave Neil full marks for diversionary tactics, because Allan’s eyes hardened at once with speculation. She knew he was no longer thinking about Lady Maclean’s whereabouts or stewing about Red Colin’s having replaced James as factor.

“What was Calder doing in Edinburgh?” he demanded.

Diana shrugged. “He was visiting the prison governor,” she said, going on glibly to explain how she had freed her mother, and how Calder had believed her to be an innocent laundress. “Even at Stalker, he did not question my being a maidservant,” she added. She did not mention that he had asked Patrick Campbell to send her to his bedchamber, but her expression must have revealed more than she realized, for her cousin frowned.

He said sternly, “Just how did you come to meet him there?”

“I told you, he is kin to Argyll,” she said. “He was visiting Patrick Campbell with messages from the duke. And, too, he said that he and Patrick went to school together when they were lads.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Allan said. “What if he is searching for your mother? What if he knows who you are and hid the knowledge from you in the hope that you would lead him to her? Why were you with him this morning at all if he thought you no more than a simple maidservant?”

“Because of you,” she said instantly.

“Here now, Miss Diana,” James said, chuckling. “We cannot hold Allan responsible for all the ills that befall us. How could that have been his doing?”

“Because he escaped, of course. I told Calder I was afraid that once Patrick and his men stopped searching for the missing prisoner, they would begin to wonder which of us in the castle had helped him escape. Since I was the newest maidservant, I feared they would suspect me. I also told him that I had not expected to serve in an all-male establishment, that I had believed the captain’s lady would be living there with him. Since she was not, I said, I feared for my virtue.”

Allan chuckled and said, “Clever thinking, but mind you don’t do that sort of thing again. You’ve got a lot of spunk for a lass, and I’ll warrant you can outthink most men, but you are still a lady, Diana. You ought to behave like one.”

She stuck out her tongue at him, and the others laughed.

James said, “If you mean to stay here, Allan, you’d best get your gear inside and let Neil and Diana get on home. You and I have much to talk about, I expect, and it won’t do for you to show yourself too openly.”

Allan agreed, but as Diana and Neil turned away, he said, “When you send a message to your mother, include my regards and the laird’s, will you? Tell her I’ll be in Appin country or Lochaber for some time before I return to France, so if she wants to see me or to send a message to Ardsheal, she need only let me know.”

“Aye,” Diana said, “I’ll tell her. And thank you, Allan, for rescuing me.”

“Tit for tat, lass, tit for tat.” He kissed her on the cheek, bade Neil farewell, and strode into the house with James and Fergus Gray.

Leaving Aucharn, Diana and Neil followed the river path to the mouth of the glen, through the clachan of gray stone, thatched-roof cottages known as Inshaig. Little more than a half hour later, following the loch shore, they arrived at the gray stone house perched in a grassy meadow overlooking Loch Linnhe at the south end of Cuil Bay, which had been their home for the past six years.

They found their cousin Mary cleaning vegetables in the kitchen with the maid, Morag MacArthur. Mary saw them first and rushed to greet them, pushing loosened strands of her thick tawny hair back behind her ears. “Thank heaven,” she said. “I have been having the oddest feelings these past two days, like some internal creature gnawing at my mind. It disappeared this morning, but since nothing had changed as far as I knew, I have been in something of a worry.”

Neil, hugging her, said, “You should know better. I warrant you feared Allan would leave Diana behind, but it was no such thing. Since she was in a den of Campbells, as he said, he would have stayed for her even if Bardie and I had not been with him. He risked his life for her, Mary, just as he risks the rope every time he sets foot in Scotland. And now that they’ve caught him once, only to lose him, they are all the more determined to capture him again.”

“I know,” Mary said in her soft voice, “but Diana was risking her life, too, Neil, and much more than that.” She looked searchingly at Diana, her light gray eyes shrewd and her gaze penetrating, but she asked no awkward questions, suggesting with her gentle smile only that Diana must be hungry.

“Famished,” Diana told her. “I had a bite this morning, but nothing since.”

“Well, we’ve got some salmon that Morag caught this morning, cucumbers that Bardie brought us from his garden, our own potatoes, and a baked custard. Not a feast, but you will both feel better after you eat. Then you can tell me the rest.”

“I’m going to wash my face,” Diana said, walking through the kitchen to the long, narrow scullery, where she poured water from a ewer into the basin. Though she knew that Mary would want to hear every detail, she was not certain just how much she wanted to tell her about the enigmatic Lord Calder.

R
ORY STRUGGLED WITH HIS
bonds after his attackers left, cursing himself for a fool with every writhing, painful movement. He could hear Thomas grunting a short distance away, and when he finally was able to rub the gag from his mouth, he called to him in a low voice.