Clandara (42 page)

“We should go faster,” he said. “Tell my father we should ride on and let the rest catch up on foot!”

“You tell him,” David answered. “You know the way to that place better than any of us!”

The old Chief had not dismounted; he looked down at his eldest son and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, for he saw the look on James's face, and it was full of pain.

“I'm glad to see you eager,” he said. “It shows your heart is in the business. When it's done and you're a man again, you'll bless me. Tell our people to increase their pace. We'll need time to dispose ourselves while one of us tests the gate. I want to catch them sleeping sweetly.”

One of the tacksmen came up to James and held his horse as he remounted.

“I was thinking of Murdoch, your milk-brother. How he would have relished this!”

James turned on him with an oath. “Get back behind! There's to be no talking!”

Sir Alexander crouched low on his mount's back; his plaid was wrapped tightly round him and his bonnet pulled down; the eagle feather of the Chief was broken and it drooped. He watched the little scene and shook his head.

“I'll be behind you, my son, when the moment comes … For, by God, I don't trust you … David, go on in front. The ground's clear ahead and we'll make speed.”

By three o'clock in the morning they reached the north shore of Loch Ness, and as they rounded it, on foot now and without a word passing between them, they saw the crenellated turrets of Clandara Castle outlined in the bright moonlight on the side of the hill.

Captain Booth was not a sentimental man; when he did marry – and there was a well-connected and modestly endowed young woman in his home county whom he had already decided to honour – he would treat his wife with the right mixture of firmness and fairness and proper affection which would ensure that he was master in the relationship at all times. He had a natural distrust of extravagant emotions; the word love was one he used as a verb rather than a noun. He could truthfully say that he had loved a number of women in his twenty-three years, beginning in the accepted fashion with a little servant in the house when he was fifteen and she an experienced village slut of thirteen. He had done no more than kiss the hand of the respectable young lady he intended to propose to when he returned to England, and he was quite prepared to supplement her inadequacies as a lover by taking a discreet mistress later on. His world was very orderly and its patterns were straight and rigidly adhered to; there was no provision in any of them for a woman who risked her freedom for a man to whom she was not even married, or for a father who coldly abandoned his own daughter to imprisonment and did not even wish to be told of her fate.

The Captain sat down to dinner in a pensive and uncomfortable mood, and he left it feeling positively confused and rather angry. He felt he had a right to be vindictive. His efforts to treat the inhabitants of Clandara as loyalists had brought him nothing in the way of gratitude, but instead put him in a situation where he found himself punishing a woman who had insulted him, only to end by feeling embarrassed and guilty about her. Her taunt still stung him, so too did the bitter insult spat at him in the wood when she lay at his feet, and even her bonds didn't quell her insufferable pride.

It would have been so much easier if her father hadn't broken every rule of gentlemanly conduct by callously consigning her to the Captain's custody. “I do not even wish to know what becomes of her.” The Captain was deeply shocked. He had been armed against protests, threats, pleas for mercy, even bribes – he had already experienced them all in his dealings with these extraordinary, uncivilized people. But the relentless attitude of the Earl towards his only child, however she had sinned against their tribal customs, was something which the young Englishman could not understand. It had the one effect which he had believed impossible. It made him sorry for his prisoner, and it stirred some curiosity in him about this love of which she spoke and which had so much power over a mere woman. He could not imagine the future Mrs. Booth doing what Katharine Ogilvie had done. After the port was served and his ensigns had irritated him by their cheerful discussion of the extraordinary day's events, the Captain sent a message that he was coming up to see the Lady Katharine.

“Plead with him,” Annie entreated. “Beg him! What does it matter, milady, so long as he doesn't take ye to Inverness?”

Katharine shook her head.

“I never thought I'd hear such advice from you,” she said gently. “What would you have me do, Annie, go on my knees to him? How do you know,” she added, “that his price may not be higher than just pleading? Have you thought of that?”

Annie turned pink; the struggle between her sense of outrage and her shrewd countrywoman's assessment of the proper values showed so plainly on her face that Katharine nearly laughed. She felt so tender and grateful to the plain little woman, her poor face blotched with crying and her sharp brain working furiously in an attempt to save her mistress. Finally Annie made up her mind.

“If ye'll forgive me,” she said, “I think even that would be worth it if it would keep you from their prison. Ye're no virgin now, milady, and honour is all very well, but how do ye know what your situation might be later on? Do what the ruffian asks, and we'll find some way to make up for it later …”

“By cutting his throat, I suppose,” Katharine said. “No, dear Annie. I shall neither beg him nor take him into my bed. He can do what he pleases with me.”

“Don't ye understand?” Annie wailed. “Your father has given you up – you haven't a friend to help you now except us poor servants in the Castle and there's little enough we can do to save ye until ye're out of here and on the road to Inverness! Why else is this scoundrel coming up here but he's some plan in mind to let you go?”

“I don't know why he's coming and I do not care,” Katharine said. “And you are not to egg the men on to do something foolish tomorrow.” She took one of Annie's rough hands in hers. “Don't
you
understand, I'm finished with pretending now? What I did today is what I should have done – I tried to help the man I love. And I do love him, Annie. I've never stopped loving him. Robert's death, all our grief and disappointment, even what his brother tried to do to me – nothing has killed my love and nothing ever will. I've known another man – and God rest him wherever he is – but if he came back tomorrow, by some miracle, I couldn't even let him touch me. As long as James Macdonald lives, that's all I want. As for my father – we have given each other up. I have no one left now but you and my few friends in the Castle, and I don't mind. Let that English pig come up, and don't you dare to say one word to plead for me, or I will never forgive you. Do you understand that?”

“Och, very well,” Annie sighed. “I'll tell him he can come up now. At least let's see what he says …”

The last time he had seen her, only a few hours before, she had been struggling in the grasp of Sergeant Brewster, whose evil mind he had read as clearly as if the soldier had shouted its contents aloud, with her riding dress crumpled and dirty, her hair hanging down her back and her lovely face disfigured with dirt and blood from the soldier's blow. Now she faced him calmly in her own room, as beautiful and self-composed as ever, with nothing but a bruise near her mouth as evidence of the rough treatment she had received.

“What do you want, Captain Booth?” Katharine said. “I was about to go to bed.”

He was in the superior position and it gave him the confidence to ignore the snub.

“I came for two reasons, Lady Katharine. Firstly, to make sure that you are ready to leave in the morning, and secondly, to say how sorry I am that this situation has come about.”

“I am quite ready,” she said. “I have a small box packed. I presume I can take that?” He nodded. “And I should like to take my maid with me – provided that she is free to leave Inverness at any time. If you can't promise that, then I shall go alone.” She glanced quickly at Annie who she knew was about to protest, and made a sign for her to leave the room.

“I can't really promise you anything,” the Captain said. “When you arrive at the Capital you will be under the Duke's authority. I had expected that your father …” He hesitated awkwardly. “I had taken it for granted that he would be going with you and would see the Duke's aide, Lord Bury … I had thought at least he would have come to see you himself.” He looked at her almost appealingly. “Please believe me, Lady Katharine, I had no idea that you would be completely abandoned in this way – I really cannot understand it!”

“I told you, you don't know the Highlands,” she said quietly. “In my father's eyes I have placed myself beyond forgiveness. The Macdonalds of Dundrenan killed my brother because he wouldn't join the Prince. Now do you understand why he has disowned me?”

“No!” Booth exclaimed angrily. “No, I don't! No Englishman would treat his daughter like this and leave her to a foreign army's mercy, knowing she might be tried for her life! Lady Katharine,” he came close to her, “all this is outside my experience. I don't understand your customs and I hope to God I never shall. All I want to say to you is this: if there were any way I could reverse this thing, I would. But it's beyond my power. If I let you go unpunished for what you did today I'd be court-martialled, and, believe me, in his present mood the Duke would have me shot. I daren't do it; my ensigns know, the troopers know – it's just not possible!”

“I understand that,” Katharine said gently. She felt almost sorry for him. “I don't blame you, Captain. You are only doing your duty as I tried to do mine. I have no regrets; if I could give my life to save James Macdonald I would do it gladly.”

“He's very lucky,” the Captain muttered. “By God, he is.”

“Will you excuse me now?” she asked him. “I'm very tired.”

“I'll go,” the Captain said. “And, once again, I'm very sorry. Please believe that.”

“I do,” Katharine answered. She felt very weary. At the door he turned again.

“I'll ride in with you tomorrow and see what I can do myself,” he said, and then he went out and shut the door. She heard him snapping angrily at the sentry to relieve his feelings and then his footsteps died away along the passage and all was quiet again.

She did not call Annie immediately. For a few moments she sat on alone in the room among the things she had known all her life and which she would never see again. If the English released her eventually, her home would be barred to her for ever. The best she could hope for was to take shelter with Mrs. Ogilvie if Spey House was still left standing.

Fate and their families had divided her and James and left them both as outcasts; he would never even know what had become of her.

“Milady.” Annie came in and knelt beside her. “Come to bed now, my poor lamb, and rest.”

“It was no good, Annie,” she said. “He had no dishonourable intentions. He only wanted to say that he was sorry. He's coming with us tomorrow to see what he can do.”

“I know,” Annie said. “I was listening at the door. Never mind, never mind. We're not at Inverness yet. When I've put ye safe to bed I'll go and see my grandfather. He's waiting below.”

She lit the candles in Katharine's bedroom and turned back the sheets of her bed and helped her into it. She leaned over her anxiously.

“Will ye sleep now? Is there anything ye want?”

“Nothing,” Katharine said gently. “Good night, Annie, and God bless you.”

It was long past midnight and one by one the lights in the Castle had gone out. The Earl was in his bed, deep in a drunken, dreamless sleep, and Katharine slept at last, while Annie dozed uneasily outside her bedroom and the English trooper nodded at his post outside her door. Everything was very still with the living stillness of a great house full of people, and in the servants' quarters old Angus and half a dozen men were lying on their hidden weapons. They planned to leave the Castle very early and lie in wait for Katharine and the escort on the Inverness road. Not one of them possessed a pistol; it would be swords and dirks against the sabres and firearms of the English cavalry, but not one of them drew back or counted the cost to himself. In her rooms above the Great Hall, the Countess Margaret waited with her maid. Jean wore a long dark cloak and hood; now that the moment had come, she held her candle in a steady hand and all the fatalism of her Highland blood gave her a sense of purpose which was stronger than fear.

The Countess looked at the watch which she wore on her belt.

“It's nearly half past one. Go and look out in the corridor and see if you can hear anyone stirring!”

Jean opened the door cautiously and stepped outside. She went a little way down the long dark corridor and listened. There was not a sound and no glimmer of light anywhere.

“All are sleeping, milady,” she said. The Countess came out after her, holding the candle, shielding the flame with one hand.

“Take this and go down now,” she whispered. “Remember, if you're seen by any of the English, make some excuse about a lover. They'll believe you. The same excuse will serve you if one of the castle servants sees you; pretend to go to the stables where the troopers are … Do you understand?”

Jean nodded. “I know what to say,” she answered. “Rely on me, milady. I'll get to the gate somehow.”

“Take out the bar,” the Countess said. “Be careful, child, make no sound, for if you're seen it will be the end of our plans and the end of us too. Lay it down quietly by the side of the wall and then come back as fast as you can … Now go on, Jean, and make no mistakes.”

“If they don't come,” Jean murmured, “and that gate is found open …”

“If they don't come before dawn,” Margaret said, “then we'll know they won't be here tonight and you must slip down and put the bar in place again. It's easy, girl, there's nothing to fear!”