Clandara (7 page)

“I hoped your brothers would enjoy themselves,” Katharine said. “Look, isn't that Hugh partnering the little Glendar child?”

“It is,” James said, “and I rather wish it wasn't. I hope her uncle chases him off. You don't know my brother Hugh, sweetheart, or you wouldn't wish him on any innocent of seventeen. Not even for a reel.”

“Are you all really so bad, then?” she teased him. “And are they worse than you were?”

“Little different,” he answered gently. “Except Hugh, perhaps. Hugh has what his old nurse described as the devil's grin. It's seldom off his face. Do you know, my darling, we were in a fight once outside some tavern in Edinburgh when we were all very young, and I heard someone laughing. It was Hugh, fighting like Lucifer and laughing like a madman.”

“Your brother David is difficult,” she said. “Hugh has spoken to me once or twice and been quite charming, but David …”

“David belongs to the past,” James told her. “David should have been born two or three centuries back when we were all little better than pirates, preying off the Lowlanders and one another. He would have been perfectly happy then.”

“Robert is fond of you,” Katharine said suddenly. “I hope you like him a little, James, just for my sake.”

“I have a great respect for him,” he said, “and gratitude too. Without him we'd never have won your father over. Come, my love, let's walk a little in the air. It's hot in here and I have a mind to be alone with you.”

“Four more weeks,” she said to him. “We'll have so little time for meeting between now and our wedding. Come with me, James; I know a turret walk with the most beautiful view in the world.”

They climbed the narrow stone steps that wound up the inside of the castle wall and came to a little door. It opened out to a parapet walk which ran half-way round the wall and ended at the entrance to a smaller turret.

“This is called the Ladies' Walk,” Katharine said. “When my ancestors were away at the Crusades, their wives used to stand here and watch for them.”

James drew her back against the shelter of a buttress and took her in his arms.

“You'll have no need to watch for me,” he said. “I'll never leave you for a day!”

Eagerly she met his lips and hers opened under the urgent pressure of his kiss. Desire blazed up between them; even the least contact ignited their senses and brought them trembling and breathless into each other's arms, seeking each other in a frenzy of passion. Katharine had been inexperienced and shy at first; now, after long months of waiting, her instincts clamoured for the ultimate release, the final leap into the precipice which opened out beneath her every time they touched. His hands and his mouth and the muscles in his magnificent body were all things she knew and loved and which affected her like a drug. And she had seen him struggle with his own desire, winning each time and yet losing a little, until he was as helpless in his way before her as she was before him. And then again the temptation swept over them both as it had done that day so long ago on the moorland by Loch Ness, and again it was James who drew back, begging her forgiveness, tenderly caressing the soft face which he held close to his heart, and, as he held her, she felt him trembling with the crisis through which they had both passed.

“Darling heart … such a madness possessed me … I feel ashamed before you.”

“There is no shame in love,” she whispered. “I am your wanton, James. I have no shame at all.”

“You're not to say that,” he said fiercely. “I forbid you to speak that word.
I
know what wanton means … beautiful, sweet, foolish Katharine, mistress of my heart, come back to the Ball before I lose my head again.”

“Is there a turret walk at Kincarrig?” She looked over her shoulder at him as they turned to go back, and her eyes shone in competition with the great stones round her neck.

“There is no turret walk,” he answered. “But we won't need one there. Wait till you see it tomorrow …”

“I'm so excited,” she said. “I don't even want to go to bed. Why don't we ride straight there, my love, after this Ball is over?” He opened the door and helped her down the narrow winding steps.

“Because it's a five-hour ride, and I have arranged for our grieve to meet us. I shall have to go to Dundrenan tonight and then we will go together tomorrow morning; I'll bring my grieve with me and we'll meet at the Black River Bridge and ride on together. How I hope you like what I have done!”

“I'm sure I shall,” she reassured him. “But you've made such a secret of it I've been tempted to slip over alone in the last month and see … Supposing Father had not made a wedding date – didn't you even think of that when you began all these preparations of yours?”

“I knew you would be my wife,” he said quietly. “And I have prepared Kincarrig accordingly. But if you don't like it, my love, then we will pull it down and build another house. Come, isn't this the door into the main corridor?”

In the corridor, half-way down to the head of the main staircase, they suddenly came upon the Countess Margaret. She had dressed for the Ball in a gown of pale pink velvet and satin, more suitable to a girl of Katharine's age than her own. The soft, youthful colour of her dress only accentuated the pale face and the tired eyes.

“Why, Margaret!” James stopped, and, taking her hand, kissed it and bowed. “I've hardly seen you tonight. We looked for you below but I couldn't find you anywhere.”

“I have been in the Library,” she answered. She looked at him and then very slowly at Katharine, and after a second's pause her step-daughter began to blush.

“You have been taking the air, I see,” she said.

“Yes, Maggie.” James's tone changed to the friendly, mocking voice she had known when they were both children and she had paid long visits to Dundrenan House. “Yes, Maggie, we've been taking the air, as you call it. And haven't you done the same yourself, an old married woman like you?”

To his surprise, Margaret's pale face flushed a deep, painful red. She did not look at Katharine.

“No,” she said, and her voice, in contrast to her strained unhappy face, was flat and calm. “No, I haven't. Or anything like it. If you want to know why, you had best ask Katharine. I'm not surprised she hasn't told you. Now I'm going to bed. I'm not used to festivities,” and she gave her cousin a terrible smile. “Good night.”

“Well I'll be damned.” James stood looking after his cousin as she walked quickly back down the corridor and disappeared into one of the rooms. “What the devil did she mean by all that?”

“I don't think she's very happy,” Katharine said. Suddenly she felt almost guilty about the Countess. “She told me the other day that a marriage of convenience was not what she expected when she married Father.”

When James looked down at her it was the first time she had seen him frown.

“Forgive me,” he said quietly. “But what is meant here by a marriage of convenience? Explain it to me, I feel a little confused …”

“It is not consummated.” Katharine was so nervous that she spoke quite curtly. “I think she thought Father might care for her and have children by her … it's a pity the situation was not explained to her before. It would have saved the poor thing a lot of disappointment.”

“It was not explained to us either,” he said. Now they were standing facing each other in the empty corridor, and Katharine thought suddenly: “We're going to quarrel, and over Margaret Clandara, of all people in the world. It's too ridiculous …”

“Are you telling me that your father has offered my cousin that insult for all these years? Good God, Katharine, I'd rather he'd treated her as I did Gannock's daughter … it's less cruel!”

“James, don't be angry, I beg of you,” she said. “I am not responsible for what happened between Father and Margaret. Don't look so angry with me as if it were my fault …”

“Of course it's not your fault,” he said, and he put his arm around her again. But his face was set and his eyes were angry. “I was not aware of the insult to the honour of my family. No wonder your father is against our marriage; what a fine irony of fate on him, that now he'll have Macdonald grandchildren instead of the children he's denied poor Margaret!”

“James,” Katharine interrupted, “James, he didn't love her. He never pretended that, surely? Why must you start all this talk of insults and honour now? Do you want to lose me even at the last moment? Don't you know that your father and mine-would seize any excuse to start a clan war with each other and stop our marriage?”

“Of course I know,” he said. “I know very well that there's nothing I can do for Margaret without risking our happiness. But I'm not used to swallowing my honour, and the taste is bitter, I assure you.”

“When we're married,” she said suddenly, “perhaps Margaret could go back to her own people. Darling James, please don't think about it. Don't nurse a new grudge against my father or we will never be happy. If Margaret went back to Dundrenan she would be happy then. I will ask her, if you like.”

“Margaret may not have your wit and beauty, my Katharine, but she has the Macdonalds' sense of what is fitting. She will never be returned to her own people as the repudiated wife of a Fraser. She will stay here and suffer for as long as your father lives. But you can be kind to her, my love; for my sake, ease her hurt a little if you can. We were brought up together and she was all of a sister that I ever knew.”

“I will,” she promised eagerly. “I will do my best. I will do anything if only you will look at me and smile again.”

He gathered her quickly into his arms and kissed her, begging her forgiveness.

“I was a boor,” he apologized. “My darling, I didn't mean to hurt you and accuse you when you are wholly innocent. I was upset for my cousin. Did you see the look on her face when she left us? We won't talk of it again, but I wonder if your father knows what an enemy he's made … Come now, kiss me and we'll go back to the Ball. I love you so, my Katharine. To hell with Margaret and Clandara. Come.”

Back in the Great Hall, Robert advanced to meet them. He smiled at his sister and took James by the arm.

“Come into the supper-room; some of our guests have still to meet you.” And in the supper-room they were surrounded; Katharine found herself in the centre of a group of women, and soon the talk was of dresses and the mysterious Kincarrig, which she was going to see for the first time tomorrow. With the men – among them James's cousin, the Macdonald of Keppoch, and the younger son of Lord Lovat, who was head of all the Clan Fraser and a distant cousin of Clandara himself – the talk was more serious.

“There are rumours that there'll be a landing soon from France,” Macdonald of Keppoch said. “One of my sons has just come back from Paris and he said the Prince, God bless him, was ready to muster an army and set sail weeks ago. He hoped for support from the King of France, but so far the King has not received him. But he'll come one day; he'll come whether the French help him or not.”

“I hope not,” Robert said. “I hope nobody tempts the Prince into doing anything rash like his father in '15 and thereby ruining us and the Stuart cause for ever. If he comes, then he must bring an army with him and a proper plan of action. We wouldn't be dealing with each other in a new Rebellion. The English are a people to be taken seriously when it comes to war.”

“I'd match one of my men against ten of their wretched redcoats any day,” James snapped. “They've run from the Highland charge again and again. Personally, I'd rather put our king back on his throne without the help of France or any other foreigners. Scotsmen alone should do it, and Scotsmen can.”

The son of Lord Lovat lifted his wineglass and immediately Robert and James and Keppoch raised theirs. There was a large pitcher of water standing on the table near them, and James moved it into the centre and then slowly passed his glass above it.

“To the King, gentlemen!”

“To the King over the Water! God Save King James!”

“And now, if we do have to fight for the Prince,” the young Fraser said, “I hope we'll all meet together on the field. But it's only a hope for the future I'm afraid. If he comes without French aid my father won't support him. And he must know that others won't. In the meantime, we'll drink to him! Gentlemen, I give you the Prince!”

As they moved away, Macdonald of Keppoch turned to James. He was an old man of nearly seventy, chief of a powerful branch of the great Clan Donald which spread through glen and island, bound by many chieftains under the supreme Lordship of the Macdonald of the Isles. He loved to tell how he discomfited a guest who boasted in his fortress home of the fine silver candelabra that graced the tables of the English nobility. That evening when he came to dine with Keppoch the table was ringed with his tallest clansmen, each holding aloft a resin torch to light the meal. And Keppoch remarked to the astonished guest that he doubted if in England there were candelabra to match his. He had not seen James for nearly five years and he was surprised and intrigued to learn of the betrothal of Dundrenan's heir with the daughter of the Fraser of Clandara; he had not shared in the feud himself, but he knew about it and in early times some of his men had joined their cousins on a raid or two against the Fraser cattle-herds.

“Soft words from the Frasers,” he said under his breath. “They're not overburdened with fighting spirit. Did ye hear that young whelp of Lovat's saying his father wouldn't come out without a French army? And your brother-in-law-to-be wasn't much bolder. My sons will go with the Prince and I'll ride out myself if I have to be held up on my horse. If the day comes, James, if the day comes!”

“Who knows,” James answered. “Rumours come and go on the wind and the time goes with them and nothing happens. It's the wish being father to the thought, Keppoch. As for me, I'm a month off my wedding and the last thing I have thought about is a rising.”