Sarah Gabriel (25 page)

A
s a soft pink dawn bloomed over Edinburgh Castle on its towering rock, they entered the city by the West Bow, a steep and winding hill that led from the western hills into the city past the high volcanic crag that supported the castle. The post chaise came down the twisting incline through the Grassmarket and toward the Canongate, passing through the portal kept by the City Guards. After a question parried by Jack, who rode postillion on the lead left horse, the vehicle was waved through. The horses’ hooves clopped on the cobblestones, and the air was brisk and cool, and fresh with promise of a new day.

They had traveled the whole of the previous day on garrons as far as the Perth road and MacLennan’s
Changehouse, where they met Jack. After a meal and a few hours’ rest, they departed in the post chaise before dawn. Kate and Alec rode in the vehicle led by Jack on the lead horse, while Rob and Connor rode behind the chaise. They had planned to enter the city separately and stay at an inn in the Canongate frequented by Jacobites, rather than stir suspicion by arriving as a group at Hopefield House.

Kate stifled a yawn and watched the sky glow over the castle. Seated beside Alec, who watched pensively through his side window, Kate wondered what awaited her here. She had been to Edinburgh often for shopping, theater, and concerts in the days before her father’s exile, when she had been young and life had been so different for her family. Since then, she had made necessary trips for the household, and in the company of her kinsmen for matters of espionage and Jacobite loyalty.

At last she realized with a sinking feeling that Alec had been right. Perhaps she should not have insisted on coming and instead stayed behind at Duncrieff, where she would remain safe. She could not predict whether she would have to face a hearing and a subsequent imprisonment, or whether she would simply stay with Alec’s family, as he planned, and escape the city with him after Ian, Andrew, and Donald were freed.

They were all taking risks, she knew. Alec, her brother, and Connor MacPherson were about to place their lives in great jeopardy in order to save their comrades. She could not, in good conscience, sit at home waiting for word of their mission.

Alec reached over then to lay his hand over hers, which rested on the seat beside him. “Not so long ago, you thought I meant to bring you here in chains,” he said, as if he knew her thoughts. “But I never intended for you to face the Court of Justiciary. I want you to know that.”

She looked at him, frowning in wonder. “What, then?”

“I was going to let you go, Katie,” he murmured. “Once you answered my questions, once I knew where the weapons might be hidden and what must be done to find them, I had thought to release you. I planned to take you to the town house where my aunt and uncle live, aye. But I did not always intend to take you to the court.”

“But those were your orders,” she said.

“Aye.” He shrugged. “But if you had only told me what I needed to know—your name, who you were working with, what Ian Cameron had told you—I could have puzzled out much of the rest. If I could have spoken to your kinsmen to learn where the weapons were hidden…I would have let you go.”

She listened in disbelief. “You mean, all that time you let me believe I was going to be interviewed and put in prison?”

“You are scheduled for the interview, and would likely have been imprisoned afterward. But I knew there was a way out of it, if the other questions could be resolved. I had to let you believe otherwise because you refused to cooperate with me.”

She smiled a little. “I am glad you came after me. But
if it had not happened as it did, Alec, we might never have discovered…our feelings for each other.”

Alec tightened his fingers over hers. “You’re a wise lass, Katie-Katherine. Things do happen for a reason.”

“Even when we think something must be so wrong, it turns out later to be the best way, after all.”

He leaned close, as she did, hands clasped, shoulders touching. He kissed her, lifting his injured arm so that he could cradle her cheek in his hand. His lips brushed hers, caressed. A simple kiss, and so tender it brought tears to her eyes.

He drew back, relaxed against the seat back. “Don’t fret over it, Kate. We need never say who you are.”

“What will you tell your family?”

Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it. “That you are my bride. It’s true, or soon will be.”

“It
is
true. In Highland tradition, once a marriage promise is agreed upon, even if it is privately and without witnesses, if the two people then give themselves to one another in physical love, it becomes a binding marriage. And we have done that, I believe.”

“
Matrimonio consummata
,” he said, nodding. He lifted a brow. “The marriage promise should be made first, and the consummation fixes it in a binding agreement. We had witnesses to our promise, which is quite binding, but we reversed the order of the events, you and I.” He smiled mischievously.

“We will have to correct that, then.”

His thumb made tiny circles on her hand, sending delicate shivers all through her. “We will amend it as soon as we can.”

She leaned back, close to him as he slid his arm around her, and she smiled up at him. Sunlight slanted through the window, illuminating the side of his face, glinting gold over his hair. Lifting her face to his, she kissed him again in silence and returned her glance to the window.

Though it was early morning, the streets were already busy. Shopkeepers were opening awnings and doorways, tradesmen and women were sweeping steps, and some were setting up small carts or tables to display wares just outside their entrances.

The caddies were out, too, strolling up and down the hill on paved and earthen paths, sitting on doorsteps or street corners. A few waved to the chaise as it went by. Kate noticed that they were almost all Highlanders in plaids and shabby clothes, boys and youths willing, for a fee, to run here or there to carry messages, fetch things, carry packages, or lead anyone through the maze of streets and closes to reach a destination. Considering the hills and slopes in the city, and the towering tenement floors with sometimes a dozen staircases to climb, the caddies earned their pay.

She saw the sedan chair carriers out, too, waiting beside their chairs, ready to hire. The single seats were enclosed in boxes, sometimes elaborately painted and secured on carrying poles.

Alec leaned toward Kate. “When you go up to the castle, you’ll take a sedan chair,” he murmured. “It’s perfectly proper here. Ladies frequently move about the city on their own in Edinburgh, with the chairmen
and the caddies to carry them and guide them. You will not find a safer city than Edinburgh for that. And it best suits our plan that you go alone to see Ian and the others, without an escort.”

She nodded, aware of the basic plan, which she had discussed with Alec, Rob, and Connor at Duncrieff, and again at MacLennan’s before approaching the city. “You would be too recognizable,” she said, “and my kinsmen too conspicuous.”

“Exactly.” He took her hand again. “Are you nervous?”

“More because I am about to meet your family than because of any prison escape we have planned—that part is at least an expected danger. Your family is an unknown element.”

“They’re nothing to fear. Just don’t accept experimental chocolate from my uncle Walter.”

Laughing softly, she watched through the window as the post chaise followed along the Canongate and past the palace of Holyrood. She craned to look at the massive towers beyond the gates and the hulk of the volcanic hill called Arthur’s Seat in the background.

Moments later, she saw Rob and Connor ride past the chaise, the Highlanders resplendent in plaids fixed with silver brooches, wearing snowy shirts under leather waistcoats and dark jackets. Waving briefly, they headed straight along the Canongate.

“They’ll stay at Jenny Ha’s Changehouse,” Alec said. “It’s a busy nest of Jacobite activity. They’ll not be questioned closely by the City Guards, who avoid con
frontation there, though we might be questioned if it were noticed that two Highlanders accompanied us up to my residence.”

She nodded, aware of arrangements previously agreed upon.

Jack guided the horses leftward, and they departed the Canongate to climb the mile-long slope of the High Street, the Royal Mile that ran between Holyrood at its lower point and Edinburgh Castle at its peak. Here Kate saw more tradesmen, more caddies and chairmen. Here the grand facades of stately homes and beautiful civic buildings glowed in the rising sun alongside brightly painted shopfronts, taverns, and gloomy tenement buildings that rose so high that, in places, the sunlight was blocked. Even the more exclusive areas of Edinburgh showed the remarkable qualities of tolerance and casual equality that was so common to Scotland and the Scottish character.

Seeing the easy mingling of social levels here, Kate felt keenly and suddenly proud of Scotland and its people, both Highland and Lowland. She felt, too, a renewed sense of purpose and dedication—the Jacobite cause must prevail for the good of the Scots, she thought, and her mission with Alec and the rest, but a small piece of the grander puzzle, must prevail also.

Hearing a series of bells chiming out, she startled. “The bells of the Canongate Kirk, just there. They ring throughout the day,” Alec said. “You’ll get used to hearing them.”

She nodded, having been to the city before. “I’m a bit jumpy. Is that the Tolbooth?” she asked in a hush, as
they passed a massive facade that hulked over the cobbled street.

“Aye, the city jail,” he murmured. “The Lord Advocate’s house is across from it. Hopefield House is a little way ahead, just below Castlehill, on the right. You’ll see the Chocolate House, and behind it in the close, Hopefield House.”

Kate drew a deep breath. Then she saw the brown fieldstone front of a building with rich brown trim, and a neatly painted sign in gold lettering on black:
FRASER’S FANCY CHOCOLATE HOUSE
.

A woman was outside sweeping the steps, and as they neared and began to turn, she waved exuberantly. Alec lifted a hand, smiling, and she dropped her broom and ran inside.

“Effie,” he explained. “Euphemia Fraser—my uncle’s wife.”

Kate felt even more anxious as Jack guided the horses into the close, one of the short alleyways common throughout the city. The chaise entered the shadowy chasm between two multistory buildings and followed the sloping pavement downward to a little open court tucked behind the main street.

At the far end of a tree-lined plot, a sandstone mansion of modest proportions and graceful design, with gabled roof and cupolas, rose behind an iron gate.

“That’s Hopefield House,” Alec said. “The family lives there, and the shop is located in our other building, just on the High Street.”

Nodding, Kate drew up the wide hood of her dark brown cloak and smoothed her skirts of forest green
wool, which she wore with a close-cut jacket of green-and-blue tartan over a white, ruffled shirt. Sophie had lent her the outfit, encouraging her to wear something more
à la mode
than Kate generally preferred.

Alec exited the chaise and turned to help Kate down, his hand taking hers. Then he kissed her cheek under the shadow of her hood and tugged the rim down.

“Keep it like that if we see soldiers, my love,” he said. “There’s always the chance that someone could recognize you.”

“Her fairy beauty will blind ’em, and she’ll charm the breeches off ’em,” Jack quipped as he came toward them.

“Let’s let them keep their breeches, shall we?” Alec muttered. He turned then, and waved. “Aunt Effie, good to see you! And hello, what’s this?”

He smiled and bent down as three little girls in ruffled pink gowns raced toward him from the back door of the building facing the street. Passing the tall red-haired woman in black who stepped outside with them, the children ran across the cobbled yard, the littlest one toddling so fast that Alec stretched out an arm to catch her before she fell forward.

“Miss MacCarran,” he said, looking up at Kate. “I’d like you to meet my nieces, and my aunt, Euphemia Fraser.”

He stood to embrace his aunt, who was nearly as tall as he was and perhaps close to his weight, and so delighted to see him that she near picked him up off the ground. Explaining quickly that he had injured his arm during a sword practice, but that it was healing nicely, he then turned to Kate.

“Aunt Euphemia, this is Katherine. Kate,” he said. “I’ve brought her to meet you and Uncle Walter.”

“Aye? She’s special, then?” She smiled, brown eyes dancing under a crown of unruly red hair barely tamed by a cap, her hair either dyed or still possessing a great deal of natural color despite her age.

“Oh aye, she’s quite special,” Alec answered.

“Welcome, Miss Katherine—?” Effie waited for the rest.

“It’s Fraser, Aunt. Or soon will be,” Alec said.

Euphemia gaped at him. “I’ll hear this now, and so will Wattie! Come inside, we’ll no’ stand outside with this news!”

They were beautiful, each one, like an assortment of fairies, Kate thought as she was introduced to each child: Rosie, with straight dark hair and serious green eyes; Lily, whose pale blond locks, big blue eyes, and a dazzling dimple gave her an enchanting air; and Daisy, the youngest at two, with bronze curls and eyes as blue as her sister’s. Greeting each child, Kate was entranced by their charming personalities as much as their appearance—serious Rosie, ethereal Lily, and bouncy little Daisy.

“Such bonny lasses,” she said brightly, looking at Alec.

He smiled, nodded as he looked at them. Rosie stood near him, Kate saw, looking up at him every few moments, and shy Lily tucked her hand in his quietly. Noticing how quickly he took the girl’s hand, and noticing how Daisy pulled on the hem of his kilt, watching him with adoring eyes, Kate felt her heart simply melt.

“They’ve missed their uncle Alec,” Euphemia Fraser said.

“And I’m sure he’s missed them.” Kate glanced up to see a flicker of uncertainty, even vulnerability in Alec’s eyes. Then he smiled, and it was gone, and he rested a hand on Rosie’s dark, shiny locks, so straight they would not stay in the yellow ribbon that held them back.