The Chieftain
Authors: Caroline Martin
The Chieftain
Caroline Martin
Copyright ©1982 Caroline Martin
Copyright ©2000 Helen Cannam
Copyright ©2014 Caroline Martin
All rights reserved.
First published 1982 by Mills and Boon
Reissued 2000 by Magna under the author name Helen Cannam
All characters and situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any living person is purely coincidental.
Cover photograph courtesy of Ghost fashions.
About this book
Isobel Carnegie is beautiful, rich and a widow. When she is kidnapped by Highland chieftain Hector Maclean it seems he is only interested in her money. Gently-bred Isobel is appalled by the hard life led by the clansmen at Ardshee, so when Hector is called to join the forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie she is only too glad to seize her chance to escape.
But freedom brings her no sense of relief. It is only as the hopes of the Highlanders are destroyed for ever at the battle of Culloden that she learns - too late? - where her heart truly lies.
Chapter One
‘This time,’ said Isobel Carnegie, eight days after her husband’s funeral, ‘this time I shall marry to please myself.’
She spoke quietly, in her usual low musical tones, but with an unmistakable emphasis. Her father, standing beside her in the sunlit garden, glanced sharply round, and was almost surprised to find that her expression was as tranquil and gentle as ever.
Smiling a little, she went on: ‘But I know I must not be hasty. I want to be sure I make the right choice.’
Her father took her hand and slid it under his arm, patting it consolingly. ‘No one would deny you’ve earned yourself the right to choose, my girl.’
They walked on slowly, along the neat grass path between the riotously blooming roses, silent again, their thoughts very far from the summertime beauty around them. They were thinking instead of a darkened, overheated room, of a tall figure motionless on a curtained bed, of the two years of Isobel’s life that had been spent in ceaseless attendance on the man who was her husband only in name. She was nineteen now, and two years of her girlhood had passed without joy or lightheartedness.
Aye,
thought Andrew Reid, his hand over hers,
Isobel has earned the right to a little happiness, now it is all over—
They were still walking together in companionable silence, when Isobel’s mother brought John Campbell out to the garden to join them. As he came forward, hand outstretched, Isobel greeted him with transparent pleasure and the warmth due to a long-established friend. Every inch the prosperous lawyer, from his neat wig to his gleaming buckled shoes, John Campbell had given her his support and comfort and sensible advice throughout the long months of her husband’s illness. Now, when she thought of marrying again, some instinct told her that she could do worse than take John Campbell - and that in his quiet way he cared very deeply for her.
She put her hand in his and smiled sweetly up at him with all the girlish innocence she had never lost. ‘I was beginning to think you’d abandoned us, Mr Campbell. We’ve not seen you since—’
He pressed her hand sympathetically.
‘I felt sure that you would have most need of your family about you at this time, Mrs Carnegie,’ he said. ‘I know you must feel more relief than sorrow, in the circumstances. But still—James Carnegie was a good man, though you never knew him in his prime.’
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘I did not meet him until a short while before we were married, and then he was so ill.’
A good man? Perhaps. She remembered how he had showered her with gifts before their marriage; and caresses too, though she tried not to think of them too often, out of respect for the dead man. She had been repelled, always, by the touch of his puffy white hands, insinuating their way beneath her skirts as they sat at table, or under the neck of her bodice whenever they were alone together. ‘My little rosebud!’ he would whisper, in his sibilant, rather oily voice. ‘It will not be long now…!’ She was thankful that ‘it’ had never come; guiltily grateful that all that had been asked of her was to nurse James Carnegie until his death.
‘You can comfort yourself with the thought that your devotion must greatly have eased his last years,’ John Campbell was assuring her now. ‘And you are young still—’
She raised her eyes to his face, searching for a clue to his feelings. Was he about to declare the affection she had long suspected lay hidden behind that courteous manner? But he smiled suddenly, and patted her hand, and moved on to remark upon the fine weather. And before long he was deep in discussion with her father on the politics of the day.
They had reached the subject of the Young Pretender, when Isobel grew tired and wandered off alone towards the orchard at the far end of the garden. She knew how the talk would go now, in endless speculation as to whether or not the Young Pretender, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, was likely to cross the sea to Scotland and make a bid for the throne now securely held by King George II.
At that thought, instinctively, Isobel’s eyes were drawn to the distant point beyond the garden wall, far across the ripening fields of corn, where a broken jagged ridge of mountains, purple blue, marked the Highland line. From those mountains, thirty years ago, men had come in support of the Old Pretender, father of young Prince Charles Edward: wild barbarians of strange speech and uncouth dress, fierce and uncivilised and terrifying. She shivered now, remembering the tales she had heard. And then she consoled herself with the thought that the Jacobite rising of 1715 had failed dismally, and there was no reason to believe it could ever happen again. In any case, John Campbell was a Highlander by birth, though long settled in the Lowlands, and there was nothing frightening about him. Times had changed. She looked around the orderly garden and felt calm again.
A low wall bordered the orchard, and she sat on it, noting the ripening apples - small still, but growing - and the forget-me-nots under the trees. A little breeze stirred the long grass and brushed lightly against her, and she closed her eyes in contentment. It was good to be alone, and free, and in the open air after so long indoors.
It was the sound of a gate opening that disturbed her; the gate leading into the orchard from the road beyond. She glanced round sharply - and then rose to her feet in alarm.
For an instant she thought her fears of a moment ago had taken shape there in the dappled light beneath the trees. But that was foolish, and she told herself so, though she drew back behind the doubtful protection of the little wall and tried to hide her dismay.
The man in the orchard moved nearer, a wild dark figure in trews and jacket and plaid as brightly coloured as the green trees with their rosy apples. Isobel was on the point of running for help—But something - curiosity perhaps - kept her where she was. Trembling a little, she drew herself up to her full height, which was tall for a woman.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded, her voice shaking in spite of her efforts to control it. ‘What are you doing here?’
To her astonishment the man removed his blue bonnet and bowed, with undeniable courtliness, and then stood gazing at her for a moment in silence. A slight smile curved his wide supple mouth.
‘MacLean of Ardshee, at your service,’ he said, by way of introduction. ‘I believe this is the residence of Mrs Carnegie? I seek the favour of a word or two with her.’
His voice was deep and resonant, with more of a lilt than an accent, unlike the distinctively Scots speech of her family and friends. In spite of herself, she acknowledged that it had an attractive musical sound. Then she realised what he was asking, and after a moment’s hesitation said cautiously: ‘I am Mrs Carnegie.’
Watching his eyes widen with transparent amazement, she coloured a little, wondering what was so surprising about her appearance. They were very dark eyes, she observed, long lashed and glowing with an emotion that set her cheeks burning the more. She ceased to notice the alarming tartan, and saw instead that he was young - not much older than herself, she thought - and about her own height, and slender, with a lithe cat-like grace of movement. His lean oval face was deeply tanned, his thick black hair springing in curls that the ribbon at the nape of his neck could scarcely confine. There was a long pause as they gazed at one another.
Isobel felt very strange. She had never felt so odd before, with a lurching sensation in the pit of her stomach and a disquieting breathlessness. It was quite a different emotion from the fear of a moment before, disturbing, exciting even, and entirely new to her.
The young man bowed again, more deeply this time. ‘Then I am the more at your service, madam,’ he said. ‘In fact I would beg to lay myself and all I have at your feet, to your use for ever.’
She looked at him in bewilderment. ‘Forgive me, but I do not understand, Mr... Mr MacLean...’
He placed one hand over his heart, though his eyes held a mocking sparkle of laughter, as if he was not wholly serious. ‘I am asking, Mrs Carnegie, for your hand in marriage.’
Isobel gasped, and reached out to support herself on the wall.
What answer she would have given then she was never to know, for she heard footsteps coming along the path behind her, and John Campbell’s voice broke in, sharp with astonishment.
‘Ardshee!’
She glanced round. She had never before seen John look like that, with an expression mingling amazement and anger and something rather more unpleasant. He knew the intruder then, and did not like him—
She turned back to the man under the trees and saw that he too had lost all trace of the easy good manners of before. His eyes smouldered black as coals beneath the straight brows, and for a moment his slender fingers hovered over the handle of the dirk he wore thrust into his belt. Then with a conscious effort he relaxed and let his hands fall to his side, though Isobel had the feeling that this was the stillness of a wild animal, alert and on its guard, ready to spring into action in an instant. When he spoke again his voice was very soft, but it had a dangerous edge.
‘John Campbell! So you are here before me! I might have known.’
John gave a muffled exclamation, and pulled Isobel back to stand behind him.
‘You insult me, sir!’ he retorted. ‘I have known Mrs Carnegie for many years, and her late husband before her. I am no fortune hunter.’
Isobel saw the colour leap to the young Highlander’s cheeks, as he bit his lip to keep back the angry retort. When he did speak it was in Gaelic, softly, the words carefully measured. Isobel had never heard Gaelic spoken before, and she did not understand a word, but she was quite certain from the tone and the glint in the speaker’s eyes that every lilting phrase held a well-chosen insult.
But if that was the intention, the words missed their target completely. John Campbell gazed blankly back at the younger man, as uncomprehending as Isobel. He gave a forced laugh, and said lightly:
‘I would ask you to speak in English before the lady. It is the only language fit for civilised ears. You insult her by your words, sir.’
‘On the contrary, John Campbell, the insult was intended for you,’ returned the Highlander smoothly. ‘I said nothing fit for a lady’s hearing. But it would seem you have long forgotten your birth and the language of your people. You have become a creature without a name or a heritage.’