The Winter Sea (21 page)

I could feel the now familiar creeping chill between my shoulder blades.

It was all there, as plain as day.

The captain promising the earl that he’d stay off the coast for fifteen days, and the exchange of signals to be used in case he met the French ship, and the fact that Captain Hamilton was bound to grow suspicious if the French ship stayed too long in Scottish waters. Even Captain Gordon’s statement that he might soon have to leave the naval service, since he would not take the oath against King James.

I read it with the same sense of surrealism I’d felt when I’d been sitting in that reading room in Edinburgh with Mr Hall’s old letter. Because I knew for certain I had never read
this
document before. I hadn’t gotten this far in the book on my first reading. I had gotten spooked and closed it, as I closed it now. I pushed it far away from me across the table. ‘Damn.’

I’d honestly believed that scene had been my own invention, that I’d made the captain come back just to complicate the plot. I’d been so proud of how I’d worked the whole thing in. And now I found I hadn’t done such an amazing thing.

It looked as though I’d have to face the fact that Dr Weir had hit the nail more squarely on the head than I’d have liked. It might be that I was not to have a hand at all in the creation of this story.

Maybe all that I
could
do was write the truth.

Deleting the few stilted lines I’d written so the cursor sat once more at the beginning of the chapter, I closed my eyes and felt the silence of the room press round me like a thing alive.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘What scene
should
I be writing?’

VIII

T
HE COUNTESS LOOKED ROUND
, smiling, as Sophia passed the doorway of her private rooms. ‘My dear, would you have seen Monsieur de Ligondez?’

She meant the captain of the French ship, the
Heroine
, which that morning had, unheralded, returned from Norway, sliding down the coast so very stealthily that none at Slains had noticed it until the boat that bore the captain had been rowed halfway to shore. The earl, who had not risen from his bed yet, had been forced to beg Monsieur de Ligondez’s indulgence for the short while it would take to dress and drink his morning draught and make himself prepared.

The countess, also, had just finished dressing.

But Sophia had herself been up some time, and knew exactly where the French ship’s captain was. ‘I do believe,’ she said, ‘that he is walking now with Mr Moray, in the garden.’

‘Then would you be good enough to go and seek him there, and tell him that my son and I are ready now to welcome him.’

Sophia hesitated. She had not been in the garden these three days since Billy Wick had put his hands on her, and she had no desire to go there now in case he tried it once again. But she could not refuse the countess. With a brave lift of her chin, she answered, ‘Yes, of course,’ and did as she’d been asked.

It was another fair spring morning. Songbirds greeted her with twittering more cheerful than the crying of the gulls that wheeled, high specks of white, above the cliffs beyond the garden wall. Her shoulder brushed a vine that loosed a fragrance sweetly unfamiliar from its soft, unfolding leaves, and when she walked her gown brushed lightly over bluebells growing close against the ground.

She did not give herself to daydreams this time, though, but kept her eyes fixed open, and her ears alert. Not far off, she could hear the quiet voices of Monsieur de Ligondez and Moray, though she could not understand their words, and so presumed they must be speaking in the language of the French. She turned her steps towards the sound, and felt so near her goal that she had almost let her guard down when the heavy steps fell in behind her on the path.

She would not show him fear again, she thought. Not looking round, she kept her shoulders square and walked more briskly, heading for the voices with such single-minded focus that she burst upon the speakers like a pheasant flushed by dogs out of the underbrush.

The French ship’s captain stopped mid-sentence, startled. Moray turned to look first at Sophia, then beyond her to the gardener, who had changed his course unhurriedly away from them, towards the malthouse.

Quickly, to distract his narrowed gaze, Sophia said, ‘The countess sent me here to find you.’

Moray’s grey eyes settled once more on Sophia’s face. ‘Did she, now?’

‘She would inform Monsieur de Ligondez that she is ready, with the Earl of Erroll, to receive him.’

Moray translated her message for the Frenchman, who bowed low and left them.

Moray made no move to follow. Squinting upwards at the sky, he said, ‘The day is wondrous fair.’

She could do nothing but agree with him. ‘It is.’

‘Have ye yet breakfasted?’

‘I have, sir, yes.’

‘Then come,’ he said, ‘and walk with me.’

It was no invitation, she decided, but a challenge. He did not make a formal offer of his arm, but shifted, with his hand firm on his sword hilt, so his elbow lifted slightly from his body.

She considered. She had well observed that there were roads in life one started down by choice, that led to ends quite different from what might have been if one had chanced to take another turning. This, she thought, was such a crossroads. If she were to tell him no, and stay behind, the comfort of her world would yet continue, and she’d surely be the safer for it. If she told him yes, she had a fair idea where that road would lead, and yet she felt the stirring of her father’s reckless blood within her and she yearned, as he had done, to set her course through waters yet uncharted.

Reaching out, she set her hand upon the crook of Moray’s elbow, and the look he angled down at her was briefly warm.

She asked, ‘Where would you walk?’

‘Away from here.’

Indeed, the ordered garden seemed too small for him. Within it, he was as the bear she’d once seen caged for baiting, pacing ceaselessly around its strong-barred prison. But the garden walls proved easier to breach than iron bars, and in a moment they had passed beyond its boundaries to the wider sweep of greening cliff that dipped towards the village and the pink sand beach beyond.

It was yet early, and Sophia saw no faces in the windows of the village peering out to mark their passage. Likely everyone was still abed, she thought, and just as well, at that. Her cautious glances did not go unnoticed.

Smiling, Moray asked her, ‘D’ye fear that being seen with me will harm your reputation?’

‘No.’ She looked at him, surprised. ‘It is not that. It—’ But she could not bring herself to tell him of her true fear, that behind one of these curtained windows, someone even now was taking note of him and planning to expose him. She had heard the tales of other captured Jacobites, and how they had been cruelly tortured by the agents of the Crown who had put one man to the boot and shattered both his ankles when he would not talk. And she could not imagine Moray talking, either.

Looking down, she said, ‘I do not fear your company.’

‘I’m glad to hear it, lass.’ He brought his arm against his side and kept her hand close to him as he steered their steps between the sleeping cottages and down again onto the beach.

The sea was wide. Sophia could no longer see the bare masts of the French ship brought to shelter on the far side of the castle rocks. She only saw the bright sky and the water, with its endless waves that rolled to shore in white-curled ranks that fell in foam against the sand and then retreated to the broad horizon.

As she watched, she felt again the pulsing of her father’s blood within her veins, and asked impulsively, ‘What is it like to sail upon a ship?’

He shrugged. ‘That does depend on whether ye do have the constitution for it. Colonel Hooke would no doubt say it is a wretched way to travel, and I would not call him wrong. To be so close confined with many men and little air does not improve my temper. But to be on deck,’ he said, ‘is something altogether different. When the ship is running fast, sails filled with wind…’ He searched for words. ‘It feels, then, like to flying.’

She did not suppose that she would ever know that feeling, and she told him so.

He said, ‘Ye cannot ever say which way this world will take ye. Had ye told me when I was a lad that I would leave the fields of home to fight the battles of a foreign king, I would have called ye mad.’ He slanted a kind look at her. ‘Mayhap ye’ll walk a ship’s deck, after all.’ And then he looked ahead, and added in an offhand tone, ‘I’ve no doubt Captain Gordon could arrange it, if you asked.’

Sophia shot a quick look upwards, searching for some clue in his expression as to why he felt so cold towards the captain. There was more between the men, she knew, than could be laid to her account. She said, ‘You do not like him.’

‘On the contrary, I do admire him greatly.’

‘But you do not like him.’

He took several strides in silence. Then he said, ‘Three years ago I came here by the order of King Jamie, in the company of Simon Fraser. D’ye ken the name?’

She knew it well, as did the whole of Scotland. Even in a nation such as theirs, where the rough violence of the past ran like a stream submerged beneath the everyday affairs of men, a rogue like Simon Fraser set his deeds apart by their depravity. To gain himself the title of Lord Lovat, he had sought to kidnap and marry his own cousin, the heiress to the last lord, but his plot had gone awry and he had taken, in her stead, her widowed mother. All undaunted, he’d decided that the mother was as useful as the daughter to his purposes, and calling on his pipers to play forcefully to drown the lady’s screams, he had subjected her to brutal rape before a band of witnesses, and claimed the weeping woman for his wife.

Fraser had not kept his title long and had been outlawed for his deeds. He had fled to exile before finally being pardoned, but the black stain of such villainy would not soon be erased.

Sophia’s pale, set face showed plainly that she knew whom Moray spoke of.

‘Aye,’ he said, ‘’twas all the time like walking with the devil, but the devil kens the way to charm when it does suit his purpose, and to most at Saint-Germain that year it seemed that Simon Fraser was the key to raising Scotland for the king. He had a plan, he claimed, and he convinced the king’s own mother of its virtues, so she sent him here to test the ground. They chose me to come with him, I was later told, because it was believed that by my honor and my family’s reputation I’d more easily commend myself to those we wished to meet with than would such a man as Fraser. They were right.’ The reminiscence set a shadow on his face. ‘We were received by many honorable men. And Simon Fraser did betray them all. And me.’ His smile was thin. ‘He was, throughout our visit, telling all he knew to agents of Queen Anne.’

That, thought Sophia, must have been how Moray had been branded as a traitor to the queen, and earned the price upon his head.

‘I was full ignorant of this. ’Twas Captain Gordon who enlightened me,’ he said. ‘At table with my father, he did call me fool, and worse, that I would let myself be so used by a man who, by his treachery, would surely bring to pain and ruin men of better character. And so it came to pass. I saw good men of my acquaintance taken prisoner, and battered in the pillory, and sentenced to be hanged. And though I managed to escape, my father took my shame upon himself and bore it with him to his grave.’

Sophia felt a pang for him. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘It was no lie, what Gordon said—I was a fool. But life does carry lessons with it. Never since that time have I been easily deceived.’

She chose her next words carefully, because she did not know if Moray shared her own distrust of Colonel Hooke. ‘’Tis well, then, Colonel Hooke is not like Simon Fraser.’

‘He is not.’ Another slanting look, that seemed to somehow be assessing her. ‘But Colonel Hooke’s design is to restore a king to Scotland, and I’ll wager he himself cares little whether ’tis King Jamie or His Grace the Duke of Hamilton who takes the throne when all the cards are played. Hooke has gone now, I believe, to judge where lie the loyalties of your good people of the Western Shires, for it is on the Presbyterians our planned rebellion hangs. They are well-organized, and having not before this time aroused the temper of the Crown they have been left well-armed. If they declare for Jamie Stewart, all is well. But if they do declare for Hamilton, then I ken well where Hooke will stand.’

The prospect left her troubled. ‘But that will mean civil war.’

‘Aye, lass. And that,’ he said, with cynicism, ‘may be what the French king did design from the beginning.’

Sophia frowned. They’d come along the beach now to the windblown drifts of sand that marked the edges of the dunes. She did not notice for a moment that they were no longer walking. It was only when her hand was given back to her, and Moray started taking off his boots, that she came fully to awareness.

With a glance at her wide eyes, he said, ‘I’m not about to ravish ye. I did but think to try the water. Will ye join me?’

She did not understand at first, and stammered in alarm, ‘You mean to bathe?’

Which brought one of those rare, quick smiles to light his face with pure amusement. ‘Christ, lass, if the sight of me without my boots is giving ye the vapors, I’d not want to risk removing something else.’ Then, as she flushed a deeper red, he added, ‘I mean to wet my feet among the waves, and nothing more.’ He held his hand out. ‘Come, ’tis safe enough. Ye said ye did not fear me.’

He was testing her, she knew. It was another of those challenges with which he seemed determined to present her, as if seeking to discover just how far she could be pushed beyond propriety.

She raised her chin. ‘I’ll have to take my slippers off.’

‘I’d think it most advisable.’

He turned his head and watched the hills while she rolled off her stockings, too, and tucked them in her slippers, which she left upon the sand beside his boots. There could be no disgrace in going barefoot, she decided. She had known of several ladies of good quality who went unshod within their homes and in full view of company, though that, she did admit, was for economy, and not because they wished to show a man he could not best them.

In the end, though she had come to it reluctantly, it proved to be the greatest pleasure that she could remember since her childhood. The water was so cold it struck the breath out of her body when she stepped in it, but after some few minutes it felt warmer to her skin, and she enjoyed the wetly sinking feel of sand beneath her feet and was refreshed. Her gown and skirts were an impediment. She lifted them with both hands so the hemline cleared the waves, and like a child, cared little that it gave a wanton view of her bare ankles. Moray seemed to take no notice. He was walking slowly through the water, looking down.

‘What are you searching for?’ she asked.

‘When I was but a lad, my mother told me I should keep my eyes well open for a wee stone with a hole in it, to wear around my neck, as it would keep me safe from harm. ’Tis but a tale, and one she likely did invent to keep her wild lad occupied, and out from underfoot,’ he said. ‘But having once begun the search for such a stone, I do confess I cannot end the habit.’

She looked at him, barefooted in the sea and with his head downturned in concentration, and it was not difficult to glimpse the small, determined lad he must have been once— perhaps walking on a beach like this one, with the sun warm on his shoulders and his breeks rolled to his knees, and with no worry in his mind save that he had to find a pebble with a hole in it.

He cast a brief look back at her. ‘Do I amuse ye?’

‘No,’ she said, and dropped her own gaze. ‘No, I only—’ Then she stopped, as something in the water drew her eye. She quickly bent to scoop it up before the sand should shift again to cover it. She’d let go one side of her gown to have a hand free, and she let drop both sides now, and raised the other hand to turn her find against her palm.