Amanda Scott (31 page)

“I feared you would believe I was a party to it.”

“The thought did cross my mind, but you are too quick of speech and too open of countenance to be sly. Why are you concerned that your father means to show us his still?”

“That should be obvious,” she said tartly, moving again. “I believe you will betray its whereabouts.”

He stopped her with a hand on her arm and gently turned her to face him. They were on the stairway now, and she was aware of servants’ activity in the hall below, but only for a moment. When her gaze met his and he smiled, she forgot the others.

“I must be candid with you, I think,” he said. “I will not condone illegal activities on my land, and although your father seems to remember the fact only when it suits him to do so, this is my land. But I promise I’ll do nothing to harm him or to increase whatever risk exists for my tenants. What problems they have must be resolved, but I intend to punish no one, and I will betray no one in Glen Drumin to the authorities.”

She searched his eyes, trying to decide if he meant what he said. Finally, softly, she said, “Can you make things better?”

“I don’t know,” he said frankly. “I cannot know until I see how matters stand here. But understand me. I will not tolerate smuggling. If whisky is produced, it must be done legally.”

She smiled sadly. “They will not agree to that.”

“They will have no choice. But your father awaits us. Go and change your dress, and I’ll meet you below. And, Maggie—”

She had begun to move when he told her to go, but she turned back, surprised by how much she liked the sound of her name on his tongue. “Aye, sir?”

His gaze held hers. “Wear that kertch of yours.”

His eyes gleamed in a way she had not seen before, and she licked suddenly dry lips before she said, “Aye, sir,” and ran away up to her bedchamber without so much as pausing to wonder why her resolution had so quickly failed her.

Her wool dress was well-suited to riding but she smoothed her hair, pinned on a lace-edged kerchief in place of her cap, and found a light shawl to drape over her head and shoulders. The once-plaid shawl had been dyed the color of chestnuts and was not so cheerful as it had been before the English outlawed Highland tartans, but it would serve the purpose well enough and was more comfortable to wear than a heavy cloak.

In the yard, she saw that Rothwell and James had both donned smallswords as well as their riding dress and were waiting with MacDrumin. Taking young Ian and a pair of MacDrumin’s men with them, they rode to the top of the ridge, watching for white coverings on peat stacks outside the small cottages they passed, or white flags fluttering from trees, the telltale warnings that an exciseman or the bailie had been seen in the glen. All was safe, but Maggie soon realized that her father was not heading directly for Abershiel. He was taking a somewhat circuitous route. At least he was showing some sense, she thought, though she doubted that he would fool Rothwell.

When they could ride two abreast, the earl urged his mount alongside MacDrumin’s, and Maggie heard him say, “I’ve been telling your daughter, sir, that I mean to do what I can to help the people here.”

“Then perhaps you will convince your friends in Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, which is to say your English Parliament, to end the wicked excise tax on good Scotch whisky.”

“I doubt that my power is so great as that,” Rothwell said, “but perhaps a way can be found to pay it, or get it reduced—”

“Och, lad, ’twould be a wickedness to pay it, high or low. We’ve a government telling us we’re all one country while it’s got its thieving hand in our pockets, calling whisky a foreign product if it goes into England, and demanding payment of duty for production if we sell it only in Scotland. ’Tis a wicked disgrace. We’ll not give satisfaction to yon fool excisemen.”

Ian, riding behind pillion behind James, said suddenly, “Me granny kilt an exciseman once.”

Maggie bit her lip, but James said with a grin, “Did she, lad? And just how might she have done that?”

“We dinna know. She tellt us the wee skinny man coom into her kitchen one day and skeert ’er clean oot of her wits ’cause she’d still got her pots oot from the night’s work. ‘I’ve clean caught you this morning,’ he says. ‘Oh, aye,’ says me granny, spearing him wi’ a look, ‘and did anyone see ye coom in, laddie?’ ‘Nay,’ he says. So rolling up her sleeves, me granny says, ‘and by the Lord Harry, naebody will ever see ye gang oot!’”

The men laughed and MacDrumin said, chuckling, “A good tale, the bairn tells, but you need not be thinking his granny’s a murderess. ’Tis true the fellow disappeared, but there was no evidence to show he’d ever gone near the MacCain place, and no one doubted he just got tired of being an exciseman and went home again to England. Any number of them have done just that.”

They had been riding downhill for a time and came now to a river with a log bridge laid from rock to rock across a narrow part over a roaring fall of water. On the opposite bank scattered farm buildings could be seen at the base of a hill that sloped gently toward the ridge top. Dismounting, they left the horses with a man to watch them, and Maggie watched Rothwell and James, knowing that such makeshift bridges could terrify men who were unaccustomed to them. Neither of the two hesitated to follow MacDrumin and the boy, however, although Rothwell did pause to let the others go ahead and waited for Maggie.

“Would you like a hand across?” he asked.

“I’ve done it since I was a child,” she replied, smiling so he would not think her ungrateful.

He nodded but kept close behind her while they crossed, apparently undisturbed by the gaps between the logs or the tumultuous water beneath them. When they reached the opposite bank, he moved up beside her, and she thought it rather pleasant to have a man watch out for her safety, until he said abruptly, “Surely you do not go out and about all alone here.”

She looked at him, surprised. “But I do. Why would I not?”

“You must know it is dangerous for a female to roam these mountains alone. You yourself have mentioned certain dangers.”

“There is no danger to me, Rothwell, for I am well known to be the MacDrumin’s daughter. No one would dare to harm me.”

“You must not do it again,” he said harshly, “not so long as you continue to be my wife, at all events.”

The others had reached Abershiel farm, and MacDrumin shouted to them to make haste, so Maggie held her tongue, but she would tell Rothwell soon enough that he could not dictate to her. Even if the marriage was held to be legal, she had not accorded him that right.

MacDrumin led the way when they rejoined him, until Dugald emerged from between two large boulders to meet them. Shortly afterward, they came to the bothy, a primitive affair consisting of a hole dug into the side of a hill, its roof formed by strong branches covered with turf. From a distance, no outward sign of it could be seen. Inside, the copper still stood on a furnace made of loose stones that had fallen from the granite wall.

“That wee copper coil,” MacDrumin said, pointing out the worm to his guests, “condenses the spirit as it passes through from the wash-still and drips to the spirit-still on the lower level.” He indicated an earthen jar two feet high with a wooden lid below the tub with the coil, then turned back to Dugald and said, “What’s amiss with the worm, lad?”

“Just got old, Laird,” Dugald said. “It’s begun tae leak. Like tae snap soon, so we’ve need of a new one right quick.”

“Dismantle it then. Take what bits you cannot spare and leave the rest with the worm for Rory.” MacDrumin grinned at Rothwell. “We’ll let German George provide us with a new worm.”

James, fascinated by the working of the still, paid no heed, but Rothwell frowned and said, “You must be jesting, MacDrumin.”

“I am not. Your government offers a reward of five pounds to anyone who reports the whereabouts of an illicit still. The worm’s our most expensive bit, so when it wears out, we leave the worn one and a few other bits to prove a still was there. Rory goes to the gaugers, reports he’s discovered a bothy, and when he shows them, he gets the reward—enough to buy new copper piping. We’ll move the stills to a new bothy.”

“We thought tae move this ’un over the ridge to Arlnack burn, Laird,” Dugald said.

“Nay, lad,” MacDrumin replied. “In spate, the Arlnack runs black as soot, and we must not sacrifice quality to quantity. We’ll keep the bothy in Glen Drumin, even if it means biding a wee bit till we find a safe place.”

Maggie, encountering Rothwell’s thoughtful gaze, smiled at him. He did not smile back.

T
HE MORE ROTHWELL SAW
of MacDrumin’s operation, the more he began to regret his promise to Maggie. In the days following the visit to the Abershiel bothy, he learned the whisky’s hold on Glen Drumin was formidable. Nearly every member of the clan was involved, and it was clear to the meanest intelligence that his rents were paid exactly as Ryder had suspected they were, with profits from the whisky. In return, clan members contributed other services. The man who for years had provided shoes for the chief’s family still did so. Likewise did men who had looked after the livestock or tended the barley, and women who had woven the cloth or baked the bread, continue to supply those services. And in return their rents were paid. It was done, MacDrumin told him, in quite the most practical way, the very traditional manner that the English seemed determined to destroy.

As tactfully as possible, Rothwell said, “The government’s reason for changing the clan system has nothing to do with peacetime practices, sir. The plan is to diminish the ease and speed with which a clan chief can raise a large army.”

MacDrumin snorted. “Your people were grateful enough when Campbells and MacKenzies raised armies to fight for the English.”

“All that is over and done,” Rothwell said reasonably. “What we must do now is learn to live together in peace.”

“Faith, it will not happen. Even those who supported the Hanoverians do not believe we’ve been well treated by them. German George is no more popular in Edinburgh than in Inverness.”

Nor was he popular in London, Rothwell thought, but he did not say so. His point remained valid, if only he could get MacDrumin to agree to it. With that goal in mind, he willingly accepted all invitations to ride out and about the glen, even taking his own oat cakes and whisky to stave off hunger when MacDrumin chose to ride the ridgetops, rather than visit tenants.

James rode with them several times but preferred to take his sketchbook and ramble about on his own, or to visit ailing tenants with his remedy kit in hand. Rothwell, seeing him more than once in the company of young Ian MacCain, suspected that James had developed quite a liking for the boy, whose ability to tell an amusing tale delighted him. It was possible, too, that James still harbored an interest in young Ian’s sister, for he had certainly encountered her once or twice, and had even said he liked her spirit and found her amusing.

Rothwell enjoyed the rides with MacDrumin. He liked the old man’s wicked sense of humor, and when they were not arguing, thought he told a story even better than Ian. He particularly enjoyed tales the older man told of outwitting excisemen or the bailie, for MacDrumin had no qualms about revealing his triumphs. Rothwell delighted in hearing of the otherwise virtuous parson who hid kegs in his pulpit, and laughed till tears ran down his cheeks when MacDrumin described frightening off a new exciseman, who spent a night at Glen Drumin House, by hanging a stuffed dummy from a tree outside the man’s window and telling him it was the body of the last excise officer who slept there.

The excursions with MacDrumin also gave him an excellent excuse to avoid spending too much time with Maggie. Not only did he not trust his own desires but she had made it clear that she still did not trust him to keep their secrets, and did not approve of her father’s willingness to show him over the entire estate. She kept busy, apparently with duties of her own at the house, though he was not certain what they were. He had noted the appearance of a few bright cushions here and there, and she had taken to wearing to dinner one of the simpler gowns made for her in London, but she seemed resolved to keep him at a distance and had scarcely spoken to him since the visit to the bothy.

She was not speaking much to James either, and had refused to visit Kate when Ian had said his sister wished she would do so. Rothwell was certain the refusal was due to the fact that James now seemed to find as much food for humor in their so-called marriage as Kate did. Rothwell was a little put out with James himself, since he had spoken more than once, with relish, of Mad Kate’s cleverness in contriving the trick at Laggan.

Riding with MacDrumin at the end of the week, the earl tried yet again to suggest alternative methods of providing for the people of the glen. “What will they do if you are arrested for failing to pay the duty on your whisky?” he asked bluntly.

MacDrumin chuckled. “Since I’m not likely to be caught, the worry is small. The duty is unfair, lad; it’s as simple as that. None is demanded from makers of English gin, and God knows cheap gin creates more ills than ever a dram of Scotch caused anyone.”

Rothwell, unable to resist the grin, smiled back, but his tone was dry when he said, “I suppose you are going to tell me that Scotch doesn’t make a man drunk.”

“And why would I be telling you any such daft thing? ’Tis not the Scotch makes a man drunk, ’tis the man drinks too much Scotch. And if you see as many drunkards in a square mile of the Highlands as in that same London mile, I’ll own myself amazed.”

There was no answer to be made to that. He had not seen anyone drunk in the glen, though he had seen vast quantities of Scotch served over the past few days. Nowhere did they go that they were not welcomed with a dram, for everyone had a jug handy to refresh a visitor, and no sooner did one enter a yard or cross a threshold than jug and chopins were got out. And Rothwell willingly admitted that given a choice between old French brandy and Glen Drumin Scotch, he would take the Scotch every time.

The silence between them that day was a companionable one, but MacDrumin was not the man to allow any silence to go unfilled for long. He said abruptly, “You’re going the wrong way to work with that lass of mine.”