Island of the Swans (8 page)

H
AMILTON
M
AXWELL WAS UNABLE TO MAKE OUT WHAT WAS BEING SAID BEHIND
closed doors at the top of the stairs, but he knew from experience his parents were having an argument. Sir William’s drunken tirade was soon met by Lady Magdalene’s increasingly angry responses, and as the voices grew more strident, Hamilton and his three sisters exchanged discomfited looks.

“’Tis bound to be about
you
, Jane,” speculated Hamilton, who, at nineteen, liked to assume superior knowledge about family matters in contrast to his younger siblings.

Hamilton certainly had more than an inkling of his father’s mood on this particular morning. After all, he had witnessed Sir William’s reaction to receiving a letter from Lady Maxwell two days earlier, a letter proposing a ball to celebrate Jane’s upcoming sixteenth birthday.

“That woman must be demented!” his father had exploded, pounding the table in the unkempt drawing room at Monreith House while reading Lady Maxwell’s missive sent by horse-back messenger from Edinburgh. “I’ve all I can do keeping two households going as it is, and now she wants to waste good silver on a grand party for a lass who’s been naught but trouble since the day she first came squallin’ into this woeful world!”

He had shaken his head morosely before gulping down yet another glass of whiskey.

Hamilton had come to realize that Sir William had no fondness for daughters. It was obvious that the disgruntled baronet had never really forgiven his wife for the accident to Jane’s right hand five years earlier. He’d become positively apoplectic at news of her misadventures on North Loch.

“Odds fish, Ham! What decent gentleman will want to marry a strumpet like your sister Jane with a hand missin’ a forefinger and her meddlin’ ways?” he had complained peevishly as they approached the city gates of Edinburgh. “I’ll be blessed indeed if me prettiest daughter don’t end up spinsterish, mark me words,” he groused, slouched in his saddle. “I’ll not keep the baggage in silks and lace, I’ll tell you that, Ham! ’Tis her mother’s concern.”

Hamilton Maxwell had long since stopped trying to understand the ongoing warfare between his mother and father—a couple who, despite their clear incompatibility, had managed to produce six healthy offspring. For as long as Hamilton could recall, his father had always preferred the clean air and country ways of the Scottish Lowlands—and the right to drink in peace; his mother preferred the excitement and activity of the city—free of her bibulous spouse.

Hamilton glanced around the shabby Edinburgh sitting room at his three sisters, who had each matured noticeably since last he’d seen them. One thing was certain, running two households full tilt all year round put a crimp in the family’s meager finances. Presumably, this was the subject of the rantings and ravings now going on behind closed doors.

“Oh, I wish they’d
stop
!” cried Jane, running to the leaded glass windows overlooking the city streets below. “I don’t care a rip about the stupid ball, and I
hate
all this skirling.”

Hamilton observed Jane closely as she rested her chin against the frosted window pane. Her skin was flawless and her profile patrician. Hamilton Maxwell was unable to make out how his scrawny little sister had turned into a deuced
swan
!

“Well, I hope they have it,” announced Eglantine suddenly, interrupting Hamilton’s train of thought.

“Have what?” Jane asked vaguely.

“Your birthday
ball
!” her younger sister cried in an exasperated tone. “I can’t think why Da should object, since Sir Algernon has offered to sponsor you, and ’tis he who’ll be paying for the ceilidh he gives every year anyway. I’ve never
been
to a ball!” she complained, plaintively voicing her desire to attend Sir Algernon Dick’s Hogmanay Ball that the physician had hosted each New Year’s Eve for as long as any Maxwell could remember.

“And you probably won’t go to this one either,” Catherine said primly. “I had to wait till I turned sixteen.”

“Da’s thinkin’ of the fine new clothes you’ll need, don’t you imagine?” Hamilton pronounced. “He despises spending coin on you three, and that’s a fact. But he hates charity more, and doesn’t think too much of Sir Algernon Dick. After all, they were rivals for mama’s hand, once upon a time.”

“Pooh!” scoffed Eglantine. “
That’s
no reason to refuse the doctor’s offer. Da doesn’t give a fig what Mama does anymore.”

“
Eglantine
!” Catherine said sternly. “Not another word from you, you naughty lass!”

The eldest Maxwell daughter walked over to Jane, who continued to stare moodily out the window into the foggy November morning.

“Don’t worry, sweeting,” Catherine said softly, for once abandoning her pose as the surrogate for Lady Maxwell. “Fighting is the only way Mama and Da know to converse.”

“Oh, I don’t care about their fighting,” Jane responded, pressing her forehead against the coolness of the leaded panes. “’Tis just the way Daddie swoops down on us to say Mama can’t do something after he’s been sitting in Monreith all summer, never bothering to visit or write. He does what
he
likes and spends what
he
wants… and he acts just as he wishes, drunk or sober! ’Tisn’t fair!”

Hamilton had caught the last of Jane’s outburst and walked over wearing a mischievous grin on his face.

“Jenny, dear girl, haven’t you realized that most moppets your age don’t question their elders and are forbidden to run wild around the city like stable boys? If only you’d learn to behave yourself like a proper young lady, you wouldn’t find yourself minus a finger with which to hold a fan!”

“Why, you…” Jane whirled around from the window and flew at her older brother in a rage, determined to wipe the smirk off his face.

“I’ll show you what
nine
fingers can do…” she shrieked, leaping toward Hamilton’s six-foot frame. She was mortified that her favorite brother should tease her about the injury that still pained her so much.

“Stop it!
Stop
it, you two,” Catherine cried, jumping between them while Eglantine stood and stared, her mouth agape.

Hamilton easily held Jane, who was now kicking and shouting, at arm’s length. He felt a bit embarrassed about his casual cruelty toward the sister he’d always found fun and amusing.

“Och! Jenny,” Hamilton began. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings—”

“I
hate
you and I hate
Da
, and I
hate
—”

But before the rest of her family could hear anymore, Jane bounded out of the room, down the back stairs, and ran through the alley to the stable yard.

The morning mists still clung to the rows of herbs planted off the stable area, but Jane took no notice of the light wisps that swirled around the rosemary and thyme borders and the small arbor of fruit trees.

As she raced through the green open space, past the pigpen and around the corner of the stable, she ran headlong into Thomas. He had a pouch of heavy books on military theory slung over the hitching post, and was just tying up his horse, preparing to unsaddle the roan gelding.

“Whoa, there, Jenny…” Thomas laughed, reaching out his arms to steady her. Then he saw the tears brimming in her eyes. “What’s the matter, lass? What’s happened?”

Jane looked up at her friend to whom her mother had practically forbidden her to speak. She took a breath to begin her tale of woe, and then sighed.

“Oh, you know how it ’tis at my house, Thomas,” she replied dejectedly. “Mama wants one thing and Da disagrees and starts drinking. Then they blather back and forth till your head hurts.”

Jane reached out to touch the leather straps from the bridle of Thomas’s horse and twisted them absentmindedly in her fingers. No sooner had she done so, than she became self-conscious at the sight of the red stub on her right hand and dropped the reins with a jerk. Thomas reached for her wrist and folded his other hand over her injured finger.

“Try not to fret about your hand, lass,” he said softly. “You’re still a beauty, you should know, and don’t let it make you think less of yourself.”

For the second time since Thomas had returned to Edinburgh, Jane began to cry. Great, heaving sobs seemed to come from a place inside her he didn’t know existed. Failing to understand why she had dissolved in response to words he meant to be kind, he pulled her close to him and folded his long arms around her for comfort.

“Everything’s changing, Thomas,” she cried miserably. “My family’s cut in two—the boys against the girls—my Mama against my Da. We don’t live in one place anymore. There’s always fighting about money. Da’s always with the spirits now, and mama says I’m to stay indoors and not spend time with you and do tatting and embroidery and I
hate ’
em
both
, and now you’re probably going to leave as well, and—”

Thomas held her away from him for a moment in order to search her tear-streaked face, halting her in midsentence. She stared at him earnestly, then lowered her eyes.

“Well, I just
know
either your godfather or the army will send you away again!” she sniffled, “and then
who
will be my friend?”

“I’ll always be your friend, Jenny… never fear for that, but I want you to be happy about my Commission. When it finally comes through, I won’t be beholden to my godfather any longer. I can begin to make my own way… help him salvage something of the life we knew.”

“What life?” Jane asked quickly. “Clan Fraser died with old Simon the Fox, before you were born. Master Simon’s filled you with fairy tales, Thomas. You’ll break your heart if you think you or Simon, or any other Highlander can win against the Crown. Men with the power hold on to their power. That’s the one sensible thing my Da ever told me.”

Jane watched his gray-green eyes narrow and heard the anger tinging his voice.

“Och, Jenny, if you could
see
the way of life up North. There’s nothin’ and no one to cling to. Half my mother’s kin are nearly starved and living in caves! I’ve
got
to do something to change that… Simon’s plan is to do what Scots do best—supply the best damn fighting men for King Geordie’s empire. That way the bastard’s bound to give us back our lands and titles.”

“You mean give
Simon
back his lands and titles,” Jane retorted. “Don’t think we’ll be calling
you
Sir Thomas any time soon, if ’tis left to Simon Fraser,” she scoffed. “And if Simon uses the likes of you for cannon fodder to get his heart’s desire, more’s the pity!” she added bitterly.

“Simon’s not just actin’ for himself, Jenny,” Thomas said quietly of the newly promoted brigadier general. “He’s a willful, arrogant man, to be sure, but he saw men like my father, good men, and their families and their holdings, large and small… wiped out. If you saw with your own eyes, you’d
understand
!” His voice betrayed his anguish over the suffering he had seen. “There’s hardly a wisp left of an entire way of life! I can’t just stand by and let it die!”

“’Tis
already
dead, Thomas! The old ways are gone!” Jane cried. “My Da’s startin’ to run sheep where his crofters used to till and plant the soil, and he doesn’t have King Geordie as his excuse to throw his crofters off the land.
You
were up with the herdsmen! Surely, you’ve heard the talk! The few that
own
the land will keep it for themselves to run sheep instead of shelter people, and all your brave deeds on the battlefield will help no one but the Sir William Maxwells and Master Simon Frasers of the world, who want it only for themselves! You’re a fool if you don’t see what’s in store!”

“For a wee lass of not yet sixteen, you’re mighty acquainted with estate business, aren’t you now?” he said sharply.

“I’ve got
eyes
and
ears
, Thomas, even if I am a lass,” she retorted, stung. “At least we Maxwells
have
an estate and our titles!”

No sooner had the words escaped her lips than she considered how deeply they would wound her friend.

“Not that Monreith will mean much to
you
, Mistress Maxwell,” Thomas responded angrily, smarting at her unfeminine presumption to lecture
him
about a place she had never been. A place reeling from a disaster, the proportions of which no one—man or woman—could conceive, if they had not witnessed it for themselves.

For a moment, the silence hung heavily between them. Then Jane spun around abruptly and ran.

“Jenny, lass… wait!” Thomas called after her, but Jane had disappeared into the stable. When he peered through the gloom, he could see nothing but piles of hay and a mound of horse manure awaiting the wheelbarrow of Hector Chisholm, Peter Ramsay’s stableman who also kept the Maxwells’ pigs and looked after the Fraser’s mounts.

“Jenny… Jenny… please! Where are you?” he called into the shuttered light. “I want to talk to you, lass. Please, Jenny,” he pleaded.

He heard a faint rustling in the corner of the hayloft and quickly scaled the rickety ladder, then threw himself on the straw. He dropped to his hands and knees and crawled toward a spot where he heard a rustling sound.

“There you are, minx!” he cried, grabbing her arm to flip her on her back as she tried to escape. “Oh, no… you’re not going an
inch
further!” Taking both her shoulders in his hand he thumped her down on the mound of hay and straddled her waist with his legs, pinning her fast. “Now look here, you saucebox! I’m sorry for my daft words, if you are as well…”

Jane stared up at him sullenly and remained silent. Thomas heaved a sigh and smiled slightly.

“I’m not unaware, Jenny, that Simon uses whomever and whatever he has to fight for what was lost. And yes, he’d use
me
, just as soon as anyone else. But what the two of us want is not too dissimilar, if you think on it. I
want
to find a niche in the scheme of things, Jen… and there aren’t a lot of choices presentin’ themselves t’ me at the moment, in case you hadn’t noticed. And, yes, Simon wants the land and power and his title returned to him… and so do I.
And
he wants a homeland for his people, as well as his sheep. Don’t you see, Jenny… once I have my Commission,
I’ll be my own man!
I can decide things for myself!”