One Man's Love (4 page)

A
t the first sounds of the pipes, grating and harsh, Alec spun around.

A man, attired in a kilt of red, black, and white MacRae plaid, stood halfway up the hill. On his shoulder was a set of pipes, the sound coalescing into a tune of sorts. The last time Alec had heard the bagpipes had been at Culloden, and that memory was never voluntarily recalled. Now the glen echoed with the music as if the hills and rocks magnified the sound.

The face was older, the body more bowed and stunted as if age itself weighed heavily on him. But Alec recognized the man from his childhood. Hamish MacRae.

Several of the English soldiers moved to intercept
the Scot, but he didn’t attempt to elude them. Instead, he continued to walk stiffly down the hill, defiantly playing.

“He has courage,” Harrison said quietly from beside him.

“There’s a fine line between bravado and bravery,” Alec said dryly.

“Restrain him!” Major Sedgewick called out. As the soldiers grabbed the piper, the tune abruptly ended, the dying notes high-pitched and whining.

Alec strode to where Sedgewick stood surveying the prisoner.

“Take him to the gaol,” the major said, then glanced over his shoulder at Alec. “Unless you would like to question him here, Colonel,” he said.

Alec shook his head.

Hamish focused his attention on Sedgewick. “It’s me you want,” he said. “Not them. Unless the English only choose to wage war on women and children.”

Alec deliberately stepped between Hamish and Sedgewick. If the major would strike a woman, nothing would make him hesitate in harming an old man. From the look on Sedgewick’s face, he was close to doing so.

“Perhaps it would be better if you returned to the fort, Major,” Alec said curtly. “I will attend to the prisoner.”

For a moment he thought the major was going to protest. His unspoken words seemed to choke him. But Alec had been battle-hardened since he’d left home at the age of eighteen, trading his paternal grandmother’s legacy for a commission in the army. He was well prepared to handle a recalcitrant officer.

Sedgewick finally nodded before striding away, his anger evident in the stiffness of his shoulders. Alec
watched as he mounted and rode toward Fort William.

He turned to two of the men who’d accompanied him from Inverness. “Keep the men here until you are certain the blaze is extinguished,” he said, “then take the prisoner to the gaol.”

“I believe you have made an enemy there, sir,” Harrison said, joining him a moment later. He nodded in Sedgewick’s direction.

Alec glanced at his adjutant.

Thomas Harrison was the most sober of his officers, rarely speaking when a gesture could suffice. Alec had relied on Harrison’s discretion from the moment they met in Flanders. Only his adjutant and his aide, Sergeant Tanner, knew all of the secrets of his past.

Harrison, for all his attributes, had a remarkably unappealing face. His nose was broad and his chin pointed. Deep-set hazel eyes peered out at the world with a steady and watchful expression.

If there was only formality between them, it was because of Alec’s reserve. He was conscious of his command and the fact that it was not wise to grow close to the men he sent into battle. Yet there were times, such as now, when their relationship slipped into friendship.

“It was to be expected that he would resent my presence here. After all, he was in charge of the garrison before my arrival,” Alec admitted.

“It will not be an easy task you’ve been given, Colonel,” Harrison said.

“Cumberland’s dictates have never been particularly effortless,” Alec said.

Without glancing at Leitis again, he mounted, turning toward Fort William, Harrison at his side.

Constructed of red sandstone, Fort William sat to one side of Gilmuir, its back to the sea. The structure was built in the shape of an open square, the front facing the land bridge.

“It’s ugly,” his adjutant said without apology.

“It’s utilitarian,” Alec countered, smiling.

He noted the details of construction, similar to other English fortifications in Scotland. Ten cannon portals faced the glen, the slope of the facade attesting to the fact that the guns were surrounded by inner and outer walls with a layer of earth between to act as a barrier for both fire and noise. If the rest of the building proved true to similar fortifications, the seaward side would have cannon as well.

He would need to hold inspection, be introduced to the troops, and ascertain the duties of the men under his command. But he glanced, instead, at the ruins of the structure located to the right of the fort.

Harrison’s gaze followed his. “Castle Gloom,” he said with a smile.

“Gilmuir,” Alec corrected him.

He rode closer, feeling as if he were being inexplicably drawn to the castle by memory.

“How long did it take to destroy it?” Harrison asked, surveying the ruins.

Alec only shook his head in response. It was evident from the patchwork nature of the fort that Major Sedgewick and his men had run out of sandstone and used the bricks and stones from Gilmuir to complete the fort. Piles of rubble still remained where the courtyard had once been. The outbuildings had been destroyed, any trace of the structures vanished.

He dismounted, stared up at the castle. The roof was gone, the tall front wall only half its original size. A year of rain and cold had already made its presence
known. The interior bricks were no longer a warm ochre, but tinted with green as moss grew in nooks and crannies.

He strode inside what he had known as the clan hall. The rain pattered against the battered floor timbers, adding to the air of melancholy.

The shields and the claymores that had once adorned the west wall were gone. As a child he’d thought them both terrifying and wondrous. There, in that empty space, had been the large banded chest where his grandfather kept his plaids, the hunting tartan, and the dress kilt. And at the head of the hall was where the laird had sat to keep counsel, in a carved chair that looked to Alec’s young eyes to be a throne. It was gone now, only a light square remaining where it had once stood.

A surge of memory came with each footfall, each step across broken bricks and shards of wood. Harrison followed him a few feet behind, as if he recognized that these moments were difficult.

Gilmuir was built in the shape of an H, the castle and priory backing up to each other and connected by an archway now partially open to the rain.

He entered the priory with caution. Not in fear that the remnants of the roof or walls might fall. They looked sturdy enough. It was the bombardment of memory he dreaded, and just as he’d expected, it soared through him.

He was suddenly eight years old again.

“Stop squirming, Alec,” his mother whispered. She leaned over him and brushed her hand over the top of his head. She was always doing things like that, brushing back his hair, tapping his cheek with a finger, holding his shoulder. Today she had a bit of lace scarf on her head and a smile like the statue of the Madonna not far from where they sat.

“But Fergus is going to show me how to tickle a fish,” he whispered back. “And we’ve already been here so long.”

She’d smiled and shook her head, wordless remonstrance. He’d sighed like the impatient child he’d been and resigned himself to another hour of prayers.

Alec bent now and picked up a board lying in the bricks, brushed it free of dirt. It appeared to be a carved piece of the altar facade. He looked south, but only a pile of bricks remained where the altar had stood. He let the fragment fall to the floor.

The shutters were gone, now only shards of wood. Only four of the arches remained instead of the original seven. They framed the view of the loch and the dimpled surface of the lake as the rain continued to fall.

Bits of brick and mortar crunched beneath his boots as he walked back through the archway and the clan hall.

On the other side of the castle, at a point farthest from Fort William, were the sleeping quarters. Alec pushed open the door to the laird’s chamber, kicking at it to dislodge the debris on the floor. Finally it creaked open and he stood on the threshold, surprised. It was almost as if his grandfather’s will had overcome days of English bombardment.

Although faded and filthy, the room was still intact. On the walls was the heavily embossed paper his grandfather had ordered from France to surprise his wife. Alec ran his finger over one small cream and gold rose, remembering the last time he’d been in this room.

He was leaving for England, the coach prepared and waiting for him. He’d reluctantly followed his grandfather here. They’d rarely spoken in the week since his mother had been killed because Alec had
locked himself away in his chamber and refused to emerge.

“I’ve something to give you, Ian,” his grandfather had said on that day. He’d handed him a small silk-covered wooden box, the top of which was heavily embroidered. He recognized his mother’s work in the depiction of the tiny thistles.

He had stared at it with dread, knowing that it was his birthday gift, the one she promised to give him after her ride.

Cautiously, he opened it, to find the MacRae clan brooch nestled inside. Made of gold, it gleamed brightly in the morning light. Above a clenched fist holding a sword was the MacRae motto,
fortitudine,
with fortitude.

He would have handed it back to his grandfather and wordlessly left the room, but it was a gift from his mother. Oddly enough, the clan brooch had become a talisman over the years. It was his habit to keep it with him, tucked into his waistcoat pocket especially on those days he went into battle.

He looked at the ceiling above him, the plasterwork done by a master from Italy. The cornice work was unblemished, a repeating pattern of thistle and sword, symbols from the MacRae banner.

His grandfather may have ridden like a banshee from hell, been able to throw a dirk with such precision that it pierced a spider’s eye, and capable of drinking more than any man in his clan, but he also possessed an innate love of beauty.

A fireplace dominated one wall of the room and Alec wondered if it was damaged or still drew well. A door in the south wall led to a short hallway and the privy chamber.

Against one wall was the massive bed that had seen the birth of countless generations of MacRaes
and the deaths of more than a few. The counterpane was full of holes, mice-ridden, no doubt. He pressed his hands down on the sagging mattress. The ropes were sound and the mattress could easily be restuffed.

This bed would be a hedonistic luxury compared to the Spartan military cots he had become used to over the years. For the first time in years his feet would not dangle over the end of his bed. And when he awoke in the morning it wouldn’t be to find his hands braced on either side of the cot as if to keep himself from falling.

“I’ll quarter here,” he told his adjutant.

Harrison frowned at the bed, the filth on the floor. “Naught but mice, sir.”

“See the bigger picture, Harrison,” Alec said, smiling. “Not as it is, but as it should be.”

Alec left the room, retracing his steps through the clan hall, stepping easily over the rubble before heading toward Fort William.

The English had indeed conquered this place. But the Scots had peopled it with memories. He had thought it might be difficult to return to Gilmuir. Until this moment he had not realized how painful it would be.

His heritage, however, must remain a closely guarded secret. No one must know that the Butcher of Inverness was half Scot.

“W
e have to do something,” Leitis said, “or they will kill him.”

The members of the clan were crowded together in Hamish’s cottage. It was surprisingly neat and tidy, for the home of a man who had lived alone these past years. None of the furniture, from the benches to the shelves built against one wall, showed any signs of dust. The dishes were stacked on the shelf above the table, and the bed was neatly made.

In a vase on the windowsill were a few flowers, a common sight in the spring and summer. Leitis had always thought the bouquet was her uncle’s way of remembering his wife, since she had often done the same.

The people who faced her now might have refused
to betray Hamish to the English, but they were in no mood to forgive him. It wasn’t only Leitis’s cottage that had burned today. Malcolm was now homeless, as well as Mary and her son.

“Hamish made the choice to surrender to the English,” Malcolm said bluntly. “And now you want us to rescue him.”

“Would you leave him to be hanged, Malcolm?” she asked quietly.

She studied the faces of these people she’d known all her life. They had all suffered a loss in the past year, had known privation and hardship. “Not one more person should die,” she said softly. “Not even if he was foolish.”

“Sedgewick will not listen to us,” Dora said. “Have you forgotten what he did to you?” She stared pointedly at the bruise that covered half of Leitis’s face. Dora had been like a second mother to her. But that did not mean that their relationship was always easy.

“Perhaps the colonel would listen,” Leitis said coaxingly.

“Why should he? He’s just another Englishman,” Malcolm said, looking as skeptical as Dora.

“He saved the village,” Leitis said.

Malcolm fell silent at that comment.

“He would have to listen if we all went together,” she said, desperate to convince them.

“All that would do,” Alisdair said, “would be to get the lot of us killed.”

“Very well,” she said, pressing her suddenly damp hands against her skirt. “I will go alone.” A bluff that she hoped would sway them. But instead of an argument, she was greeted with stunned silence. A moment later, protesting voices filled the cottage.

“You cannot be that foolish, Leitis,” Dora said.

“A lone woman with all those Englishmen? Are
you daft, Leitis?” Peter asked. “Send you to the sea and you’ll not get salt water.”

Leitis glanced at him. Peter had a saying for every occasion, and it mattered little to the old man if any of them made sense. Most of the clan had learned to ignore him.

“Hamish would not be pleased for you to sacrifice yourself in order to save him,” Alisdair said.

“I’m aware of the danger,” she said quietly. “But there is no other choice.”

Dora moved closer, her look intent. “Do you think the English will simply release him because you ask it?”

“Should I not try, Dora, because it will be difficult?” she asked, returning the other woman’s gaze. “It’s a pity our men did not learn that lesson before they marched off to follow the prince.”

Dora looked away.

“Will none of you come with me? Have we become such cowards?” Her question silenced them.

“Don’t empty your own mouth to shame others, Leitis MacRae.”

She turned and stared at Peter. “It’s an honest question I’ve asked, Peter. Have we all lost our courage?”

“Not every shoe fits every foot,” he replied.

Leitis frowned at him. His pronouncements were growing wearisome.

Mary stepped forward. Her husband had been killed at Falkirk. The child in her arms was the youngest in their clan, born after his father’s death. She came and stood beside Leitis. “I’ll go with you,” she said calmly.

“And I,” Malcolm said surprisingly. He walked to stand beside Leitis, one hand fingering his beard.
Snow-white, it came to a point halfway to his waist and marked him as one of the oldest men in the clan.

“You’re all fools, then,” Peter said. “Just like Hamish.” He left the cottage without another word. Most of the clan followed him a moment later, although more than one person looked back regretfully.

Leitis surveyed those who remained. Ada’s swollen and knotted joints pained her greatly on damp days like today, but she smiled her cooperation, and Malcolm had lost the use of his left arm a few years earlier from palsy.

Mary stepped up to Dora, placed her sleeping child in her arms. “Will you care for my son until I return, then?” she asked, bending and placing a soft kiss on her child’s cheek.

“And if you don’t come back?” Dora asked sharply.

Mary tilted her head up proudly. “Then tell him that I was as brave as his father.”

“I’ll care for him,” Dora said grudgingly. “As if he’s my own.” She glanced above the child’s sleeping form to Leitis. “Your family would counsel you against this, Leitis,” she said, narrow-eyed. A final remonstration, one that had the power to hurt.

Leitis took a deep breath, wishing she felt more courageous. “Hamish
is
my family, Dora,” she said softly. With a forced smile, she left the cottage.

Patricia Anne Landers, Countess of Sherbourne, sat beside her husband, his hand held warmly between hers.

His bedchamber was a shadowed place against the bright afternoon sun. The day was fair, with not a hint of clouds in the deep blue of the sky. A faint breeze, laden with the heady scent of flowers, coaxed
the thickly leafed branches of the home woods to trembling.

She had ordered the curtains and windows opened so that Gerald might enjoy the sight of Brandidge Hall in summer for one last time. But it should be a day of gloom and rain, one of wild winds and chill, because her husband was dying.

The Sherbourne estate was a splendid place, a tribute to Gerald’s love of antiquity. This room was the same, a relic of another time, a life he’d lived with his first wife, Moira.

Burgundy silk covered the walls; plaster cornices painted a soft ivory adorned the ceiling. The floor was the color of roasted chestnuts and heavily polished, reflecting the elaborately carved legs of the French furniture. A delicate-looking table, heavily inlaid, sat on one side of the room, an armoire crowned with an ornately carved design of flowers on the other. Gerald’s bed with thick columns and soaring headboard dominated the room, however.

A picture was mounted on the wall beside the bed, the scene one her husband had commissioned on his last visit to the continent. It depicted a series of gray and dusky steps descending down to a riverbank. The landscape held some significance for Gerald, she believed. But he’d never told her and she’d never asked. Some things were not mentioned between them.

Such as the portrait hanging above the mantel.

She glanced at it now, as she often had in the past hours. When she had first married Gerald, she’d not objected to its presence, having agreed to be his wife for reasons of property more than fondness. His estate had bordered her father’s land, and his wealth had greatly exceeded her family’s own dwindling coffers.

But what had begun as a marriage of convenience had altered over the years to become more, at least for her.

Gerald, however, had been a distant husband, one who insisted upon his own activities. He preferred to live in London several months of the year, or visit another one of his properties for the change of scenery. As if to placate her for his paucity of presence, he was overly generous, providing her with a large allowance and encouraging her to spend it on activities that would bring her pleasure.

As if money could ever replace the love she craved.

If he could not love her, at least he had given her David, the child of her heart.

Gerald’s breathing was growing worse, and they had added camphor pots to the room and a mustard plaster to his chest. He’d only pulled it off, complaining that it burned him. His illness had come upon him suddenly, so quickly that she had no time to prepare for the eventuality of his death.

“You should sleep, my love,” she said, standing and pressing a kiss upon his forehead. It was coldly damp, as if the fever were passing. Taking a cloth from the table, she blotted his face gently. “When you’ve rested, I’ll call David.”

Gerald opened his eyes and turned his head slowly to the side, his smile fleeting and weak. Tenderly, Patricia placed her palm against his cheek. Time was short, that much she knew from the waxen color of his face.

“Rest, Gerald,” she said gently.

“Alec,” he said, the name only a breath.

“I would send word to him, Gerald, but I don’t know where he is.”

He shook his head feebly. “There’s not enough time,” he wheezed, the effort of talking taxing his fading strength. “Tell him…”

“That you love him,” she interjected. “That you’ve always been proud of him,” she added.

He nodded weakly.

A few moments later, he spoke again. She bent close so that she could hear his words. “Tell him to care for David,” he whispered.

She nodded, pressed her fingers against his cool lips. “I shall,” she said, in an effort to reassure him.

Alec was under no constraints to provide for his half-brother. The Sherbourne fortune was inexorably tied to the entailed properties left to Alec as heir. A second son was expected to make his own way in the world.

Once more she glanced at the portrait. Even now she could not hate the woman seated there. Instead, she envied her. Moira MacRae Landers had been a beautiful woman, one whose vivacity shone through her blue eyes. She was depicted sitting on a carpet of green, not in a dress, as was more proper, but in a sapphire-blue riding habit. Her hand was resting on her son’s shoulder while Alec’s brown eyes were brimming with happiness.

Patricia bowed her head at her husband’s side. Her prayers had ceased to be for his recovery, since it was so obvious that he would not live. Now she only prayed that he felt no pain.

His lips were nearly blue, and there were deep gray circles beneath his eyes. The handsome Gerald she’d once known had become an old man in the last week. She stroked the back of his hand, leaned down, and placed her cheek upon it.

“Moira,” he suddenly said, rising up from the pillows, his voice strong and filled with joy. He looked at the far side of the bed where the hangings were drawn, a blinding smile on his face. Trembling, he stretched out his hand. Then he sighed, deeply and
heavily, before collapsing back on the bed.

It took a moment for her to realize that he had died, left her in that instant with no more a farewell than a simple gasp. The surge of grief was so strong that Patricia felt it pressing against her chest like a giant fist.

Slowly she reached up and closed his eyes. Only then did she place her hands over her face and succumb to her tears.

As a leader of men, Alec had to be able to judge character quickly and accurately. In the case of Major Matthew Sedgewick, his initial impression did not improve as the hours passed.

The major proved to be reluctant to divulge information, contentious when questioned, and generally sullen. Alec was not accustomed to tolerating such belligerence. Yet Sedgewick posed a difficult problem.

Alec understood the major’s sense of betrayal at being passed over for command. He had accomplished a great deal in the last year by constructing Fort William using unseasoned troops. His current behavior, however, was not furthering his career in an army that was growing increasingly political. Instead of simply accepting the situation as it was, he was choosing, instead, to let his resentment fester.

But then, this was a man who had struck a woman. Indication enough of the deficiencies in Sedgewick’s character.

Pushing his personal feelings aside, Alec concentrated on the task at hand, a surprise inspection of a few of the soldiers’ quarters.

In larger garrisons one wife was normally allowed for every hundred soldiers. Preference was given to those women who’d been on campaign before and
were used to the harsh conditions, including the fact that she must share a rough cot with her husband in a chamber that housed eight men.

Each room boasted a fireplace used both for warmth as well as cooking. From the lingering odor, the inhabitants of this particular chamber preferred their rations scorched.

He opened the chest at the end of each bed. White dress gaiters lay on the bottom, covered by waist and pouch belts. An extra blanket, two lengths of toweling, and sheeting comprised a man’s essentials. What other personal articles a soldier possessed were not to occupy more than a hand’s width and be stored at the bottom of his chest.

A few minutes later Alec left the room, followed by Sedgewick and Harrison. The sighs of relief from the occupants of the room were premature. The soldiers stationed at Fort William were about to undergo a radical change in their duties come morning.

Alec had already completed his inspection of the magazine, ordinance, and provision stores. As he had originally suspected, Fort William was not appreciably different from other English fortifications. It was built to be self-sustaining in that it boasted a brew-house and a bakery. But he had never before seen a stable where the horses were outnumbered by the pigs and cows. The assorted grunts, lowing, and neighing rendered speech nearly impossible.

He stared at the animal stalls. Sedgewick’s talents obviously did not extend to animal husbandry. The condition of the enclosures was as slovenly as that of the soldiers he’d seen.

“We’ve had to import the livestock, sir. As well as the grains,” Sedgewick grudgingly explained.

He didn’t need to elaborate. The emaciated condition of the inhabitants of the village attested to their
near starvation. It was the same all over Scotland. Cumberland’s orders were severe and designed to punish the vanquished Highlanders.

Alec was grateful he’d chosen to quarter at Gilmuir. The stench of men and livestock wafted through the barracks, remaining long after the three men left the courtyard.

“Have the men been treated for lice?” he asked. Each soldier in his command was required to maintain a certain order about his uniform and person. Another detail on which Sedgewick was obviously lax. The men in the courtyard had not impressed him with either their cleanliness or their discipline.