Sweet Temptation (45 page)
Authors: Leigh Greenwood
“There’s people only too ready’ to help him, even if there is a godless amount of money on his head.”
“And just what do you expect my wife’s maid to have to do with his escape?”
“Well, you see, sir, the Prince wasn’t with that escaping party of Jacobites, and he wasn’t on this road neither, but he must be somewhere.”
“I can’t fault your logic so far.”
“Well, we met that guide you hired for your wife a ways back …”
“I sent him home because we didn’t need him, now that I’m here.”
“… and he suggested there was some funny business about the maid.”
“Funny business?”
“What he actually said was, that we ought to see about that maid. He said it weren’t natural for a female to be that big.”
“So you’re thinking that we may have the Prince in here, disguised as Lady Carlisle’s maid.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but we have to check every possibility.”
“Certainly. Betty, would you like to speak to the soldier?”
“You bet I would,” declared Betty, opening the door and preparing to step down. “I may have grown a bit more than was necessary, but I won’t have any trouble convincing this turnip there’s nothing false about me.”
The man needed no more than the sound of that well-remembered voice to convince him this indeed was Betty, and not the prince.
“You don’t need to get down, Miss,” he said, before Betty’s foot could touch the ground. “Anyone can see you’re not the prince.” Betty got down anyway.
“I want you to be sure this time,” she said, approaching the young man and towering above him intimidatingly. “This is the second time you’ve stopped milady’s coach, which to my way of thinking is two times too many. I don’t want you messing about with us anymore. You can search under the seat and inside the trunks if you must, but if I see you again, they’re going to have to carry you back to your captain.”
“Now, Betty, he’s just trying to do his job,” Sara said, her voice unsteady with suppressed laughter.
“No more than I’m trying to do mine,” Betty answered promptly.
Ian didn’t arrive at the inn until quite late that evening. Gavin had a doctor waiting to treat his wounds. Ian looked so bad the doctor immediately banished them from the room. After he had done all he could, the doctor gave Ian something to ease the pain and make him sleep, so it wasn’t until they were on the road again the next day that Gavin and Sara had a chance to talk with him. Betty was once again riding in the box so Ian might be able to lie down on her seat.
“For a man who didna believe in the rebellion, ye have been put tae some shifts tae save the pair of us.”
“I couldn’t leave you to be butchered by Hawley’s henchmen, but you’ll have to thank Sara for helping the prince. I’d have told him to be on his way.”
“Maybe,” replied Ian, the pain of his wounds making it difficult for him to adjust his position so that he could see both Sara and Gavin, “but I thank ye none the less. Now, how do ye propose tae get me off yer hands? Ye can’t be meaning tae hide me in yer cellars, and my father willna have me.” He paused as a thought struck him. “I don’t suppose he’ll be able tae keep anybody now. No doubt yer precious Cumberland will give our land tae one of his German cronies.”
“You must emigrate,” Gavin said. “Many of your people have already done so.”
“Aye. I wouldna mind it so much, if ye had the land,” Ian said. “At least I would know ‘twas in the hands of someone who loved it as much as I do.”
“Then you didn’t hear what Cumberland said on the battlefield?”
“No. I passed out when ye rolled me over.”
“He did give me your land. I will send you some money, as soon as you get to America. Then, maybe in a few years, after everything is settled down again, you can come back.”
“Nay, I’ll no’ be coming back,” Ian said sadly. “It will never again be the Scotland I loved. Ye can change with the times, but I canna do aught but wish for the old days.”
“But this is still your home,” Sara said, unable to understand how Ian could turn his back on everything that until this morning he had been willing to give his life for.
“Not any longer. Some men can bend in the wind, adapt tae change, but I canna. Tis why I fought for the Stuart, and ‘tis why I canna stay.”
“We’ll miss you.”
“Aye, and that’s another reason why I must go, lassie.” Ian’s gaze defied Gavin to refuse him the use of the endearment. “I might be tempted tae kidnap ye again.”
“They don’t approve of kidnapping, even in America,” Gavin told him.
“Aye, but I willna be tempted in America, unless ye be meaning tae come for a visit.”
They laughed at that and talked much more easily afterwards, hut later, after Ian was settled in his room at Estameer, and they were preparing to leave him, Sara couldn’t help but ask him again.
“Do you really have to stay away forever? Can’t you come back someday?”
“It wouldna be wise. Gavin and I will part as friends, but too much lies between us. Besides, I canna face him day after day, knowing he possesses the two things in the world I hold most dear.”
“Two things?”
“My land and you.”
As she waited for Gavin to come to bed, Sara allowed her mind to wander back through the most recent of the several turning points in their lives. Now that it was over, she could see that the last few days had cleared away all the remaining debris between them, and that their relationship would be the stronger for it, but it had been a painful purging, and she hoped they would never be forced to endure anything like it again. But Gavin was so much happier, so much more natural, she found herself unable to regret any of the suffering or unhappiness. After all, it’s a lot like having a baby, she told herself. The discomfort is intense, but it’s temporary, and is followed by a joy that will last forever.
The door between their rooms opened, and Sara felt sure her cup was full beyond holding. She could never look at Gavin without feeling almost overcome with wonder. That any of the events of the past several months should have happened to quiet, shy little Sara Raymond was incredible, but nothing was more unbelievable than that this gorgeous man was her husband. And he was her lover, too! Well, she still had trouble believing that.
“I have something for you,” Gavin said, and handed her a piece of paper. “It gives you absolute control of your fortune, the principal and the income. I’ve already signed it.”
“But why?”
“Do you remember what you said in Glasgow? You said you wanted a home, a family to belong to, and control of your money. Well, Estameer is your home, and our child will be the beginning of a family. Now you have your money.”
“And you said you wanted something you could do without interference from your father, and someone who could love you unconditionally.”
“I have both.” Gavin slipped into bed and took Sara into his arms. “But you are the more important of the two.” His kiss was gentle at first, but then it became hard and insistent. “I thought I had lost you when I saw you with Ian. I don’t know what happened to me, I’m not even sure I know what I did, but I felt like I was losing my mind.” Sara tried to put her fingers to his lips to stop him, but he would not be quieted. “No, I must tell you. I must convince you it will never happen again. I don’t know why I did it, but I guess it was the shock of thinking I was losing you, and that after finally falling in love, life was going to cheat me again.”
“You never have completely stopped loving your father, have you?”
“No, which was why I hated him all the more. Does that make sense to you?”
“I think so.”
“Well, I can accept him now. I still think he’s a bloody beast, and I could kill him for what he did to my mother, if it would do any good, but I can accept that, too. And I could accept it if your love for me were to change.”
“I will never—”
“I know,” Gavin whispered, putting his fingers to her lips, “but I
could
accept it. I know now you have to take chances in life, and that you can’t win every time, that you have to go on living. Ian risked everything he loved. He lost, but he will start over. You lost everything when your father died. I was blind to think I suffered more than others, or that my tragedy hadn’t been acted out thousands of times before. If you hadn’t been determined to force me to learn to love you, I might still be in the airless cocoon I built for myself, foolishly thinking I was protecting my life from hurt, even more stupidly thinking that what I had was worth protecting.”
“And you have freed me from a limited view of life.” Sara chuckled in spite of the lump in her throat. “I can’t say I’ve
liked
everything that has happened to me over the last five months, but without them I would be a woman of very restricted experience, with little understanding of the world or her husband.”
“You can’t pretend that throwing you to the wolves was a virtue.”
“No, but you didn’t have to give me a chance to become your
real
wife. Even in Glasgow, you never turned your back on me.”
“How could I, when Ian and the Prince were parading you all over town. I met you at every turn.”
“I was always looking for you. Betty was disgusted with me.”
“Do you know when I think I started to fall in love with you?” Gavin said.
“No.”
“When we were returning from the church.”
“But I had fainted.”
“How could I be angry with a woman who had fainted?”
“You already know when I fell in love with you.”
“When I was showing off for the coachman,” Gavin said with a grimace. “I hope I’ve improved since then.”
Sara let her hand run over his powerful shoulder and then through the soft mat of hair on his chest. “Just a little. Now, if you could just not clench your jaw so hard when you get angry. It makes you look like you’ve got walnuts in your cheeks.” Gavin tumbled her over and kissed her until she was breathless.
“Now look what you’ve done,” complained Sara. “I’ve lost my paper.”
“Here it is,” Gavin said, fishing it out from where it had been crushed under him. It was badly wrinkled. “I’ll give you another one.”
“This is quite good enough for what I want,” Sara said, and proceeded to rip the paper in half, turn it around, and rip it again several times more. She sprinkled the pieces all over Gavin.
“What did you do that for?”
“I remembered a line in the service that said you endowed me with all your worldly goods. I don’t need a paper to give me what I already have.”
“But I thought—”
“So did I, but I was wrong. But you can kiss me again. That’s something I will never have enough of.”
Gavin didn’t require a second invitation. That he had found everything he wanted in a woman—in
one
woman—was a surprise. That she was his wife, was incredible.
And Sara welcomed his embraces. She was in awe of what had been given her, that Gavin should love her as much as she loved him. She thought of her father and smiled.
Now
she understood.
The Scottish army under Charles Stuart and Lord George Murray penetrated England as far south as Derby on December 6, 1745, roughly one hundred and twenty miles from London. There was a panic in the city, and George II ordered his private yacht ready to sail at a moment’s notice.
Bonnie Prince Charlie never did forgive his clan chieftains for forcing him to retreat from Derby. There is considerable conjecture as to what might have happened if he had been allowed to proceed to London, and the promised help had come from France, but as it is only conjecture, it doesn’t concern us here. He gradually removed his trust from the clan chieftains and Lord George, and placed it in the hands of a few hangers-on in his personal party. This had disastrous results during his long illness in the winter of 1746, and in the preparations for the battle of Culloden.
A reward of thirty thousand pounds, an incredible sum in 1746, was placed on the Prince’s head by the English government, but it is even more remarkable that during the five months the Prince was in hiding, not a single person—and he was helped by many people during that time—attempted to claim the reward. He
did
elude capture by masquerading as the maid of Flora McDonald, but this did not take place where I have placed it in the book, or in the same manner.
Sara and Gavin are entirely fictional, as is their story, but the facts about the Highland army, its leaders and its battles, are accurate. I have used first hand accounts and, in so far as was possible, I have paraphrased the actual words of Bonnie Prince Charles, Lord George Murray, Lieutenant-General Henry Hawley, James Wolfe, and William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland.
The reprisals after Culloden were unbelievably cruel, the bayonetting of the wounded on the battlefield being only one of the gruesome acts intended to insure that such an uprising for the Stuart cause would never take place again. The clan system was systematically dismantled, the Highlanders were forbidden to render military service to their chief, the chief lost jurisdiction over his people—some also lost their lands—and wearing of the tartan was banned. The tartan and confiscated lands were restored after 1782, but the clan system was effectively destroyed, as much by changes in agriculture as government interference.