The mutters turned to murmurs as people began to appreciate the irony of this.
‘Three meals a day, paid for by the English!’ Aeneas shouted.
The crowd laughed.
‘And a shilling each from the German Lairdie’s brat they call king!’ Anne added.
There was more laughter. The old woman waved her pitchfork.
‘I’ll go,’ she cried.
‘Only young men, Meg,’ Aeneas explained. ‘Fools that they are, they don’t want women.’
‘Sasannaich!’ Old Meg spat in the dirt.
The wife of the clansman who’d first objected pushed her oldest son forward.
‘Our Calum will go,’ she said.
‘And me.’ Another lad stepped up.
‘I will.’
‘Me too.’ Shouts came from everywhere.
Forbes was bemused. A McIntosh contribution to the Black Watch was unexpected but acceptable, very acceptable given the prospect of rebellion. He could only declare himself satisfied. Aeneas grinned at Anne, swung her up into his arms, stepped down from the platform and, to enthusiastic roars of encouragement from their clans, carried her through the open doors into her new home.
It was the first time Anne had been inside Moy Hall, though she barely registered the long dining room or the wide square hall. What impressed her senses was the physical closeness of the man cradling her. In the swing of each step, his hard chest against her ribs, the back of his neck in the crook of her arm, the silkiness of that black hair brushing her fingers, the pressure of his arms on her back and thighs, how lightly he carried the weight of her.
‘I should show you round,’ he said, as he headed for the broad staircase, with no obvious intention of setting her down. From outside, the pipes picked up the interrupted reel, the dance resumed.
‘It will wait.’ She nuzzled into the curve of his neck to breathe the musky scent of him, brushing her lips against the smoothness of that skin, tasting the slight saltiness of it with her tongue.
‘Woman,’ he groaned, leaning his head into her a little, ‘we’ll never get beyond the stair.’
So he kissed her face, cheek, eyes, forehead, her hair, little kisses which she echoed, yet he never stumbled. At the top was a door, which he pushed open with his back, into a corridor with many doors. He carried her through the first to a wood-panelled bedroom bright with sunlight, threw his bonnet off, set her down. She had her mouth on his before her feet touched the ground, searching the warmth of his lips, for his tongue, arms round his neck, fingers tangled in his long hair, acutely conscious of his hands, one under her shoulder blades, the other in the small of her back, drawing her into him. It was a hungry kiss, fierce, their breath hot, exchanging, bodies clenched together, hands gripping and moving against clothes till the need for skin became irresistible. She tugged his belt loose and it thudded to the floor, dirk with it. Unlike the pleated great plaid which would have fallen away from his body without a belt to hold it, the kilt did not.
‘Wait,’ he said, chest rising in deep breaths, stepping back to remove his sword and unpin the brooch from his plaid.
She stood, dazed with desire, watching his fingers undo buckles, kilt and plaid drop in a heap, tartan hose pushed off his feet, till he stood in his long shirt, paused, about to reach for her again.
‘I would see you without the shirt,’ she said.
In one sweep, it was over his head and he was naked before her, taut, muscular, his body perfectly beautifully male, the smoothness of relaxed muscle, his cock jutting out, firm, ready. She put the palm of her hand against his chest. Her eyes wanted to close, her limbs to give way, limp with desire while he’d be stronger with than without it, nature ensuring its intention. But she wanted to know this body that would be joined with hers in marriage, before sensation removed perception, so she walked around him, close, tracing fingers and mouth across his skin, smelling the scent of him as she pressed a kiss between his strong shoulders, lightly, and felt the muscles in his back quiver, the same quiver in his buttocks.
As she came round in front of him again, her fingertips touched a scar on the shoulder of his left arm, an old scar, white with age, that had been deep.
‘Before I learned not to drop my guard,’ he said, looking into her eyes.
Brown, his eyes were, the colour of peat, and the look in them made her want his mouth again, want to take him into her. But he saw the urge rise in her and shook his head.
‘Not yet,’ he said, put his hands on her shoulders, turned her round so her back was to him and began to undo the hooks that fastened her dress.
White petals from the rosebuds stitched into it scattered to the floor and fluttered across the room as her dress slid down. When she stepped out of it, he swept it up, threw it on to a chair. The stays over her shift fastened at the front, so he turned her to face him. Unlacing them, his knuckles brushed her breasts. Her breath, through parted lips, came in small gasps.
When the stays were gone, she expected him to push the thin straps from her shoulders, to let the shift fall from between them. But he put a hand round her back, slid his right hand down to raise the hem of it, reached under to stroke her thigh, the curve of her hip, over her belly, pushing his fingers down into that springy hair and on, into the wet heat of her sex.
‘You’re ready to fuck,’ he murmured, thrusting in so that her knees buckled.
She pressed into him, gripping his shoulder to steady herself, reached for the weight of his erection with her other hand, but he stopped the touch, stepped back, his eyes blacker now, the light of the window behind him, the muted pipes changing smoothly from reel to strathspey, dancers whooping.
‘I would see you without the shift,’ he said, echoing her, his voice thick, and heavy without a smile in it.
A tremor ran through her belly. She slid the straps off her shoulders, shrugged off the silk, slithering, to the floor. Naked before his nakedness, her arms raised of their own accord, open for him. If he would not come to her now, the feeling banked in her would break into rage.
‘Let your hair loose.’
‘It will get in the way.’
‘Not in mine.’
Now she was angry. She swept the long plait round, tugged the white ribbon from it, the last rosebuds falling, ran her fingers through the coils to loosen them, threw it over her shoulder and shook her head. The weight of hair swung, tumbling down her back, over her breast, falling to her hips. She glared at him but, paused in that stilled, watchful energy, he didn’t seem to care. Then the heat of his skin was on hers, the strength of his arms holding, lifting as he put her and himself into their marriage bed, his body covering hers.
Even there, he seemed in no hurry to give himself to her, so there was nothing to deny and then nothing she would deny. He knew, as she had not, that the skin between her fingers, and in the palm of her hands, was more sensitive to touch than her breasts; that words murmured against hot skin aroused as much as stroking. So she let go, and went with him. All he prevented was when her hands, or mouth, or his own urgency might husband him too soon.
It was a long, slow coupling until, finally, he held her when she cried out for him to, as she shuddered in the dissolution of pleasure. It was only then, in the washing away, that he moved into her again, slow strokes changing quickly to deep, hard thrusting. Clenched to him, she was consumed, not by her own pleasure now but by his.
‘Mo ghaoil, my love,’ she whispered, when he groaned her name, juddering as his seed came out of him into her, lost in wonder. She felt tears come just holding him, vulnerable as he was, unguarded now, while stillness washed through the weight of him.
‘Are you crying?’ he asked, raising himself to look into her eyes.
‘No.’ And, in truth, she wasn’t now, because her belly quivered, but with laughter.
He smiled, chuckled and rolled over on his back. They lay together, hearing the dancers call outside, the jig on the pipes, her head on his sweat-damp chest, fingers tracing the softer r
ise and fall of his abdomen, the smell of sex about them.
‘How can you know all that?’ she asked.
His head rose, looking at her, brows drawn together, then he grinned, broadly, threw his head back on the pillow laughing, a deep, throaty laugh which he would not explain though she pushed her fist into his ribs and threatened to fuck him again, but it was far too soon and they had to wait a while.
Reluctant to rejoin their guests, at least before morning or even the day after, they let the afternoon drift on to evening. They ate and drank from a tray the girl, Jessie, had left at the door. It was when dark fell, when pipes and celebrants grew silent, that the enormity of marriage struck Anne. She would sleep the night beside him, rise in this bed next day.
‘And wake making love,’ he smiled, though his eyes were shut, near sleep.
‘In the morning?’
‘I don’t think the English have passed a law against it yet,’ he said.
‘Then they must mean to tax it,’ she said. And they laughed again, together.
SEVEN
A grey drizzle of rain hung over London, barely penetrated by the rising sun. In his chambers at Kensington House, the Duke of Cumberland splashed cold water into his face. At twenty-four, he already had the bulbous look of an English bulldog. His defeat at Fontenoy still smarted, the return home ignominious, leaving the French in victorious possession of Flanders. Behind him, a servant held his red coat ready. The Duke dried himself, threw the towel down beside the china bowl of water and slid his arms into the waiting sleeves.
‘Cope! Hawley!’ he called.
The door opened and General Hawley, a skinny ancient spider of a man meticulously dressed in black, came in.
‘Your Highness,’ he bowed. ‘All’s well with the king?’
‘My father is –’ Cumberland hesitated ‘– concerned. Where’s Cope?’
‘It’s morning,’ Hawley shrugged. It was well known in the army that General Cope liked his bed. From the hallway came the sound of clattering. The door burst open and Cope appeared, a rotund, red-faced man with his buttons half done and his wig askew, scarlet uniform spattered with rain. He flapped his hands, apologetically.
‘Ah, I’m sorry, I was –’
‘Late,’ Cumberland snapped. His jowls quivered. He swept up a sheaf of papers and waved it at the two generals. ‘Last week HMS Lion engaged two French frigates. The Elisabeth limped back to Brest. The du Teillay escaped. Now our intelligence reports my cousin has gone from France.’
‘He wouldn’t be such a damn fool as to land,’ Cope said. ‘Not with only one ship.’
‘That we know of.’ Cumberland sat down heavily and began to write. ‘You’ll mobilize for Scotland. General Hawley, you’ll join General Wade in Northumberland.’
‘England’s Jacobites won’t start an insurrection,’ Hawley objected. ‘They only talk. A few gibbets swinging in the Highlands would ensure the peace.’
‘Or one for a would-be king,’ Cumberland corrected. He handed the paper he’d been writing to Cope. ‘A letter of credit, Johnny. That should cover your payroll. Find him.’
Rain had battered down throughout the first two weeks of July, a hard, unceasing rain that cut like knives, drumming on roofs, puddling fields and flooding the burns into spate. When it stopped, it was suddenly summer, dry and hot as if no such rain could be imagined, far less fall. Only flooded fords, swollen lochs and fast-flowing rivers gave the lie to that, and the crops. Grim-faced, Anne and Aeneas sat on their horses side by side, staring at the devastation. The field of barley was flattened.
‘The wheat will be the same,’ Aeneas said, dismounting to check the standing height of broken stems.
‘Can we harvest it now?’
‘Aye,’ he squinted up at her against the harsh sun. ‘But for hay.’ That would mean overwintering more cattle so the crop could return its worth fed through the beasts. It would be spring before any value derived from it.
‘At least the oats are in.’
‘Plenty of porridge,’ he agreed, swinging back up into the saddle, ‘and less to wash it down with.’
‘So it’s ale and uisge beatha you mourn,’ she teased. ‘Or that we’ll miss our contribution to German Geordie’s keep?’
He leant an arm on his horse’s neck and studied her for a moment.
‘There’s another shame this is a barley field,’ he said slowly, seriously, despite the light in his eyes. ‘You’ll not be wanting ears of that inside your skirts.’
The sudden twist of pleasure inside Anne, though familiar now, was always unexpected. Throughout June, they had tried walking through the estate so she could learn it but could barely pass a grassy patch among the heather or a copse of trees. Hand-holding was fatal to forward progress so, if she was to know the extent of Moy, they had to traverse it on horseback. Unlike Aeneas, she could not control her smile.
‘I doubt they’d be a joy under the kilt either,’ she said.
‘Ach, I’m a man.’ He grinned now. ‘I can stand the itch.’ Then he chuckled. ‘At least till later.’
It took longer than it ought to reap and stook the half-ripe grain. Aeneas sent fifty cotter families over to help cut and stack at Dunmaglas, where MacGillivray, with more barley in exposed fields, would have suffered greater loss.
When the work was done, the boys who’d volunteered into the Black Watch assembled at Moy Hall. They’d been kept back for a harvest that would no longer come, their income from military service needed even more now. Lined up, fresh-faced and eager enough for adventure, they were mostly oldest sons of the poorest families. Cotters on the periphery of the estate were often exiles from other clans, banished for some transgression or voluntary exiles over some dispute, given the thinnest soil and most meagre grazing allowance until they proved themselves to their new chief.
Anne had dressed up specially to inspect the volunteers, walking the lines with Aeneas. A few, whose mothers refused permission, were sent home. In customary fashion, for welcome or to see men off to war, she kissed each one warmly on the mouth as Aeneas introduced them. They were tender boys, at the pretty age, sixteen or seventeen, not much younger than she was. This would be their first time away from home.
‘Calum McCay,’ Aeneas said.
She remembered Calum from their wedding day, the first one pushed forward.
‘Duncan Shaw.’ The elder of two brothers, his mother had allowed only one to go.
The next boy was gangly with a wide lop-sided grin.
‘Shameless,’ Aeneas said. ‘He has no other name.’
‘McIntosh,’ Shameless said proudly, mistaking his chief ’s meaning. ‘I’m with Howling Robbie.’ Certainly the two boys stood, fingers entwined, close together.
‘Howling Robbie?’ Anne queried, smiling.
‘Do you not remember from the dancing,’ Aeneas said in her ear, ‘or him singing later in the night?’
Now she remembered; the hooching and hollering which owed more to energy than tunefulness. She kissed them both soundly.
‘It’s good you’re going together.’
There were fifty volunteers, the last Lachlan Fraser, the blacksmith’s son. Anne questioned that one. A smith was an important asset, not one to be given away lightly and not into government forces when a rising could be imminent.
‘The French never left port, Anne,’ Aeneas reminded her. ‘Only two ships escaped the blockade and the navy turned them back.’
‘But they might try again, and if the Prince lands in England, these boys could be sent there, on the wrong side.’
‘I won’t let that happen.’
Anne turned back to Lachlan, who stood, head down, fretting. Like all the young men there, he was eager to go fully armed and become the warrior he had trained to be since childhood.
‘You can go with my blessing,’ she said, kissing him. ‘But only for six months. Moy has more need than the Black Watch of a blacksmith in the making.’
Aeneas mounted up then, to deliver the bo
ys to Fort George in Inverness. Anne stayed behind to make tokens for the next day’s handfasting but she watched them go, uneasy. She’d supported Aeneas in recruiting them because it felt right at the time, but now, watching them march proudly away, kilted plaids swinging, it seemed as though they marched to join an enemy. The clan had instinctively been repelled by the idea of their sons supporting a government garrison. Perhaps that should have been heeded.
The following morning there were disputes to settle before the afternoon ceremonies. Moy Hall, like the land, belonged to the people, as did their chief. It was to him they brought problems they failed to resolve among themselves. The first two were simple, a boundary disagreement and some cattle put on to another’s grazing. Aeneas resolved them equally simply. He knew precisely where the boundary fell. If transgressed again, twice the ground encroached would be given for use to the aggrieved family. He didn’t accept the excuse that cattle wandered into a neighbour’s field.
‘It is for you to see they don’t,’ he told their owner, warning him that the neighbour would also gain an extra beast if it happened again, before addressing the need by allocating extra rights to the common grazing.
Anne listened carefully. It would take time before she knew Moy and its people well enough to make such clear-headed judgements. At Invercauld, she, too, had known every stone and tree, each name and person. She swallowed a surge of homesickness.
The third complaint was made with great anger. A crowd pushed into the hall, propelling a bruised cottar prodded on by an old woman with a pitchfork, and all of them speaking at once.
‘Let one of you speak first,’ Aeneas said, nodding to a stocky cottar. ‘Ewan?’
‘He has put a torr-sgian into his wife,’ Ewan said. ‘And she has the wounds in her back to show for it!’
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