“Your missus, she’s powerful tired. And, merciful heavens, no shoes!”
Charles wasn’t certain the couple were to be trusted. He had begun to suspect all around him, and this moment helped him to understand in small part just how heavy a burden the Stuart family had carried. “She turned her poor foot whilst we were walking...fell down a hill and scraped her knees,” he lied. “And we’d already strayed far from the castle it seems. We were on one of the duke’s horses,” he explained, “but she bolted whilst we were walking. A horsefly bit her, I think. We had foolishly thought a midnight ride would be pleasant. I’m no country gentleman, more accustomed to London life. I fear that my darling fell down, but we discovered we were close by to Dr. Lemuel’s house. He gave her medicine for the pain, and I think it’s made her drowsy, poor thing. Her boots are in the carriage.”
“Ach, that explains it then,” the wife replied, striking a match to a large candle on the mantel. “I reckon the doctor lent ya his carriage to take the lady home. Lemuel’s a quiet man, and his hair’s strange for sure. Some ‘round here think he was frightened by the de’il hisself. My Hamish thinks it’s all tosh, bu’ there’s many ‘round here tha’ believes it.”
Beth stirred slightly, and the woman noticed the large blue ring. “Lord, but you are surely kin to the duke! A pretty present from a loving husband, to be sure. How long ha’ ye been wed?”
St. Clair thought for a second. Was this a test? Should he confess the entire truth or concoct yet another story to keep Beth’s true identity secret? Reaching out in her sleep, her fingertips brushed his hand, and his mind was decided. She now relied upon him for protection, and he in turn could trust no one, save the inner circle.
“Two weeks,” he lied again. “We’re on our honeymoon.”
The woman’s face beamed, and she kissed Charles on the cheek and clapped her hands in delight. “Newlyweds! Ach, this is a real blessing! You’ll be wanting privacy, I know. I’ll have Hamish make a fire in the cottage next door. We built it for our son and his bride four years past, an’ they have two children now, bless the Lord! Our Ian’s moved his family to the city to find his fortune. He’s studyin’ you know. He’s a way wi’ books—oh tha’ lad loves to read. So you’ve the place all to yerselves. You can bed down there for a few hours, and then when it’s light, Hamish’ll draw you a map to find yer way back to the castle. It’s not a bad ride if you can cross the hills, but it’s nearly an hour’s drive by the road, bu’ once you’ve the sun to guide ye, ye’ll have no trouble.”
Surely, he was taking a chance with all their lives by accepting the offer, but without a clear path back to Drummond, he could think of no other option. If only he’d paid more attention to the roads!
“You are very kind,” he said just as the husband returned.
“Your horses were worn ou’, lad. Dr. Lemuel’s team, I think.”
Maggie brought tea and poured two cups, handing one to Charles. “Will she be able to drink, sir?”
“Beth,” he called, kissing her cheek. “Darling?”
She opened her eyes briefly, looking up at the woman. “Are we there yet, Charles?”
He kissed her again. Her skin felt cool to the touch. “Not yet, darling. Are you cold?”
She nodded, sleepily, but opened her eyes long enough to accept some of the hot tea, draining the cup in a few sips. “Where are we?”
“A farmer’s cottage. You turned your foot, remember? Our horses have gone as far as they can. Hamish and Maggie have offered us a cottage for the night.”
She touched his face. “My darling Captain. You are so brave. Maggie?”
The woman nodded and poured a second cup of tea, handing it to Beth. “Tha’s me, Missus. Your Captain is a handsome one. An’ it’s clear he’s over the moon about you. Drink a bit more, if you can. There now. Oh, sir, she is worn out.”
Beth had managed another small sip, but her eyes refused to remain open, so Charles took the cup and handed it back to the woman. “Thank you, Maggie.”
The woman set down the kettle and walked through a narrow doorway to the back of the three-room cottage. During her absence the farmer lit a pipe and began to smoke, the hazy exhales spiraling above his head. “It’s a lucky thing finding Lemuel. He tended the lady’s foot, I imagine. It’s swollen. I can see tha’ right off. Ach, tha’ Lemuel’s a queer bird, no doubt o’ it. Some say he wears the crown o’ the de’il.”
“The devil?” Charles clarified, slowly making sense of the man’s brogue. “Do such things happen in this day and age?”
“Aye. Tha’s so, they do. The de’il nary sleeps,” Hamish replied. “Leastways, no’ ‘round here.”
St. Clair mused upon this simple statement. Despite having been a Christian since turning ten, Charles had always found the notion of a real Devil, of demons, somewhat archaic, but his own experiences the past few days began to make the detective wonder just how true the old Bible tales might be. Belief in a Saviour implied a belief in a realm beyond natural sight—in heaven and angelic messengers. In sin. So, if angels who are loyal to God exist, then how could he not believe in those who rebelled? Might they not also have ‘messengers’, minions who carry out their fallen master’s demonic orders?
Maggie returned with a thick pile of quilts, placing one around Elizabeth’s shoulders. “Now, you leave them be, Hamish Campbell. These young folks are on their honeymoon, stayin’ as guests o’ the duke, so we’ve no cause to be bringin’ up such talk.”
The farmer puffed, his black eyebrows moving up and down as his pipe swiped from side to side. The smoke curled in silver swirls, in and out of his white hair, but he seemed kind enough. Charles wished the sides in this battle wore badges marking their loyalties. It would make the task easier for him and safer for her.
“Is tha’ so?” the old man asked, winking at his wife. “Weel, I’ll lay a fire in the hearth o’ our Ian’s cottage. Ye can sleep ‘til dawn. Bu’ if you’re a guest o’ the duke, he’ll ha’ his men out lookin’ fer ye a’ first light. If you canno’ follow the map I make, stay still, an’ wait fer him. His men know every crag n’ cranny o’ these hills.”
“Thank you,” Charles said, shaking the man’s calloused hand.
The farmer laughed. “Aye. Wi’ soft hands like yours, it’s clear you’re a city man! Well, Maggie, I’m off to make Ian’s cottage warm. Put a ho’ water bottle in wi’ them quilts. Your lady, son, looks to ha’ a chill,” he added, leaving and shutting the door.
Maggie took a large willow basket and set the quilts inside. “I’d already thought o’ tha’, but bein’ on yer honeymoon, a hot water bottle might no’ be so needed as wi’ me an’ my old man. Oh, life is all ahead o’ ye, sir.”
“Thanks so much,” he said, meaning it. “I’m Charles, by the way.’ He thought for a few seconds, and then suddenly added, “Charles Sinclair.”
“A Sinclair? Well, that makes sense then. The Sinclairs are close kin to the Stuarts, or I’m not a Campbell! My old man an’ me are cousins, ya see. I grew up north o’ here. Up by Briarcliff. Tha’s the seat for the other Stuarts. The Earls of Aubrey. I wager you’re kin to them as well.”
Names and places were beginning to click for Charles. Was he actually a Sinclair? Could Paul be his true cousin? Then, if that were so, would that imply that Elizabeth also might be a cousin, somewhere along that branching tree? “Yes, we’re all related. I’m not much good at keeping track of family lines, though. My cousin Paul is much better than I.”
“Paul? Oh, now, tha’ would be the new earl, am I right? A lovely man. His elder brother died when he was but twenty, you know. A duel.”
This was new! “I’ve not heard that family story. My branch left for London some time back.”
“Such a sorry tale. Hamish doesn’t care much for stories o’ dukes and earls and all tha’. He’s a man o’ the land, an’ he just wants a day’s bread and a pipe to
smoke. An’ I love ‘im for it, bu’, my mother was in service to the earl’s family when I was a lass. She told me many tales aboot tha’ wonderful family, an’ some would be though’ a lie, if my mother, may she rest in peace, had no’ seen ‘em wi’ her own two eyes! An’ I saw things, too, tha’ would no’ be believed.”
“Such as?” he asked, growing ever more curious about the family which may be his own.
“Weel, there’s the taibhse, the ghost ya know, for starters.”
His eyes grew round. “Ghost?”
“Oh, aye. The ghost appears on moonless nights up on the cliff. The castle is a great old house, an’ it was built to stand agin’ any army. You’ve seen it, I imagine.”
Charles shook his head. “No, but we’d planned to go up there next with my cousin as guide. Paul said he’d show me all the family properties.”
“Then you’ve a grand tour comin’! Briarcliff Castle o’erlooks Loch Leven, not far from Glencoe. Tha’ bein’ the blood site o’ the massacre, ye know. Mort Ghlinne Comhann, we call it in Gaelic. The Murder of Glencoe. A traitorous deed foisted upon the MacDonald clan, and I’m ashamed ta say tha’ it was a pair of Campbell cousins who stood behind it all. Nigh on ta forty honest men were slain in their beds. Men who opened their homes to soldiers, and woke to naught but blood and fire. And another forty or more women and children escaped the burnin’ o’ their homes, but wi’ nowhere to go, they perished in the snows that February.” She paused to wipe her eyes. “Your cousin’s family, the Aubrey Stuarts, they tried to help, though some were in Paris at the time, appealing to their cousin, King James for guidance. It was a troublesome time, ta be sure. Those angry spirits roam aboot even today, some up by the castle on the cliff, for it’s said they blame the Stuart line for not doin’ enough. My ma, she used to say prayers while scrubbin’ floors, washin’ linen, an’ all the way to do private business afore the modern niceties was put in. Oh, the castle’s all modern now, bu’ still full o’ the taibhsean—ghosts. My ma saw young master Ian’s spirit tha’ very night. The night he died, ya know.”
“Ian was the earl’s firstborn son?”
“Aye. It were tha’ other fella’—what were his name? Oh, it’s on the tip o’ me tongue—a foreign name, I think.”
A foreign name? Not William Trent then. “Did your mother ever see this man?”
“No, but I did.”
His dark brows shot up. “You did? Do you recall his appearance? Surely, not another ghost.”
She shook her head, taking a seat on a stool near the fire. “I were ten years old. I’d been workin’ to the house for a year as a cook’s helper. Always could boil an’ bake an’ mash e’en as a wee thing, bu’ Mrs. MacTavish taught me to make fancy things, she did. A lovely woman. She still serves there, I think, an’ she saw ‘im, too!”
“Go on.”
“It must’ve been half eight. We’d just laid out the meals for the laird’s supper, an’ I was tol’ to bring in more water from the well room. Bein’ a fortified castle, the water was once guarded in a big stone room nex’ to the kitchens. I took a bucket and went to fetch the water, but I could hear two men shoutin’ words such as only my Uncle John used to use. I stepped up onto the stone seat o’er by the window—not more’n a slit, meant for shootin’ arrows or muskets back in the day, ya know. I could see the young master, a sword in his hand, standin’ agin’ the cliff, an’ another man, taller e’en than the young laird, an’ him laughin’! Can you imagine it?”
“This other man with the foreign name. He was very tall then. Did you see his hair, his face?”
“You do like a good ghost story, sir. Well, so do I. And aye, I did see him, full in the face, an’ forgive me for sayin’ it, but he looked like old Nick hisself!”
“You mean Satan?” Charles asked.
“Aye. His eyes was red aflame, an’ his long black hair caught the settin’ sun like a great fiery halo ‘round his head! He wore a black moustache an’ beard, and his clothes looked queer strange. He could no’ have been Satan, o’ course, but he seemed so to me. The young master fought bravely, but this man—the devil man—he cheated, did’n’ he? He said somethin’ akin to this, ‘I will have her, though she’s not yet born! And there is naught ye kin do to stop me!’ His accent were pure strange, an’ I know it don’ make sense, bu’ tha’s wha’ he said. Then he thrust in his sword—an’ I swear on me mother’s grave it’s true, it were made of fire—and then he pushed the young master off the cliff!”
Charles could scarcely believe his ears, yet the woman appeared sane. Why would this farmer’s wife make up such a tale? How could she know that demonic men like William Trent—and perhaps a second man, a foreigner in old fashioned clothing—even now haunted the Stuart family, if not his own? Could this tall man be the same one Elizabeth had seen as a girl? The one who spoke with the strange accent? Might he even be the tall man in the fur hat who had left him at the registry office in Liverpool?
“Did you tell anyone what you saw?” he asked.
“Aye, I did. I ran an’ told the earl. He rushed out to the garden, bu’ the young laird lay at the bottom o’ the cliff, stone dead. The strange man was nowhere to be seen, bu’ the earl said he believed me. He talked wi’ me for more’n an hour, an’ it was while I was talkin’ to the earl tha’ my ma saw the young laird’s ghost, walkin’ out in front o’ the castle. The earl’s new wife, she saw it, too, an’ she fainted dead away! She went into labour that very night.”
Charles could picture it in his mind, and he nodded. “Really? The earl believed you, you say?”
“He did. A lovely man he were, too. Five years later, he nearly died, you know. Someone tried to murder him. Sliced him twice, right under his chin.”
Sinclair recalled the linear scars beneath Robert Stuart’s jawline. “It seems as if trouble has visited my cousin’s family all too often. Thank you for telling me, Maggie.”
The door opened, and Hamish returned, brushing his hands on his trousers and relighting his pipe. “You’ve a warm bed to go to now, lad. The house is down the lane to the right. Can ye carry yer missus all right?”
“Yes, thank you. You’ve both been very kind, and we’ve only been a nuisance. I should like to repay you, if you will allow it.”
Hamish shook his head. “No, lad. The duke’s friends are ours. Sleep well now. I’ll knock a’ dawn. That’d be in four hours or so.”
Charles picked Elizabeth up once more, her head falling against his shoulder, and he carried her to their ‘honeymoon’ cottage. How he hated the lie, but keeping her safe from harm was his job now—and, perhaps, had been all along.
The duke’s household was in an uproar. After Charles’s hasty departure on Clever Girl, Paul had nearly collapsed. Mrs. MacAnder, the housekeeper, had used Dr. Price’s medical kit to clean and bathe the wound once more and redress it. She’d insisted Aubrey take the morphine Price had provided, but he’d refused. And now, three hours later, nearly four in the morning, the earl wanted to scream.
“Where are they?” he shouted as the clock struck the hour. “Lemuel will pay for this. I shall see that traitorous man hang!”
The duke gave his nephew a glass of whisky. “Drink this. If you’ll not take the morphine, then use this to stiffen your resolve. Sinclair knows what he’s about. I trust him with her life.”
Paul drank the liquid fire, wiping his mouth with his good hand. “And if Redwing’s operatives met them on the road? He should never have gone alone.”
James gulped down his own glass of scotch. “Perhaps. We can trust his nerve and his strength of will. He loves her as much as we do.”
Paul’s hand closed into a fist, shattering the drinking glass. “I know that, do I not?!”
Mrs. MacAnder jumped to the earl’s side, wiping at the blood that ran from his palm.
“You’ll not do yourself or Beth any good, by making both hands useless,”
the duke told him calmly.
Paul’s head fell back against his chair. “Useless. That is all I am to her now.”
James glanced up at the housekeeper, and instantly she knew his orders. Quietly, she gathered up the broken glass and left them alone, shutting the doors behind.
“Paul, you seldom lose your head, and I know it’s been a struggle these past few days, but…”
“But she’s in love with him, James,” he said in so mournful a tone it bit into his uncle’s soul.
“I know that, son,” he said gently. “Have known it for a very long time. And he loves her, too. That is plain as day, but we’ve a vow to keep, that goes beyond our earthly pleasures. You took that vow, and when he’s returned with our Beth, Charles will take it, too.”
“James, I loathe myself for feeling this way about him, but I cannot help it. In truth, I also love Charles and respect him as a friend—and from what you’ve been telling me, as a true cousin. We’d joked that our resemblance to each other must mean we were related, but if all that Kepelheim’s efforts have uncovered is true, then he is indeed a Sinclair and nephew to my mother, but he is also nephew to you—and my cousin by blood. It is always the blood, is it not?”
“Always,” James echoed, gazing into the fire. “The blood. It’s what Redwing has always been after. Blood to rule the world. And if they can use Elizabeth or her child to do it, they will.”
“Her child? Didn’t they murder Patricia to get to Beth? I had thought it was she they hoped to crown.”
“They have always wanted a male, laddie. A king to rule through, a king to make the world worship the beast to come.”
Paul tried to reason through this revelation. “What if she chooses Charles? How then do the lines meet?”
“I’ve not yet worked out all,” the duke admitted. “It’s my hope that Kepelheim makes it here. He’s the keeper of the lines. He’ll know how this would change our course.”
Blood Lies Page 30
