Highland Sunset

by Joan Wolf

  "Aye." Van could not keep looking at that still face. "He came to Morar a month ago," she said to the fire. Her voice was quiet, toneless. "He had a promise from Cumberland that Morar would not be touched if I should wed him. Under the circumstances, I had no choice."

  She heard him let out his breath. "And was it only for that?" he asked. "Did you marry him only for Morar, Van? You loved him once."

  Her eyes met his once more. She said deliberately, "I married him only for Morar."

  The guarded expression in his eyes lifted and the gold blazed into life. "Oh, Van," he said, and held out his arms. Van went into them and began to cry. "Do not distress yourself so, m'eudail," he said.

  "You look awful," she wept into his shoulder.

  "Don't you like me with a beard?" His voice was deliberately light and she could feel the tenseness in his body. She fought for composure, dropped her arms, and stepped away from him.

  "I'm getting you all wet." She gave him an unsteady smile and began to unfasten the broach that held her plaid.

  Old Rory appeared to take it from her and spread it on a chair before the smoky fire to dry. Then he set a chair for Van, and with a grateful smile she seated herself. Alan sat down as well and Van regarded him worriedly. "Has Rory fed you?" she asked. "You look so thin."

  "Aye. Rory fed me fine."

  She leaned a little forward in her chair. "Alan, tell me what happened. Lachlan said you were a prisoner at Fort Augustus and escaped."

  "Aye," he said again.

  "But how did you escape, Alan?" she asked wonderingly. "No one has escaped from Fort Augustus before."

  "I did not escape from Fort Augustus itself," he began. "A platoon of soldiers was escorting me to Glasgow for trial, and I escaped on the road." He turned to find her regarding him out of huge eyes. "An old woman near Invergarry slipped me a dirk. I cut the ropes at my wrists and escaped through the mountains."

  "Taking you for trial!" Van repeated in horror. "I had no idea, Alan. I thought you would simply be held, not..." She broke off, shivering, knowing what the result of such a trial would have been. "I would have asked Edward to intercede for you if I had known," she said.

  "I don't need the Earl of Linton, thank you." Alan's voice was harsh.

  "But, Alan, you would have been executed!"

  "I know that fine, Van. That's why I was so keen to escape."

  "Thank God for that old woman," Van said fervently.

  He grinned and for the first time resembled the Alan she remembered.

  "Alan, what is happening?" she asked urgently. "We are so isolated here in Morar that I hear virtually nothing. There have been no soldiers here at all."

  "Well, you can thank God for that, Van." His voice was harsh and bitter. "Fort Augustus is an armed camp, filled with cattle and ponies that have been driven in from all over the Highlands. Badenoch and Lochaber are deserts. The hills are filled with starving women and children." Van's hands were pressed to her mouth. "They burned Achnacarry, did you know that?" Alan asked.

  Her hands dropped. "No. Lochiel?"

  "Lochiel is safe. He was hidden in a cave above Loch Arkaig when the soldiers came. And Lady Lochiel and the bairns are safe as well. But Achnacarry—you know what a lovely house it was, Van."

  "Aye." Her voice was scarcely audible.

  "They burned everything. All Lochiel's fine chairs and tables, all his cabinets. They pulled the fruit garden to pieces and laid it waste. The summerhouse was burned as well. There is nothing left. Nothing."

  "Barbarians," Van said with loathing.

  "Aye," Alan agreed. "They are no better than the Vikings they were a thousand years ago."

  Vikings. Unbidden, a picture flashed before Van's mind of a tall, blond, blue-eyed man. Viking. She closed her eyes to blot the picture out, but still it stayed.

  "Van," she heard Alan saying urgently, "they are looking for Niall."

  Her eyes flew open, all thought of Edward instantly banished. "What do you mean?" she asked tensely.

  "The English particularly want to capture Niall. He is the Earl of Morar now, and his trial would make a fine show for the government. They knew I was a friend of his and they questioned me closely."

  Van's black brows were drawn together, her eyes blazing like a tiger's. "What do you mean—they questioned you closely? They did not torture you, Alan?"

  He smiled at her reassuringly. "No. Nothing so terrible as torture, Van. They did not feed me, that is all."

  "Dhé! That is why you are so thin!"

  "Aye. But they had to feed me finally to make sure I could stand the journey to Glasgow. It was not so terrible, Van. Don't look like that, m'eudail."

  Van felt herself shaking with rage and with fear. "Where is Niall?" she heard Alan asking, and she answered unsteadily, "He is with the prince."

  Alan's breath whistled in a sudden intake of air. "Van, the narrow seas between the Long Island and Skye are filled with English ships, all searching for the prince."

  "I know," Van said wretchedly. "Dear God, Alan, I know."

  They sat in grim silence, each of them contemplating the ugly picture of Niall and the prince in English hands. It was Van who spoke first. "You will be safe here in Morar, Alan. Stay here, please. I will bring you some of Father's clothes. And food. You must put some weight back on."

  "And what of your husband?" The words were spoken quietly, deliberately. A shadow came across Van's face. "Edward does not need to know that you are here," she said, and he felt a surge of fierce joy within him. It was true, then, what she had said. She did not love this Earl of Linton.

  It was late when Van returned to the castle. She had missed both dinner and tea. She would tell Edward she had been to visit a sick tenant. He would understand. It was the sort of thing his mother did all the time.

  Her plaid was drenched through once again when she reached the castle and rain was dripping from her eyelashes and her nose. Morag told her Edward was in her father's office and she decided to put on dry clothes and do her hair before she had to face him. She was standing in front of her bedroom fire, dressed in a red velvet robe and drying her hair, when the door opened and her husband was there.

  He closed the door behind him, came into the room, and stood regarding her in silence. He was wearing evening clothes and the lace at this throat was immaculate, the blue velvet of his coat fresh and uncreased. The silence went on. Van put down her towel and said, "I'm sorry I wasn't here for tea. I had to go visit one of the tenants who was sick."

  "Oh?" His voice was perfectly pleasant. It was the chill look in his eyes that was making her nervous, "And who was ill?" he asked.

  Van's heart stopped. She had not thought of singling out any tenant in particular. "Ah... Maire, Fergus Roy's wife," she said. Her own calm voice was belied by the pounding of her heart.

  "That is strange." The cold blue eyes held hers remorselessly. "I saw Fergus only today, and he made no mention of a sick wife."

  Van said nothing, only stood there with her streaming wet hair and her slim hands clutching together the folds of her robe.

  "If you are going to lie to me, Van, you will have to do better than this." The cutting, contemptuous edge in his voice brought color to her cheeks.

  She flung up her head. "Very well, then. You tell me where I have been."

  "To see some wretched fugitive who has found his way to Morar, I should imagine."

  Damn him. Van glared at him. "Yes, my lord conqueror," she answered mockingly. The effect of her sarcasm, however, was marred by her shaking voice. "I have been seeing to an old friend who has just escaped from the attentions of your countrymen at Fort Augustus. Where they starved him, my lord, in order to obtain news of the whereabouts of my brother!" Her voice had risen. "He brought wonderful news of Badenoch and Lochaber, where the women and children are starving in the hills while their cattle are driven to Fort Augustus to be sold into England." Her mouth was shaking now too and she pressed her lips together to try to regain the control of hers
elf she knew was fast slipping away.

  Edward did not answer, only crossed over to the window and stood there for a little, his back to his wife. But Van did not think he was seeing the dark loch or hearing the heavy drumming of the cold rain. She waited with hammering heart for him to answer her.

  His reply was completely unexpected. "I am leaving tomorrow for Inverary." He spoke over his shoulder. "Alan Ruadh is going with me."

  Van stared at his back in stunned surprise. "Inverary!" she said in a voice full of shock and horror. Inverary was the main seat of the chief of Clan Campbell, the Duke of Argyll.

  "Yes." He turned to look at her. "I believe the duke is in residence and I wish to speak to him."

  "You cannot!" She spoke instantly, unthinkingly. "The Campbells are as bad as the Sassenach, Edward. You cannot possibly have anything to say to Mac Cailein Mhor."

  "Oh, but I do." His voice was gentle. His eyes were cold. He was very angry. Well, what did he expect? Van thought defiantly. He had forced her into this marriage. He was just going to have to put up with what he got. She could not imagine what he was going to discuss with the Duke of Argyll, but she was damned if she'd ask him now.

  "You seem to have made quite an admirer out of Alan Ruadh," she said, and even to her own ears she sounded sullen.

  "He knows I have the best interests of the clan at heart." The emphasis on the pronoun was faint but unmistakable.

  Van stalked to the table where she kept her toilet articles, opened a drawer, and took out a hairbrush. Silently she began to brush out her wet hair. Temper quivered in every line of her body.

  Edward walked to the door. "You must be hungry," he said. "I'll have Morag bring you some food."

  After he had gone, Van threw her hairbrush across the room.

  He came to bed very late that night. Van pretended to be asleep and he made no move to awaken her. His deep, slow breathing told her he had gone to sleep long before she herself fell into a fretful, restless slumber.

  Edward and Alan Ruadh left before seven the following morning. He kissed Van's cheek courteously before he departed and she went to the window to watch him and Alan walking down the drive. Edward was wearing buckskin breeches and boots and his russet riding coat. He should have taken a plaid, Van thought. There was nothing like a plaid to protect you from the Highland weather. She could have given him one of her father's. A plaid was about the only thing of Alasdair's that would fit him.

  She straightened her spine. If he caught cold on his way to Inverary, it would serve him right, she thought fiercely. And her father's clothes would fit Alan. She would bring him a kilt and some clean shirts that morning.

  The day after Edward had left for Inverary, word came to the prince and Niall in Corradale that they would have to leave that hitherto safe refuge. General Campbell of Mamore had just sailed into the waters around the Uists with a squadron of ships and he had landed a regiment of three hundred local militia, MacLeods, on Benbecula. The hunt was up in earnest and it was coming nearer.

  On June 5 the prince's party left Corradale and sailed to the little island of Ouia, where they remained for a few days while they desperately tried to determine where it was safe to go. At last Niall and the prince left the others on Ouia and tried for Rossinish, to see if they could get further news. From Rossinish they began to move cautiously southward.

  The hills were crawling with militia and the lochs and inlets were filled with hostile ships. The only thing that saved the fugitives was the underground network of loyal well-wishers, who appeared with magical regularity to warn them of troops on the next hill or ships in the loch.

  "We must get off the Long Island," Niall said desperately to Charles as they sheltered from a gale in what was no more than a cleft in the rocks above Loch Boisdale. "We must get across to Skye."

  There had been fifteen enemy sails in the loch when Charles and Niall had deserted their own boat to take to the land. The weather, miserable though it was to be out in, was in reality a blessing. When the gale had finally blown itself out, a local man appeared with the news that a party of militia was but one mile away. The man, a schoolmaster named Neil MacEachain, volunteered to lead the prince and Niall to Ormacett on the west side of South Uist. There, he told them, he knew someone who could assist the prince to escape from the island. The someone was a woman and her name was Flora MacDonald.

  CHAPTER 27

  Alan was much safer in Morar than Niall and the prince were on the Long Island, but he too was looking for ways to escape.

  "I must get a ship to France," he told Van a week after his arrival. "I cannot hide here in Morar forever."

  "It isn't safe for you, Alan," Van said wretchedly. "And I don't know where to tell you to go."

  "I'll go north, toward Skye," he returned. "The French must know the prince is in the Isles. There is a good chance of a ship in the Sound of Sleat."

  "I wish you would stay here." Van looked at him worriedly. He had put on weight this past week, and he was clean and shaved once more. Why could he not stay in Morar?

  "I am of no use to anyone skulking here in Rory's cottage," he answered when she expressed this sentiment. "And I may well be a danger to you when your husband returns. He will not like it, if you continue to shelter a government fugitive."

  Van said nothing.

  "I must go." They were walking together in a field of heather about a quarter of a mile from Rory MacIan's cottage. It was one of the rare days that June when the sun was actually shining. Alan stopped now and Van stopped also, "I must go," he repeated. "And you must stay here with your husband." His face was unutterably bleak.

  "Alan." Van made a gesture with her hands and dropped her eyes. She could not bear to see him look so.

  "It is not thus that I dreamed once of you and me," he said.

  "I know." Her head was bent, her voice muffled. "I am so sorry, Alan."

  "It is not your fault."

  She looked up, her thin nostrils flaring. "When will you go?"

  "Tonight." He forced a smile at her expression. "I will be all right, Van. I'm a dandy hand for skulking in the heather."

  She laughed shakily. "The birthright of a Highlander."

  "Aye." His mouth was smiling but his eyes were grave.

  She drew a long breath. "I think you will be safe, so long as the prince is still in the Isles. The hunt is concentrated there."

  "Aye. If the luck is with us, we will all get a ship together."

  "Oh, God, Alan, I hope so!"

  At that he reached out and took her hands. "I know I have no right to ask this of you, Van," he said intensely. "But will you kiss me good-bye?"

  "Of course I will, Alan," she said immediately, and raised her face to his.

  She knew, as soon as he touched her, that she had made a mistake. He kissed her passionately, intensely, with the hunger of a man long denied water who is finally brought to drink. And she felt nothing.

  She smiled bravely when he stepped away from her. "May God keep you in the palm of his hand," she said.

  "Farewell," he answered. "My love.". And she turned and walked away, walked over the mountains and did not look back.

  She saw Alan Ruadh as she came by the vegetable garden. Edward was back.

  She did not want to see him. She was afraid to see him. She went straight to her room and, thankfully, found it empty. She wished she could lock the door. Morag told her the earl was out, however, and she thought she was safe for a while.

  She would change her clothes, she thought. She would change her clothes and after she had composed herself, she would go to sit in the drawing room. That was the best place to meet him.

  She almost made it. One of the housemaids was fastening the hooks on her dress when the door opened and Edward came into the bedroom. Her head jerked up like a startled colt's and she stared at him out of dilated eyes. She could say nothing.

  "Aren't you going to welcome me home?" His voice was pleasant but distinctly cool.

  "Welcome hom
e," she said. Her heart was plunging; she felt close to fainting. She made a tremendous effort and added, "I hope the weather did not catch you out too badly."

  He shrugged and leaned his shoulders against the wall by the window. He was looking at the housemaid, not at her.

  "Thank you, Fionna," Van said reluctantly. "You may go."

  As the door closed behind the girl, Van turned slowly to look at Edward's silent figure. In the light from the window she could see the golden stubble of beard on his face. His eyes were as blue as sapphires— and as hard. Blue and gold he was; Saxon, with no trace of Celt about him.

  And she loved him. Alan's kiss this afternoon had told her that with painful clarity. She had not married Edward to save Morar. It was no longer possible to hide behind that convenient excuse.

  He looked so tall as he stood there next to the window watching her. So unyielding. "Did you see Mac Cailein Mhor?" she asked in a clear, steady voice that was forced out with all her remaining self-control.

  "Yes."

  "And what did you go to see him about, Edward?" Her heart was beating heavily still. She wondered that he could not see.

  "I have been planning for some weeks to import food from Ireland in order to feed Morar," he answered. "I went to see the duke about the feasibility of getting food into Lochaber and Badenoch as well." His eyes were unfathomable as he watched her face. "The Duke of Argyll may be a Campbell, but he is also a Highlander and a Scot. He has no wish to see the innocent suffer for this unhappy rebellion. He has agreed that the Campbell militia will help get food into the areas that need it."

  The room was filled with an intense silence. Van stared at her husband, her slender hands opening and closing on the folds of her yellow silk gown. Finally, "You have been planning to import food for some time? You never said anything to me."

  "You must know that I have been visiting all the clan and checking the food supplies," he answered. He had not moved from his post by the window.

  "Aye, but..." Her voice trailed off. She had not wanted to know what he was doing, had tried to avoid him as much as possible, had been so busy hiding from the knowledge forced on her today by Alan's kiss... "I suppose I was too concerned about my mother to take much notice," she said faintly.