Highland Sunset

by Joan Wolf

  He did not know about the baby. Would he take her back if he knew? she wondered. The temptation to write to him was tremendous, but she resisted it. She had told him she would abide by his decision, and she must keep to her word.

  The maid came into the room with a can of water and Van faced the necessity of getting out of bed and meeting the day.

  "I'm worried about Van," Niall said to his mother that evening after his sister had gone early up to bed. "She is so quiet and listless. And too thin. I was looking at her wrists at dinner." He frowned. "There has been no word at all from Linton?"

  Frances shook her head. "None."

  Niall's frown deepened. "Dhé!" he said. "Linton knew when he married her what her loyalties were. How can he be so surprised?"

  Frances sighed. "I don't know, darling. One never does know what is going on inside another person's marriage. All I do know is that they quarreled and Van left. And I know that she loves him and that is why she is so miserable."

  There was a long pause. Frances and Jean continued to sew and Niall frowned into the fire. Then he said gruffly, "I have been thinking I ought to write a letter to Linton myself."

  Frances and Jean both stopped stitching and stared at him.

  "It is because of me that all of this has come about," Niall continued. "I am thinking perhaps I should write to try to explain."

  This was a great concession on Niall's part, as both his wife and his mother knew. "I think that would be a good idea, darling," Frances said. "If you are... conciliating."

  Niall looked up from under his brows, a somber and ironic look. "Yes, Mother," he said. "I know."

  He was as good as his word, and the following morning sat down at the merchant's old secretary and wrote a letter to his brother-in-law. He was dreading having to write it, but in the end it proved much easier than he had anticipated:

  My dear Linton,

  I am writing to you because I am concerned about my sister's health. She does not know about this letter, and would be angry if she did know, but I feel it is necessary.

  She is missing you badly. She is ill from missing you. I understand your anger over her part in the prince's escape, but I ask you to put it away from you and come to her now.

  I do not know if she has told you this, but her one concern all through the entire affair was to protect you from suspicion of complicity. "Edward does not deserve to end up in the Tower, not after all he had done for us." That is what she said to us all that afternoon in the cave when we learned the ship was to call in Loch Morar. It was Van who insisted that the ship be redirected to Loch nan Uamh, and so it was—at some risk both to herself and to the rest of us. But her only thought, as I said before, was to protect you.

  As to her helping us at all—she had no choice in the matter, Linton. She is a MacIan, a Highlander, and her father's daughter. She is not one to hide behind the shield of womanhood, my sister. She will act according to her conscience, always. If you wanted a soft and docile wife, you should not have chosen Van.

  As for me, I must thank you for your great generosity toward my land and my people. When my father first told me of Van's wish to marry you, I could not understand it. Van and a Sassenach! I could not understand it at all. Now I do.

  You are still a Whig and a Sassenach and I a Jacobite and a Celt, but I thank you, Edward Romney.

  Come to Van.

  Yours most sincerely,

  Niall MacIan

  Earl of Morar

  The letter reached Creag an Fhithich three hours before Edward finally returned home. The one smallpox case had turned into a small epidemic and Edward had feared to leave Fort Augustus until he was certain there was no chance he was incubating the disease.

  He was given Van's letter first, then Niall's.

  He sailed for France on the evening tide.

  It was a breezy, chilly autumn day, but the sun in the small walled garden behind the house was warm. Van was sitting on a bench, ostensibly reading a book, when the door from the house opened and someone else came out into the garden. She heard a step crunch on the graveled walk and looked up.

  The sun was in her eyes and the first thing she saw was the halo of his hair. Her heart began to pound so fiercely she thought she might suffocate. She squinted her eyes, trying to see his face. She stood up.

  "Edward." Her lips moved, but only a whisper of sound came out. He seemed like a great golden god as he came toward her across the garden. As he reached her the sun went behind a cloud and she was able to see his face. All the air was suddenly squeezed from her lungs. He said her name, and something else she did not hear, and then she was in his arms.

  He did not kiss her, just held her against him, and her own arms went about his waist and clung tightly. Her cheek was crushed against his shoulder. She shut her eyes tightly and concentrated solely on the feel of him against her. It was a few moments before she even realized he was speaking.

  "I am so sorry, sweetheart," he was saying. "So sorry. I was so stupid. So criminally stupid."

  "No." Her head moved slightly in a negative shake. "No, you had a right to be angry, Edward. I understood that."

  "Let me look at you." His voice was distinctly unsteady and she moved away from him reluctantly as he put his hands on her shoulders. He frowned and said, "You look ill. Are you all right, sweetheart?"

  "Yes." She reached up to touch his face, running her fingers across the planes of his cheekbones, the line of his mouth. "I am perfectly all right," she said. "Now."

  "I was caught in Fort Augustus by a smallpox epidemic," he explained. "I did not even know you had gone until yesterday. I returned to Morar to find your letter. And Niall's."

  Van's eyes widened in sudden understanding. "Smallpox," she said. "Are you all right, Edward?"

  "Yes, but I could not leave until I was certain I was not infected. I did not want to bring it to Morar. I wrote to tell you, but you had gone. Morag did not want to take the responsibility of sending the Sea Queen to France with my letter and decided to wait for me to return home."

  "Oh, Edward." Van's voice quivered. "And all this time I thought..." She broke off and nestled once more into his arms. "You said you didn't want to see me," she said into his shoulder. "You looked at me as if you hated me."

  "I lost my temper." He put his cheek against her hair and held her closer still. "I rarely do." He laughed a little shakenly. "I'm afraid of myself when that happens. That's why I went away. I wanted to calm down. I knew I was in no fit state to think clearly. I was in no fit state to see anyone. And by the time I had regained some perspective, I was stuck in Fort Augustus."

  "I should have stayed in Morar," Van murmured. "I suppose I was not thinking clearly myself. I thought if I left', it would give you grounds to divorce me."

  "Divorce you!" Rough hands on her shoulders forced her to look up at him. "Did you really think I would divorce you?"

  "Well," she replied, sustaining that blazing look, "I thought the only honorable thing to do was to offer you the opportunity."

  After a minute a slow, reluctant smile spread across his face. "Niall said that you would always act according to your conscience."

  "Did you say that Niall had written to you?" Van asked wonderingly.

  "Yes. He wrote me a very courageous letter. It made me understand how much you must love him, because it was quite clear how much he loves you." He gave her a half-comical, half-shamefaced look. "I was jealous of Niall, do you know that?"

  Van's eyes were clear and beautiful. "You have no cause to be jealous of anyone," she said. "It is you that I love."

  He cupped her face between his hands and bent his head until his mouth was touching hers.

  There was no passion in their kiss, only the deep, healing power of love. There would be time enough for passion later, they both knew. For now they wanted something else. They sat down together on the bench, held hands, and looked into each other's eyes and laughed. It was then that Van told him about the baby.

  At firs
t he was full of guilt for having left her. Then he was concerned for her health. Finally, when he had been reassured on both those counts, he was absolutely delighted.

  "I must write to Mama," he said. "She will be so pleased." He grinned down at her, looking for a moment no older than a schoolboy. Van felt her heart would burst with the love that swelled up in it.

  "I will give you a dozen children," she said.

  He laughed. "Don't make rash promises, sweetheart. We'll take them one at a time, I think."

  The sun was turning his hair into gold and making a brilliant dance in the blue of his eyes. There was laughter still in the corners of his mouth. Van was suddenly dizzy with love and when he kissed her again the wild blood began to race through her veins. They saw no one as they went into the house, dark after the brilliance of the sunshine, and they proceeded without interruption up the stairs and into the privacy of Van's room.

  "Was there anyone in the house when you came?" Van asked him, quite some time later. "Your mother. She directed me to the garden. Then, with her usual exquisite tact, she disappeared." He was lying back against the pillows, his arms clasped behind his head. His eyes laughed at her. "She must have cleared out the entire house."

  Van remembered Frances sending Niall and Jean upstairs in Glasgow to "spend some time alone." She smiled back at him a little sadly. "Mother understands."

  He spoke softly. "She is still missing your father?"

  Van's answer was simple. "She will always miss my father." She looked at her husband, at the wide, muscled shoulders, the strong column of neck, the thick fair hair lying touseled on the pillow, and for a moment she understood completely her mother's grief. Should she ever lose Edward...

  "Van," he was saying, "I want to go home to Staplehurst. Will you come with me?"

  The question shook her from her reverie. "Of course," she replied, surprised that he would even ask.

  "I was not sure that you would want to return to England," he said slowly, watching her out of suddenly guarded eyes. "You have all the reason in the world not to."

  "Your life is in England, Edward," she answered after a minute. "I know that England is your home."

  "And you?" he queried gently. "Will it ever be home to you, Van?"

  She leaned over him so that their faces were very close and her hair streamed down around them, enclosing them in a tent of black silk. "Wherever you are is home to me," she said. His eyes lifted, and then he pulled her down on top of him.

  Van's entire family, with the exception of baby Alasdair, was gathered in the salon when she and Edward finally made their way downstairs. Niall shot one look at his sister's radiant face before he rose to shake hands with his brother-in-law. "Glad to see you, Linton," he said sincerely.

  "I was caught in Fort Augustus by the smallpox," Edward explained as he took Niall's thin hand in his own larger grasp. "I sent a message to Creag an Fhithich, but for some reason Morag did not forward it here."

  Enlightenment dawned in Niall's eyes, so uncannily like his sister's. "So," he said.

  "Morag does not excel at acting on her own initiative," Frances said regretfully. Then, when Edward looked her way, she gestured to the small, elf inly pretty girl beside her and said, "May I introduce my son's wife, Jean."

  Edward went to bow over Jean's hand. She looked up at him out of big brown eyes and smiled shyly. "I am so happy to meet you at last, Lord Linton."

  He gave her one of his most charming smiles, and replied, "Since we are to be family, please won't you call me Edward?"

  "I would like that," replied Jean, her shyness completely banished by that potent smile. Van grinned and looked at her mother, who was rising.

  "Dinner is ready," Frances said firmly.

  For the first time in months, Van felt hungry. "Oh, good," she said innocently, "you waited for us. I'm starved."

  Niall snorted and Edward looked amused. "Come along to the dining room, darling," Frances said serenely, ignoring the men. "I've ordered your favorite dinner," and she led the way out of the salon with ineffable dignity.

  Van ate hugely, and after dinner, when they all returned to the parlor, she sat in a chair near the fire, letting the talk swirl around her and feeling full and sleepy and content. It was only when Edward began to talk of Scotland that she came awake.

  "It was not just the Jacobite cause that went down at Culloden," he was saying to Niall. "It was a whole way of life. The government set out to break the clans, Niall, and I fear they are going to succeed."

  "It is not so!" Niall replied. "The clans will follow their chiefs, no matter what the government says."

  "The chiefs who still live are in exile," Edward said steadily. "The tartan and the kilt are outlawed. The glens have been emptied. Those who are left are leaderless." He held Niall's eyes. "It is my hope that in a few years Parliament will pass an Act of Indemnity and you may return home. But it will not be the same. I may have saved Morar for you, but still it will not be the same."

  Niall glanced around the room and there was the flash of something wild and hunted in the movement of his head. Edward looked at him sympathetically. He guessed shrewdly that his brother-in-law had been happier during the months he had been hunted through the Highlands than he was in his comfortable exile in France.

  "I will work for an Indemnity Act," he promised, "but it will take time. In the meanwhile, you could begin to act as your own agent here in France. Morar's cattle have been untouched. I have been experimenting at home with cattle breeding and I will be happy to send north some stock that I think will improve your breed. Your father always relied on a French agent to sell his goods; you will do better if you see to it yourself."

  Niall's face wore a still, arrested expression. "Do you think so?"

  "Yes," Edward grinned. "I've been known to do a bit of huckstering myself, so I know what I am talking about, you see."

  "Yes," said Niall, "I do see. And it would give me something to do with myself!" This last was said almost violently.

  His brother-in-law's blue eyes met his in perfect comprehension. "I know," said Edward softly.

  Niall squeezed the small hand of his wife which had slipped into his. "You are going back to England, then?"

  "Yes," said Edward, looked at his wife, and smiled very faintly.

  "I must get someone to see to Morar, then." Niall's face was grim. "Someone to keep the clan together until I can return."

  "I will go to Morar." It was Frances' voice and they all looked at her in surprise.

  "I was rather hoping I could persuade you to come to England with us," Edward said after a moment. "I know my mother would love to see you."

  Frances smiled at him. "Thank you, Edward, you are very kind. But as Niall said, someone is needed at Morar."

  "It doesn't have to be you, Mother," said Niall. "It would be too lonely for you. I'll find someone else."

  "But it won't be lonely at all," said Frances, and as she spoke she realized the truth of her words. "I have been lonely here in France," she went on. "Your father has seemed so far away. But in Morar he is close." Her eyes looked dreamy, her face very young. "Besides," she said, "it is what he would want me to do, to look after his people for him."

  Niall got to his feet and went to the window, where he looked out at the foreign scene. The rest of them sat in silence until he turned around once more to face them. "I wish I could go with you, Mother," he said. The pain in his voice was raw.

  "You were in Paris for three years, darling, at the university," Frances said gently.

  "I know." He gave her a crooked smile. "But somehow it was not the same."

  No, it was not the same, Van thought, watching him. Nothing would ever be the same for any of them again. In a sense, all the MacIans were doomed to exile, for the world they had known and loved was gone, and nothing would ever recall it again.

  But the land remained, and for as long as she lived she knew something in her would miss the mountains and the lochs and the heather. No other place
would ever call to her as did the glens of her own country. But what she had said to Edward was true: home to her was no longer a place but a person.

  It had been so with her mother, she realized suddenly. The wild Scottish mountains must have been exile to the young English girl who had first arrived as a bride twenty-five years ago. And now it was the mountains she wanted, because they were the land of her love.

  Perhaps one day she would come to feel the same about Staplehurst, Van thought, and looked at her husband.

  At the window Niall drew a long, steadying breath. When he spoke his voice was light. "Ship me the Titian portrait, Mother. We can live for five years on what the sale will bring in Paris."

  "I hope you will not need to wait five years," Edward said, and Niall turned to him with suddenly bright eyes.

  "Well, for God's sake, Linton, see about getting yourself reinstated in the government, will you? I don't want to wait five years either!"

  "I will do my best," Edward said gravely, and Niall grinned.

  "I will have an agent of mine buy the Titian," Edward said to Van when they were once more upstairs in her bedroom. "Don't tell Niall. He can buy it back from me when he gets on his feet again. Or, better yet, we'll give it to Alasdair as a wedding present."

  Van was already undressed and in bed, lying propped up against the pillows. "Thank you, m'eudail," she said softly. "What a good idea."

  What grace of spirit Edward had, she thought as she lay against her pillows watching him undress in front, of the fire. He had known that to offer Niall money would hurt his pride and so he had thought of this graceful way of assisting him.

  Edward finished unbuttoning his shirt and threw it on a chair. The firelight cast a golden glow on his bare shoulders and arms. Van smiled and asked the question she had been thinking of for the last few hours. "Do you think Signore Martelli would give me lessons again?"