The Young Pretender

by Sheila Simonson

  She watched two of the grooms as they exercised Tom's horses on the drive, trotting. Sholto was saying something about moving old estate records to the muniment room.

  Tom's horses approached the gate. Jean began to hum. Softly. "Rare, O rare, bonny Jean Cam'ron…" She stood tiptoe as the grooms turned and retraced their way, still at a strict trot. They would head for the ride and give the horses a run. "Rare, O rare, bonny Jean O."

  Sholto had fallen silent.

  "You know the song, I believe."

  "I…everyone does."

  "Like 'Auld Lang Syne.'"

  "Aye."

  Or "A Man's a Man for A' That." Jean smiled and turned. "'Ye've a' heard tell o' bonny Jean Cam'ron.' A romantic tale."

  No comment. His ears were red, and the muscle at the hinge of his jaw jumped.

  "A comic story, to my way of thinking. My mother was a Cameron, though not of the Lochiel line."

  "So I've heard."

  "It would be a mistake to believe everything you hear."

  "How so?"

  "Take Jean or Jenny Cameron, for instance. It's true she was a strong supporter of Charles Stewart. She came from Glendessary and was a sister of Cameron of Lochiel. When she heard that the prince would raise his standard at Glenfinnan, she brought him three hundred men and, probably more important, three hundred cattle to feed them."

  His lip curled. "I'm sure they were well-fed when they died."

  "Better than starving to death, I daresay. She was twenty years older than the prince and a married woman. The doctor of the story, the one who 'advised' her, was also her brother. He was the prince's agent in Paris for many years."

  He watched her, frowning. "Ye have a point to make, nae doot."

  "When I was nine, I thought the story was literal truth, but it's in code. Who knows what it means? At this distance in time, I shouldn't care to judge Jean Cameron. Perhaps her brothers coerced her."

  He cocked an eyebrow. "D'ye mean to tell me she wasn't even bonny?"

  Jean smiled, but she knew she'd flustered him.

  By way of distraction, he showed her the large three-colour contour map of the estate, the map Maggie had drawn for Tom so many years ago. Jean made suitably awed noises when Sholto pointed out its high points but had to confess she had watched her sister make it. Both of them laughed, Jean with genuine amusement.

  She thought Sholto did not dislike her company. They could almost always find something to laugh about. Only twice, though, in the next long weeks, did she have private speech with him, and both times he was taciturn. She had to conclude that he was avoiding being alone with her, despite her best efforts to be tactful.

  By this time her yule log was nothing but an ashen memory. She conspired with Dawson to let her build fires in her own fireplace and even learnt how to start a fire of sea coal, so she kept her hand in. She continued to bake bread and learnt to make scones too, though she disliked cutting in all that butter and found the mixing process a good deal less satisfying that kneading bread dough. More to the point, Miss Bluestone began to teach her how to plan meals and organize the housekeeping chores. That was Agnew's work, really, and Cook's, but Jean wanted to know what was needed if she were ever to run her own household. She was surprised to find that domesticity did not bore her.

  Watching from her chamber window as the lake crept up to its former level, it came to her that she could learn another practical skill, one that had nothing to do with housekeeping, and that Sholto was the man to teach her. She decided to learn how to row a boat.

  She raised the question early in March when he and the boys had taken refuge in the dower house kitchen during a downpour. With Mrs. Graves, Polly, and the two boys listening with interest, he could not give Jean a bald refusal. He hemmed and hawed and at last consented--he would show her how to row when the lake was full and the weather good. She fancied he went off to pray for rain.

  It was a week before the bad weather eased. By then the lake brimmed, spilling through the pipe he had installed to relieve pressure on the weak bank. At first the wind was too brisk for any thought of rowing, but it dropped after two days. She caught him up early, as he walked to the stables from Earl's Brecon, and he agreed to meet her on the bridge at half two. He would be back from Greylands by then, he said. He would take her on the lake for a brief lesson if the wind remained calm.

  Jean ought to have been depressed by all this avoidance, but in fact it cheered her. The more he tried not to be alone with her, the more convinced she was that he felt something. Of course, it might mean that he despised her and found her company revolting, but they had shared enough laughter, and had sufficient interests in common, for her to allow herself a little optimism.

  * * * *

  The day of her rowing lesson was lovely, with fluffy white clouds scudding overhead, birds swooping and caroling, and the daffodils along the shore fluttering and dancing in Wordsworthian ecstasy.

  Jean's sisters were on the loose. They followed her up the drive and pelted her with questions. Why was she walking up to the bookroom on such a day? She wasn't? Where was she going, the stables? Was she going to ride? Could they come too?

  Her first impulse was to shove both of them into the lake and leave them to drown. However, it occurred to her that their presence would disarm Sholto's suspicions. She explained her desire to learn to row to her sisters, and the girls were agog to watch.

  When he walked down from the stables with Billy at his side, Jean greeted him with a bland smile and pointed to Georgy and Caro flitting about the pavilion. "I daresay you don't object to an audience."

  "Not at all." He could not hide his relief and dismissed Billy at once. "Give your grandmother my regards." Billy looked bewildered but trotted off.

  The girls pranced up and began to pepper Sholto with questions.

  He held up his hands, laughing. "Which of ye wants to take her life in her hands and go for a wee boat ride?"

  Jean hadn't counted on that.

  Georgy was game. Caro never liked to get her feet wet, still less her entire body should Jean overturn the rowboat. She said she would pick flowers whilst she watched from the shore.

  "Excellent." He turned to Jean. "Lady Georgina's weight in the prow will steady the boat."

  Jean curled her lip at him but said nothing.

  He directed Georgy to her seat. When she was finally in place and sitting still, he undid the rope. "Now, Lady Jean, ye do ken your hands will be sore?"

  Jean pulled a pair of kid gloves from her pocket. She used them when she rode or drove the gig. She drew them on, eyes narrowed. She not only had gloves, she was wearing a sensible riding habit. She might be inexperienced, but she wasn't stupid.

  He steadied the boat and handed her down to the middle seat. She held to the ladder whilst he arranged himself in the stern and coiled the rope at his feet. She released her hold, and the boat began to drift.

  Later, it seemed to Jean that half the "lesson" had been taken up with inserting the oars into the locks. She dropped one of them into the water, of course. Sholto caught it, rocking the boat as he leant for it, but no harm was done. Apart from her embarrassment.

  At that point, Jean gave herself over to the lesson. He was a patient instructor, as she had thought he would be. Georgy squealed whenever the boat gave a stiff rock.

  Jean fancied she must have committed every error know to seamanship. She caught crabs, and rowed in circles, and dropped another oar. He let her retrieve that one herself with the boathook. Eventually they progressed some distance from the pavilion.

  "I have a question."

  He eye her warily. "Ask away."

  "How do I row from one point to another without wandering all over the lake?"

  "Can you turn the boat around?"

  She rowed with one oar until she could see the dower house and the stables. Small in the distance, Miss Bluestone strolled along beside the reinforced bank. She gave a wave.

  Jean waved back and almost lost the oar a
third time. She grinned at Sholto's expression.

  He taught her the trick of aligning her destination with a fixed point on the opposite shore. Rather to her surprise, she rowed back to the pavilion in short order. It was trickier making her way alongside the bridge, but she brought the boat to the moorage without mishap.

  When they had disembarked without spilling Sholto into the water, and she had tied the boat up, she thanked him and shook his hand.

  "That was splendid." She smiled directly into his eyes, which were hazel with gold flecks. She wished she had taken her glove off. "I shall practice every day."

  He paled. "Nae then, lass."

  Lass! Auspicious.

  Georgy asked for a rowing lesson.

  Jean said, "Mr. Sholto is a very busy man. We must not intrude further on his time, Georgy."

  * * * *

  She did not row the boat the next day or the one after. Her shoulders were too sore, and when the pain eased the wind picked up. She thought it would be unwise to row with whitecaps on the water. The third day, however, looked perfect.

  She escaped from the dower house well before noon and reached the boat with no sign of her sisters or Sholto lurking. Someone at Brecon would see her, no doubt, but by then she would be out in the middle of the lake. Beyond reach.

  She placed the oars in the locks with care and rowed toward the centre of the water, her mind only partly on Sholto. She had received a letter from Elizabeth. Liz thought the bill for Catholic relief would pass the House of Lords at long last. If it did, the only barrier in the way of Emancipation and peace for Ireland was the King.

  George IV was an obstinate man. He had taken it into his head that the coronation oath demanded that he refuse the assent. However, the Prime Minister this time around was the Duke of Wellington, and the King was vulnerable to the Duke as he had not been to other ministers, not even the Home Secretary, Robert Peel.

  According to Liz, Wellington had threatened to create enough new lords to pass the bill. Opposition in the Lords had caved in at that. He then threatened to resign if the King did not give his assent. The King was wavering. He did not want a general election. Elizabeth said Tom was cautiously optimistic.

  Just the way I feel. Jean took two firm strokes then let the boat drift. If the King did give the royal assent, Tom would be free of politicking at last and could come to Brecon. She wanted to talk to him. He had to know Sholto as well as anyone did.

  She grasped the oars and began to sing as she rowed. "Rare, O rare, bonny Jean Cam'ron, Rare O rare, bonny Jean O." She rowed almost to the newly strengthened bank, but a current put her off, so she pulled to the left, out of the way of it, and followed the shore. Still no one about. That was good. She wondered why she felt so happy. Nothing here has changed.

  A shout from the direction of the bridge startled her, and she dropped an oar.

  It was Sholto. He sounded alarmed. Unfortunately, the oar she dropped was on the side away from the bank. She reached for it with the boat hook, but it was just out of reach. Annoyed, she leaned out, tipped the boat, and shipped water. The lost oar bobbed away, caught by the slight current.

  She drew back in time to avoid falling out and sat wondering what to do. She would not put up with being rescued, not a second time. She tried in vain to catch the wandering oar, then pulled the other one into the boat, bailed the water at her feet, and looked around. She could make for shore, but she was bound to get soaked and lose the boat if she tried to climb out. The bank was steep. Really, the only thing to do was to use the oar the way men did when they paddled a curragh. Her arms were too short for that to work well from the middle seat.

  She crept forward, careful not to tip the boat, until she could kneel on the wet planking just short of the prow. She picked up the remaining oar and paddled. She made slow progress. Resigned, she went to work, grasping the oar with both hands, digging in--first on one side, then the other--and wobbling forward. It took a long time to paddle back to the pavilion, around it, and down along the bridge to the moorage.

  Sholto stood at the head of the ladder and glowered down at her.

  "Good morning," she said cheerily. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

  He said nothing.

  She fumbled about and tied the boat to a ring on the ladder. When it was secure, she took her time climbing out.

  He gave her a hand up the last step but dropped his own hand immediately as if her touch burnt him. He was trembling. With repressed fury? No doubt.

  "Did you decide to give me a lesson after all? Thank you. As you can see, I've lost an oar."

  "I must have speech with you." His English was clear as a bell, as if he had rehearsed what he meant to say.

  "Very well. The pavilion." That, at least, was private. They could be seen going to it, but no one could see or hear them once they were there.

  Jean was out of breath by the time she reached the folly. She sank onto the nearest curved bench. Her breathlessness had nothing to do with rowing boats. "My knees will be bruised tomorrow. That was a long time to kneel."

  "Lady Jean, what the devil were you doing? You might have drowned out there."

  "Only if I were fool enough to jump out of the boat." She kept her tone reasonable. "When you called to me, you startled me, so I dropped the oar."

  "Then I beg your pardon," he said through his teeth. "I told you not to go out alone."

  "No. You may have meant to. What you actually said was, and I quote, 'nae then, lass.'" She gave him a beaming smile.

  He did not respond. He walked to the near arch and looked out at the water. Then he said over his shoulder, "Can ye no' leave me in peace?"

  "I'm not persecuting you or even following you. Why are you so unkind?"

  "Unkind!"

  "Yes. You live here. I'm going to live here for awhile at least. You're an interesting man. I want to know you better. I've tried to be friendly." She felt some guilt for the understatement. She suppressed it.

  He drew a long breath. "Because, for me at least, your 'friendship' would be torture."

  Very promising. "I don't wish to cause you pain."

  "Then leave me alone."

  Her eyes filled with unbidden tears. "Alone is what both of us are." She yanked her kid gloves off and snatched a handkerchief from her sleeve. She blotted her eyes in vain. The tears kept coming.

  And he was holding her, just like that, stroking her shoulders, murmuring soft Scots endearments into her hair. She raised her lips to kiss him.

  He dropped her--like a red hot poker. Abruptly he was as far as he could get from her in the tiny space. Deep breaths shook his frame. His head was bent. "Shall I tell you what would happen if you were not the fifth earl's daughter?"

  She gave a short laugh that was half a sob. "You'd fling me down on a rig o' barley, I daresay, and have your way with me."

  "Are you trying to be offensive?"

  "I was aiming at vulgar." Her hands clenched. "Tell me."

  "We'd walk out, a maid and her wight. We'd talk--about friends and family, the weather, the prospect of a good harvest. We'd kiss. If you were so inclined, we might find a haymow or a fine soft bed of heather. If you wanted more than that, we'd seek out Mr. Tidmarsh to call the banns. We'd marry and settle down--"

  "In a cottage?"

  "I had something a bit larger in mind. Ye mun consider ma consequence."

  "Oh, Sandy, don't tease."

  "Very well." His voice was rough. "I'm his lordship's steward. You are yourself a laird's daughter and his lordship's good sister. You know right well our 'friendship' can go nowhere."

  "I don't see that at all. You can't imagine that Tom would object to you."

  "He might not, but your sisters are another tale."

  "Kitty might. She's puffed with pride. Caroline might jib. For a twenty-year-old she's a bit stuffy. Mostly, my sisters would be relieved. I'm on the shelf, you know. A failure. I ought to wear a cap." Mary Wharton had worn a cap to the Burns dinner. It was a sign that she accepted he
r age and unwed status.

  "Nonsense. You're a flame in the night."

  That was gratifying, so much so her eyes teared again. She blinked hard. "Shall I tell you something?"

  "What?"

  "It's true enough I'm an earl's daughter. D'ye know that my father never learnt to tell me from my twin? He couldn't be bothered. His daughters were interchangeable--disposable nuisances, blotched efforts. He wanted a son and killed three women in pursuit of that goal."

  After a long silence, he said quietly, "That's gey sad, Jean, if it's truth. But your sisters love you, and so do your friends."

  "Liz does, and Maggie. Fanny did."

  "And I do, but I can't play his lordship such a trick. I owe him too much."

  "I fancy he owes you more."

  "Why would ye say such a daft thing? I'm a hireling. I do what I'm paid to do."

  "'The man's the gowd for a' that.'"

  "Yes, and the labourer is worthy of his hire, and so on. I won't cause a scandal in Lord Clanross's family, Jean. D'ye think I have no honour?"

  "I don't think that. I think you have too much pride."

  His mind was on the word honour. "What d'ye fancy would have happened if I'd challenged yon Fremont to a duel? He was courting you. D'ye think I didna notice?"

  Jean bit back a giggle of the sort people suppress at funeral feasts. "Swords or pistols?"

  "Now who's teasing? Fremont would not have accepted my challenge. He would have punched me in the nose with his bare fist--if he deigned to notice me at all. I am not a gentleman."

  I beg to differ. She didn't say that because he wasn't listening to what she said, just to his own rigidly righteous conscience.

  Suddenly she needed time to think, time to plan. "Very well, Mr. Sholto. You love me, but you want nothing to do with me. I accept that for the time being, though I believe you are unfair."

  "How so?"

  "I love you. Go off now and think about my feelings." And she turned on her heel and walked away, over the bridge to the shore and down the long drive to the dower house. She was careful not to look back.

  When she got to her bedchamber, she sat down and writ a very long letter.