Blue Bonnets

by Marie Laval

  McRae had it cut in half, so that only half the moon crescent, the star and sunrays remained, as well as the first two digits of the date. The man said he gave the other half to his woman, and begged me to send his own back to her, together with one of the letters.’

  Rose lowered the diary on her lap.

  ‘By Old Ibrahim’s Beard… I think my father just described your medallion.’

  McGunn sat up, looking pale and tense. ‘It seems like it,’ he said at last.

  ‘But… how did it come to be in your possession?’

  ‘I have no idea. I was told it belonged to my mother. It passed onto me after she died. Please carry on.’

  ‘I have to skip a few pages. Two days after Quatre-Bras, on June 18th, it was of course…’

  ‘Waterloo,’ he finished.

  ‘That’s right. The next time my father mentions Niall McRae is on 22nd June. After Waterloo, my father followed Napoleon’s retreat to Paris where he witnessed the Emperor’s abdication in favour of his son.’

  ‘L’Elysée, 22nd June 1815

  We’re camping at the palace, and despite the tents and campfires on the grounds and the garrisons standing guard at the gates, the atmosphere is quiet and subdued. There was no sign of Napoleon today. The word is that he is preparing to leave for La Malmaison to plan his next move – not that he has an awful lot of choices. It won’t be long before Wellington, Blücher and their armies are at Paris’ gates. According to the latest reports the Prussians are already marching towards us, destroying villages and crops on their way.

  I haven’t been able to dispatch McRae’s letters and personal effects to Scotland yet. I keep thinking about the man’s anguish that last night, and of his determination to make sure his woman and child were provided for. I hope I won’t fail him.

  L’Elysée, 27th June 1815

  The Emperor left for La Malmaison. We are now left to our own devices and waiting for the allied forces to enter the capital. I have resolved to travel to Scotland and deliver the letters in person as soon as I am discharged from my duties.’

  ‘Your father came all the way to Westmore?’ Bruce asked, startled.

  Rose flicked through a few pages and shook her head.

  ‘No. He was entrusted with an important mission in the following weeks and chose one of his men, a Capitaine Raymond Pichet, to take the letters in his place.’

  She flicked through the diary and put her finger on a page.

  ‘Ah, here it is…’

  ‘Paris, 2nd August 1815

  Captain Pichet came for his orders today. He’s a good man and I trust him to fulfil his duties with efficiency and integrity. I revealed only the bare minimum of McRae’s story, enough for him to understand the importance of his mission but not enough to jeopardise the necessary secrecy surrounding McRae’s family circumstances.

  I advised him to start with McRae’s lawyers in Inverness – Longford and Stewart– where he should hand in the will I scribed and witnessed at Quatre-Bras, as well as McRae’s personal effects and the letter to his wife. He should then travel north to deliver the last missive. He promised to keep me informed of developments by writing to the French consulate in Algiers where I have now been assigned.’

  ‘There were three letters,’ Lord McGunn remarked. ‘One to the lawyers, the other to Lady Patricia… Who was the last letter addressed to and did Pichet succeed in his mission?’

  ‘My father didn’t write the name of the recipient of the last letter,’ Rose replied, ‘and poor Capitaine Pichet was murdered in Scotland at the end of August. My father only heard of it a few months later.’

  ‘Algiers, 15th October 1815.

  I received some sad news today. Pichet was mugged and killed in Scotland, but the details of his death are still unclear, according to the report the local police sent the French consul in London. The poor man appeared to have been robbed, beaten up and left to die on a stretch of moorland near Kinbrace, north of Inverness.

  It took some time to establish his identity because his bag with all his papers was missing and he was wearing civilian clothing. He was eventually identified thanks to his regimental signet ring which was tucked inside his coat pocket and the tenacity of a Scottish police constable who got in touch with our War Office.

  Since I don’t know if Pichet managed to deliver all of McRae’s letters and personal effects, I thought it best to write to the lawyers to introduce myself, relate the circumstances of my meeting with their late client and relay his last wishes all over again, especially regarding his child and the woman McRae loved so much.’

  ‘I wonder who this person was, and why my father didn’t write their name.’

  ‘Keep reading,’ was all McGunn said.

  ‘Algiers, 30th November 1815.

  ‘Still no news from Scotland. Have written to the lawyers again. Losing patience now. Told them I will visit them in Scotland myself if I do not receive a reply soon.

  Algiers, 10th January 1816

  Have received at last a brief letter from Langford and Stewart assuring me that they did meet with Captain Pichet at the end of August and followed the instructions left by Niall McRae regarding his estate and last will and testament. They also write that they gave Lady Patricia her own letter and her late husband’s personal effects. It’s a great relief to me to learn that MacRae’s last wishes were fulfilled. May he now rest in peace.’

  ‘Is that it?’ McGunn’s voice was hoarse.

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, there is something else. A few months later, my father received a report from the French consul in London about the enquiry regarding Pichet’s death.’

  ‘It is dated March 1816 but my father didn’t get his copy until the summer.’

  ‘Algiers, August 15th 1816

  I received this morning a copy of the report sub-inspector MacLellan from the sheriff’s office in Inverness sent the French Consul in London regarding Captain Pichet’s death. It seems all loose ends have finally been tied and that Pichet’s killer was apprehended and punished for his crime. I feel saddened and angry that Pichet died carrying out my orders. It should have been me travelling on that lonely stretch of road that day.

  I attach the report below.

  Inverness, 8th March 1816

  To Colonel Hugo Saintclair, care of His Excellency René Eustace d’Osmond, French ambassador to London

  Sir,

  You wished to be kept informed of developments in the enquiry into Captain Auguste Pichet’s murder which occurred near Kinbrace at the end of August 1815. My initial investigation pointed to the killing having been carried out by a group of vagrant soldiers recently discharged from their regiment and who had since been causing trouble in the area on numerous occasions.

  I wasn’t very hopeful of apprehending the gang until I came across new evidence pointing to the culpability of a certain Donald Robertson. A former private in the 92nd Gordon Highlanders from the parish of Tongue, Robertson was arrested after a brawl in a Thurso tavern four weeks ago, during which he stabbed a man to death.

  The weapon he used was a four-inch folding knife with the following inscription carved on the bone handle: ‘2ème cuirassiers, toujours’. A search of Robertson’ person and belongings produced the sum of three pounds and ten Napoleons. At first Robertson refused to explain how the above came to be in his possession, but he later confessed to taking part in the ambush and the killing of the French man.

  As he was charged with murder he claimed to have been instructed to carry out the attack on Pichet by a ‘person of high distinction and status’ whom he promised to name at his trial. It was all lies of course. Robertson was a thief and a murderer without scruples or conscience, who had made so many enemies he got himself stabbed to death in his cell the day before his trial.

  I hope you will find that justice has been done in the case of Captain Pichet. I remain at your service should you require further information.

  Yours faithfully,

  Sub-
Inspector McLellan’

  The room became dark and cold, almost as cold as his heart. He swallowed hard, and pushed a long gulp of air into his lungs.

  He closed his eyes as a memory he thought he had managed to forget flashed into his mind. It was summer. He was sixteen years old and on leave from the military academy and was caught one evening by one of his grandfather’s men getting a little too familiar with the blacksmith’s daughter. The man sent the girl home and dragged him, barefoot with his shirt hanging out of his breeches, all the way back to the Lodge and his grandfather’s study where Doughall had given Bruce a resounding slap.

  ‘I thought the army would teach you how to be a man of honour,’ he had said, seething with anger. ‘I should have known you’d be too much like your no-good father. In fact, not only do you look more like him with every passing day, but you are following in his footsteps and proving eager to sow your bad seed and produce your own bastard children, just like he was.’

  His eyes had narrowed to slits, hardly visible under his bushy grey eyebrows. His face flushed bright red with rage and drink, he had spat one last insult. ‘The man dishonoured your mother, brought her nothing but misery. He killed her, as surely as if he had pushed her off that cliff himself.’

  Pointing to his medallion he added, ‘Get rid of it. That’s the only thing your father ever gave your mother. Can’t imagine how a man like him got hold of it in the first place. He probably stole it…’

  So his drunk of a grandfather had been right after all. The great mystery of his birth had been cleared up, thanks to Rose Saintclair and her father’s diary. At long last he knew who is father was.

  Donald Robertson. A vagrant soldier. A murderer.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘That’s all there is about my father’s involvement with Niall McRae.’

  Rose closed the diary and let it drop onto her knees.

  Lord McGunn sat still and silent, with his eyes closed. Shadows danced on his face, emphasised his cuts and bruises, the tight lines around his mouth and his dark beard. He hardly seemed to be breathing yet the air sizzled with tension around him.

  ‘Could I possibly take a look at… Would you let me…?’ She bit her lip.

  His eyes flicked open. With the flames from the fire reflecting in their gunpowder grey, they were like windows onto a wild, stormy soul.

  ‘Let you do what?’ he asked sharply.

  She swallowed hard and took a step forward.

  ‘Take a look at your medallion. I want to see if it is indeed Niall McRae’s.’

  ‘Who else’s could it be? I don’t think there are many Battle of Alexandria medals cut in half, do you?’

  He let out a bitter laugh and unfastened the top buttons of his shirt. Tugging sharply on the medallion, he yanked it from his neck and held it out.

  ‘Here, keep it if you want. I certainly don’t want it anymore.’

  She closed the gap between them and reached out for the medal. It was still warm from his skin. With trembling fingers, she traced the outline of the moon crescent, of the half star next to it and the sunrays all around. She had noticed the two numbers before ‘18’. No doubt the other half bore the numbers ‘01’.

  ‘I wonder how your mother came to have it.’

  His eyes narrowed, his face hardened.

  ‘I think it’s obvious. Donald Robertson gave it to her after killing Pichet, probably as some kind of love token. At least now I know who I really am. The bastard son of a murderer.’

  ‘No, that can’t be true,’ she protested weakly, even though she’d had that same thought too.

  He rose to his feet and closed his hand around her fingers and gripped so hard the medal’s ragged edges dug into her skin. She gasped and he immediately loosened his grip, but did not release her hand.

  He snorted. ‘There you are. It seems you were right all along about me being a thug and a brute. Hardly surprising really, considering who my father was.’

  ‘You’re not a thug or a brute!’ Her throat was suddenly too tight to speak, her heart filled with a feeling so powerful it took her breath away. ‘And even if you do happen to be Donald Robertson’s son, it doesn’t mean that you are like him in any way.’

  ‘Doesn’t it? My grandfather used to say I was a bad seed. He even called me the devil’s spawn whilst in one of his drunken rages. Now I understand why, and I can’t say I blame him.’

  ‘Well, he was wrong.’ Her cheeks were hot, her breathing uneven. ‘How can you say you’re evil when you care so much about your people, about the families evicted by Morven and the men who served under you in the Punjab? You’re a good man, Bruce McGunn, I know you are.’

  He arched his eyebrows and the ghost of a smile appeared on his lips.

  ‘You’re not exactly a good judge of character, are you, graigheag?’

  ‘Well, I…’ She bent her head. What could she say? He was right, at least as far as Cameron was concerned. She had been naive and easily taken by appearances and lies. But this was different. He was different.

  ‘Anyway,’ she started again, unable to understand why she cared so much about him all of a sudden, ‘even if you are… who you think you are… there are still a few things that remain unexplained, like who that third letter was addressed to, for example.’

  Faced by Bruce’s stubborn silence, she carried on.

  ‘And why Cameron and Lady Patricia want my father’s diary so badly.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps they want to blackmail me, use it to force me out of Wrath once and for all.’

  He took the medallion from her.

  ‘Well, that won’t happen. The only thing that connects me to Robertson is this wretched medal.’

  With one sweeping gesture, he threw it aside, towards the fireplace. It made a clanking sound when it hit the cast-iron fireguard.

  ‘What are you doing? It was your mother’s, you must keep it.’

  She started towards the fireplace, but he still held her and he yanked her back towards him.

  ‘Leave the damned thing alone. It makes me sick just thinking I wore it all these years.’

  He lifted her hand to his mouth and slowly, brushed his lips against the red lines the medal had cut into her palm. Shivers coursed along her arms, down her spine, as heat gathered and spread inside her.

  ‘I’m sorry I hurt you.’

  He looked down, and in his eyes was so much pain and darkness her heart ached. On an impulse she stood on her tiptoes and kissed the side of his mouth. It was only a light, gentle kiss meant to comfort and soothe, but his whole body shuddered under her touch.

  He let out a low, almost savage growl and his arms flew around her waist. Tugging on her hair, he tilted her face up and kissed her with the urgency and raw need of a starving man. His mouth tasted faintly of whisky as he parted her lips open and took possession, in turn soft and hard, demanding and tender. It was hotter, darker, a thousand times more potent than the kiss he’d given her that morning – so potent she slumped, limp as a rag doll in his arms.

  His hands spanned the width of her waist. He stroked the small of her back, slow and insistent, hot enough to sear her skin through the thin fabric of her nightdress. All she heard was the gallop of her heart, their fast, ragged breathing and the rustle of their clothing as they moved against each other. Once again all she felt in his arms was the overwhelming desire to touch and be touched, to love and be loved.

  She brought her hands up to his shoulders and clung for support whilst his fingers raked through her hair and brushed it aside. He bent down to trail slow kisses along the curve of her neck, from her earlobe to her shoulder, and then back again. She wriggled and sighed as the heat of his breath tickled, the stubble on his cheeks scraped her skin, and the pressure of his lips created tremors at very core of her being.

  Her lips parted on a shallow breath as his hands slid past the opening of her nightdress, and cupped her breasts through the fabric. She hardly noticed it when she threw her head ba
ck and arched against him, seeking the pressure, the heat, the hardness of his body. When he started rubbing his thumbs over her nipples, in a slow, insistent caress, a flash of heat pierced right through her. Her legs trembled and buckled under her, and she let out a soft, hoarse moan he stifled with a kiss.

  Still holding her tightly, he stumbled back into the armchair, pulled her down into his lap and cradled her in his arms. The scent of his skin, the erratic drumming of his heart echoing her own made her weak and dizzy.

  He said something in Gaelic – something wild, rough and tender all at once that she didn’t understand – kissed her mouth again, and took her into the heart of the storm. His fingers traced slow, feverish patterns along her throat, over her breasts until they felt full and tight, and strained against the fabric of her nightdress. None too gently, he pulled the nightdress down and trailed kisses along her throat, on the soft swelling of her breasts, while caressing the inside of her thighs, in long, feathery strokes. And when his mouth closed on a nipple, and his tongue teased and aroused, she could only bite her lip hard to repress a moan.

  Her body filled with aches and needs that coiled, twisted and grew inside her – an explosion of sensations, a chaos of desires and torment. There wasn’t a coherent thought in her mind, yet she knew with blinding clarity that what she felt right now was more than the physical urge to touch and be touched.

  It was the overwhelming need to be his. It was the strongest, brightest and most wonderful feeling in the world – as intense and dazzling as the Sahara sun.

  She loved him.

  How could she not have understood it before? She nestled closer and slid her hand into the opening of his shirt. She needed to touch him, feel his heartbeat under her fingertips. His arms were taut bands of steel around her, hard and strong, yet she felt them tremble when she stroked his bare chest and traced the outline of the tattoo he called his curse.