“I didn’t mean…” she glanced down the road at Alex and Duncan, as though she expected Beth to set the two men on her.
“I know you didn’t,” said Beth reassuringly, more interested in getting the rest of the story than threatening a woman who, however reluctantly and inefficiently, had sheltered a badly injured and clearly mentally damaged child for three years. “Please, carry on,” she urged.
“The doctor came and he stitched her up and everything. He said it looked as though she’d been hit with a sword. It had sliced right into her skull, you see.” She reached across and lifted the little girl’s mat of hair. The lower half of her ear was intact, but where the rest had been was a pink puckered scar which continued for some three inches into the hairline.
“Said he thought she’d die, the doctor did, but she didn’t.” The woman smiled. “She’s an idiot though. Can’t walk properly, or talk more than a mumble, and can’t do anything to help me. Has these fits sometimes, she does, too. And it’s a real problem now, because whenever she sees…”
“How do you know her mother was murdered?” interrupted Beth.
John had put Ann down, but she clung to his leg, reaching her arms up to him, so he lifted her up again and settled her against his shoulder, where she mumbled happily into his ear.
“Doctor told the magistrate, didn’t he? He said someone had obviously tried to kill the child. So the next day the constable came with a couple of watchmen and Frank showed them where we’d found her. It didn’t take them long to find…Martha, did you say?”
“Yes,” said Beth faintly. She felt sick. The woman looked from her to John.
“She was dead,” the woman finished abruptly, taking pity on their obvious distress.
“No,” said Beth, wishing Alex was next to her instead of a hundred yards away. She debated whether to call him and get a dram of much-needed whisky before she demanded the details of Martha’s death, but decided against it. The woman would probably flee in terror if he came within ten yards of her. “Tell me how she died,” she said. “All of it. I want to know.”
John looked at Beth in surprise. She had never been the sort of person who delighted in hearing gory details for the sake of it.
“She’d been…interfered with, and beaten,” the woman began hesitantly. “And then strangled. But the constable said she’d put up a fight, because her knuckles were grazed and she had blood under her nails. She was in a ditch in the field at the side of the road, and there was blood all over her, though she hadn't been cut. The constable said it looked as though whoever killed her used his sword on Ann afterwards and left her in the ditch with her mother, thinking she was dead. She must have crawled out on to the road later. I’m sorry, missus,” she finished.
“No,” replied Beth, wiping the tears away from her face with the back of her hand. “It was very good of you to look after Ann all this time. It must be difficult for you now, since your husband died. Particularly as she can’t help you.”
“Oh, it is. I was hoping to teach her to weave the garthweb, or knit, so she could at least make stockings to sell, but she can’t put her mind to anything. Just sits all day humming to herself. She’s a happy little thing, though. I can’t bring myself to put her in the workhouse, but I’ll have to soon. The roof won’t last more than a year or so, and then I’ll have to leave. I can go to my sister, but she won’t have an idiot round her own childer.” A light suddenly came into her eyes. “You said this Martha was your cousin. Does she have any other relatives living who could take her, maybe?”
“Yes,” said Beth, ignoring John’s look of surprise. “My mother lives in Manchester. I’m sure she’ll take her. We’re going that way. We’ll take her with us if you want.”
The woman’s face wavered between joy at the solution to her problems and a genuine regret at the thought of letting go of the little girl, who however much of a liability, had been company of a sort. She looked up the road to the milestone again, her thoughts written clearly on her face.
“It’s all right,” said Beth. “They’ve breakfasted well, and we’ll be at my mother’s before they get hungry again.”
Alex looked at Beth and John in disbelief as they approached, Ann still clinging to John’s neck and showing no signs of distress at being taken from the woman who had been her mother for three years.
“Beth…” he began.
“Have you got any money?” she interrupted.
“Aye,” he said.
“Good. Can I have some, to give to the woman?”
Duncan reached in his sporran and took out a couple of gold sovereigns. Beth smiled as she took them, and handed them to John.
“Give her to me,” she said, unwrapping Ann from round his neck. “And go and give the woman these.”
She turned to Alex.
“Do you remember I told you about Martha?” she said before Alex could point out the impracticalities of them adopting a child, as he was obviously about to do.
“Aye, she was your servant, the lassie Richard drove away.”
“Someone murdered her, Alex, and tried to kill Ann, too. This scar’s from a sword blow. She was beautiful,” she said, stroking the child’s hair gently, “and clever. She was only two, no, nearly three when I saw her last, and she was talking and interested in everything.”
“Are ye sure it’s the right lassie?” he said. “Bairns change a lot in three years, Beth.”
“I’m sure,” she said. “Look at her eyes. I’ve never seen eyes like that on anyone else, except her mother. And she recognised John. She tried to say his name. He loved her, Alex, he used to play with her all the time.”
“Beth,” Alex said softly. “Do ye no’ think she’d be better off staying here? We canna take her on campaign with us. It’s wintertime. She’ll die.”
“I know that,” said Beth impatiently. “But we can’t leave her here. She’s starving and filthy.”
She certainly was. And alive. It would take them days to kill all the lice and fleas, and in the meantime she’d pass them on to half the clan. Alex looked at Ann, his natural love for children warring with his practicality. There were wives with children accompanying the rebels, but Alex would not allow any of his clansmen to bring their families along. And this child was already desperately undernourished and possibly sick in body as well as mind. It was impossible.
“I’ll take her to Thomas and Jane,” Beth continued, solving his dilemma. “They love children, and they’ve got none of their own. If she remembered John, she’ll probably remember them, too. When she wasn’t in the stable with him, she was in the kitchen with Martha and Jane. Didsbury’s only a couple of miles out of our way. You don’t have to come. I’ll go with John.”
“There’s something else you should know,” John said now, rejoining them. “She started to tell us Ann was a real problem, but you stopped her before she could tell us why.”
Beth looked at him apprehensively. Alex was being won round. Praying that John would not disclose anything to change his mind, she waited for him to continue.
“She said that because of the threatened French invasion last year and the rebellion, there have been a lot more soldiers going past the cottage in the last year or so. Ann’s terrified of them, it seems. She screams her head off whenever she sees a redcoat.” He shot Beth a strange look. “The woman thinks it was a soldier who killed Martha,” he continued. “She’s also worried the redcoats will think Ann’s reaction to them means she’s sympathetic to the rebels and will kill them both.”
In spite of Alex’s reluctance to allow Beth to go to Didsbury, he could think of no better solution to the problem. Having decided to allow it he sprang into action, wanting to ensure there was as little risk as possible.
Thus it was that Thomas opened the front door of his house that afternoon to be confronted by not just Beth, John and Ann, but also Graeme, and looming threateningly by the gate, a pack of Cameron Highlanders, armed to the teeth.
* * *
The
MacGregors were gathered round a fire, eating communally as was their custom of an evening, when Beth was restored to the arms of her husband two days later. They were fifteen miles north of Manchester now, and she snuggled gratefully into his welcoming arms. By the fire Angus was making oatcakes on a flat heated stone, his face flushed ruddy by the flames. Kenneth was peering suspiciously into the pot Maggie was stirring.
“How did your visit to your friends go?” asked Alex, settling her down beside him on a corner of his plaid.
“It was wonderful,” Beth said. “They were really pleased to see me, and Ann remembered Jane, I think. They had no hesitation about taking her in. Before I left, Jane had burnt all Ann’s clothes and was heating water for a bath. They’ll love her, really they will.” Her face clouded over for a moment. “They didn’t ask me any awkward questions. Graeme spent a good deal of time telling Thomas how to prepare the soil for planting in spring, and I explained about Martha and Ann. Alex,” she said, her voice suddenly urgent, “I need to talk to you.”
Alex cast a longing glance at the warm fire. His stomach rumbled ominously.
“After the food,” she amended. “But I do need to talk.”
She took an oatcake from Angus, tossing it between her hands until it was cool enough to hold. Kenneth suddenly drew his dirk and plunged it into the bubbling pot, spearing a pale yellow globe, which he then held up to the light.
“What the hell’s this?” he asked, eyeing it warily.
“It’s a potato, man,” said Maggie crossly. “Have ye no’ seen a potato before?”
“They taste good,” offered Duncan. “Especially wi’ a wee bit of butter. I’ve eaten them many a time in England.”
Kenneth looked doubtfully at the innocuous tuber.
“Aye, well, they eat all manner of exotic, dangerous stuff in England. Nae doubt that’s why they’re so wee and scrawny.” He glanced at Beth, who laughed. Everyone was wee and scrawny next to Kenneth.
“I take after my Scottish mother, and I don’t like potatoes much anyway,” she said.
“They’re no’ exotic either,” said Alex. “The Hebrideans eat a lot of them.”
“Do they so?” said Kenneth, unconvinced. “Even so…”
Maggie snatched the cooling vegetable off the dirk and dropped it back in the pot.
“Well, if ye dinna want any, that’s fine,” she said firmly. “All the more for the rest of us. Ye eat enough for three as it is.”
It was good to be here. Whatever happened to the Stuart cause, her life and heart were committed to Alex and the MacGregors. Even with her back freezing, her face burning and the monotonous diet and indifferent lodgings, Beth would not have changed her life for all the luxury money could buy.
“No. You’ve no proof,” said Alex when they were alone later in their room, for which indifferent was too complimentary a word. The MacGregors were lodged in a row of terraced huts once used as a temporary barracks for the militia, and the wooden rooms were tiny, unheated and sported only a straw mattress by way of furniture.
Beth looked at her husband pleadingly.
“I’ve got all the proof I need,” she said. “Ann’s terrified of redcoats. She was cut by a sword. All the evidence points to Martha’s killer being a soldier.”
“Aye,” said Alex, “I dinna dispute that. But d’ye ken how many redcoats there are? It could have been any one of hundreds.”
“I know,” she said. “But Martha put up a fight, and Richard had a cut and a bruise on his face the night she left. And he was missing his jacket. He told me he’d fallen off his horse and it was dirty.”
“Maybe he had, and it was. Ye canna accuse a man of murder on such flimsy evidence. And ye definitely canna write to his wife about it. It isna fair, apart from the dangers of letter-writing we’ve talked about before.”
“He didn’t get his coat back for days, Alex,” she persisted. “He always wore his uniform. If it had only been dirty, he’d have had it back the next day. Dirt brushes off easily when it’s dry. Blood’s a lot harder to get out.”
Alex had been shaking out the mattress, but now he laid it down and sat on it, patting the spot next to him. She went over and sat down beside him.
“John agrees with me,” she added.
“Beth,” he said gently. “I ken Richard’s a brutal man, and you and John both suffered at his hands. But there’s a world of difference between beating a servant, or hitting your sister to get her to obey you, and what you’re accusing him of. It takes a particular sort of animal to rape and kill a woman, and to attack an innocent child. I ken ye hate him, Beth, but you’re being unreasonable, just like when you accused him of trying to kill the bairn by insisting Anne bottle-feed it.” He put his arm round her and she leaned her head on his shoulder, absorbing his body heat and the comfort of his touch. How could she convince him that Anne and her baby were in danger?
“But what if I’m right and you’re wrong?” she said. “Richard must be coming back from Flanders, if he hasn’t already done so. Anne’s baby has deprived him of his inheritance. He must hate it. And if he’s capable of murdering Martha and Ann for nothing, then he’s definitely capable of murdering Anne and her son for a fortune. We’ll never forgive ourselves if he does, when I could have written and warned her about him and saved them.”
Alex swiped his hand through his hair and sighed. She was absolutely convinced of Richard’s guilt.
“Beth, listen to yourself,” he said. “Ye’d think your brother was the devil himself. He’s a man. Much as I dislike him, he hasna done me any harm, and hasna done anything serious to you, either. I ken well what it’s like to be called a murdering raping bastard. All the Highlanders do. It wasna pleasant to watch that woman shrink from me in fear, thinking I was going to eat the bairn and mutilate her. I’ll no’ have ye do the same to Richard without a shred of firm evidence. I made him think twice about beating his wife. He’ll come back from Flanders and wi’ luck she’ll gie him a bairn of his own. I’ll no’ have you ruin their chance of making the marriage work by putting evil notions in her head. She’d only show any letter you wrote to him anyway. And if he’s home he’ll open it, regardless of who it’s addressed to.” He drew her gently onto his knee and cupped her face in his hands.
“Forget him, mo chridhe,” he said, his dark blue eyes warm, full of trust and love as he smiled down at her. “I’ve missed ye.” He bent his lips to hers in a kiss that was at first gentle, then more forceful as the desire rose between them. She felt her limbs start to melt, and drew her mouth away from his before it was too late. This was too important to be washed away in a tide of passion.
“I could write to Caroline instead,” she said. “She’d know how to put it to Anne in the right way.”
Alex exhaled sharply through his teeth.
“No,” he said.
“But George William’s just a tiny baby! And Anne’s so helpless. I couldn’t bear it…”
“No,” he said again, gently, but firmly.
“You don’t know him, Alex!” she cried in despair, her voice rising hysterically. “You don’t know what he’s capable of! You must let me write, you must. I’ll word it carefully, I’ll write anonymously, anything you want, but you must let me warn Anne. Martha was gentle and sweet. She would never have provoked any man to rape her! I’ve known Richard was evil for years, but I never realised just how evil until two days ago. It was him, I know it was. He’ll do anything to get what he wants, Alex, anything!” She stopped suddenly, aware that Alex had become very still and was looking at her strangely.
“What has he done to ye, Beth?” he said, very quietly. “I’ve asked ye before, and ye tellt me it was because he sold you to me for a commission. I ken ye well, and ye wouldna hate him so much just for that, no’ when it’s worked out so well with us. What is it between you?”
She looked at him, and then away, then back to where he was waiting patiently for her to answer. If she told him he would maybe let her write. And he would underst
and why she had kept it from him, when she explained. She had no other secrets from him, and keeping this had been so very hard. It was time.
She moved a little away from him, fixed her gaze carefully on her lap and then she told him what Richard had done to her that night in her bedroom, and how she had stopped him. She glanced up briefly when telling the part where she had threatened to castrate her brother, hoping to see a flicker of amusement on his face; but the sapphire eyes were cool and neutral, betraying nothing, and his body was almost preternaturally still.
She looked away again, and told him how Richard had taken out his frustration on Sarah. She explained why she had flinched from him on their wedding night. She finished, and looked at him apprehensively. His face betrayed no emotion, and might have been carved from stone.
“Why did ye no’ tell me this the last time I asked ye?” he said quietly. Too quietly.
“I was frightened that you’d kill Richard if I told you,” she began. “And I…”
He stood abruptly, roughly tearing the edge of his kilt from under her, then turned and walked out of the room, not looking back even when she called his name in a voice torn with anguish.
Angus and Duncan, intently discussing Shakespeare’s treatment of the Scots in Macbeth, were walking along the path outside when Alex emerged from the hut next to the one they were to share.
“Alex,” said Angus amiably, “what d’ye think…”
The Storm Breaks (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 4) Page 20
