As he rode back to Holyrood Palace with Mr. Dunblane beside him, he said,
“I suppose this is another way in which you are trying to trap me into assuming my responsibilities and staying in the North?”
“I am not trying to trap you,” Mr. Dunblane replied. “It is perhaps your heart that will do that.”
“I have no heart!” the Duke exclaimed harshly.
He thought as he spoke that he had put too much emphasis on the word.
They reached the Palace and rode in through the great gates. As they drew their horses to a standstill outside the door that led to the private apartments, the Duke saw a young figure come racing towards him and stared in disbelief.
“Torquil!” he exclaimed.
Then his nephew was at his side, his words tumbling over themselves in his anxiety to make the Duke understand the urgency of what he had come to tell him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Now try and rest, Your Grace, and, if you can, have a quiet nap,” Jeannie admonished. “I’m taking Master Jamie away to the river and we won’t be back till it’s nearly his bedtime.”
Jeannie spoke in the kind but firm way that Clola remembered her own Nanny speaking and she found herself responding to her as if she was a child.
Jeannie, who had looked after her when Torquil left for Edinburgh, was a middle-aged, sweet-faced woman who had devoted her life to other people’s children. First Torquil, then Jamie had been ‘her baby’.
She fussed over Clola like a mother hen and gradually the poison had gone from Clola’s body and she felt herself coming back to life as if she had been on a long dark journey into the unknown.
“I never trusted that Mistress Forse,” Jeannie said over and over again. “I sensed her wickedness even while she were with us, but I couldna put my finger on it.”
Clola shrank from asking who had found Mrs. Forse when she had fallen from the battlements and what had happened.
It all seemed in retrospect like a horrible evil dream, but she could not think of how near she had been to death without shuddering.
“I saved you, didn’t I?” Jamie asked her when she was well enough to talk to him. “I ran for Torquil as you told me to and he came over the roofs so quickly I couldn’t keep up with him.”
“Yes, you saved me, dearest,” Clola agreed.
“Jeannie says I’m to look after you until Uncle Taran comes back.”
“You are doing that very well,” Clola smiled.
When Jamie had left her bedside, she had lain worrying ceaselessly as to whether Torquil would be in time and if the Duke would believe him.
She could understand how hard it would be for him to realise the violence of the hatred for the English that still possessed many of the Clansmen.
She could not help feeling frantically afraid in case he should dismiss Torquil’s message as a lot of nonsense and that Euan Forse would assassinate the King.
Even if an unsuccessful attempt was made, she knew it would be a terrible blow to the pride of the McNarns and worse still would reverberate throughout the whole of Great Britain.
Living in Edinburgh amongst intelligent people, Clola had learnt how desperately the Scottish were trying to establish their position.
There was intellect, invention and industry in Scotland ready to enrich the growth of an Imperial Britain if only the South could realise it.
But the English still behaved as if the Scottish had to be kept down and there were many unjust restrictions which affected an already impoverished economy.
Clola felt if only there were more men of influence as well as intelligence like the Duke, the Scottish cause could be heard and public opinion would swing in their country’s favour.
But would the Duke be prepared to use his influence? That was the real question in her mind and she wondered how she could make him understand how desperately needed he was in the Highlands.
If he would listen to the call of his blood, then there would be a chance of the golden age of which the bards had sung and the soothsayers had prophesied, but which never seemed to come to fruition.
“I must talk to him,” she told herself.
Then she wondered despairingly if he would listen, seeing that he had believed her to be unfaithful to him within forty-eight hours of their marriage.
How could he think such a thing? How could he believe it?
She recalled in all justice that he knew nothing about her and she was in fact at fault for not having told him about her life before she became his wife.
It all seemed to be a hopeless, imponderable problem, which kept Clola awake all night and retarded her recovery in a way that distressed and puzzled Jeannie.
Sitting now on the sofa in the music room, which she had made a special place of her own, Clola longed to tell the Duke not only about Scotland and his responsibilities but also about her love of music and what it meant to her.
As the evil of what had happened faded from her mind and body, she began to hear melodies carried on the breeze outside The Castle.
When she was well enough to stand at her window looking out towards the loch, tunes came to her mind that she longed to translate into composition and song.
‘If only I could explain to him,’ she whispered to herself, ‘perhaps he would – understand.’
She remembered how they had looked into each other’s eyes as she stood in front of him before she knelt for the oath of allegiance.
She had felt then as if they reached each other across time and there was no need for words.
Then she told herself it was just an illusion. Nevertheless when his hands touched hers she had felt herself vibrate in a way she had never done before.
Clola was very sensitive to the vibrations of other people and she had known at the touch of the Duke that she felt a strangeness that was almost spiritual.
There had been something magic about it too.
Because the thought of him disturbed her and yet at the same time she longed to see him, she started to calculate, as she had done a dozen times already, how soon he would return to the castle.
If indeed he did return!
She had a feeling that, although nothing had been said in her presence, the Duke might leave Scotland and go South with the King.
The idea hurt her so excessively that it was like a physical pain.
But she tried to tell herself it was because she was so desperately anxious to know if Euan Forse had been apprehended.
Had he been prevented from committing a ghastly murder on the instigation of his fanatical mother?
It was intended, Clola knew, that the King should sail in the Royal George on August 29th, embarking from Port Edgar near Kingsferry after a visit to the Earl of Hopetoun.
Clola was sure that the Duke would stay at Hopetoun House with His Majesty and that meant there would be no chance of his returning before the 31st.
She guessed that Euan Forse would have planned to assassinate the King at the Cavalry Review on Portobello Sands.
And she felt now as if the long drawn out delay before she could have any news was unbearable.
Perhaps Torquil would return to tell her what had happened and yet she doubted it. Supposing he had not been in time or that Euan Forse had evaded them?
Bad news would not travel any faster than good.
The complexity of it all made Clola so restless that, disobeying Jeannie’s instructions, she rose from the sofa to walk across the room to the harp.
She had grown very much more proficient at playing the ancient instrument these past days since she had been well enough to leave her bedroom and walk at first very unsteadily into the other rooms of The Castle.
The day before yesterday she had been allowed to sit outside in the sunshine warmly wrapped in one of her grandmother’s beautiful sable stoles.
The feel of the sun on her face and the fresh air from the moors swept away not only the last lingering effect of Mrs. Forse’s poison from Clola’s body but also the terrors from her mind.
The next morning, despite Jeannie’s protests when she had insisted on rising after breakfast, she had gone across the passage and entered the room of the Grey Lady.
The sunshine coming through the window dissipated the eeriness Clola had expected.
Instead she felt that only a calm serenity pervaded the room and, looking up at the face in the picture of the Countess Morag she knew that the message she had received from her had in fact saved her life.
If she had not remembered that she must fight and struggle against Mrs. Forse’s hold over her, she might have been too weak and too bemused by the drug to send for Torquil and to hold on to the battlements for those vital seconds before he came to save her.
Looking up at the picture, Clola knew that she had not been mistaken on the night of her marriage when she had felt that the Grey Lady was with her.
She had been real, more real than many people she had known, and she knew that she would always be there in the future if her help was needed.
“Thank you,” she said softly as she had said once before.
Then she had gone from the room with a smile on her lips and for a little while had ceased to worry about what was happening in Edinburgh.
But it was impossible to escape for long from the anxiety, which, because of her sleeplessness, was making soft purple shadows under her eyes.
She had grown much thinner during her illness and her eyes seemed larger and to fill her white face.
But she had recovered much of her strength and she had known that was true when yesterday she had sung and accompanied herself on the harpsichord in one of the ballads that were part of Scottish history.
Her grandmother’s friends had loved to listen to her singing these ancient songs after great dinner parties they had enjoyed at her house in Edinburgh.
Because Clola knew now that only music would soothe her and prevent her from worrying over what was happening miles away, she sat down at the harp and ran her fingers over the strings.
The soft notes were like, she thought, the sound of the burn cascading down the rocks and the wash of the sea against the shore.
She plucked out note by note and now they combined to give form to the melody that had come to her mind when she was still too weak to move from her bed, but knew she was safe in Jeannie’s capable hands.
It was a song of the mystery of the mountains, of the wildness of the moors and a song too – of love.
Clola’s fingers faltered for a moment.
What did she know of love? she asked. Yet it was there in her melody and, if she was truthful, in her heart.
A love so compelling, so inescapable that it was no use trying to deny it.
It was the love she had sought and never found with any of the gentlemen who had asked for her hand in marriage.
She had refused them because she had known that they could never, however long she knew them, attain the ideal which lay enshrined in the secrecy of her heart.
And yet now, although tremblingly she dare not admit it, that shrine was filled.
As if the wonder of it must be translated into music, Clola played and felt the sound of it envelop her like angel’s wings and lift her into the sky from where her inspiration had come.
Then, as she knew an ecstasy that came from within herself as her fingers on the strings echoed all that was divine, she was suddenly aware that she was not alone.
Something drew her compellingly and she turned her head to find, almost as if she had expected him, the Duke standing inside the door.
How long he had been there Clola had no idea – she only knew that her heart had called to him and he had answered the call.
Her hands dropped from the harp and she rose to her feet, her eyes held by the Duke’s and by an expression on his face she had not seen before.
Vaguely some part of her mind thought he looked even more handsome, more proud and more imperious.
Then he moved slowly towards her, his eyes still holding hers and it was impossible to think and almost impossible to breathe.
“You are all right?”
His voice deep and low seemed to come from another world.
“W-why are you – here so – soon? What has – happened?’
It was difficult for Clola to speak the words and there was a touch of fear behind them.
“I could not stay away any longer,” the Duke replied.
Then, as he stood in front of her face to face, looking down into the mystery of her eyes, he said,
“When I first saw you, Clola, you made a vow of allegiance to me. Now I have one to make to you.”
As he spoke, he went down on one knee in front of her and put his hands together, palm to palm.
Then looking up at her he said very slowly,
“I swear by Almighty God to protect and serve you for as long as my life lasts, to live or to die for you. I will love you with my whole heart, worship you as my wife and will strive to give you happiness. May God help me!”
His voice seemed to vibrate through Clola and every word brought a response from her which seemed part of the music she had been playing.
Then, because she sensed that he was waiting for her response, she put her hands on each side of his.
Shyly, aware that her heart was beating wildly, she bent her head to kiss him as he had kissed her on the cheek. But somehow, instead of his cheek it was his lips she found.
Then holding her captive with his mouth, the Duke’s arms were round her.
He rose to pull her close against him as his kiss deepened and became more compelling, more possessive.
Like the music that had carried Clola on angels’ wings into the sky, she felt that the Duke was carrying her still higher into the heart of the spheres.
Carrying her into a glory and a wonder that was so indescribable that she knew there were no words but only the singing of the stars.
The kiss lasted so long that they stepped out of time and only when the Duke raised his head to look down at her did Clola’s hands reach out to hold on to him.
“You are mine!” the Duke asserted and there was a note of triumph in his voice. “Mine, and no one shall take you from me!”
Then he was kissing her again, kissing her fiercely, passionately, but she was not afraid.
She only knew that this was not only what she had been seeking, but what she had been made for and the reason why she had been born.
She was his, a part of him as he was a part of her, and the magic enveloping them came from other lives and other knowledge they could only find when they were together –
*
When Clola could speak and it was difficult because of the wild feelings springing inside her, she asked,
“Torquil – was in – time?”
For a moment it seemed as if the Duke found it hard to think of anything but the softness of her lips.
Then he answered,
“As soon as he told me what you had sent him to say, we went in search of Euan Forse. When we found him with a loaded pistol, he fired it indiscriminately in an effort to defend himself.”
Clola gave a little cry of horror.
“He – might have – killed you!”
“I was not meant to die any more than you were, my precious.”
He held her close against him before adding,
“I think Forse is deranged like his mother. When we took his pistol from him, he burst into an uncontrolled and violent tirade against the English.”
The Duke paused for a moment before he went on,
“As far as Dunblane and I could understand, his grandparents had been killed after the rebellion in ’45 and a cousin had her hands cut off for helping a wounded Highlander.”
Clola gave a little murmur of horror and the Duke said gently,
“I don’t want to upset you. I have left Euan Forse in the care of a competent doctor who will see what he can do for him. We need not think about him again, any more than we need think of his mother.”
Clola was still for a moment, content because the Duke’s arms were round her.
Then she asked him,
“Why are you – here so soon? I was not – expecting you until His Majesty left Scotland.”
“I told the King that I had very urgent matters to attend to at home,” the Duke replied. “They were extremely urgent because I could stay away from you no longer.”
Clola raised her eyes to his and it seemed as if the sunshine was imprisoned in them.
“‘The King was not – angry with you for – coming away?”
“He understood,” the Duke answered, “but I had to promise him that I would take you to London to meet him. He had heard so much of your beauty and your brilliance.”
Clola blushed and the Duke asked,
“Why did you not tell me how talented you were?”
“I did not – think you would be – interested. But there are so many – things I want to – talk to you about.”
“We have our whole lives to talk to each other,” the Duke answered, “but now I only want to kiss you.”
He would have sought her lips again, but Clola put up her hands.
“You must be – tired. I am sure you have been riding for – many hours.”
“I rode all through the night.”
“To – see me?” she asked incredulously.
“To see you!”
“Then you must be both tired and hungry. I am sure a bath will be waiting for you and we will dine as soon as you are changed.”
“Shall I come and help you dress as you have no lady’s maid?” the Duke asked with a smile.
Clola blushed.
“No, of course – not! The housemaids will – help me.”
“When we have finished dinner, we will send them away and I will look after you, as I wish to do.”
Clola turned her face against his shoulder to hide her shyness.
Then she gave a little laugh.
“Why do you laugh?” the Duke asked.
“My sister-in-law would be so – shocked,” she explained. “She thinks that a man’s – work is – outside and he has no interest in women’s dress.”
“I have a great interest in what you wear or do not wear,” the Duke said, “and I assure you I am quite experienced in such matters.”
The Chieftain Without a Heart Page 15
