The Highland Countess

by M C Beaton

  Finally a sad procession made their way toward Cosmo, Laird of Glenaquer’s home. Morag now felt drained of all emotion and unutterably weary. She dimly realized with some surprise that Cosmo’s home was modern and comfortable but she soon tumbled headlong into sleep.

  When she awoke, it was to find the wet nurse standing beside her bed, the baby in her arms. “Here he is, my leddy,” said the nurse proudly. “A fine wee man. Lucky it is I had the milk, my ain having just died. Ah, well, I’ve five healthy ones and that’s enough.”

  She placed the sleeping baby in Morag’s arms and Morag looked down wonderingly at the small face, feeling a strong sense of maternal love.

  “What is your name?” she asked the nurse at last.

  “Helen MacDonald, my leddy. My husband’s in service as footman to the laird.”

  “Leave him with me, Helen,” said Morag, “but tell my lord I will join him shortly.”

  “Och, my leddy. It’s havers you’re talking. You’ll no be gettin’ up for a while.”

  Morag blinked and then remembered she was supposed to have given birth to this child.

  “It was a shame about that lassie,” went on Helen. “To fall deid just when you were having your baby and needed all the help you could get.”

  “Indeed, yes.” Poor Fionna. “But I feel very strong,” said Morag.

  Helen did not answer but went out shaking her head. That was the Quality for you. Tough as old boots. “Just had a bairn and there she was, standing on the grass as neat as a new pin,” Helen told the other servants. “The lass that died looked mair as if she had given birth than my leddy.”

  Morag lay back against the pillows, cradling the baby. Now Cosmo was in the secret as well. So many people to be bound to secrecy!

  But this baby would be as much hers as if she had given it birth. That way she could make amends for her sinful love for Lord Toby; for the earl’s adulterous affair with Fionna. The child would not suffer.

  “I shall call you Roderick,” she said softly to the sleeping child. Perhaps this child would compensate the earl for his lost love. He must be suffering terribly.

  The large figure of the earl wandered aimlessly around his friend Cosmo’s estate during the following week. He did not drink, he ate little, he showed no interest in the child apart from saying dryly that “it was a good thing it wasn’t a girl or he would have gone through the whole pother for nothing,” a comment which caused the servants to shake their heads and say the earl was a hard man.

  He felt too weary to continue the journey to Edinburgh and sent for his man of business, lawyer James Murray, to come to him instead. The new will was duly drawn up and signed and witnessed.

  This being achieved, the earl resumed his aimless wandering. Even during the night, the servants could hear him pacing backward and forward in his bedchamber.

  One day when it was raining heavily, thin freezing iron rods of rain, the earl went out riding, despite protests from Morag and Cosmo. He rode a long way across the countryside, feeling weak and old, wishing for death for the first time and fearing its arrival.

  The sound of a jaunty tune on the fiddle roused him from his gloomy reverie. He was approaching a small clachan, or village, little more than a huddle of houses and one muddy street.

  The noise of the merry music struck up an answering stir in his heart. It was coming from a long low building. He dismounted and looked in the window. The villagers were celebrating a wedding and the celebrations were in their third day. Couples reeled and staggered to the wild music and the earl tapped his fingers appreciatively on the sill.

  Then she danced past and looked over one saucy, shoulder at him. She must have been all of thirty but she still had all her teeth. She had a tangled mane of black hair and her short skirts revealed dirty legs and bare feet. She was slightly cross-eyed and her mouth was full and red. “Dinnae staun there,” she called out to the earl. “Come dance!”

  And the earl did, leaping and hooching like an elderly Scottish satyr, and the company cheered and yelled and stamped their feet. He felt his youth return. Death fled to the horizon of his mind and he sat down, pulling his latest temptress onto his knee and drinking great gulps of whisky as if it were water.

  “Come and dance,” she cried again.

  “Och, away wi’ ye,” groaned the earl. “I need a bit o’ rest. I’m too auld.”

  “Too auld for everything?” she teased.

  “I’m never too auld for that,” grinned the earl.

  “Prove it,” she mocked. “Come ootside.”

  “I’m your man,” cried the earl, springing to his feet and pulling her laughing out into the rain, out into the cold, wet fields and behind a hedgerow.

  As they lay down in the wet grass, she caught his earlobe between her strong teeth.

  “Och,” sighed the earl, “ye’ll be the death o’ me.”

  And she was.

  Chapter Six

  “Where’s the little divil?” queried Mrs. Tallant, beating eggs with vigor.

  Hamish looked up from the silver he was polishing and grunted, “Gone tae Perth wi’ the mistress.”

  “Well, that’s a mercy,” snapped Mrs. Tallant. “Nae peace for us when he’s around.”

  “He’s a bonny lad,” commented Hamish, brushing a speck of jeweler’s rouge from his new livery, “but he gies me a fair scunner, him and his jokes.” Both servants shook their heads dolefully over the misdeeds of the tenth Earl of Murr.

  “He says tae me yesterday, he says,” went on Hamish, “‘How exactly did my father die?’ As if he didn’t know. As if the whole county o’ Perth didn’t know. Whitna scandal that was!”

  Seven years had passed since the death of the earl. The fact that he had died of a seizure during the throes of his last passion had been too good a story to keep quiet. It was a miracle that the secret of Roderick, Earl of Murr’s birth had not been equally broadcast. But those that knew the truth of the young earl’s parentage kept their mouths loyally shut—although they detested him one and all.

  For young Roderick, known familiarly as Rory, was a pest, albeit a beautiful one. At the age of seven, he had long flowing golden curls and wide gray-blue eyes with a fascinating Celtic tilt that was almost oriental. He was sturdy and well-made and had infinite charm. He also had a great deal of intelligence which, since his overprotective “mother,” Morag, Countess of Murr, considered him too young for boarding school or a tutor, taking charge of his education herself, found its outlet in a long series of ingenious practical jokes.

  Only the day before had he put a mouse under the housekeeper’s skirts as she was taking a pie out of the oven. Hamish had beaten him soundly and Rory had retaliated by writing, “Hamish loves Maggie Tallant” all over the castle walls.

  Hamish had been elected to the official position as butler to her ladyship, with a fine livery to match. The menservants had received new footmen’s livery in silver and scarlet and had been requested to powder their hair. The child must be surrounded with everything elegant, Morag had said.

  And what of Morag after seven long years? She had grown in beauty, but it was a cold, still kind of beauty with little animation.

  She had inherited great wealth from the earl and was extremely rich even by English standards. Suitors had flocked to the castle after the period of mourning was over and were turned down one by one. Morag was wrapped up in the care of the child, whom she had come to think of as her own. All the love in her love-starved life was poured on the child. In her doting eyes, Rory could do no wrong. And since Rory was equally devoted to Morag, he made sure that she never found out the worst of his tricks, and if she found out about any, he always had a charming excuse.

  Morag had instigated many changes at Murr Castle. An architect had redesigned the chimneys so the rooms were well heated in winter. New plumbing had been installed and there was running water in a marble buffet outside the dining room. Carpets had been woven in Ayrshire to cover the stone floors and tapestries had been i
mported from Belgium to cover the walls. The stuffed pike had been given to Hamish, who, at first, did not know what to do with it, but had finally sold it at an auction in Perth and got drunk on the proceeds.

  The castle wall had been moved half a mile to extend the gardens and a conservatory and succession houses had been built at right angles to the castle with a new servants’ wing behind. Extra servants had been hired and Hamish proudly told his friends he was head of an army.

  Lady Phyllis was eaten alive with jealousy.

  The apartments in Edinburgh had been sold and Mr. James Murray, the lawyer, had advised selling the house in London since it would fetch a very good price. But somewhere in the back of Morag’s mind there was still a vision of a young man with black hair and green eyes and she felt if she sold the house, she would have admitted to herself that she would never go to London—never see him again.

  She still led a fairly isolated life, and Rory had no friends—that she knew of—to play with since she considered the children of the local families not nearly good enough for her angel. She did not know that the enterprising Rory often slipped away from the castle when he was supposed to be in bed and played with the children of the local village, some two miles away. When he appeared at the breakfast table with purple shadows under his eyes, Morag would wring her hands and send for the doctor. Doctor McQueen would confirm her opinion that the child was delicate. Privately, the good doctor thought that Rory was as strong as an ox, but to tell her ladyship so would mean a curtailing of his frequent visits, and her ladyship paid well.

  And so, for the most part, the world slipped by outside the castle walls unnoticed. Stories of the Peninsular War were duly reported in the newspapers as Wellington won battle after battle against Napoleon Bonaparte’s troops. But the immediate daily concerns seemed more important. Wheat was fetching such a high price that Morag’s extensive farmlands were almost doubling her fortune. Her fields were prosperous, her tenants well housed and her servants well fed. She was adored by one and all. Although her steward, Mr. Baillie, technically ran things, it was Morag who added the personal touch. Any sick tenant could expect a visit from her ladyship and a carriage full of comforts. Any bright child had his or her schooling paid.

  Morag was queen of her small empire and almost content. But on the morning that Hamish and Mrs. Tallant were happily tearing the character of young Rory to pieces, two things happened which were to rend apart the quiet tenor of Morag’s days.

  Firstly, she bought a newspaper in Perth to read on the road home, a thing she had never done before, being completely uninterested in the outside world.

  Rory was asleep beside her in the carriage, his fair head lolling against her arm. Morag’s lady’s maid, Scott, a recent acquisition, sat stiffly opposite.

  Morag glanced idly through the pages until her eyes fastened on the social column. She idly read of the marriage of lord this to lady that—and then she felt a strange, apprehensive qualm. Marriage. Of course, he might already be married! She felt his presence so strongly, felt the feel of his lips against her own so vividly, he might as well have been in the carriage with her. All the hurt and longing which she had kept down over the years welled up and bubbled over.

  She could go to London! Why had she never thought of that! But the house was rented from year to year. “But it’s my house,” she thought, “and if I want to live in it, then I can.” She looked at the paper again. There was the account of a ball at a certain Lady Pomfret’s.

  She found herself carefully studying the long description of the fashions and then looked down at her own serviceable clothes. She did so much walking and riding that she had had her clothes made accordingly; good, tough material in plain styles.

  But it was ridiculous! There was dear Rory to think of. He should not be exposed to the dangers of London.

  Did Lord Toby ever think of her? nagged the voice in her brain. Why had he left without so much as a good-bye?

  She was a fool. He was probably happily married with, oh, twelve children.

  The carriage rolled over the new gravel on the new drive up to the castle and Morag gently shook Rory by the shoulder. “We’re here, dear. We’re home. Wake up.”

  Rory struggled out of sleep, his face flushed, his eyes bright. Morag caught her breath. He was an incredibly beautiful child and she never tired of looking at him.

  “Can I go and play, mother?” he yawned.

  “No,” said Morag with fond firmness; “dinner first.”

  Dinner had been moved to a more fashionable hour.

  Grumbling under his breath, Rory climbed down from the carriage and waited outside the castle door for his “mother.”

  Suddenly there was the sound of a report and a bullet whined through his blond curls to bury itself harmlessly in the thick wood of the castle door. The horses plunged and reared. The footman leaped down from the backstrap and ran toward a spinney from which a pale wisp of smoke was rising. Hamish jerked open the castle door, “Whit was that, my leddy?” he cried. “I heard a shot.”

  Morag pushed past him, clutching Rory in her arms. “Someone tried to shoot Rory,” she cried. “Quick, Hamish, have all the men out to search the grounds.”

  Her devoted servants scanned the countryside for miles round about. But of Rory’s assailant, there was no sign. Mr. Baillie, the steward, was hastily called and gave his opinion that it was probably only a stray bullet from a poacher’s gun. “Nobody would shoot the laddie,” said Mr. Baillie, although he privately thought—“Shoot, no. Strangle, yes.”

  Rory had quickly got over his shock. He was inclined to agree with Mr. Baillie—having joined the local poachers some nights himself. He was desperate to escape to the freedom of the fields but his mother kept him close.

  Like most children of his age, he had various small rituals which were important to him. One of the most important was that every evening, before dinner, he would go out beyond the castle walls and climb his favorite copper beech tree just as the light was fading. There he could sit, high up in its branches, looking over the rolling Perthshire countryside toward the distant blue mountains. He looked impatiently at his mother from under his long lashes as she sat over her embroidery.

  “Mother, can I lie down before dinner?”

  Morag stared at him. The poor child! He must indeed have received a bad shock.

  “Of course, Rory,” she said gently. “I will come up in a few moments to see how you fare.”

  “Oh, don’t do that,” said Rory. “I mean, I would really feel much better on my own and if I do not want your company, mama, then I do not want anyone’s.”

  A glow of maternal love animated Morag’s face. “Go then, darling,” she said softly. “I will call you for dinner.”

  Rory walked slowly to the door and closed it very gently behind him. Then he fled. He escaped from the castle by his own secret way—a small little-used door in the cellars which led through tangled shrubbery to the back of the castle.

  He dodged from bush to bush, moving as quietly as a shadow, frightened that one of the servants should see him and call him back.

  Once out of sight of the castle, he slackened his pace. “I really must get mother to take me out of skirts,” thought Rory, looking down miserably at his outfit. He was wearing an ankle-length frock with puffed sleeves and a high waist over long frilly pantaloons. On his curls was balanced a straw top hat—suitable perhaps for a child of five, thought Rory gloomily, but for a man of seven…!

  When he reached his favorite tree, he began to climb with an incredible agility for such a small boy hampered by frilly pantaloons.

  He now felt excited at the idea of having escaped death. He felt tremendously brave. He hesitated at his favorite perch and then decided, for the first time, to go higher. He dreamed of being a soldier and he climbed on up.

  After all, drummer boys were little older than himself. He came out of his dream to realize that he was near the top of the tree, the branches were very thin, and he was a lon
g way from the ground.

  He looked down.

  In the gathering dusk, the ground seemed to swing beneath him. The young buds had only just begun to sprout so he had an unimpaired view. Terror choked him and he clung to the tree for dear life. He could not go up, he could not go down.

  He edged one chubby leg over a branch to take some of the strain off his arms and then clasped them tightly round the thin trunk of the tree.

  But after only five minutes of this agony, he heard the hue and cry from the castle. He would be rescued—but then his mother would know he had tricked her and he would never be able to leave that way again. He was not a soldier. He was a coward. Rory’s education, such as it was, had been given him by his mother—a little Latin, a little Greek and a great deal of romantic tales. None of his heroes would behave like this. He would get down—and get down himself!

  As the sounds of the search grew nearer, he carefully and bravely freed one arm and jerked his dark blue dress up over his bright curls to hide them. His pantaloons were dark blue as well. With luck, he might not be seen.

  The search passing by the very foot of the tree gave him all the courage he needed. As soon as the last dark figure had disappeared over the field and the last flaring, smoking torch had twinkled off into the distance, he began his cautious descent.

  It was black night now and he could not see the ground. He seemed to have been edging down for a century until at last he felt the turf beneath his feet. He settled his topper at a jaunty angle on his head and skipped off toward the castle.

  He crept quietly through the cellar door and then up a winding back stair to the first floor. He emerged onto the main landing and prepared to make a dash to the sanctuary of his room.

  His mother was standing on the stairs, looking down. Morag gave a great cry and rushed forward, hugging him to her bosom, her frightened eyes taking in the blood smear on his face—a branch had scratched it—and the torn mess of his clothes.