The Highlander’s Trust_Blood of Duncliffe Series_A Medieval Scottish Romance Story

by Emilia Ferguson

  “Private?” he called to a man with the right number of bars on his epaulets.

  “Yes, sir?” the soldier came to a halt by the door, big eyes round in surprise.

  “Is Marsden, the doctor, in?” Richard asked.

  “Reckon so, sir. You need him?” He looked instantly aggrieved.

  “Well, not now,” Richard admitted. “But if anything worse happens to me, I'd like to know he's nearby and not out on some wretched battle site somewhere.”

  “He was at his lodgings when I saw him, sir.”

  “Thank you.”

  Knowing that help was at hand, should he need it, made Richard feel a little better. He returned to his desk and looked at it. He had to file reports.

  So far, he wrote in his own private notes, no sign of insurrection. Woods peaceful.

  He hoped that was how it would stay.

  Drat the French.

  It was their fault, he thought, vexed. The possibility of a war between the Jacobites and Hanoverians should have been just that, by now – a possibility. If the Stuart claimant to the throne were not right there, under the French King's care, the rising of twenty-four years ago – a year after Richard's birth – would have been all. However, no, that was not the case.

  The Hanoverians were fools, Richard thought – and he counted himself among their foolish number – to let that stay as it was. If anyone among them had any sense, they would have had the fellow quietly removed. Now, if the French king wanted to take Britain out of the picture of Europe, all he had to do was produce the fellow, send enough ships with him, and let the loyal Scots do his work. France would have a puppet king on the British throne, and that would be that.

  “Blast the French,” he swore. He glanced at the brandy on the shelf.

  It was French.

  “Fine,” he modified, smiling. “They are quite welcome in some respects. Just not when they start wretched wars in our land.”

  “Sir?”

  He closed his eyes. It was Bromley. All he needed was for his manservant to have heard him talking to himself. Then he would never hear the end of it – how he was raving, and wouldn't he like something for the fever.

  “What?” he said. He let his voice be as ominous as he knew it could be. He saw Bromley pause.

  “Um, sir? Dispatch, sir.”

  “Dispatch?” Richard stood. “Let's have it.”

  Bromley handed it over. Richard broke the seal. He smiled.

  It was from the commander at Fort William. He had never actually met the fellow, but he had exchanged a dozen messages and come to like him well. He smiled.

  “Let me read this,” he explained to Bromley. “I'll send you back with the reply when it's done. Probably tomorrow,” he said, glancing at the clock. It was six of the clock – almost time for dinner.

  “Very good, sir.”

  Richard nodded to him as he left, then settled down at his desk, looking forward to the fellow's flowing style.

  “To my esteemed lieutenant of the Borderers, greetings.” He read it aloud, smiling at the florid start to the letter. He read on.

  I can currently report nothing. I wish you likewise felicity in your own reconnaissance. No sign of troops – warlike or otherwise – moving across the forests or moor. I can report a herd of sheep, though – heading across the field beside the camp. I might have had them arrested for the mayhem they caused, seeing how half the men wished for slaughter, while half simply wanted them out of the horse grazing. I did, however, practice the clemency advised in such situations, and let them go. They are returned to the local farmer. May your own watch prove likewise eventful.

  Yours faithfully, Cornelius Peter.

  It was hard not to smile. The man took delicious irony out of the task – which was, more or less – keeping heavy patrol on lands that had been peaceful for two decades. Yes, there were Jacobites everywhere – they all knew that. However, their local governing officer had shown that they could be made loyal to the Crown. Most of the officers were as bored as his friendly Lieutenant Peter. He hoped it would remain so.

  Myself, I sometimes wonder.

  His own reports from Bromley – who could go among the locals more readily than Richard himself, blending in a little more easily than he did – were otherwise. He had seen people giving the Jacobite toast in the public house, and heard talk of rising here and there.

  There is something to worry about. Nevertheless, for the moment, I'll keep it to myself.

  Richard wasn't sure how to proceed – it would, he reckoned, seem foolish to disrupt the local peace with half-rumored threats of insurrection. Best to wait until there was something more incontrovertible to say. Besides, he had his doubts about his own fitness.

  I am seeing imaginary ladies. I'm not sure I'm in the best place to write factual logs.

  He set aside his pen, thinking about it. He would certainly not log the lady into his book of events! He could, however, record Bromley's information about the Jacobite supporters in his own private notes. He would report a state of peace to his friend Lieutenant Peter – at the moment, that was all he had to report.

  As he reached for his pen to start the reply, he noticed part of Peter's letter he hadn't read earlier.

  “Oh?” he frowned.

  Just to inform you, we are all invited to the home of a local lord, known in some circles as a Jacobite. It's ostensibly for dinner, but I suspect to count our numbers. If you go, keep your profile low and observe caution. Yours in anticipation of good cooking, C

  “I wonder.”

  It was likely that matters were as Cornelius Peter thought – that the dinner was a ruse to get them all in one place at one time. If the motive was simply a head-count, like his colleague assumed, he would feel much happier. He, himself, suspected trouble of a worse kind. Thoughts of the tales he'd heard – of blood-feuds solved by slaughtering whole families at dinner – played wildly through his mind.

  All the same, it would make a change from Hudson.

  Sergeant Hudson, the staff cook, was appalling. If it meant a change of scenery in the cooking vista, Richard was all too pleased to try.

  “I'm going,” he said, standing up.

  He sought Bromley, and found him at the stables.

  “Yes, sir?” Bromley said, appearing at the door.

  “I hear of a party. At a local hall? Know you of it?”

  “Oh. Yes, sir – heard a little about some gathering when I was at the Public house. Duncliffe's hosting it. Fellows say the officers are going – some of them. You, too?”

  Richard nodded slowly. “I think so, Bromley,” he said.

  He would have to risk it. It wasn't just the cooking, either... Another thought had occurred to him. Duncliffe. Was it a manor? Was it, perhaps, the manor he'd been nearby, recently?

  In which case, now was the ideal time to find out if the girl really lived there.

  You're a fool, Richard. However, he would have to risk it and discover more. He couldn't forget her, no matter how he tried.

  A BALL TO PREPARE FOR

  “A plague on it, Mrs. Merrick. If you insist, though; I won't.”

  Mrs. Merrick, the cook, rolled her eyes. “Be sure you don't, then,” she said stonily.

  Arabella sighed, letting her temper cool with the breeze from the kitchen garden. “As you say,” she admitted. “It's daft.” She felt silly for her reaction – she was twenty, and should be more mature.

  “Quite,” Mrs. Merrick nodded.

  Arabella sighed again and bit back a sharp retort. She was the earl's daughter and, really, the cook had no place to be ordering her about. Mrs. Merrick was more than just their cook, however. Without any parents save their distant and disinterested father, Mrs. Merrick had become Arabella and her siblings' touchstone of trust.

  “I'll only be a moment,” she agreed. “That's safe.”

  “Whist,” Mrs. Merrick sniffed. Her long, gaunt face showed disapproval. “Ye ken these woods is perilous.” She sounded upset.
r />   “I know,” Arabella nodded. It wasn't boars or bears she meant, either.

  And I know that better than anyone. Just two days ago, she had seen something far more dangerous – the English soldier. It was a vivid memory. She didn't want anyone to know of it. Least of all Mrs. Merrick. The wretched woman would never stop reproaching her with the risk she'd taken going there.

  “I'll just be a few moments,” she told herself, and disappeared briefly into the margin of the woods. Here, the trees cast gloomy shade over a bed of wild garlic. Arabella knew it was a good cure for some ailments. Also, that now was the best time to harvest. She learned that from Mrs. Merrick, who insisted that the girls learn of the healing arts. Their mother, Lady Mirelle, she said, would approve of it.

  Mother. I wish I knew her.

  Arabella sighed as she bent to gather the plants. Her mother was someone she could barely recall. She had been at least four when their Mama died. Francine was two, and Douglas just born.

  Of us all, I have the only memories.

  She closed her eyes, thinking back, and recalled a long oval face and dark hair, eyes of enigmatic black. Douglas had inherited her eyes. She wished she could have known her. Legends of the Duncliffe family said she was almost exactly like an ancient ancestress, who had been skilled in healing arts. Arabella didn't know if that was true. She just wished she'd known her.

  “I'm twenty now. I could do with a mama to guide me.”

  She would soon embark on the perilous task of finding a husband. Her father had found one prospect that he approved of – Arthur McInver, son of a loyalist to the Stuart kingship.

  A plague on Papa and his Jacobite sentiments. All that mattered was that her husband be a Jacobite – a cause Arabella could neither care about nor dismiss. It was a cause that brought conflict to her doorstep, and sought to shatter her world. If she thought about it at all, it was to feel angry about it. Why did men care who ruled? So long as people were happy and well provided for? Why bleed, fight and die for the right of one man to wear a crown? It made no sense to her.

  She sighed, stood and dusted leaf-mold off her long linen dress, and put the problem of her father's wretched allegiance, and Arthur, from her mind.

  I should go in.

  Her basket was full of all the wild garlic she would need. She didn't want to take all of it from this patch, or next year there'd be none. She paused, making the little sign Mrs. Merrick had taught her to thank the fairies of the place for their gift. She liked it – she did appreciate the plants and their healing power. It made her feel happy to acknowledge it.

  She gathered her basket on her arm and headed indoors.

  “See?” she said to Mrs. Merrick as she unpacked in the kitchens, relishing the warmth of the fire as it soaked into her skin and dried off her hair. “I'm well.”

  “Not because you're canny,” Mrs. Merrick said sourly. “Because you're lucky, is it.”

  “Oh, stop being horrid,” Arabella snapped. She still felt badly shaken after the encounter in the woods. The last thing she needed, right now, was Mrs. Merrick making her feel foolish.

  “Easy, lass,” Mrs. Merrick said, looking round at her with big, sorrowful gray eyes. “I wasnae stealing yer horse.”

  Arabella sighed. Usually, Mrs. Merrick made her smile. However, today, she was simply wearing on her nerves.

  “How is the dinner progressing?” she asked instead, seeking to change the subject from her wayward ways.

  Mrs. Merrick shifted position, her narrow shoulders hunching. “Fine,” she said tersely.

  Arabella bit her lip. She didn't want to hurt the woman. All the same, she hadn't the reserves right now to face her older friend's moods. She needed soothing.

  “I'm going to find Francine,” she said firmly.

  “She's in the solar,” Mrs. Merrick said. “Or, she was when I came down here earlier.”

  “Thank you.”

  Arabella headed up the stone steps to the kitchen door, and then out into the rest of the house.

  Duncliffe was a beautiful home. Some parts of it were ancient – reminders of its fortress past. Arabella stared at the high, vaulted ceilings on the way past. Some parts of it were little changed since medieval days, some built, she guessed, the previous century.

  Blocks of gray sandstone formed a solid, grim shape to the house, turrets at either end making it meet the line between true castle and manor-house. She loved it.

  “I wish Francine and I were young enough to play hide-and-seek,” she smiled, remembering how she and her young sister had run wild in this very hallway. They'd spent hours there playing hide-and-seek in the hallways and all the way through the gallery. As long as they didn't disturb their father in his office, anything was allowed.

  Until Mrs. Merrick. Mrs. Merrick had been partly responsible for taming them – recruited out of desperation by her father when Arabella was about fourteen. She was too old for hide-and-seek and regretted the maturity.

  Now she paused at the doorway of the solar.

  “Francine?”

  In the half-light by the fire, she could just discern pale skin and paler hair. She smiled to herself. Her sister, Francine, was clearly too engaged in whatever she was doing to heed her.

  “Francine?” she called from closer to the white-clad form.

  “Oh!” Francine looked up, blinking hazel eyes like Arabella's own. She smiled. “You startled me, sister.”

  Arabella smiled. “Sorry, dear. You were concentrating overmuch, I think.”

  Francine grinned. “I don't concentrate too much.”

  “No,” Arabella teased. “Definitely not. That's why you learned to read when they taught Douglas. Because you weren't focusing on Father Brogan's work at all.”

  Francine pulled a face at her. “Fine.”

  Arabella laughed. She loved her tenderhearted sister so much. She just had to see her to feel a sense of rightness, of beauty. With her pale reddish hair and brown eyes, the peace that seemed to radiate out of her, Francine was her touchstone for serenity. As well as wisdom. She had, indeed, learned to read in the month the churchman taught Douglas, without a single lesson being given to her.

  Father wouldn't see the need to teach girls to read.

  She sighed and settled on the carved wooden seat, trying to relax.

  “You're staying here?” Francine asked. “I'd like your company a while.”

  “Well, I'd like to,” Arabella nodded. “Though I suppose I should go and find Glenna and find out if the gown's done,” she added glumly. Any thought of the ball was upsetting.

  “For the ball?”

  “Aye,” Arabella nodded. She leaned back on the carved bench, the velvet cushions shifting under her as she moved back. She let her eyes shut. That wretched ball! She hated the thought.

  Father would have invited Arthur and many of the other local Jacobite supporters – of the right age and standing for marriage – and she'd have to choose one. Well she wouldn't really have a choice – Father had already decided on Arthur. This was simply his way of making it seem fair. It was a gesture that Arabella felt made it all seem so much more unfair.

  “You're wearing green?” Francine asked, raising a brow.

  “Blue,” Arabella countered. Her father had even provided the bolts of cloth for making their gowns. Velvet, sent out from Venice, but not what she'd wanted. She loved green; a color that brought out her fiery hair. “Yourself?” she inquired.

  “I wanted blue,” Francine grinned. “And I got green.”

  “Green?” Arabella frowned. “With your hair? Blue is better.”

  “Swap?” Francine said, one brow curved.

  Arabella laughed. “Francine! That's brilliant.” She felt a bubble of excitement rise inside her at the thought.

  “Well, not brilliant,” Francine demurred, looking at the floor. “But it should work – and it's the best way to have it our way without fussing anyone.”

  Arabella laughed again. “Well, I like that plan.”

&n
bsp; “Me, too.”

  They were decided.

  As they chatted some more, focusing on the local events and happenings, Arabella felt herself draining of tension. She felt like a bucket must feel as someone slowly tipped water from it, leaving it empty and clean. She stretched, long arms reaching out.

  “I suppose we should prepare soon?” She asked, yawning. The warmth in here was making her drowsy.

  “Indeed,” Francine nodded, one brow raised. “If we wish Glenna to alter things, we ought to find her before she finishes that dress. I think she might be almost done on mine.”

  “Oh! Yes.” Arabella nodded, shooting to her feet at the suggestion of altering. Francine was eighteen, and slight, where Arabella had a fuller bust and wider hips. She would have to ask Glenna to adjust the gown accordingly.

  “Let's go,” Francine nodded, standing.

  They went upstairs to the turret room where Glenna, the resident seamstress and wardrobe-mistress, sewed their clothes.

  As soon as Francine proposed their idea, Glenna was in agreement – the colors suited much better the other way round.

  “Aye, and for certain I'll make some wee adjustments,” she nodded, brushing pale hair out of her eye. “We'll let out the seams in the green dress a little for Arabella, take in the shoulders and chest a bit for Francine.”

  “Thank you!” Arabella breathed. She looked at the green dress, so pleased that it would soon, finally, be hers. Dark green velvet, the skirt slashed to reveal a navy underskirt both patterned with silver lace; it was just what she wanted.

  By five of the clock, the dresses were both ready.

  Glenna just smiled as she passed them over. “I'm glad to help, milady. Next time, tell me first. He'll never know.”

  “It's true,” Arabella sighed. In its own way, that was upsetting. Her father wouldn't really notice which of them wore which – in fact, he'd likely forgotten what he chose the moment after he'd ordered the cloth. She headed back downstairs, the gown draped over her arm, going to the bedroom.

  I can only hope he pays as little mind to Arthur as he did to the color of my gown. Mayhap then I can change my mind and he will choose another husband for me.