Autumn in Scotland

by Karen Ranney

  KAREN RANNEY

  Autumn in Scotland

  TO LOVEY

  It may seem silly to dedicate a book to a dog, but frankly, my Sheltie, Lovey, is one of my best friends. She listens to me expound about things I can never mention to anyone else. She’s seen me naked and will never divulge her opinion on the experience. When I feel weepy, she puts her chin on my knee and sighs. She’s learned to make a sound like a purr when I rub her ears, and her dark brown eyes mostly express love. Occasionally, they reveal annoyance, but that’s when I’m not fast enough in giving her a cookie.

  So, to Lovey: Thank you for all the days of companionship when you listened—without comment—to my reading a manuscript aloud. Thank you for sitting on my feet in winter so my toes stayed warm while I was writing. Thank you for tolerating your teeth being brushed, “Beauty Shop Nights,” and a dozen other indignities so beneath you. Thank you, mostly, for only barking at the computer when it went off, and not at leaves, birds, or cats. Thank you for never being a watchdog, which meant that I had to be brave enough to protect you. Thank you, finally, for being a perfect lady-dog in all ways.

  Friends, even four-legged ones, should be appreciated in life, and this is my way of appreciating Lovey.

  I think she’d much rather have a cookie.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Scotland was a soggy, cold disappointment.

  Chapter 1

  As homecomings went, this one would rank among the strangest.

  Chapter 2

  The orchestra was playing, the sound of lush music traveling…

  Chapter 3

  Dixon sat on the end of the bed watching as…

  Chapter 4

  The ball and the revelry continued unabated until the wee…

  Chapter 5

  At seven o’clock, before the breakfast bell rang, in fact…

  Chapter 6

  She dressed by herself, banishing Maisie with the excuse that…

  Chapter 7

  Breakfast was abysmal, and it was all George’s fault.

  Chapter 8

  The courtyard was a hive of activity. Matthew walked to…

  Chapter 9

  Had she been too rash?

  Chapter 10

  Dixon sat astride the horse he’d commandeered, watching as Charlotte…

  Chapter 11

  The smell woke her.

  Chapter 12

  Over the next two days, Dixon occupied himself with tasks,…

  Chapter 13

  Dixon waited until almost midnight, the hour when spirits were…

  Chapter 14

  There was an expression in his eyes that she’d never…

  Chapter 15

  Dixon rose at dawn to find that he was the…

  Chapter 16

  A carriage was coming down the road. A carriage Charlotte…

  Chapter 17

  London was an exceedingly lonely place, a discovery Dixon made…

  Chapter 18

  During the school term, Charlotte insisted that all her students…

  Chapter 19

  Dixon was determined, upon leaving Edinburgh, to tell Charlotte who…

  Chapter 20

  Charlotte bid a relieved farewell to The Edification Society, determined…

  Chapter 21

  The day was chilled enough that it felt like snow…

  Chapter 22

  No more than an hour later, rescue arrived in the…

  Chapter 23

  “Balfurin is warmer,” Matthew said, making a clucking sound with…

  Epilogue

  Charlotte Haversham MacKinnon turned at the sound of footsteps.

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Other Books by Karen Ranney

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  March 1833

  S cotland was a soggy, cold disappointment.

  Charlotte Haversham MacKinnon had spent the last three days huddled in the corner of the carriage praying that the sun would emerge from behind watery clouds. The sun, however, was as stubborn as any Scot and refused to make an appearance.

  Just like her husband.

  However cold she was, however miserable and damp, however exhausted, she dared not utter a complaint. After all, it was her fault they were there.

  The farther north they traveled, the more she understood her husband’s professed love of England. In Sussex, flowers bloomed in shades of orange, red, purple, and white. Branches boasted a new growth of leaves in the spring. There was a look of beauty to the land as if it gloried in life. Even London was a cheery place.

  Scotland looked as if it had recently been burned to the ground, as if God Himself had decreed this place a dead and desolate spot. When it wasn’t drizzling, it looked as if it might imminently storm. How anything grew in this place, Charlotte had no idea. If it did sprout from the barren earth, surely it must be the color of slate.

  She kept her thoughts to herself. Her parents were not in the mood for conversation. Her father had spent the last two hours frowning, and when her mother did address her, it was formally: Countess Marne. As if by doing so, she was reminding her father that some good had come of all this—their eldest daughter had a title.

  When she was first introduced to George MacKinnon, Earl of Marne, it hadn’t mattered all that much to Charlotte. A woman must be married, and as her mother said, it was as easy to wed an Earl as it was a Mister. In this case, however, the Earl was as poor as any squirrel nesting in one of the oak trees near the garden. Perhaps more so, because at least the squirrel owned a few acorns.

  George MacKinnon had a title but precious few coins to rub together. There was, supposedly, a castle he claimed as his ancestral right, and it was to Balfurin in the Scottish Highlands that they’d been traveling for the past week.

  Charlotte leaned back against the cushions and closed her eyes. She hadn’t done anything. Not anything that would make George leave her. Not even when she found him with the chambermaid. She’d simply gone back to her room and vowed never to say a word.

  “Charlotte, are you feeling unwell? We do not need that inconvenience.”

  She opened her eyes and turned her head to look at her mother.

  “I’m feeling fine, Mother.”

  Her father frowned at her again.

  Everyone pretended, during this entire journey, that she was on her way to join George at his ancestral home. But she wasn’t even certain he’d returned to Scotland. One morning he’d simply disappeared without a note of explanation. Only days later was it determined that her entire dowry, a not inconsiderable sum, had also vanished.

  Charlotte leaned her head back against the cushions again. She had acted the part of besotted bride as well as she could. She’d been amenable, tolerable, and charming. She spoke only when she was addressed, and discussed a variety of subjects when conversation faltered.

  She was even to be found in her bed, gowned and perfumed for her husband, her hands resting outside the bed, the lace at her wrists so fulsome that it almost covered her fingers. Her hair was always brushed and left loose, spread over the pillow because George had remarked once that he’d liked it that way.

  But he’d never returned to her bed, not after that first night. Perhaps she should consider herself fortunate for that fact.

  “I’m sure George has a perfectly good explanation for his actions,” her mother said abruptly.

  Since it was her mother’s first effort at conciliation, weak that it was, Charlotte smiled. “Perhaps he will.”

  That was the extent of their conversation for several hours. The coachman had said this morning that they’d reach Balfurin today, but the aft
ernoon was advancing and the scenery looked less promising as they traveled. If they didn’t pass a town or even a hamlet soon, they’d be doomed again to spend the night on the side of the road, the horses grazing on whatever vegetation they might find.

  Charlotte dismissed George MacKinnon, Earl of Marne, and Balfurin from her mind. For a few moments, she amused herself by envisioning the gardens of her childhood home, lush with a hundred varieties of vibrant flowers. That vision done, she concentrated on the library, her favorite room in the palatial estate. She was always to be found there, even as a child. The reading nook was a sanctuary from her pestering sisters, and the governess who giggled incessantly and postured endlessly.

  If she concentrated, she could list all the books in one section of the shelves from top shelf to bottom. Over the years, she’d read them all. Some were interesting, some boring, and some she could still recite, as if her mind had captured each page.

  Such a memory should be used for some purpose, but it had not, other than to serve her up to ridicule from her sisters as some sort of freak, an aberration of nature.

  “You’d better spend your time finding some way to bleach that complexion of yours, Charlotte. You look as dark as a blackamoor.” That comment was from Adelaide, a formidable flirt, and the next girl to be wed—a state of affairs no doubt hastening Charlotte’s own nuptials, the speed of which had been blinding. Either her parents had been beside themselves with the prospect of wedding Charlotte off, or George had been destitute and desperate.

  Both circumstances could well be true.

  “Damnation,” her father said, leaning forward.

  “Nigel!” Her mother frowned.

  “Pardon, my dear. I didn’t think. But look.” He extended his finger toward the window.

  “Is that Balfurin?” her mother asked faintly.

  Her father knocked on the window separating them from the driver.

  “Is that our destination?” he asked, and the man answered in the affirmative.

  Charlotte had a feeling of impending doom as she turned her head. Her father’s uncharacteristic lapse of gentility had warned her, but nothing could truly have prepared her for what she saw next.

  Balfurin Castle was a disreputable ruin of a place, perched high on a rounded hill, surrounded by a copse of trees, like a bald man’s shiny pate ringed by a fringe of hair. Three crenellated towers spoke of a warlike past, when such defenses were necessary. The fourth tower, in a crumbled heap, revealed that too many years had passed since anyone had stewarded Balfurin with pride.

  The overall color of the castle was gray, with red brick showing vividly where it had been spared the elements. A yawning archway led to a courtyard. Charlotte somehow knew that a drawbridge had once been installed there, just as she suspected that the dry gully had once been a moat.

  She loved Balfurin at first sight.

  This was the place of dreams, of childhood fantasies, of stories she’d sighed over as a young girl. Without much difficulty she could envision a dragon, scaled and deeply green, creeping down the hill, and the banners of a worthy knight flying in the wind as he left the castle walls to engage in battle.

  Within those sheltering walls a clan could live, kept safe by their number and their leader. Voices would be raised in celebration within the Great Hall, and the courtyard would be a hive of daily activity.

  Such a place needed a chatelaine, a woman destined for the role, strong, resolute, and surrounded by the love and respect of her people. Charlotte could almost see herself wearing a long linen dress of pale yellow with a belt of hammered gold disks. Around her waist would be a knotted cord with keys to the granary and storerooms.

  Her husband, the lord of Balfurin, would come to her as she stood on the battlements surveying the far crops and nearby garden.

  A touch of silliness, then, to imagine herself loved by such a man, such a person. An illusion, when she was wed to an absent earl who was not much more attentive when he was standing beside her.

  “Dearest Lord and all the saints preserve us,” her mother said. “It’s a horror.”

  “Damnation,” her father said again, in evident agreement.

  Her mother didn’t correct him this time, wide-eyed as she was at the scene before her.

  The carriage slowed, the driver expertly entering the arched entranceway as if he’d done so many times before. Only inches remained between the carriage’s shiny black lacquered exterior and the darkened bricks.

  The courtyard continued the impression of desertion. Hay was strewn over one side of the space, while a few broken crates were set against one wall along with a wagon wheel with most of its spokes missing and a ladder with three shattered rungs. A well in the center of the courtyard held a rusted pulley, but the bucket looked newly hewn. A mangy dog eyed them suspiciously from beside the wall. He and three scrawny chickens plucking at the dirt were the only signs of life.

  “No wonder George wanted my dowry,” Charlotte said. Both her parents glanced at her, but neither reprimanded her.

  What, after all, could they say?

  Charlotte had the impression that Balfurin was simply waiting, patient and eternal, and that it might have looked like this for hundreds of years.

  “This whole journey has been nothing but a waste of time, Charlotte,” her mother said.

  Charlotte sighed inwardly, and turned to face her mother. What would you have me do? A question she did not dare ask. She didn’t have a rebellious nature. If she had, she wouldn’t be sitting here wondering about the whereabouts of her husband. For that matter, she wouldn’t have found herself married at all, leastwise to a stranger, and a Scot.

  A desperately poor Scot.

  All her life she’d been proper and restrained. Every single moment, she’d done exactly as her parents had asked. She’d been a model daughter, a perfect paragon of decorum. She’d been an example for her sisters, a Haversham worthy of the name.

  But it was getting harder and harder to remember her role, especially after the humiliation of being abandoned so soon after being wed. She’d begun to entertain shocking thoughts of mutiny.

  “Your mother is right, girl,” her father said. “This has been a wasted trip. Your mother and I have suffered during this whole damnable journey. Nor does it look as if we’re going to get much of a welcome here. But I’ll be damned if my horses are going to be ruined for your selfishness.”

  My selfishness? How could he say that? All she’d wanted to do was find her husband. What about George? What about him, leaving his wife after a week of marriage? Thoughts that weren’t verbalized. There were words for what George had done, but she’d never before spoken them aloud. Very well, in the silence of her mind perhaps—cad, bounder.

  Bastard.

  She clasped her hands together and watched as her father exited the carriage. He turned and stretched out a hand to help her mother descend. Charlotte was next, and when she stepped onto the ground she smoothed her dress down, wishing she had a mirror. Was her hair acceptable? She sent a questioning look to her mother, who nodded at her absentmindedly.

  Not one single servant had appeared at the arrival of the carriage. Her father strode forward, calling out, “Is anyone here?”

  The coachman leaned down and addressed him. “Shall I send one of the footmen searching for someone, sir?”

  “That’s a good idea, John. Do so.”

  The coachman nodded, and with a touch of his whip, pointed to one of the footmen. Immediately, he clambered from the carriage and strode toward the rear of the castle. Some ten minutes later he returned, walking slowly beside a stooped and aged man.

  “His name is Jeffrey, and he says he’s one of the few servants remaining at Balfurin, sir,” the footman announced when they approached the coach.

  “I’m old but I’ve not lost the ability to speak for myself,” Jeffrey said, eyeing the footman with some disfavor. He turned and looked at her father, making no effort to welcome a stranger to Balfurin.

  “A
nd who would you be?” Jeffrey asked.

  Her father drew himself up and frowned at the elderly man. “We are looking for George MacKinnon, Earl of Marne, my good man. Please be so good as to tell him that his wife and in laws are here.”

  “What makes you think he’s come back?” Jeffrey asked. “He left us to starve without a backward glance. Married, you say?” He narrowed his eyes and looked at Charlotte, who took a step back. His expression left no doubt of his feelings either for George or her.

  “What now?” her mother asked. “We’ve come all this way for nothing.”

  “A fool’s errand, Jennifer,” her father said, frowning at Charlotte. “We’ll rest the night, and then return to England. That is, if this ungodly place offers us shelter.”

  He turned and strode up the broad stone steps to the door, lifted the iron knocker, and waited.

  Suddenly, the door moved, groaning on its hinges as it opened slowly inward. A yawning chasm of black appeared, and then a face, lined, weathered, and topped with a shock of white hair.

  “Who you be?” the elderly woman asked.

  “Nigel Haversham, my wife, Jennifer, and our daughter, the Countess of Marne.”

  The old woman kept her gnarled hand on the edge of the door. Was she Balfurin’s only protector?

  “If you will move aside, madam,” her father said. “We require lodging for the night.”

  “So, he married? And an Englishwoman at that?” The elderly woman shook her head. “That I’ve lived so long to see such a horror.” She squinted into the bleary sun, her eyes sunken and faded. “Even so, how do I know you’re who you say you are? I’ve not seen the earl since the spring when he came to have the chapel window removed and taken to Edinburgh.” Her hand tightened on the door.