Autumn in Scotland

by Karen Ranney

  “I realize George is not in residence,” her father began, but she interrupted him.

  “He told me it would fetch a good price from those who were building their fine houses. I wouldn’t let them take it. His grandfather would have curled up in his grave. That window has been at Balfurin Castle since before I was born.”

  “My dear woman, I do not care about one of your windows,” her father said, becoming exasperated. “Move aside!”

  The old woman looked offended by his command. She drew herself up, and frowned back at him.

  “I’m Nan McPherson, sir. Eighty-seven years have I been on this earth. Too long to be cowed, even by a rude Englishman like yourself. I’ve not been given word you were coming. Go away.”

  She tried to shut the door, but Charlotte’s father was having none of it.

  Her mother stepped up and placed her hand on her father’s arm. “Nigel, dear, shall I handle this? It is, after all, a domestic arrangement.” She smiled at the woman at the door as if they were conspirators.

  Charlotte knew the tactic well, since she’d been privy to it all her life. Nan did not stand a chance against her mother’s determination.

  “We know George didn’t send word, Nan. But we are tired, and it looks to rain again. Surely, you don’t begrudge us a night under a roof in a real bed?”

  Nan stepped back, the door opening an inch wider. “The roof leaks, and I’ve not had the strength to air the beds myself.”

  “We’ve two footmen who could assist in whatever arrangements need to be made.” Her mother smiled, and the door opened even farther.

  “Well, I’ll not stand here like a beggar,” her father said.

  He appeared genial, but her father had God’s own temper when he was riled, and this journey had done nothing to soothe him. He pushed past Nan and gestured to his wife. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to be treated like a supplicant at my son-in-law’s door.”

  Charlotte turned and surveyed the courtyard again. It didn’t improve with a second glance.

  “Come, Charlotte!”

  What choice did she have?

  By nightfall, they’d managed a meal of something purporting to be a stew, and bread so hard that it felt like one of Balfurin’s bricks. Her parents occupied the laird’s suite of rooms, while Charlotte was installed in a smaller chamber across the hall.

  She stood at the open window, shutters carefully folded back against the wall, and stared out at the night.

  The hills were shapeless now, shrouded by darkness. Above them winked a thousand stars, glittering brightly in an ebony sky. A peaceful night, with the soft breath of a cool wind touching her cheek.

  In winter the castle would be a cold place. A fire in every room would not be so much a luxury as a necessity for living in Scotland. But there could be warmth in this place, just as there could beauty. A few plants in the courtyard, a garden of sorts, now that the need for defense was not so pressing. The whole place could do with a bit of sorting through and order, not to mention a good cleaning. Once the windows sparkled, and the dust was gone, and a few repairs made, Balfurin might be as it had been once before: a proud laird’s holding, a grand and stately castle guarding the Highlands.

  The door abruptly opened.

  “I’ve been told to turn the mattress, miss,” one of the footmen said. He was followed by his partner, a man so young he still had an air of boyhood about him. “Himself gave me the order. But how that’s going to make this place smell better, I don’t know.”

  She wanted to warn him that her father didn’t believe in servant’s airing their opinions and he should use some caution. For that matter, he didn’t believe in his daughters speaking their minds, either. Her mother was the only person she’d ever heard give Nigel Haversham the honest truth.

  Was that the meaning of love, then? The ability to speak freely and without fear?

  She turned and stared out at the night again, hearing them work behind her. At the least the mattress would be fluffed for the night. Were clean sheets possible?

  “Is it true, miss, that your husband comes from here?”

  “True,” she said, not turning to face them. She could only imagine their looks.

  What do you think of him? Now, that was a question she dared herself to ask, but of course, she didn’t. Her father would criticize her for even thinking of asking for a servant’s opinion. But they knew most of what transpired, even in a grand house like the one in which she’d been raised.

  She heard the door close, and knew they’d left her. A moment later, it opened again.

  “Did you forget something? Have the good manners to knock, at least,” she said.

  “Must I beg permission of you, daughter?” her father asked. “I think not.”

  She sighed, and stared straight ahead, knowing the confrontation had finally come. She hadn’t wanted it, had dreaded it, but knew her father would demand a reckoning of sorts. A bludgeoning not by fist or instrument, but the sheer power of his will. He would demand and she would accede. Perhaps.

  She straightened her shoulders, fixed a smile on her lips, and forced herself to turn and face him.

  “We’ll leave in the morning, Charlotte. Back in England you’ll comport yourself like a proper wife until George returns.”

  “From where?” she asked.

  “Does it matter? He’s evidently had business to transact, something he didn’t feel necessary to impart to you.”

  “Or to you, Father?”

  He didn’t look pleased by that question, did he?

  As he was deciding whether to chastise her for her words or offer sympathy to diffuse an emotional outburst, she delivered him another blow—the truth, hard won and very painful.

  “George might not return, Father. He has my money, after all. Perhaps he sailed away with one of the maids.”

  Her father’s nose was reddening, a sure sign that he was becoming annoyed. His next words verified that prediction.

  “If that’s so, it will not matter to your deportment, Charlotte. You will be a proper countess.”

  “A countess in waiting. Waiting for my husband to return. I don’t think so, Father.”

  He looked startled. What an odd expression. She hadn’t often seen her father surprised. Then he wasn’t going to like what she had to say next.

  “I’m going to remain here,” she said softly. “Here at Balfurin.”

  “You can’t be serious. I forbid it.”

  “You cannot,” she said calmly. “I’m a married woman. A countess, Father, and capable of the command of my own self, if not my funds.”

  “You’ve no funds, Charlotte, and I’ll not give you money for this misadventure.”

  “I’ve my grandfather’s money,” she said, having given this decision a great deal of thought. “Enough to live here in some comfort. George did not get that.”

  “That man was a fool to leave his money to you. I’ll not have it.”

  “Fortunately, Father, there’s nothing you can do.” She smiled sweetly at him, confident in her words. She’d visited her solicitor before leaving London. Her father was not the only Haversham who believed in planning and organization.

  “What do you mean to do, Charlotte? Remain here like a lovesick wife, pining for George’s return?”

  “No,” she said. She reinforced her smile. “Did you know that in Scotland it’s possible for a wife to divorce her husband? I’m going to divorce George for desertion.”

  Her father, strangely enough, had no comment for that.

  Chapter 1

  October 1838

  A s homecomings went, this one would rank among the strangest.

  Dixon Robert MacKinnon felt as if ghosts welcomed him, trailing their cold and lifeless fingers over his skin, greeting him with soft, almost soundless moans as if to warn him away from his destination. Yet the whole of Scotland was a place of ghosts, each hill and glen carrying memories of bittersweet victory or poignant loss. He’d forgotten how damp the air felt,
as if the earth had wept and was now resting between tears.

  How strange that he’d come halfway around the world for this moment and now he dreaded arriving at Balfurin.

  He sat back among the cushions and surveyed his companion. Matthew was wedged into the corner of the carriage, arms crossed over his embroidered silk jacket, his gaze fixed at the tops of his pointed shoes. He’d been silent ever since yesterday when Dixon had announced it would be weeks before they left for Penang. In fact, it was very likely they would remain the winter in Scotland.

  Dixon tapped on the ceiling, a signal for the coachman to slow. Another tap, and he felt the horses being walked to the side of the road.

  “Come and have a look at Balfurin, Matthew,” he said.

  “I will remain here, if you do not mind, master,” Matthew said, refusing to look in his direction. “The storm will be upon us shortly.”

  “A good Scottish storm takes the fire out of the blood.”

  “I have no more fire in my blood, as you say, master. I have spent too much time being cold and wet for any fire to survive.”

  Dixon stifled his smile, exited the carriage and closed the door, not remarking to Matthew that a carriage would be no protection in a Scottish thunderstorm. He might as well stand in the lee of the wind and delight in its fury with no shelter at all.

  Dixon walked some distance from the carriage, feeling as if the years fell away with each step.

  His parents had died in a boating accident on the River Tam, and he’d been brought to Balfurin for his uncle to raise. His mother’s home had soon become his. How many times had he raced around the ruined tower? Or run up the steps to the battlements themselves? He’d played Robert the Bruce or Hannibal, Caesar, or a host of other warriors, and all during those pretend battles, he’d been the Earl of Marne, not George. Even as a child, he’d been envious of George’s position in the world. Not just that his cousin had inherited the title, but that he would forever be known as the Laird of Balfurin.

  The red streaks of sunset were a perfect backdrop to his first view of Balfurin. In the distance, the sky was already black, but not from nightfall as much as an approaching storm. An omen, perhaps, that Balfurin didn’t welcome him back home with much enthusiasm.

  He should have heeded the warning.

  Balfurin was nothing like it had been. Dixon stared down at the glen, barely recognizing the castle.

  The ruined tower wasn’t there. Somehow, it had simply disappeared from the landscape. Had it finally crumbled and been carted away in a hundred barrows? Or better yet, had it been used to build the new addition to the east? A three-story building, rectangular and plain, seemed to have no relationship at all to the existing castle except for the fact it shared the same courtyard.

  The curtain wall had been shored up, and the gate holding the portcullis had been repaired. The battlements looked as if their crenellated tops had been sharpened and there was a flag flying there, one that he couldn’t make out from this distance.

  The courtyard was filled with a hundred lit torches along the curtain wall. Candles outlined the path from the portcullis to the broad stone steps. Hundreds of flickering flames sat in every window of Balfurin, giving the impression that the castle itself was on fire.

  A long line of carriages took turns before the steps, each set of passengers being escorted up the stairs by a girl dressed in a long flowing white gown.

  Females of all ages, each identically dressed in the same type of gown, were milling about the courtyard. A few were lining up in a queue. One, her hand holding the end of her hair, was racing to the three-story building to the east, as if distraught over a ruined coiffure.

  “Is it a church?” Matthew asked. Dixon turned to find the other man at his side.

  “I’ve never known George to be religious,” he said. “But a decade can change a man.”

  “A man wills his own change,” Matthew said. “Time does not matter.”

  Dixon stifled both his smile and his comment.

  “Is this what you need, master?”

  He glanced at Matthew.

  “To ease your heart. Will it help?”

  “We’ve agreed, Matthew. You will not speak of it.”

  Dixon looked down at Balfurin again. Would George welcome him home? Or would their rift, of a decade’s standing, continue? Only the next few minutes would tell.

  They returned to the carriage and Dixon gave the signal for the driver to begin the long descent to the glen.

  “Well, what do you think, Maisie? Will I do?”

  Charlotte MacKinnon, Countess of Marne, stared at herself in the mirror.

  “I think you look absolutely stunning, your ladyship,” Maisie said.

  What had she expected? Maisie had been Charlotte’s fiercest supporter since the day she had hired her as maid four years earlier.

  Maisie was always smiling, the small space between her front teeth and the dimple in her right cheek giving her an impish expression. The young maid found the world to be a pleasant place, all in all. However, being around Maisie was sometimes a trying experience, especially on those days when Charlotte wasn’t in the mood to be excessively bright and cheery. But right at the moment she was appreciative of the girl’s effusive disposition.

  Tonight Charlotte was prepared for a little festivity. The ball she was hosting was the culmination of five years of work and worry.

  The very first class of seniors were graduating from the Caledonia School for the Advancement of Females and embarking upon their lives. Families from all over northern Scotland had descended on Balfurin in order to see the graduation program. A column of seniors would march down the center of the Great Hall, each carrying a lit white pillar candle, held slightly forward as if each girl was following the light of knowledge itself. After the ceremony, the rest of the evening would be devoted to merriment, including the first ball to be held at Balfurin in decades.

  When word of tonight’s festivities spread through Edinburgh and Inverness, she expected to have even more applicants. Soon, she’d have to limit enrollment, the true measure of success for a school for girls.

  She leaned forward to see her reflection more clearly in the mirror. Her forehead was shiny and she blotted the spot with a French powder puff and then picked an ostrich feather from her cheek. Excitement was making her warm, coloring her complexion pink, while worry was causing her to feel cold inside.

  What if something went wrong?

  Nonsense. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

  She stood, smoothing out the folds of her white pleated dress. Exactly the same type of dress the graduating girls were wearing. After the ceremony in the Great Hall, she’d return to her room to dress for the ball in a frothy creation of feathers and lace that she worried about even now.

  She turned and surveyed the dress hanging on the screen.

  “You don’t think it’s too bold, Maisie?” She’d commissioned it from a dressmaker in Edinburgh, the first time she’d spent so much money on a gown in five years.

  “Not at all, your ladyship. It’s a bit different for your taste, that’s true. But it’s the most glorious thing, what with the feathers and all.”

  “But the décolletage, you don’t think it’s too risqué?”

  “Oh no, your ladyship. You’d see worse than that on the streets of Edinburgh.”

  She didn’t exactly want to be equated with the women on the streets of Edinburgh, but Charlotte didn’t say so.

  The feathers on the shoulders seemed an awfully daring touch, not to mention the plunging V of the neckline. Everyone had to be impressed by her demeanor, by her composure, by her appearance, else why would they send their daughters to her school?

  “You’ll be the most lovely woman at the ball, your ladyship,” Maisie said, still trying to reassure her. “Mr. McElwee will be over the moon to see you.”

  Spencer, dear Spencer. Whatever would she have done these past years without him? She’d been so lonely, and he’d been so attenti
ve. Not to mention all the assistance he’d given her with her…problem.

  “I’m not altogether sure he’ll be in attendance,” Charlotte said, feeling a spurt of disappointment. “Perhaps it’s better if he isn’t. I can’t have it bandied about that I’ve a loose reputation.”

  “Still and all, it’d be nice to see you dance with him, your ladyship.”

  Charlotte nodded, thinking the same.

  In a moment, she’d head for the Great Hall, for the speech she’d give before the assembled parents and students.

  She pressed both hands against her midriff in order to calm her stomach. It didn’t help. Her pulse was racing, her mouth dry. Tonight was the culmination of everything she’d worked for in the last five years.

  Tonight was the realization of a dream.

  Dixon’s carriage pulled into Balfurin’s courtyard slowly, the pace necessitated by the dozen vehicles in front of him. Along the interior curve of the curtain wall at least that many carriages were parked, waiting.

  Was the whole of Scotland visiting Balfurin tonight?

  “Perhaps it would be better to call upon your cousin when he isn’t entertaining, master.”

  “On the contrary, Matthew. Tonight might be the very best time to call upon George. He may not have fond memories of our last encounter.”

  “You quarreled, master?”

  Dixon shrugged. “Don’t all families?” he asked.

  “I do not know, master, having had no family.”

  Dixon didn’t comment. The subject of Matthew’s foster parents was a delicate one. He found it wiser to remain silent.

  “We are evidently to be greeted, master,” Matthew said, pointing to the carriage ahead of them.

  As each carriage pulled up to the steps, a young girl attired in a long white dress moved from the head of the line to greet the guests. She spoke to another, older girl similarly attired holding a leather-bound book before escorting the inhabitants of the carriage up the broad stone steps.

  “They’re much too young,” Dixon said, as their carriage halted. He disembarked from the vehicle, followed by Matthew. “I’d have liked to be greeted by an older woman with a hint of a good time in her glance.”