Sophia's Secret

by Susanna Kearsley

  Resolved, Sophia stood, and made her way down from the dunes and back along the beach, her steps imprinted in the drifted snow. She saw the footprints left by Colonel Graeme, and the fainter tracks of some small animal – a dog, she thought – reminding her that Moray had once told her not to venture out so far from Slains unless she brought the mastiff.

  She could only smile as she remembered his concern, because the beach was so deserted, and the hill that she began to climb beyond the beach so barren, she saw nothing that could possibly endanger her. She’d walked this path a score of times since Moray had departed. She could walk it with her eyes closed, and she’d never had a mishap.

  So it struck her strangely that when she was halfway up the hill, she felt a sudden crawling sense along her spine that made her hesitate, and turn to look behind.

  Along the curve of beach the waves rolled in with perfect innocence. The dunes were soft with shadow, and deserted. Nothing moved besides the water and the wind along the shore that stirred the grasses. She relaxed. It had been only her imagination, hearing ghosts when none were there.

  She smiled a little at her foolishness, and turned again to carry on along the uphill path…and walked straight into Billy Wick.

  It seemed to her, as startled as she was, that he’d come out of nowhere, flung by blackest magic on that hill to block her way. He let her back away a step and did not move to hold her, but his smile was worse than any touch. ‘And far would ye be going til, my quine, in such a hurry?’

  He would feed on fear, she knew, and so she tried to hide her own, the only sign of it the clenching of her hands upon her gown. Chin raised, she told him calmly, ‘Let me pass.’

  ‘All in good time.’

  No one could see them, where they stood. Not from the cottages, nor even from the high windows of Slains, because the hill’s slope cut them off from view. And crying out would be a waste of breath. No one would hear the sound.

  She fought her rising panic and tried hard to think. Going back towards the beach would gain her nothing – she could only try to force her way around him, and attempt to run. He might not be expecting that. Nor would he expect her to break round him on the seaward side of the steep path. He’d think that she would try the other way, the inland way, where drifted snow and tufts of coarse grass stretched off softly underfoot, instead of that one narrow strip of ground that broke so treacherously downward to the blackened rocks and icy sea below.

  She took a breath, and took a chance.

  She had been right. Her lunge toward the seaward side surprised him, and she gained a precious lead of seconds, and she might have even got the whole way round him had he not recovered, snapping round with snake-like speed to grasp her arm as she sped by. Her own momentum, stopped short by the sudden action, threw them both off balance, and Sophia landed hard upon the frozen ground, so hard she felt the impact in her teeth and saw lights bursting in her vision.

  Billy Wick fell harder still on top of her and held her pinned, his face no longer smiling. They were lying full across the path now, and Sophia knew that though the gardener was a small man, he was strong, and she might not be able to find strength enough herself to fight him. ‘Now, fit wye would ye dee that, quine? I only want the same thing as ye gied tae Mr Moray.’

  Staring coldly up at him she said, ‘You’re mad.’ But fear had taken full hold of her now, and Billy Wick could see it.

  ‘Aye, ye’ll gie it tae me gladly, quine, or else I’ll have tae tell old Captain Ogilvie aboot the things ye said tae Mr Moray in ma garden on the nicht that he was leavin. Touching scene, it was.’ His eyes held the hard satisfaction of a beast that knows its prey is caught, and means to toy with it. ‘I fairly wept myself tae hear it. I’ve nae doot Captain Ogilvie would find it touching, too. He pays me siller fer such tales, and those he works fer have lang wantit tae have Moray in their hands.’

  The wind blew sharply cold around Sophia’s face, and in her ringing head she could hear Moray’s voice repeating: He must never learn that you are mine…

  He had been speaking of the duke, and not of Ogilvie, but she knew that the danger was the same, for Billy Wick had all but told her now that Ogilvie was in the pay of Queen Anne’s court, and if they learnt that she was Moray’s wife they would make use of her in any way they could to draw him out. She did not care for her own life – if they would threaten her alone she’d suffer it, for his sake. But it would not be her alone. There was the child. His child.

  She felt Wick’s searching hands upon her body and she shrank from them, and turned her face against the snowy ground with eyes tight shut.

  ‘Ye see,’ he said, his rank breath hot against her face, ‘ye have nae choice.’

  He shifted closer, pressing heavily upon her. And then suddenly he wasn’t there at all. Some violent force had hauled him up and off her body in one movement.

  ‘Oh, I think she does,’ said Colonel Graeme’s voice, as cold and dangerous as thinly frozen ice.

  Sophia, scarcely able to believe it, let her eyes come open just enough to brave a look. She saw the colonel standing close behind the gardener, looking as he must have looked in battle, with his face no longer kind but deadly calm. He’d twisted Billy Wick’s one arm back in a painful hold, and had his own arm wrapped around the gardener’s neck. She saw in Wick’s own eyes the fear that he had often fed upon from others as the colonel jerked Wick back again and brought his hard mouth close beside Wick’s ear and said, ‘I think she has a choice.’

  And then Sophia saw the colonel’s hand and arm, in one swift motion, sweep around and catch Wick’s jaw, and from the sound that followed and the way the gardener slumped she knew his neck was broken. Colonel Graeme cast Wick’s body to the side disdainfully. ‘Now get ye to the devil,’ he advised the corpse, and kicked it with his booted foot to send it tumbling over down the steep slope of the hillside to the rocks and sea below.

  Stunned, Sophia watched him. She had never seen a man do murder. Not like this. This was, she thought, how Moray must himself be on the battlefield – he too must wear that calm face that had set aside its conscience, and his eyes would, like his uncle’s, hold a fire she did not recognise. It shook her to observe the transformation.

  She was staring at him, wordless, when the colonel’s features altered once again. The soldier’s face became the face she knew, and all the fury melted from his eyes as he bent down to her. Concerned, he asked her, ‘Are ye hurt?’

  She could not frame the words to answer, shaken still by Wick’s attack, by what she had just witnessed. But she slowly shook her head. The pain of that small action made her wince.

  The colonel placed a gentle hand beneath her, fingers warm against her hair, and then withdrew it. She could see his palm was wet with blood. Her blood.

  ‘Christ.’ He looked around and seemed to be deciding something, thinking quickly. Then he leant in close again. ‘I need ye to be brave now for me, lass. We need to get ye home, and if I could I’d carry ye, but then the people that we pass would ken that ye’ve been hurt. There would be questions. Do ye follow what I’m saying?’ Just to make sure that she understood, he spelt it out more plainly. ‘No one saw this. No one kens Wick’s dead. And when they find his body, if they do, they will believe he fell by accident. And Ogilvie,’ he told her, ‘will believe it, too.’

  He held her gaze a moment, making sure she took his meaning, and she knew that he had overheard Wick’s threat to her. For that at least, she thought, she could be grateful – Billy Wick had done what she could not. He’d given proof to Colonel Graeme by his words that Ogilvie, despite his years of service to King James, had come among them as a traitor and a spy.

  She knew that Captain Ogilvie must never know the truth of what had happened on this hill, or he would know that he himself had been discovered.

  Looking up at Colonel Graeme, she breathed deep and found her voice again to tell him, ‘I can walk.’

  He helped her stand, and held her steady on her feet, and
with the hands that had so lately killed a man he gently drew the soft hood of her cloak up so it hid the blood upon her hair. ‘Brave lass,’ he called her, with a trace of pride, and placed her hand upon his arm. ‘Go slowly now, and keep your head up. ’Tis not far to go.’

  That was a lie, and well he knew it, for the walk was not a short one, but she managed it, and Ogilvie himself would not have known that she was injured, had he seen them coming up the path to Slains. She did not see him anywhere, but she could not be certain he was not against some window, looking out, and so she kept her head held high as Colonel Graeme had advised her, though the throbbing in it pained her and she felt at any moment she might faint.

  The chills of shock had settled well upon her and her limbs were trembling, but the colonel’s strong arm underneath her hand was a support. They had not far to go now, to the great front steps.

  ‘How did you know?’ she asked him, and he turned toward her, with an eyebrow lifting.

  ‘What, that ye had need of help? I kent when I came back here and I saw the gardener setting out. I saw the way he marked that I was on my own, and I could see he had a mind for mischief. So I came,’ he said, ‘to fetch ye home.’

  A few more paces, and he’d have accomplished that. She fought the rising blackness, and looked up at him in hopes that he could see beyond the pain that filled her eyes and know her gratitude. The words took effort. ‘Colonel?’

  ‘Aye, lass?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  For an answer Colonel Graeme brought his free hand over and for one brief moment squeezed her fingers where they lay upon his arm, but they had reached the entry now and no more could be said, for Captain Ogilvie himself was waiting just inside the door, to bid them welcome.

  ‘Ye’ve been walking, so I see.’

  ‘Aye,’ Colonel Graeme answered smoothly, ‘but I fear I’ve worn the wee lass out, and given her a headache from the cold.’

  She forced a smile and took the cue. ‘I can assure you, Colonel, it is nothing that a short rest will not remedy.’

  ‘Och, there, ye see?’ said Ogilvie. ‘The lassies these days, Graeme, are a stronger breed than those we lost our hearts to.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Colonel Graeme. ‘That they are.’ His eyes were warm upon Sophia’s. ‘Take your rest, then. I’ve no doubt Captain Ogilvie can take your place for once across the chessboard.’ And he raised an eyebrow once again to look a challenge at the older man and ask him lightly, ‘Can I tempt ye to a game?’

  And Captain Ogilvie, not knowing that the rules had changed, accepted.

  ‘Right.’ The colonel clapped a hand upon his old friend’s shoulder, smiling. ‘Let me see the lass upstairs and find her maid to tend her headache, first. And then the two of us,’ he said, ‘can play.’

  Dr Weir was pleased. ‘Well, that’s much better.’ He re-wrapped the bandage round my ankle, satisfied. ‘Much better. You took my advice and stayed off it, I see.’

  Something in the way he said that prompted me to ask, ‘You didn’t think I would?’

  Behind the rounded spectacles his sage eyes briefly twinkled. ‘Let’s just say you strike me as the sort of lass who likes to pipe her own tune.’

  I smiled, because no one had so neatly put their finger on that aspect of my character since my kindergarten teacher in her end-of-year report had written: ‘Carrie listens to the ideas of other children, but likes her own ideas best’. I didn’t share that with the doctor, only told him, ‘Yes, well, every now and then I take advice. And it hasn’t been hard to stay off it. The book has been keeping me busy.’

  ‘That’s good. Are you still needing details on spies? Because I did some reading, and found you a good one. You mind how we were talking about Harley?’

  Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and a man of power in the government of England, who was also Queen Anne’s spymaster. I nodded.

  Dr Weir said, ‘I was reading up on Harley, with a mind to finding out a wee bit more about Defoe for you, and I came across some letters from another agent Harley sent to Scotland at the time, and who was actually at Slains.’

  The feeling that was pricking at my shoulder blades was not unlike the feeling that I got when I sensed something sneaking up on me. And so it didn’t come as a complete surprise when Dr Weir said, ‘Ogilvie, his name was. Captain Ogilvie.’ He reached inside his pocket and produced some folded notepaper. ‘I copied out the letters…well, they’re excerpts, really. Not much there. But still, I thought the name might be of use.’

  I thanked him. Took the papers, and unfolded them to read the lines in silence. They began with an account of Captain Ogilvie’s brief visits with the nobles of the north of Scotland and what he had learnt from them, then on to Slains, where the Countess of Erroll had received him with suspicion, and where luckily for Ogilvie there’d been a certain ‘Colonel Graeme’, of whom Ogilvie had written: ‘He and I served formerly in France together, and we were long bed fellows.’

  Dr Weir, watching my face while I read, asked, ‘What is it?’

  I lowered the papers. ‘You’ve read these?’

  ‘I have.’

  With a faint smile I rose to my feet and crossed over to sort through the short stack of new printed pages beside my computer. Picking up the last three chapters I had written, I turned back and held them out in invitation. ‘Then,’ I told the doctor, ‘you should have a look at these.’

  He did. And when he’d finished, he looked over at me, wordlessly.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘That’s what I mean by proof, though. When I wrote that, I had no idea that there even was a Captain Ogilvie, or Colonel Graeme. Characters just come to me like that sometimes. They just show up. In any other book I would have said that my subconscious had invented them to serve the plot. But in this book, it doesn’t seem like I’m inventing anything. And now you give me this’ – I held the copied letters up – ‘and I have proof both men are real, and that they truly were at Slains.’

  He was still taking it all in, I knew. ‘Remarkable,’ he said, and scanned my chapters for a second time. ‘It’s too bad Captain Ogilvie makes no mention of your Sophia in his letters to Harley.’

  ‘I doubt he would have thought she was important.’

  Dr Weir’s eyes twinkled knowingly again as he passed back my chapters. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘he would have made a very grave mistake.’

  XVI

  The countess and the colonel were both sitting by Sophia’s bed when she awoke. She heard them talking.

  ‘’Tis the safest course to take,’ said Colonel Graeme, ‘for ye cannot have him here when Fleming’s ship arrives.’

  ‘No, that would be disastrous.’ In the soft light of the early morning no lines marked the fine face of the countess. She looked youthful, and determined. ‘No, I do agree he must be led away. But Patrick, let some other person do it. Let my son take on that burden – he is willing, and we would not see you put yourself at risk.’

  ‘Your son will be more needed here, with what is coming. And I doubt that Captain Ogilvie would follow him as he would me. We are old friends.’ The words were edged with bitter cynicism. ‘I do have his trust.’

  The countess waited for a moment before saying, ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘So am I. He was the very best of men, once.’

  ‘He must need the money badly.’ It was very like the countess, thought Sophia, to have sympathy enough to seek excuses for a traitor. Colonel Graeme did not share her generosity.

  ‘A man, when he has fallen on hard times, should seek his friends,’ he said. ‘Not sell them to his enemies.’

  The countess could not argue that. She only said, ‘Take care he does not sell you, too.’

  ‘Och, not to worry. He’ll not have the chance. I’ll not be staying once I get him there. Ye ken yourself, your Ladyship, I’m canny as a fox, and there’ll be holes enough in Edinburgh to hide me.’

  On the bed, Sophia came to full awareness now and moved against the pillow, and that movement brought th
e heads of both the countess and the colonel round. She thought she read relief in both their faces.

  ‘There,’ the countess said. ‘We’ve woken her. I warned you that we would. How do you feel, my dear?’

  Sophia’s head still hurt her, but the dizziness was gone, and though her body ached in places and her limbs felt stiff and bruised, she could not bring herself to make any complaint. ‘I am well, thank you.’

  A flash of admiration briefly lit the older woman’s eyes. ‘Brave girl.’ She gave Sophia’s arm a pat. ‘I will let Kirsty know you are awake, so she can bring your morning draught.’

  It was a measure of how highly she regarded Colonel Graeme that she left him in the room without a chaperone, although from how he sat, with booted ankles crossed upon the side rail of the bed, his lean frame firmly rooted in the rush-backed chair, Sophia doubted any force would have the power to shift him.

  She looked at him and asked, ‘The countess…did you tell her…?’

  ‘Aye. She kens the whole of it.’ His smile was faint behind the beard. ‘I think if I’d not sent the gardener on his way already to the devil, she’d have had it done herself last night.’

  ‘And Captain Ogilvie?’

  ‘I’ve managed to persuade him to accompany me to Edinburgh. I’ve led him to believe there is some matter in the wind down there that does deserve his interest, and that he, as a supporter of King James, will want to witness. ’Twas like saying to a wolf there is a field of lambs yet further on, if ye’ve the wish to feast.’

  ‘So you are leaving.’ Having said the words out loud, she felt a sadness she could not express, and did not want to think of life at Slains without this man who had become to her a father and a friend.

  He did not answer her, but only watched her face a moment, silently. And then he said, ‘Sophia, there is something I would ask ye.’ He had never called her by her Christian name, and from that fact she knew that what he meant to ask was serious. ‘’Tis none of my affair. But on that hill, when Wick was…’ Breaking off, as though he did not think it was a gentlemanly thing to speak of Billy Wick’s intentions, he said only, ‘He made mention of my nephew. And of you.’