The Whiskey Laird's Bed

by Donna MacMeans

  That elicited a bark of a laugh from Claire, then she tried to inhale deeply.

  “What are you doing?” Faith asked.

  “I was checking for a wee dram on your breath for saying such nonsense.” Both women laughed. Claire sought her friend’s eyes in the mirror. “Why are you doing this? Didn’t your parents encourage you to attract the laird’s attention?”

  Faith shrugged. “Let me help you take that dress off before you bleed to death from all those pin pricks.” She began unfastening the back.

  “That was the gist of the letter you let me read, wasn’t it?” Claire said, not willing to let Faith escape so easily. “They thought a whisky laird would make a great prize.”

  “My parents’ desires and mine differ on this point,” Faith replied.

  Her tone was clear. She had no interest in the laird. “Then why are you spending so much time with him?” Claire asked, recalling that the two of them had been nowhere to be found the few times she’d emerged from the woods or from her photography croft. “Weren’t you two together yesterday afternoon and then this morning?”

  “Not necessarily,” Faith said, her tone abrupt.

  “Then where were you?”

  Claire felt Faith’s hands pause at her back. “If you must know, James was showing me about the estate.”

  “James? The ghillie?” Claire didn’t know what to say. She’d noticed him staring at Faith, but that wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Most men stared at her beauty. “Is that wise?”

  “He’s a perfect gentleman,” Faith said, resuming her progress with the fastenings. “And very knowledgeable about the animals and the woods. Talking to James is very comfortable.”

  “I should think your parents wouldn’t be wishing for you to get too comfortable with him.”

  “My parents aren’t here,” Faith said tightly; then her voice softened. “There is no need to worry on my account, Claire. I’m an adult and well aware of the penalties society places on women who get carried away by their emotions. We can’t all be as lucky as Edwina and receive a marriage proposal after sacrificing our virtue.”

  They were both quiet a moment.

  “Caring about other people should make one virtuous,” Claire said. “Being concerned about the effects of intoxication and about gaining women the right to vote and correcting the injustices in the world—those things should be considered part of a woman’s virtue. Not whether a woman has been chaste or not.”

  “Right or wrong, you know society considers these things differently. Maybe in the new century, attitudes will change. But right now, a woman’s chastity before marriage is very important.” Faith wheeled the chair to Claire’s side. “Let me lift this sleeve off you.” After slowly pulling the material and the pins away from the underside of Claire’s arm, Faith paused. “You had best remember that if you find yourself alone with the laird. I think he’d drink you up much as he does his whisky.”

  That elicited another laugh from Claire. “That’s ridiculous. I think he’s counting the days until I return to London.”

  The dress slumped to the chair. Claire stood and stepped out.

  “That may be,” Faith said. “But it’s been a long time since I’ve heard you call him the Devil incarnate. Just be careful.”

  Chapter 18

  Claire slid the tripod, the camera, and a box of prepared glass frames under the bench seat of the two-wheeled gig. As she rounded to the other side, she stopped to stroke the velvety soft nose of Thistle, the gentle pony the groomsman consistently allotted her, then fed her a bit of apple.

  “Faith is just being bothersome,” she informed the horse. “We’ve nothing to worry about, have we?”

  She had to admit she enjoyed the independence the laird had granted her when he’d instructed the stable that she was to have open access to this sturdy old conveyance. While the bench seat afforded some protection for her photographic equipment, she still added a tarp, because . . . they were in Scotland. Some days, like today, rain never seemed far away. She climbed into the gig and snapped the reins to take the road to Beckmore.

  It was true her attitudes toward the laird had changed since her arrival in Scotland. After all, she’d accused him of being a white slaver. Anything was bound to be an improvement after that. It’s one thing to have had an opinion about someone when you didn’t know them, and quite another when you balanced the positive aspects of their character against the negatives. While she may no longer consider Macpherson the Devil incarnate that didn’t mean she was any less ardent against his distillery.

  “Lips that touch alcohol shall never touch mine,” she reminded the countryside. Should Macpherson try to tempt her resolve as Faith had suggested he might, she’d just have to remind him of that. A small part of her heart twisted in protest, but she refused to reconsider. Snapping the reins, she hastened Thistle to Beckmore. The sooner she reminded herself of the evils of liquor, the sooner she could quell her rebellious heart.

  She had no difficulty locating the imposing Church of Scotland—it was the new brick edifice with a tall steeple. The Beckmore women were gathered in a tidy group, with children clinging to their skirts. Though talkative among themselves, they pointed and reluctantly smiled when the gig rolled to a stop in the front of the church.

  Mrs. Murray greeted her. “You were concerned about light, so I thought we should gather outside.”

  “Yes. This should be fine,” she replied.

  No. This is terrible, she thought. This was not how she supposed it would be. She had planned to take photos of miserable women, women whose men had abandoned them for alcohol, women with bruises on their faces from beatings by intoxicated men, women and children dressed in rags because of wages spent on liquor. Instead she found shy but friendly women dressed in their Sunday best with children similarly attired. She couldn’t understand most of what they said in their thick brogue. Nevertheless, she took photograph after photograph, with the hope that this would make the women accept her more readily. It appeared her logic was flawed.

  “Ladies,” she said once she had taken all of their photographs—prints that she suspected would never be included in her project. A distant rumble of thunder brought Claire’s quick glance to the sky. “I think we should go inside if we might. I’d like to talk to you about a very special group that I belong to in London, but if we stay here, we’re bound to get wet.”

  The minister’s wife shuffled everyone inside while Claire disassembled the camera. She placed the tripod and the box of negatives under the tarp, under the seat. She kept the camera in a box with her to be true to her pledge of respect to Adam.

  So now she faced a room filled with wives and young sons and daughters. “Ladies, I’d like to talk to you about how women banding together might make changes for the good of all.”

  One woman called out something that Claire couldn’t understand, but all the women laughed in response. She had the vague impression that they might be laughing at her, but she couldn’t be certain.

  “I belong to a group called Women for a Sober Society,” Claire began.

  “Sober?” a woman asked, her face twisted in an incredulous expression. “You mean a wee dram now and again to chase away the cold is acceptable. You just don’t want women falling down stinkin’ drunk, right?” The crowd bobbed in agreement.

  “Well . . . I wasn’t actually talking about women drinking,” Claire explained. “The women are the ones organizing to stop the men from abusive overindulgence.”

  “You mean no whisky?”

  “That’s correct.” Claire beamed. “If the men don’t drink whisky, then they won’t get drunk and abuse their womenfolk. And if they—”

  “There’s no abusing women here,” one large woman, large enough to kill a small man by merely sitting on him, said. “A man who raises his arm to a woman is likely to wake with his arm broken.”

  He
r statement was met with cheers and encouragement.

  “It seems to me, more women will be abused if they don’t let their husbands drink,” a smaller young wife with a babe in her arms said.

  “Don’t ya see?” Miss Fraser sauntered to the front. “She’s one of those temperance ladies.”

  A stunned silence filled the room.

  “Women for a Sober Society is a chapter of the temperance movement, yes,” Claire responded tentatively.

  Then all hell broke loose.

  “Temperance! The temperance movement put my Evan out of work when we lived in Aberdeen. If it hadn’t been for my sister—”

  “Nonsense and gibberish—”

  “Englishmen can’t hold their whisky—”

  “Lowdown snakes—”

  And those were only the words she understood. Many more were spoken . . . yelled . . . that she couldn’t recognize. The drunks in the Oxford Street taverns were nothing compared to these very irate and very sober women. When the large one who’d spoken of broken bones headed her way with a threatening scowl, Claire thought she might be the one in need of crutches, not Faith. Fortunately, Mrs. Murray intervened.

  “Ladies!” she shouted. “We mustn’t forget that this lassie is a guest of the laird himself. That alone means she deserves respect.”

  The grumbling lessened, but didn’t quite go away.

  “How can ye be taking the laird’s hospitality while wanting to shut down his distillery?” Miss Fraser challenged.

  “If the laird hadn’t hired my Ian, I don’t know what we would have done. The Macpherson is a good man,” said an older woman, who swayed with a baby curled on her shoulder.

  “Is Ian your husband?” Claire asked.

  “Her husband drowned three months ago,” Mrs. Murray said quietly. “Ian is her oldest.”

  “If not for the laird, we would have starved,” the widow said.

  “The laird makes him go to school,” the little girl by her knee added.

  “Do all of the men work at the distillery?” Claire asked with foreboding.

  “Most do,” Mrs. Murray answered. She pointed to a corner. “Mrs. Gordon’s husband farms. They use the draff to feed the cattle.” She pointed to another. “She’s a farmer’s wife as well. They use the mill at Ravenbeck to grind their grains for the market.” A tall lady stood. “That’s the cooper’s wife. He makes whisky casks from the staves of sherry casks. Ravenbeck—”

  “Uses the casks,” Claire finished. It was easy to see where this was headed.

  “It’s not just about the whisky. Ravenbeck gives us a sense of community. It’s part of who we are.”

  Claire looked at the eyes staring back at her. The women were bonded in a similar fashion to the way she was bonded to the sisters of the Rake Patrol. Determined. Proud. Loyal. In that moment, she regretted she’d approached the group the way she had with foregone conclusions in mind and, she realized, a certain arrogance. She envied their cohesiveness, their sense of identity. They were indeed a community while she, once again, was the outcast.

  She softened her posture. “I can see the truth of that, and I—”

  “And no southern Sassenach will take that away. Ye’d best go back from where you came,” the Fraser woman challenged. “We won’t be starting any temperance groups here.”

  If Claire hadn’t been staying at Ravenswood, she suspected the redheaded strumpet would have led the group to physically carry her to the train without the benefit of packing.

  “I see,” she said with a tight smile. She gathered the camera. “Thank you for letting me take your photographs. I won’t be bothering you any more.”

  “What about our photographs?” someone yelled from the back.

  “I’ll develop the prints and leave them with Mrs. Murray. It has been a pleasure meeting all of you,” Claire managed to say as the women filed out the door.

  Except for three. Three of the women stayed behind; one she recognized as the widow.

  “If not for the drinking, my Cumin would not have fallen off the boat and drowned. Drinking is bad with the fishermen. It’s cold, hard work. I know you mean well, miss. And I know drinking the whisky can be a bad thing, but the laird has been good to us, and I can’t join against him.”

  “It’s not him we’re fighting,” Claire was quick to add. “It’s the overindulgence.”

  “If it hurts Ravenbeck, it hurts the laird,” she said, pretty much summing up what the others had said. “And we can’t do that.”

  The others had similar stories. While they admitted that excessive drinking took a toll on the family, they wouldn’t do anything that might hurt Ravenbeck. They did, however, recognize that the wives and children of certain families received church assistance that they wouldn’t require if not for the drinking.

  But the message was clear. While assistance was appreciated, photographs of the need were not. Excessive drinking was a bad thing, but Ravenbeck was not to be held responsible. And most importantly, the laird was a much-loved and -appreciated member of the community. Anyone who threatened his distillery should best leave Beckmore, if not Scotland, altogether.

  Claire headed back to Ravenswood in a dismal mood, which was not aided by the steady downpour that began before she left the church. She’d tucked the camera under her coat until she reached the gig, then stowed it under the tarp with the rest of the equipment. But while the camera was snug and dry, she was not. It’s a dreich day. The word fit her surly mood and wet attire.

  There’d be no photographs of slovenly dressed children in homes of disrepair. No neglected and abused women. If she wanted photographs of that nature, she’d have to return to London to take them, and there was no time for that. She wished now she hadn’t written to the Sober Society prize committee informing them of her project.

  Fragrant smoke mixed with the scents of mud and rain. She glanced up to see the tavern lit with the light of a flickering fire within. Musical notes and masculine laughter fought their way through the downpour. It was the brightest, most welcoming light in the village on this dreich night.

  How wonderful it would be to be issued a warm welcome and not a chant of Crow, crow, crow if she were to venture inside. This was Scotland, after all, not London. Life was different here. The women at the meeting had made that perfectly clear.

  Thistle halted and turned her head, as if asking if they could join the sole horse tied in front. Could that be Macpherson’s stallion? She squinted through the rain, but she didn’t know enough about horses to really tell one from the other.

  If Macpherson were inside, would he laugh at her if she were to cross the tavern’s threshold? Or would he welcome her inside and offer to get her a warm cup of stew? Her mouth salivated as she contemplated the possibility.

  A woman wrapped in a familiar plaid darted from the shadows of a nearby house and opened the tavern door to a loud and raucous welcome. One voice seemed louder than the others. One voice that sounded remarkably like Cameron Macpherson. In the burst of light, Claire had noted the red tinge of the woman’s hair. Ye’d best go back from where you came. Claire could still hear the disdain in the woman’s voice and wondered if that disdain was shared by another.

  She flicked the reins to start Thistle back to Ravenswood. Claire was, after all, a member in good standing in the Sober Society. Should the board hear that she’d been enjoying the comforts of a warm tavern on a rainy day, she’d lose all chance at winning the contest.

  But as she passed by the communal comforts of the tavern and ventured further down the road, she wondered if she was driving toward a significant prize purse, or leaving something even more valuable behind.

  Before she had an opportunity to consider that strange regret, the sky flashed white and an earsplitting crack rent the air. Thistle reared in fright, then bolted. Claire lost the reins in the frantic jolt. She was powerless to do anythin
g but pray and hold tight to the bouncing wooden seat. Trees flashed past her in the dark. Cold rain slashed her face. The gig struggled to keep both wheels on the ground at the same time. As a scream unleashed from her throat, she knew with certainty that she’d never see London, or even Ravenswood, again.

  Chapter 19

  “The Sassenach was trying to organize a temperance meeting.” Maggie Fraser laughed, freeing her curled tresses from the hood of her damp cloak. “The silly lass was shocked when no one championed her cause. We sent her packing with her tail between her legs, we did.”

  While other men cheered and clinked their glasses as if they had achieved a hard-fought victory, Cameron didn’t join the celebration. Lightning, such as that flashing outside, always made him edgy and uncomfortable. While he was pleased that the Beckmore women had rejected the temperance group, he hurt for Claire’s sake. She was so determined in her mission.

  “The nerve of her. She has no business in Beckmore,” Maggie said, clearly inflated by the cheers.

  “The courage of her, more like.” He stood, disrupting their celebration. “She’s entitled to her opinions. This is Scotland. Everyone has their say.”

  “No English teetotaler is going to tell us what to do,” Maggie shot back.

  “Did she, Maggie?” Cameron stepped over Peat to position himself in front of the girl. “What did she tell you to do? Grab an ax and storm the distillery? Or maybe she told the women to hide the bairns when their belligerent husbands have had too much to drink.” He leaned in close. “Do you think that doesn’t happen already?” He stepped back and raised his voice. “What exactly did she want from you?”

  “Photographs.” Maggie’s voice dropped, the excitement leaching out. “She wanted to take photographs of us.”