Rose In Scotland (3 page)

The crude remark won another burst of laughter from the others, and when he was certain his actions would not be misinterpreted, Hugh bought a round of ale. There was still a distance
between himself and the others, but for the first time since arriving in his old village, he cautiously began to hope he would be able to put right what had gone so terribly wrong.

“Will ye be stopping in Edinburgh to see yer sister, lad?” One of the men broke his hostile silence to send Hugh an inquiring look.

Hugh felt his heart race at the thought of seeing his sister again. “Of course,” he answered at once. “And had I known Mairi was there, I should have stopped there first. But as it was, I was in a hurry to be home, and in no mind to be read a scold by my aunt, may Saint Giles bless her sweet soul.”

More laughter followed, for Egidia Sinclair’s sour disposition was known to all. A rich widow, she could have remarried a dozen times over, but her sharp tongue and hectoring ways had driven off any suitor foolish enough to approach her.

The men soon settled back with their ale to reminisce and gossip in the manner of men everywhere, and as he always did, Hugh was content merely to sit and listen in watchful silence.

“When do you leave for London?” Lucien had picked up his tankard and moved to join Hugh at the end of the bar.

Hugh thought of all that would have to be done before taking his leave. “The day after tomorrow,” he decided, unwilling to wait any longer before seeing Mairi. “If there is anything left to be done I will leave it to you. Do you mind?”

Lucien gave an expansive shrug. “Not so much,” he said, raising his tankard to his lips.
“I’ve been doing the little I can until now, but it will help if the others know I’m acting on the orders of the laird.”

His words had a sobering effect on Hugh. “But am I the laird?” he asked, his glance going to the group of men deep in conversation. “I may have been temporarily forgiven, but that is a long way from being accepted—especially as laird.”

Lucien’s gray-blue eyes flicked in the men’s direction. “Dinna let those old rashers of wind gype you,” he said quietly. “I dinna say you will be met with open arms, but there are more here who understand the wisdom of what you did than those who would condemn you for it. Be patient, Hugh. It will come with time, I promise you.”

Hugh’s plans to leave in two days’ time proved optimistic, and it was almost four days after riding into Loch Haven that he was able to ride out again. He attended his duties as laird, riding from house to house to meet with his chieftains and tenants. He was relieved to see Lucien was right, and that most of the men he spoke with, while wary and defensive, seemed inclined to accept him as head of the clan. He listened to their complaints and observations calmly, taking what action he could before moving on to the next house.

He also took the time to lay out his strategy, meticulously plotting each action he would take. In his years in the king’s service he had picked up much of English law from watching his commanding officers, and he knew that if he hoped to even win the court’s ear, he would first need
the aid of a powerful patron. A galling prospect to be sure, but however much it stung his pride, he accepted it nonetheless. Fortunately for him he had just such a patron in his pocket, and upon reflection, he decided it just might be the thing to stop in Bath on his way to London.

It was approaching evening when Hugh rode into Edinburgh, and he was astonished anew how much it had altered in the years of his absence. The area below the castle, which he remembered as being fields filled with flowers and grazing sheep, was now abuzz with construction, and everywhere he looked he saw evidence of new buildings being put up. The style was much like he had seen in London, all cream-colored stone and elegant wrought iron, and he thought it looked as out of place against the fields of Scotland as a wild Highlander would look in the overheated salons of London or Paris.

His aunt’s home was the tumbledown wreck he recalled from his days at university, and he felt a wave of nostalgia as he gazed up at the soot-blackened bricks and glass. The creaky butler who answered his knock was another relic from his youth, and he was every bit as dour and disapproving as Hugh remembered.

“So, it’s home ye’ve decided to come, is it?” he demanded, his faded hazel eyes glaring up at Hugh. “About time, I should think. Ye need to be after keeping an eye on that sister of yours, before she disgraces us all with her hoydenish ways. The mistress tries, but she’s no’ a match for that one.”

“Are my aunt and sister at home, Gregors?” he asked, trying not to be too alarmed at the
gloomy admonishment. The old butler had strong Presbyterian sensibilities, and had once pronounced Hugh on the road to perdition merely because he’d befriended a young Catholic from Ireland who was a student at the university.

“The mistress is upstairs resting,” Gregors informed him, removing Hugh’s rain-dampened cape with a flourish. “And that devil’s she-cub is the Lord knows where. She doesna tell me where she goes these days, and more’s the mercy, I say.”

Hugh ignored that, hoping Gregors was but exaggerating. “I would like to see my aunt, if you would be so good as to tell her I am here,” he said coolly, adopting the aloof tone he had heard in his officers’ voices—the tone of master to servant, even as the shells burst over their heads and the air was screaming with bullets.

Gregors’s thin lips twitched in derision. “Suit yerself, lad,” he said, clearly unimpressed. “But she’ll be in a rare taking, I’m warning ye. Ye know where the drawing room is; take yerself there and I’ll inform Mrs. Sinclair ye’re here.”

The drawing room was small and dark, furnished with faded pieces that had seen better years—better decades, Hugh amended, shifting as a spring in the sagging settee came into painful contact with his buttock. Looking about him, he would almost have thought his aunt a poor widow but one step from the almshouse. Tight as the devil’s breeches, was Aunt Egidia.

He cast the darkened fireplace a thoughtful look, and was considering ringing the maid for a bit of coal for the fire when his aunt made her
entrance. As he expected, she was already lecturing him.

“ ’Tis amazed I find myself you’ve even remembered this address,” she said, studying him regally over her great beak of a nose. “Fourteen years gone, and not a word from you did I have. Well, lad, what have you to say for yourself? And speak up, my hearing is not what it was.”

Hugh opened his mouth to apologize but suddenly he was gathering her up in his arms, depositing a kiss on her cheek as he whirled her in a circle. “Ah, Aunt Egidia, I’ve missed you!” he said, laughing as he set her on her feet once more.

“Dolt!” Aunt Egidia swatted him with the edge of her fan before lifting her hand to tug at her powdered wig, knocked askew by his embrace. “Not yet six of the clock, and you’re already drunk as a sailor! A shame on your soul!”

Hugh continued grinning down at her. His entire life had been turned on its head from the moment he’d stepped foot back into Scotland, but here, praise God, was one thing that had remained constant. “If I’m drunk, ’Tis happiness and not spirits that ’Tis to blame,” he told her, reaching out to pull the enormous monstrosity of horsehair and greasy powder into place. “I’m pleased to see you looking so fine, Auntie.”

Lined cheeks painted the delicate pink of a young girl’s grew even pinker at his compliment. “Wheest!” his aunt exclaimed, her sour expression belied by the sparkle of her dark eyes. “Why are you nae out chasing the hizzies for a wee bit of loving? ’Tis holes in your purse to match the
holes in your head you must have, to be wasting your time flattering an old woman!”

The thought of slaking his passions in one of the many prostitutes had occurred to Hugh, but he’d dismissed it with his usual fastidiousness. He’d seen more men laid low by the pox than he’d ever seen felled by an enemy’s bullet, and he’d learned to control his baser nature.

“I’ve no time now to dance the reel o’ Bogie,” he said, taking an almost boyish delight in using the scandalous phrase in front of his aunt. “ ’Tis Mairi I’ve come to see, and then I’m to Bath and London to learn what’s to be done about all of this. Do you know where she’s gone?”

“To call upon the son of an old friend of your father’s,” Aunt Egidia supplied, settling into one of the faded chairs. “I’ve no doubt you remember him: Iain Dunhelm, laird of Ben Denham.”

The image of a fox-faced man with a sharp nose and shrewd gray eyes popped into Hugh’s mind. “Aye,” he said slowly, “I remember the laird. A clever man, and a mind more devious than that of a wizard. But why would Mairi go to him? Does she think he can be of help?”

His aunt gave an inelegant snort. “Help? Aye, he could well be that, considering the way he’s helped himself to the lands about him!” she said, her lips pursing in disgust. “He’s more than doubled his holdings since the arrests began, and ’Tis nae a secret he’s been casting his eyes at MacColme land as well.”

“And Mairi went to him?” Hugh demanded, angry and appalled by turns. “For the love of God, why?”

“Because I told her to,” came the calm reply.

“And don’t be looking at me like that, Hugh MacColme! You’re a soldier, and well you know the value of scouting the lay of an enemy’s land.”

Hugh bit back a furious oath. “And you sent her alone?” he demanded, his hand tightening on the pommel of the sword he wore buckled to his hip.

Aunt Egidia gave him a look of patent long-suffering. “Dinna be a bigger fool than you can help being,” she told him with a sniff. “I sent a maid and a footman with her, as is proper. He’s his mother living with him, and the poor woman has been sickening this past winter long. Mairi called upon her to inquire after her health and to bring a jar of my tisane. If she can learn what new designs the laird is plotting while she’s there, then more to the better, I say.”

Hugh digested his aunt’s explanation in silence, grudgingly admitting her actions had merit. “And what makes you think Dunhelm has his eye to Loch Haven?” he asked, wondering if he would need to call upon Iain himself, and let it be known that he was returned and would protect what was his.

A crafty look stole into Aunt Egidia’s eyes. “He’s already acquired half the land between Ben Denham and Castle Loch Haven,” she said, watching Hugh for any reaction. “ ’twas also rumored he pressed for the seizing of all MacColme land, not just the properties owned directly by your father, and when the land was put to auction ’Tis said he bid upon it. Alas, he did not bid high enough,” she added with a
smirk, “and it went to some
outeral
from Yorkshire.”

Hugh opened his mouth in reply, but whatever he might have said was lost when the door to the drawing room was flung open and a woman in an elegant yellow gown, a cape of bright scarlet wool laying crookedly on her shoulders, stood in the doorway. Emerald-green eyes, lavishly trimmed with thick black lashes were wide in a face that was alarmingly pale, and her lips trembled as she took a tentative step forward.

“Hugh?” she whispered, her voice shaking with emotion. “Hugh, is it truly you?”

Hugh gazed at the stunning creature his sister had become, love and anguish making his eyes burn and his throat ache. She was the very image of the mother he mourned still, and seeing her grown was a painful reminder of all the lost years in between.
“Mo
piuthar, mo cridhe,”
he said, repeating the endearments he had whispered to her in farewell a lifetime ago. “I have missed you, little sister.”

“Hugh!” And then she was in his arms as she had been all those years ago, her arms tight about his neck as she held him close. “You’re home, you’re home,” she whispered, and he could feel her tears warm upon his skin. “I knew you would come back! I knew it.”

Hugh couldn’t speak, his heart too full for words as he pressed a kiss to the top of Mairi’s head. This was the moment he had longed for, the moment he had lived for through all the years of danger and death. In his sister’s arms he
was finally home, and the enormity of his joy overwhelmed him.

Behind him he heard the sound of the door closing, and knew Aunt Egidia had withdrawn to grant them privacy. He savored the feel of his sister a moment longer before gently moving away.

“Let me have a look at you,” he said with a half-laugh, drawing back to feast his eyes upon her. “Aye,” he said, rubbing his thumb over the curve of her cheek. “I was right, wasn’t I, to say you would be a beauty? You’re lovely as an angel, Mairi MacColme, although ’Tis more the devil I hear you resemble, with your temper and your tongue.”

“Oh, fasch with you!” she exclaimed, dashing the tears from her eyes with an impatient hand. “I’m a MacColme, aren’t I, and the temper is mine to have. And if the Lord saw fit to grant me a tongue and the wit to use it, I refuse to be ashamed!”

Her vehemence and the sparkle in her eyes had Hugh throwing back his head in laughter. “Ah, Mairi, you’ve been too long in Aunt Egidia’s company,” he said, smiling. “But tell me of Keir Mackinney; I hear he is courting you. Do you love him?”

Mairi tossed back her head with pride. “Keir Mackinney is a troublesome brat with dirty hands and nae a thought in his head!” she said decisively. “And the last time he called, I told him did he but attempt to pinch me again, I would stick my dirk in his fat belly.”

Hugh’s smile faded. “He dared to place his
hands upon you?” he asked, a deadly note creeping into his deep voice.

“Aye, but it’s dealt with and done, so there’s no cause for you to go off and murder him as you’re thinking,” she said. “Now, let me have a look at you,” she added quickly, before he could gainsay her, “so I can see for myself the man you have become.”

He stood silent under the intense perusal of those deep-emerald eyes, feeling the gentle touch of her gaze as it moved over the planes and hollows of his face. The last fourteen years had been hard ones. He was a man now, with a man’s experiences stamped deep into his tanned flesh, and he only hoped she would not find his appearance too changed.

“And what is this?” Mairi’s hand trembled as she traced a finger down the thin white scar slashed across Hugh’s left cheek. “A dueling scar, is it? Or was it done from an enemy’s sword in the heat of battle?”