An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (41 page)

Beatrice finished her glass of wine and rose from the dressing table. Slowly, her skirts rustling silkily against the dark stair boards, she descended to the private sitting room. It was a small panelled room, dark with age and, as she well knew, a perfect background for the shining gold of her hair and the opalescent sheen of her gown.

She moved regally into the centre of the room. A man was seated before a big log fire, his feet stretched out. As he heard Beatrice enter, he rose hastily to his feet. Her eyes flickered over him, noting the rich embroidery on his coat, the sparkle of his buttons, the diamond brooch at his throat. She raised her eyes to his face.

Yes, he was young. The landlord had not lied. He was young, and not unattractive. She had always thought that dark, sardonic man best offset her fair beauty. She held out her hand and felt his lips on her fingers.

“You will honour me by being my guest, sir?”

The nobleman straightened himself. He was taller than Beatrice, and after days of being alone she noticed with satisfaction the undisguised admiration in his eyes.

“On the contrary, madam, I beseech you to honour me. I have presumed to order dinner, and I pray that you will sample the wine that I have brought with me. This poor hostelry has nothing worthy of your patronage.”

Beatrice laughed, and seated herself beside the fire.

“I infer that you travel in comfort, sir.”

“Invariably,” was the reply, “but most especially so when there is a reason for my journey, a reason such as dinner with the most beautiful woman in England.”

Beatrice raised her eyebrows.

“Can it possibly be that you were expecting me?”

“It is indeed. I waited for you last night in Inverness, but when you did not come I journeyed here with all possible dispatch. I feared an accident.”

“I am flattered at such attention,” Beatrice said. “May I know your name, sir?”

“But of course! We have overlooked the formality of introduction. May I present myself, Lord Niall MacCraggan, at your service.”

He bowed.

“Then of course you know who I am,” Beatrice said, “without my telling you. It was most gracious on the part of your brother to have sent you to meet me.”

Lord Niall’s dark eyes met hers.

“No one has sent me. In truth my brother has no knowledge of my intention to intercept your Ladyship.”

“Really?”

Beatrice’s surprise was not simulated.

“No, I wanted to meet you, Lady Wrexham, but above all things I wanted to talk with you before you reached Skaig. I think there is much that we might say to each other – of advantage to both.”

Beatrice’s eyes narrowed. There was a hidden meaning in his voice and it did not escape her.

“Shall we dine first?” she asked quietly.

“But of course,” he replied. “You must be fatigued.”

He rang the bell and almost immediately food was brought to the table.

Lord Niall had ordered cleverly. The meal was simple and not beyond the culinary efforts of the inn cook, but each dish had a special quality about it, and the wine that his Lordship had brought with him surpassed anything Beatrice had ever sampled even in London.

“I had not realised until now how hungry I am,” she said approvingly.

When the meal was finished, the servants withdrew and Beatrice crossed the room to an armchair by the fire.

“May I offer you a glass of brandy?” Lord Niall asked.

He poured it out and Beatrice took the goblet from his hand. His fingers touched hers and looked down in to her face.

“You are far lovelier than I remembered,” he said.

“You have seen me before then?” she asked, her eyes searching his strange, dark, somewhat secretive face to recall it to her memory.

“Yes, I have seen you in London,” Lord Niall replied. “I have watched you in your box at the opera on two occasions.”

“But we have never met?”

“Never, until now.”

He turned to the table and poured himself out a glass of brandy.

“My stepmother told me she had a letter from you suggesting a visit to Skaig Castle. I was surprised.”

“I have always wanted to visit Scotland,” Beatrice said somewhat unconvincingly, “and the beauties of Skaig are talked about even at St. James’s.”

Lord Niall smiled.

“Shall we be frank with each other, you and I?”

“Why not?” Beatrice replied lightly.

“I would hate you to think me a fool,” Lord Niall said. “I know why you are here.”

“You do?” Beatrice questioned.

“My brother’s position in the Highlands concerns two people very deeply. One is the Pretender, Charles Stuart, the other the Marquis of Severn. I will not say His Majesty, King George II for I doubt if he is aware even of my brother’s existence.”

Beatrice was interested and intrigued, but she had no intention of declaring her own hand in this game of hazard.

“I am extremely interested in what you say,” she said, “but frankly I know nothing of your brother and less of where his loyalties lie.”

Lord Niall gave a little chuckle.

“Nor does the Marquis of Severn,” he said, “and that, my dear Lady Wrexham, is exactly what you have come to find out.”

Beatrice sipped her glass of brandy before she replied, and then she said slowly,

“I am wondering if you are a very impertinent young man or a very impudent one.”

“I am neither,” Lord Niall replied. “Like yourself, madam, I am merely ambitious.”

“Would it be indiscreet to ask where your ambitions lie?”

“It would not,” Lord Niall replied, “and once again I Will be devastatingly frank with you. I want to be the Duke of Arkrae.”

His reply was so unexpected that Beatrice could only stare at him. Utterly composed, he smiled at her and put his glass of brandy down on the table.

“Have I shocked you?” he asked. “I cannot believe that Lady Wrexham is shocked because a man is honest and truthful. I suppose it is because so very few people are either.

“I will repeat, I would like to be the Duke of Arkrae. If anything happens to my brother, or should I say
half-brother
, I inherit the title and the territories of Skaig. I should also be Chieftain of the Clan. Is it necessary, after saying that, to tell you that my sympathies are wholly and completely English, and my loyalty to His Majesty, King George II, unswerving?”

Beatrice felt a little breathless. In all her experience things had never happened so swiftly or so strangely as this.

“How can I trust you?” she asked at last.

“I will answer that question,” he replied. “Because I love you.”

Beatrice got to her feet.

“This is absurd,” she said. “I think your Lordship goes too far. You are making fun of me.”

Lord Niall looked down into her face.

“I have loved you since the first moment I saw you at the opera,” he said, “when I said I had seen you but twice, it was an understatement. All this spring, wherever you went, I went too. I could have gained an introduction to you, but what good would that have done me? Severn can offer you far more than I can – at present.

“I have walked the streets at night beneath your window, thinking of you. I have waited hour after hour in crowds for the privilege of seeing you pass by. I came back to Scotland hoping that somehow I would be able to forget the beauty of your face, the carriage of your head, the way your little hands seem too small for the great rings you wear. Then your letter arrived. My stepmother showed it to me and I knew that we were meant to meet, that this had all been planned by a fate which was stronger than circumstance.”

His voice was deep and he spoke slowly. His words seemed somehow all the more poignant because he did not hurry over them.

Beatrice looked away from him.

There was something about him that frightened her, something almost sinister in his very directness and a frankness which seemed to her at variance with the dark secretiveness of his face. And yet she did not disbelieve him. He was not lying to her, she was certain of that.

Lord Niall looked at her averted face.

“Why are you afraid, my sweet?” he asked softly. “I can help you, even as you can help me. Besides, I know now we can never escape one another.”

She turned to look at him, prepared to say something light, to laugh perhaps at the very seriousness of his tone, but the words died on her lips. His eyes held hers magnetically, compellingly.

She felt the warmth of a red-hot flame awaken deep within, her lips part and her eyes suddenly become heavy with desire. Suddenly there was no need for words – the magnetism between them was expression enough.

She felt herself sway a little towards him before his arms came out and took her. Then his lips were on hers and he carried her away into the shadows.

5

Iona came slowly down the carved oak staircase. It was morning, and with the elasticity of youth there was no sign on her face that she had passed a restless, sleepless night, beset by fears and apprehensions.

After her arrival the evening before, she had retired to her bedchamber and her supper had been brought to her there. The Duchess had suggested this, not only from consideration for her fatigue after a long journey but because, as Iona well knew, she wished to discuss her story with the Duke and doubtless to express her quite obvious scepticism of Iona’s claim to be the long lost Lady Elspeth.

Last night Iona had been too tired and too frightened to care what was said of her, but now this morning she felt ready to defy the Duchess and to begin the task she had been set and on which so much depended. In the small hours of the night, lonely and fearful in the darkness of her bedchamber, she had felt that the whole plan was impossible. Humiliated and abashed by the Duchess’s attitude she had also been disconcerted and confused at finding that the Duke was the stranger who had come to her rescue in the streets of Paris.

The morning sunshine brought Iona renewed courage. It brought her, too, a sense of excitement and the return of that exhilaration she had first felt on seeing the natural beauty of her native land.

“I am a Scot! I belong here!” Iona said, looking out of her bedroom window on to the loch, misty blue in the morning haze, and at the mountain peaks, indomitable against the cloud-tossed sky.

Here in this neighbourhood were many of the places where the Prince had lain concealed after the Battle of Culloden. Iona thought of the dangers and the terror of those months in hiding when, despite a price of thirty thou sand pounds on his head, no one would turn traitor and betray him.

What courage he had shown, what fortitude and how gladly those who met him had risked their lives and everything they possessed in an effort to help him! How little, Iona thought, she had to risk. A life of loneliness and drudgery in a milliner’s shop in Paris, a life without even the hope of change or improvement. Then unexpectedly as if by magic she found herself here, in Scotland, entrusted with a precious mission, honoured and enriched by the Prince’s own faith in her.

“I am lucky, terribly lucky,” she told, herself as she reached the wide landing off which lay the salon where she had waited for the Duchess on her arrival at the castle.

She had a chance now to look about her. Last night she had been too bewildered to gain any impression save one of massive, overpowering grandeur. Now she saw that the castle had not only majesty but also charm.

Built hundreds of years ago, it had gradually accumulated an atmosphere of mellow maturity. It had been a fortification and a stronghold for generations, repelling aggression, defying enemies and offering a refuge and shield for those it sheltered within its stone walls. It had also been the habitation of the chieftain of the MacCraggan Clan and the point of convergence for the clansmen.

To them the power and majesty of the castle was a part of their heritage. Childlike in their trust and dependence on their chiefs, loyal to the very core of their being, they were proud of the magnificence of Skaig and as jealous of its traditions and privileges as they were of their own.

When Iona reached the first floor, she could look below into the Great Hall, which was the most ancient part of the castle. The walls were four feet thick and constructed to withstand even the most violent assaults of an enemy. Decorating them were flags and banners captured in battle, and until four years earlier they had also displayed a unique collection of spears and claymores, shields and battle-axes.

These had all been confiscated by the English after Culloden, when the Scots had been required to hand over their weapons of every sort and description. Iona did not know of this and she wondered at the bareness of the walls and the marks where the weapons had been torn down from their resting place of several centuries.

The stone floor was covered only with skins of animals and at one end of the hall was a high-backed, carved oak chair set like a throne on two stone steps and canopied by curtains embroidered with heraldic designs.

Turning from her contemplation of the hall, Iona walked towards the salon into which she had been shown the night before. It was empty save for the sunlight flooding through the windows overlooking the loch.

In one of the gilt mirrors Iona could see her own reflection. She was wearing a gown she had made herself of grey muslin, its severity relieved only by narrow ribbons of emerald green velvet which laced the tight bodice and were tied in a bow at the waist. It was a demure dress which she had chosen deliberately to make herself appear unobtrusive and modest.

But she would have been a hypocrite if she had not realised that the puritanical colour of the gown only accentuated the brilliance of her hair and revealed the almost transparent quality of her skin. The ribbons she had tied so carefully echoed the vivid green of her eyes and made it of supreme unimportance that she owned no jewels and that the round perfection of her neck was therefore left unadorned.

“Good morning,” a grave voice said behind her.

She turned swiftly and saw the Duke standing in the doorway. For a moment she stared at him, wondering why he seemed different, and then she knew. Last night his hair had been powdered. That day in Paris when they had just met it had been hidden by his three-cornered hat, but now she saw that he too was red-headed, his hair a deeper and more chestnut tone than her own, but undoubtedly red.