Gosford's Daughter (9 page)

Rosmairi lifted her chin and, with the crowned hat
adding height, looked considerably older than her fifteen years. “I
hadn’t thought you’d fail me in anything so important to my
happiness. Are you rankled because I’m to wed first?”

However unwittingly, Rosmairi had struck dangerously
close to a truth Sorcha was loath to admit. Feeling her face grow
as warm as her feet were cold, Sorcha flipped her tangled tresses
over her shoulders. “Nonsense. I’m not mad to marry. I just think
you’re behaving recklessly.”

Unwontedly cool and self-possessed, Rosmairi
shrugged. “Then give me your blessing, if not your company. I’m off
to Beauly Priory to take my vows.”

Sorcha advanced on her sister to proffer the
requisite sisterly benediction. But as she leaned forward to kiss
Rosmairi’s smooth pink cheek, memories came flooding back. Baby Ros
with her fluff of golden hair, little Ros taking her first steps to
Sorcha in the rose garden, Ros with a skinned knee, Ros being
teased unmercifully by Magnus, Ros crying in Sorcha’s arms after
Rob had broken her favorite doll ….

“
Fie,” whispered Sorcha, sounding
very like their mother, “of course I’ll come.”

Not more than five minutes later, both girls were
tiptoeing out the side entrance of the manor house. Only a few
wisps of cloud marred the sky as they slipped through the darkness
toward the stable. In silence, they led their horses outside, and
as a dog howled at the crescent moon, they were on the road to
Beauly.

Passing the low hedgerows and the drooping
cornstalks, they crossed the Ness single file over a narrow stone
bridge. Just ahead, near a gnarled, leafless tree, they could make
out the silhouettes of a dozen men and their mounts.

“
George!” breathed Rosmairi, and
beamed with eager delight.

Sorcha suppressed a disapproving sigh and urged
Thisbe around a deep pothole in the rough dirt road. She could see
George, taller and broader than the rest, waving a welcome. Maybe,
Sorcha thought with a sense of shock, the braw laddie really loves
her. Why, she wondered vexedly, had that idea never occurred to her
until now?

The sudden spurt of movement directly in front of
them startled both Thisbe and Rosmairi’s horse. The animals shied,
while the two young women clung to their necks for dear life. It
took some time for Sorcha to soothe Thisbe and then to realize what
had happened: As she calmed the frightened animal with her hands
and leaned across the saddle, she saw that a man and a horse
blocked the road between the narrow bridge and the gnarled tree.
The interloper wore a flowing black cloak and held a pistol in each
hand. Peering more closely into the darkness, Sorcha recognized
Gavin Napier.

“
Back! Back, you Gordons, or your
lives are forfeit!” Brandishing the pistols, he purposefully
spurred his horse to rear up and let out an ear-splitting
whinny.

“
That priest!” gasped Rosmairi,
still trying to calm her little mare. “George!” she cried, her
voice atremble. “What’s amiss?”

Her answer was two loud pistol shots. Rosmairi
screamed, and Sorcha swore. George and his men pulled back closer
to the tree, though Sorcha realized that Napier had shot harmlessly
into the air.

Keeping his weapons trained on the Gordons, Napier
turned quickly to look over his shoulder. “Go back! Head for home!
Now!”

Either his urgency or her instinct told Sorcha not to
disobey. Wheeling Thisbe about, she spoke sharply to Rosmairi: “Do
as he says! Go, Ros. Ride!”

Whatever reluctance Rosmairi possessed was overcome
by her horse, which took its head, stumbled slightly, and cantered
back over the narrow bridge just behind Sorcha and Thisbe. Two more
shots broke the silence of the night; then Napier was also riding
with them, racing across the rolling fields, kicking up clods of
mud.

To Sorcha’s surprise, the Gordons didn’t attempt to
follow. Within a quarter of an hour, they were back at Gosford’s
End, silently leading their weary mounts into the paddock. It was
only after they had watered and bedded down the horses that anyone
spoke. As might be expected, it was Rosmairi, her high-crowned hat
askew, her face pale with disappointment, but her gray eyes
sparking with indignant wrath.

“
You
will
explain, Father,”
she averred with a voice that shook, yet had somehow lost its
youthful timbre.

Napier tilted his dark head to one side and regarded
Rosmairi with a rueful expression. “The Earl of Huntly’s intentions
were not what they seemed. George sought to dishonor you,
mistress.”

“
Liar!” Rosmairi flew at him, but
Sorcha grabbed her sister by one arm and yanked her back. “Leave me
be!” she screamed, trying to wrench herself free from Sorcha’s
determined grasp.

“
Be quiet,” Sorcha rasped in a low
voice. “Do you want to rouse all of Gosford’s End?”

Rosmairi’s gray eyes widened; then, like a card
house, she virtually collapsed against her sister. “I hate you,”
she snuffled, wiping her face with the back of one gloved hand,
“you and that priest!”

“
Father Napier must have his
reasons,” Sorcha insisted, and put a comforting arm around
Rosmairi. In truth, Sorcha was as muddled as Rosmairi. Seeking
support, she glanced at Napier. “Are you trying to tell us that
George Gordon wished to ravish Ros rather than to marry
her?”

Napier was hanging his saddle and bridle in a vacant
place on the stable wall. “Aye,” he replied shortly. “Fornication
was his only aim.”

For some reason, his utterance unnerved Sorcha. She’d
heard other priests talk against sins of the flesh, warn of wanton
desires, rail against illicit passion. None of them had ever really
moved her, let alone caused any upset. Yet she found Gavin Napier’s
simple statement disturbing.

“
We must tell my parents,” she
declared, forcing her mind from animal lust and priestly
condemnation.

“
No!” cried Rosmairi, pulling free
of Sorcha’s arm. “Spare me that!”

The heartfelt plea tugged at Sorcha, but it was
Napier who responded. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.” To Sorcha’s
surprise, he suddenly looked tired, even haggard. “Lord Fraser must
hear of this, though I am as loath to tell him as you are,
mistress.”

Rosmairi went rigid as a carved image. “You shame me,
Father! What kind of priest are you?” Putting frantic hands to her
pale face, she stared in desperation at Napier, then turned and
fled the stable. Sorcha made as if to follow, but Napier put a hand
on her arm.

“
Stay, mistress. She’ll merely go to
her chamber and sob noiselessly into the night. ’Twill do her no
harm and mayhap some good.” He started to withdraw his hand, but
bent down to study Sorcha more closely. “And you?” he asked, with
unexpected anxiety. “Your sister’s tribulations must distress you
mightily.”

Their gazes had locked, and Sorcha found herself
strangely tongue-tied. Behind them in the stalls, the horses were
settling down for a foreshortened night. “Well, of course,” she
managed at last, noting absently that the little lantern she had
lighted upon their arrival cast a feeble amber glow among the piles
of straw and bales of hay. A black cat with a white vest prowled
hopefully, searching for a midnight mouse. “Poor Ros,” Sorcha
murmured, self-consciously aware of Napier’s hand still on her arm.
“Our Lady Mother said George wasn’t to be trusted. Why didn’t we
listen?”

Napier’s mouth twisted bitterly. “I wish I had been
given such a warning. My mission seems doomed. George Gordon’s
iniquities mock my efforts to bring unity among the Catholic clans
of Scotland.” Slowly, he let go of Sorcha’s arm. “Gordon’s callow,
ambitious. He has no conscience.”

“
He has no heart, either,” Sorcha
asserted, once more feeling pity for Rosmairi. She gave her arm a
little shake, as if she could still feel Napier’s hold on her, then
noted that his brown eyes had grown shadowy. A trick of the lantern
light, she thought, but cast another glance in his direction and
was struck by the haunted expression on his lean, wolflike face.
“George has betrayed us all,” she said gloomily, and put a hand to
her weary head.

Napier’s mouth twisted sardonically. He took a step
forward, so that Sorcha’s riding skirts and his long cloak brushed
against each other. For one tense moment, she thought he was going
to touch her again. Instead, he gathered the folds of his cloak
more closely around him and flung them over one broad shoulder.
“Perhaps,” he finally replied, the irony still visible on his face,
“but I betrayed him as well.”

Then Napier swerved on his heel and left the stable,
the flickering lantern light making his shadow ominously large.

In the fall, ever since Sorcha could remember, the
Fraser offspring spent one Sabbath gathering up the leaves from the
front of Gosford’s End and piling them high for a bonfire after
dark. When they were younger, the four children had tussled and
tumbled and toppled among the piles, eventually requiring several
servants to restore order. These past years, they had gone through
the ritual with less ebullience and more efficiency.

This time, it was different. As the north wind kept
the rain clouds at bay, Sorcha, Ros, Magnus, and Rob whooped and
shrieked as they worked, occasionally pummeling one another or
throwing huge handfuls of crisp leaves onto an unaware sibling. It
was as if the years had rolled back, and knowing that this could be
their last autumn together, all four Frasers were desperately
clinging to childhood.

“
Stop it, Magnus!” Rosmairi called
out as her elder brother brandished a rake. “You’ll give Rob a
tonsure before he ever leaves home!”

“
Maybe I’ll pound sense into him so
he won’t leave,” Magnus replied, making a mock thrust at Rob’s
head. “I tell you, Rob, there’s land enough here to make us both a
living.” Rob threw a stick for the aged collie, Buchanan, to fetch.
The dog looked up, reconsidered, and went back to sleep on a
tussock of grass. “You plant the seeds of food, Magnus; I’ll plant
the seeds of faith. Though, soon you’ll plant other seeds with
Jeannie Simpson.”

“
I rather like Jeannie,” Rosmairi
remarked in a deceptively bland voice. “She has lovely manners. Or
does she never interrupt because she has nothing to
say?”

Sorcha cast a sidelong glance at her sister. Of all
the Frasers, Rosmairi had always possessed the greatest sense of
charity, even more so than Rob. But her thwarted elopement had
sharpened her tongue and blunted her usual happy, gentle nature. To
Ross’s dismay, Gavin Napier had carried the humiliating tale to her
parents. Lord and Lady Fraser had been outraged by George Gordon’s
shameless behavior, though Rosmairi refused to concede that her
lover had connived at her seduction. Doggedly, she clung to the
belief that George really loved her and that Gavin Napier, for some
cruel, unfathomable reason, had prevented the wedding. Sorcha
didn’t agree with her sister, and said so, but when Rosmairi had
asked archly why she’d put credence in a stranger priest rather
than their longtime ally, Sorcha had no answer, except that the
young earl was ruthlessly ambitious and used to getting his own
way. And that somehow, inexplicably, Sorcha trusted Gavin
Napier.

While this explanation made no dent in Rosmairi’s
staunch defense of George, at least the sisters had not broken with
each other over the matter. Still, there was an uncustomary
distance between Rosmairi and the rest of her family these days.
Nor, thought Sorcha, were remarks such as the one Rosmairi had just
made about Jeannie Simpson helping to narrow the gap.

Indeed, Magnus was giving Rosmairi a baleful look,
but it was Rob who replied: “Like most wives, Jeannie will discover
her tongue once she’s wed. I’ll wager your ears will wilt within a
year, brother.”

Rob ducked as Magnus reached out to cuff him.
“Jeannie is as bonnie as bluebells and docile as Buchanan,” Magnus
bellowed, and tripped over a root. He righted himself before
falling down, but Sorcha moved swiftly, dumping a basket of leaves
over his head.

“
If any man compared
me
to a
collie, I’d saw off his ears,” she asserted, dancing out of
reach.

Snatching leaves from his hair, Magnus grimaced,
while Rob grew thoughtful. “We are more thorough than we used to
be,” he remarked, indicating the tidy grounds.

“
We had less to talk about,”
Rosmairi put in, setting aside her rake. “We had fewer …
troubles,” she added on a wistful note.

Sorcha set her face against the brisk wind as she
gazed from Rob’s slim, fair presence to the pink-and-red-gold
visage of Rosmairi to Magnus’s tall, dark, sturdy form. She would
miss the others, but at least Rob would be with her on the journey
south.

As the wind grew even stronger, Sorcha shielded her
face with her Fraser plaid. “Damn,” she said in a muffled voice.
“Mayhap we’d better torch these leaves before they’re scattered
halfway to Inverness. Moreover, it’s going to rain.”

She felt her sister and brothers stare at her for
just a moment. They knew she was right, but the annual burning
would mean an end to their day together, perhaps to their lives
together. Sorcha smiled back feebly. A few seconds later, Magnus
had lighted some twigs. The leaves caught and before long the
flames shot heavenward, an orange-and-yellow signal to herald
oncoming winter. Biting her lip, Sorcha watched the fire burn,
aware that her youth had drifted away like the leaves themselves.
Yet the tree still stood, tall and sturdy against the twilight.

So did another figure, some distance away by the side
of the house. Sorcha caught the movement and felt tears sting her
eyes. It was Niall, alone in the shadows, watching the Fraser heirs
pass through the rites of autumn.