by Fiona Monroe
She could only blink stupidly at her cousin for a few moments, unable to find words.
"What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do?"
"What... is the matter?"
She now saw that Caroline was clad in her long white nightgown, her hair loose and wild, and was clutching a paper in the hand that was not holding the candle. She half sat up against the pillow, resentfully casting off the last warmth of drowsiness and wondering if she would sleep again that night.
"He has sent a letter," said Caroline, in tones of the most sombre importance.
"Who has... Lord Daventry?"
"Yes! Lord Daventry himself, who else!"
"But surely, he cannot have had time to receive and reply to the letter you sent him in Vienna."
"Oh!" cried Caroline impatiently. "He is not in Vienna, of course. He never was. At least, not lately. Read what he writes!"
She waved the letter, then pressed it on Catriona.
With foreboding, Catriona unfolded the somewhat crumpled sheet. It looked as though Caroline had crushed it in her fist at some point. The paper was of the finest quality, and the hand was strong and elegant. The letter itself was brief and to the point.
My dearest Caroline, do not fly into an alarm, but I am arrived this very morning at Leith. My father has been pressing me to return these three months, and as I was growing weary of Vienna I thought I may as well make the old man happy. I sailed to Leith and not Hull on purpose to see you on the way, so you had better not make difficulties about that, for I shall have to tell the pater some fine stories about why I have made port two hundred miles out of my way. I trust this will reach you by Wednesday night at the latest. No reply can reach me on the road, but I will be waiting for you in the usual place on Thursday at an hour past midnight unless I send word otherwise. Come, and come alone if you have any pity on your poor FL.
"FL?" was all Catriona could immediately say upon this letter.
"Frederick Linnell, it is his name," said Caroline, dismissively. "But what shall I do, cousin? He knows nothing about—clearly he never received my letter, he must have set off from Vienna long before it arrived."
"Caroline... have you been in the habit of clandestine midnight meetings with Lord Daventry?"
"No! That is—on one or two occasions, but it was quite all right. I told you, we have not seen each other since the ball at Lochlannan last year. And before that, what were we to do? My brother would never let us be alone together. You need not look at me like that! It was quite all right, I tell you. He would never offer me any insult."
Catriona felt a pang in her breast, and toyed with the letter blindly for a moment before returning it to Caroline. "Tomorrow night," she said, reflectively.
"It is the answer to a prayer, is it not? I wished and wished that he might somehow rescue me, and he is coming! The very night before they are to wed me to Mr. Ross!"
"So you have quite decided to elope with Lord Daventry?" Catriona asked slowly, her heart sinking even as she said it.
Caroline let out a long, anguished sigh, and crumpled the letter some more. "What if Duncan finds out? Sir John and Lady Ross already here—he will be so angry. I would have to flee with Lord Daventry at once, tomorrow night, upon meeting him. And yet he knows nothing of the urgency. He will not expect it. What if there is some reason why we may not—oh, dear cousin, I am so afraid. Will you help me?"
"Help you? I will do all in my power to help you, Caroline, you know I will, but the greatest help I can offer is my advice— to re-urge my advice to speak plainly to Mr. Ross in the morning and break off this match in an honest and open manner. Then talk rationally to your brother about your engagement to Lord Daventry—"
"No, no, no!" cried Caroline, pressing her hands to her ears.
Catriona was silenced.
Caroline glared at her. "It is no good to keep on saying that. I cannot speak to Mr. Ross and Duncan will never allow me to marry Lord Daventry. I must elope with Lord Daventry tomorrow night, or marry Mr. Ross on Friday. If you will not help me, I will do it alone." She rose from the bed, with a sob.
Catriona forestalled her by catching her arm. "Oh, cousin—wait. Of course I'll help, but I don't see what I can do."
"Come with me." Eagerly, Caroline sank back down onto the bed and clasped Catriona's hands. "You are right, I should not meet him without a chaperone, and besides, it will give me courage."
"But... where are you to meet him?"
"Oh! Only in the summer house. You know the summer house, on the west lawn? It is no distance at all. You can slip back into the house afterwards, and no-one will know you were ever gone."
"I saw you coming from the summer house last night."
"Yes! It is where his letters to me are put, by a boy we pay to do it, since he may not write to me openly. I had a message that there was a letter waiting for me, before dinner. I could not wait as long as I ought to have done, to go out and find it. It was not fully dark. But it will be so by an hour past midnight. There will be no risk of our being seen then."
Catriona thought that it was a plan inadvisable in itself and fraught with danger of discovery, whatever Caroline said. But what was the alternative? To leave Caroline to go alone to meet a man, any man at that hour of the night was to expose her to almost anything. She had to protect her, since those who ought to be protecting her were intent on driving her into a loveless union.
"You would do better to speak to your brother," she said again, quietly. "But if you really are determined against it, then I will go with you to meet Lord Daventry."
"Thank you!" Caroline hugged her. "If we do not get the chance to talk together tomorrow, then I will meet you in the cloak room by the main door of the keep at a quarter to midnight. Even if Duncan stays up late there is never anyone in that part of the building at that hour. Oh! To think that I was in despair, and now—within two days I will be married to him!"
She smiled brilliantly and clapped her hands in excitement, all her doubt and agitation appearing dispelled. She pulled Catriona into another hug and was gone, in a whirl of white cotton and raven hair.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
All the next long day, Catriona was in a fever of guilt. She kept out of the way as much as she could, while final preparations for the wedding were taking place; she watched the minister Mr. Farquhar arrive from her now-customary vantage point in the library window. The minister was to dine with them and spend the night at the castle, in readiness for conducting the ceremony the next morning.
"I expect he'll want to read you a sermon about married life, too," Sir Duncan had said to his sister and Mr. Ross at breakfast, announcing this short visit.
Caroline received this information in sanguine silence. She seemed very calm, which astonished Catriona. She herself was not, could not be anything of the sort. Her conscience raged within. She knew she ought to, in strict duty, go to Sir Duncan and tell him everything; but to do that would be to betray Caroline's confidence, a despicable act in itself, and would most certainly mean she would be married in the morning to a man she did not love. And that, as Catriona continually reflected whenever she thought of her cousin's situation, was a step quite irreversible, a deed that could never be undone. Surely it had to be the lesser of two evils, to save her from that.
But Mr. Ross grinned, and actually blushed, and looked across the table at his bride-to-be with a bashful yet ardent glance; and Catriona was wretched, knowing that this honest and amiable young man must be thinking about the pleasures of married life, and believing that the woman he loved was willing to be his within a very few hours. Yet she was sitting there, so composed, fully intending to break his heart.
For a few moments, Catriona flared with anger and something near contempt for Caroline. She was being abominably cruel to a decent man who loved her, and it was wretched to feel that she had no choice but to collude with this deception.
Dinner was far worse, with the ominous presence of the minister and the solemn discussions that ensued
about the wedding and marriage itself. Mr. Farquhar was an earnest, pronouncing kind of minister who evidently took his duties seriously, and he had a lot to say on the subject.
"St Paul tells wives to submit themselves to their husbands as unto Christ, but do not forget, Mr. Ross, that in the same passage he also urges husbands to love their wives as Christ loves the church. Indeed, as they love their own bodies, for truly man and wife are one flesh."
"I am sure that Ross is on board with Scripture, as far as the one flesh business goes," said Sir Duncan.
Catriona felt a shock of dismay that he should make light of Scripture, and she felt her own cheeks redden as if the indelicacy had been directed at her. But she could not help her own slight involuntary smile, and a glance at Mr. Ross showed her that he was grinning broadly, not at all offended.
But how could Caroline bear this? Her face was pale, her eyes were downcast, but she remained composed. Catriona looked at the long-case clock which stood in the corner of the dining hall, and saw that it was already near nine. Scarcely four short hours until Caroline would seal her own fate.
The rest of the people around the table—Lady Buccleuch, Sir John and Lady Ross, poor Mr. Ross himself—would know nothing about the disaster that was about to befall them until the next morning, she supposed. And Sir Duncan, of course. She could scarce imagine the scenes of consternation that must follow, nor the strength of his fury. Caroline would be safely out of it, married by the first minister they could rouse from bed tomorrow in the first town they could find beyond the bounds of the Buccleuch estate, but she, Catriona, would be trapped in the heart of the tempest. Bitterly now she regretted becoming involved in this adventure, but it was too late to do anything but pray that Caroline would not, in the final moment, find the courage to proceed.
She was still praying for a last-minute change of heart as she crept footfall by silent footfall down the spiral staircase to the lower entrance hall, feeling her way with her fingertips on the rough stone wall. She did not dare risk carrying a light, for she was not as sure as Caroline had been that there would be no-one in the keep after Cruikshank had shut up the house for the night. A single gleam of light might betray her. She was familiar enough with this part of the castle now to navigate in the dark, and the hall was lit in a ghostly fashion by shafts of silver moonlight falling through the barred windows.
Certainly, all seemed still and deserted. Catriona hoped fervently that the cloakroom too would prove to be empty; but she almost let out a scream as she slipped into the small room, and her arm was grasped tightly.
"Caroline!" she gasped.
"Ssh!" Her cousin let out a breath, but did not let go of her arm. "I was afraid it might not be you."
"Well, here I am, as you see. Caroline, are you absolutely sure you wish to—"
"Ssh! We must go, now, right away."
Catriona did not argue, although she had been half convinced that Caroline would lack the boldness actually to set out from the house. She had, it seemed, underestimated her cousin. There was nothing indecisive or timid about her now; her expression was set, resolute and her eyes were shining.
"There is a door to the old kitchen yard down this passage here," she said, in a breathy undertone. "The old kitchens are used only as store rooms, so no-one ever comes this way at night."
She was trembling, though whether in excitement or fright or both, Catriona did not know. She followed her down into a dungeon-like subterranean region, pitch dark and pungent with the sharp, sweet reek of maturing cheese and hanging game. Fortunately, Caroline had brought a dark lantern, which she opened as soon as they were out of sight of the hall. She was also carrying a carpet bag of some sort clumsily over one arm, with the air of one who rarely handled her own luggage.
Although this was a part of the castle Catriona had not even known existed, it was clear that Caroline had gone this way many times. She strode confidently to a door at the end of the passage, which led out into a deserted walled yard. This had been, Catriona supposed, the outside utility area for the kitchens before the new wing had been built. In the bright moonlight the place had an abandoned air, weeds growing freely through the cobblestones. An archway and some steps took them on to the gravelled drive that ran around the side of the keep.
"Oh! Why did the moon have to been so bright?" Caroline whispered. She shuttered the lantern, and hesitated for a moment on the brink of stepping forward onto the path.
Catriona put a hand on her arm. "Dear cousin. Reconsider, I beg of you. We can turn back now, and no-one will ever know."
"No!" Caroline shook her off, then turned to her with a fierce expression. "Lord Daventry is waiting for me out there. I pledged him my troth. I love him and only him! Go! Go back if you want to be a coward, but I will not betray my oath."
And she took off in half a run, her feet crunching on the gravel.
Catriona stood rooted to the spot for a moment, hurt by Caroline's accusation of cowardice and, at the same time, a little angered by it. It was not she who had accepted another man's proposals and then been too weak to mend matters honestly. But she could not lose sight of her cousin, so she hurried after her.
Caroline soon veered off the path across the lawn, and into the edge of the wilderness that was planted near the west side of the grounds.
"This is not the way to the summer house," said Catriona, unhappy that her feet were now damp with dew from the grass. She kept her voice low, but they were no longer within sight of the house and must be well beyond earshot.
"It is a roundabout approach." Caroline's voice was still a whisper, with a tremor in its undertone. "I come this way to avoid notice as far as possible."
It was as well that Caroline knew where she was going, because as the trees closed in the moonlight lost its power. They half-stumbled through the near darkness, not even keeping to a path, but tripping over roots and brushed by nettles. Caroline had changed into walking clothes and had on a thick cloak, but Catriona had not thought of any such thing; she was still in her flimsy dinner gown, with nothing but a shawl over her shoulders, and she felt a thorn tear the fabric at the hem. A heavy chill had replaced the blazing heat of day.
Caroline led them out of the trees, onto a slope of lawn that led suddenly down to the back of the gazebo. This was a stone structure, entirely open on the side which faced the path, little more than a large-ish shelter built in a style meant to be reminiscent of a Greek temple. Its only feature was a stone bench running along the back wall. From their unorthodox approach, Catriona could see nothing within, as they were behind the building.
Caroline kept the lantern shuttered, and indicated with dramatic gestures that they should proceed in silence.
The moonlight served to illuminate the scene perfectly, but as they crept around to the front of the gazebo, all within was hidden in darkness. Caroline's breath was loud and ragged, and her hand hesitated on the lantern.
Steady as Catriona thought her own nerves were, she could not help starting and exclaiming when a figure loomed out of the darkness and caught hold of Caroline.
Caroline herself gave a half-scream, which was muffled by a hand. Her lantern clattered to the stone floor.
Immediately, Catriona retrieved it, but it was of no use. Its light had been extinguished.
Accordingly, she could not see clearly the man whom her cousin had staked her life's happiness upon, but there was no doubt that this was he. A tall, gentlemanly-looking man, whose shaded faced seemed likely to be very handsome. He had taken Caroline fully into his arms before perceiving that they were not alone, and Catriona thought he frowned in her direction before saying, in a low English voice, "What's this, Caroline? Are we never to be alone?"
Caroline pulled away from him, giving him a prim little push with her hands. "I had thought, sir, you might have had more to say to me, after so long a separation."
"What the devil do you expect me to say, before an audience?"
"Oh sir!" Caroline burst into tears.
Lord Daventry, with very evident affection, soothed her and pressed her to his breast. "Come, come, my dearest. It is not so bad."
"It is bad!" she cried. "You do not know. I am to be married in the morning!"
It was now Lord Daventry's turn to break from the embrace, and Catriona—though she could not see his face—perceived menace in his attitude. "The deuce? What, to that damned fool Ross?"
"My brother is forcing me into it! You know how he treats me!"
"Hell and damnation! What—have I arrived not a day, not an hour too soon?"
"Then you will save me?"
"Caroline, have I not always begged you to flee with me and damn the consequences?" Catriona felt his glance on her again.
Gasping, still half in tears, but evidently excited by happy emotions, Caroline grabbed Catriona's hand and pulled her forward. "This is my cousin, Miss Dunbar. She has come to live at Lochlannan, and she is my most particular and intimate friend. She knows the whole of our sad history. Catriona, let me present Viscount Daventry."
"Delighted to meet you, Miss Dunbar." The Viscount bowed.
Catriona made a quick curtsy and took a moment to ponder on the irony of that statement. But at least she could now speak. "And I, your lordship, though I wish it were under happier circumstances."
"By God, if Miss Buccleuch will consent to come with me at last, the circumstances could not be happier, say I. Will you make me happy, then, my love?"
"You see I have a travelling bag already prepared," said Caroline breathlessly, all smiles now, holding up her luggage.
"Good lord, so you have. Well! My curricle is at the village, I'll have to ride back to fetch it."