Captured Hearts and Stolen Kisses

by Ceci Giltenan et al.

  Alistair had outdone himself in decorating for the occasion. Crystal candlesticks, satin table coverings, silver tureens, porcelain vases. Kathryn stopped to confer with the thin, stiff-mannered old man. “Are the peeled prawns fresh?”

  "Aye, with a dash of cream and dry vermouth sauce,” he said with his soft brogue and rolling r’s.

  "You transferred the monies in the Edinburgh account to Glasgow for Enya?”

  "Aye, m'lady.” He allowed himself a rare smile. “More than a fortnight ago."

  She touched his sleeve, a rare affectionate gesture Enya’s mother and others, with the exception of Malcolm. It was as if her mother didn't allow herself to feel emotion, only devotion and duty.

  "What would I do without you, Alistair?"

  His big nose sniffed. “You would, as always, suffer in silence, madam.”

  The guests represented the elite of Scottish society. Writers, lawyers, philosophers, doctors, scholars, scientists, and painters paid tribute today. Kathryn had encouraged these Scottish men of learning and letters to come to her court. She believed this was the only way to rescue for posterity the culture of what was once an independent nation.

  Having grown up surrounded by the best minds in Scotland, Enya had assimilated her mother’s creed. After struggling against the English for almost a thousand years, Scotland needed to seek its identity through peaceful means. At least, that was how Enya felt.

  For that reason, and that reason alone, she consented to be led to the marriage altar. The man giving her away was her mother’s friend, the famed dramatist Allan Ramsay, who had opened the first circulating library in Scotland. Before an ornate marble-and-plaster fireplace, Reverend Macives awaited the bride and the groom’s proxy. In the absence of wedding music, silence reigned.

  Enya’s gaze searched the faces of the guests. There he was, toward the back of the crowded room: Duncan Fraser. He was clothed in a shabby frock coat and trews. She smiled tremulously. Below the disheveled fringe of yellow hair, his brown eyes reassured her. All was well, then.

  Next, she searched among the unrecognizable faces closest to the parish minister. The stocky little man wearing a fringed waistcoat—was he Simon Murdock’s proxy? He exuded an aura of self-import.

  Old Allan Ramsay kissed her on the cheek and nudged her forward. At the same time, the man in the fringed waistcoat stepped forth. Lurched was a better word, she thought. Obviously, he had imbibed too well.

  He introduced himself in an officious and quite British tone. Each word was elaborately pronounced. "I am Sir Oliver Wakefield, Secretary to the Ministry of War and proxy for Simon Murdock, Lord Lieutenant of the Western Highlands, at your service, my lady.”

  Enya blanked out all thought. From hereforth, she would be leaving the Lowlands and her childhood to become a wife in whatever foreign land her husband’s position would take him.

  And the hinterland of the Highlands was as much a foreign country as would be the Russian steppes.

  Was any cause, even one as noble as the preservation of all that was distinctly Scottish, worth this terrible sacrifice? God, but what she would not give for an opportunity to sneak away and smoke her pipe for a leisurely half hour.

  The marriage ceremony was over barely before it had begun. She would not wear the ring of the Lord Lieutenant until she exchanged vows with him in a more private ceremony, so she still did not feel wedded.

  The afternoon festivities were spent in toasting with brilliant clarets, dancing, and, later, a sampling of sumptuous dishes: salmon with prawn sauce, succulent lamb with mint jelly, and a sublime pigeon consommé.

  She did not see Duncan again.

  Too soon, her luggage and that of her maidservants was being loaded atop the Lord Lieutenant’s private traveling coach. The proxy, Wakefield, had drunk too much and so chose to remain behind. Or, at least, that was the gentle yet very effective suggestion of her mother.

  Enya had changed into a copper-red jaconet traveling dress with a bonnet of matching ribbons. Balmy weather blessed her bridal journey. It was to take her to Glasgow, where she would board ship. From there, the ship would transport her up the Clyde River and through the inner islands to the entrance of the Great Glen. The last stage of travel to Fort William would be accomplished over a series of Roman and English roads paralleling the Highland lochs.

  Standing beneath the airy wrought-iron porte cochere, she blinked back tears and kissed her mother good-bye. "You will come to visit me?”

  Her mother’s eyes glistened with her own unshed tears. Kathryn and Enya had been more than mother and daughter: tutor and student, closest of friends, confidants. "The Butcher himself couldn’t keep me from you."

  They both managed a weak smile at the jest. The Butcher was William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the third son of George II. General Cumberland had become infamous for the atrocities committed by his men after the Battle of Culloden.

  Mary Laurie dropped a curtsy to her cousin, a stern-looking farm wife who doubtlessly was glad to be relieved of another mouth to feed. Alistair gave his twin Elspeth an old man’s quick, embarrassed hug. Kathryn's embrace for the departing servants was as reserved but as heartfelt.

  Enya swallowed her pain of separation and, turning from her mother, boarded the coach. She did not know how long it would be before she saw her mother again. But both knew her mother would remain with Malcolm, who needed her more, and would remain with him until his last wheezing breath.

  Elspeth, Mary Laurie, and two green-coated liveried footmen accompanied her. A contingent of redcoats, serving as Enya’s guard, rode ahead of and behind her coach. With a jerk, it and its team of six grays set out at a fast clip down the double row of oaks. Haste was needed if the bride was to reach Glasgow by nightfall. The ship was to sail with the tide.

  The coach’s three occupants were silent, each already missing Ayr and Afton House. Each was wondering what the future would bring. The sounds of horses’ hooves, harnesses, and carriage wheels were the only noises as the coach traveled the byroads through glen and dale.

  After they crossed the Brig o’Doon spanning the Ayr River, the countryside sped past the coach window -- manicured hills with flocks of sheep, patches of daffodils and violets and the delicate lavender heather, stone dykes separating small tenant farms, and country estates lavish with ferns and flowers.

  The splendid summer sunlight was waning, the high-piled clouds pink with sunset, when the galloping grays stopped at a coaching inn. An ostler came running out to tend the horses.

  "M’lady, I have need of the . . . privy,” Mary Laurie said. She was a priggish lass who nonetheless was desirous of finding herself a learned husband. God knew where she would find a learned man in the Highlands. Their Gaelic tongue was the rude speech of a barbarous people who had few thoughts to express.

  "Ayrshire plowboys want only a wife to cook and clean the mud from their boots,” she complained often enough in her Scots Braid, akin to Old English.

  Enya nodded her permission. "Elspeth, accompany Mary Laurie, will you?” A posting inn’s common room was not always the safest place to pass through.

  Rather than seek out the inn’s private parlor, Enya elected to remain in the coach. As she understood, a pause of only a quarter of an hour was allotted before the bridal journey would be resumed.

  What she didn’t understand was the dark silhouette that swung suddenly inside the coach and clapped a callused hand over her mouth to stifle her startled "What—?”

  Chapter 2

  “Duncan!” Enya jerked away the hand covering her mouth. “I might have known it was you. What do you think you are doing?”

  His grin momentarily broadened his narrow face. One of his front teeth slightly overlapped the other. "Servin’ as yer escort for yer bridal journey, m’lady.” He plopped down in the seat opposite her. “Tis verra dangerous roads yell be a’takin’. And without that Wakefield to—”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Sir Oliver Wakefield? You put something in the proxy’s dr
ink, didn’t you?”

  His expression was one of affronted innocence. “The old goat would have bored ye to tears.”

  She reached across and clasped his roughened hand. In the confines of the coach, the smell of the sea and salt spray emanated from him. ‘"Tis no good, Duncan. What we have belongs to our childhood.”

  In the gathering darkness, the shrug of his thin shoulders was almost imperceptible. *'l dunna ken if I can let ye go 'til I see for meself that ye are in good hands, Enya.”

  The ache in his voice was an echo of her own at leaving all that was familiar and dear to her. From Duncan she had received her first and only kiss. His father had been the castle blacksmith, but the hammer and forge and fire were not for Duncan. No, the open sea and freedom were his desire. And, of course, her.

  He propped his booted feet on the seat next to her. The heels were run down and the leather cracked and reeking of a briny smell. "So, me darlin', if ye canna stomach yer husband, will ye summon me to your bed?”

  She thumped his boot with her fan. “I have no taste for the English gallows, Duncan, and that’s where ye’ll be keeping company if ye continue to ply your smuggling trade.” Too often, she found herself lapsing into the Scottish brogue when talking with Duncan, whose accent was as broad as the River Clyde. He pronounced his r’s with a trill of the tongue that Scottish bards had practiced for centuries from medieval minstrel galleries.

  “Ye've insulted me, Enya. I am but a simple fisherman, and—”

  "And you smell like one in the bargain. Herring and mackerel, I’d swear. Dead herring and mackerel. Long dead.”

  “I hadna time to change. Me cockle put in too late to do more than unload—’’

  “A shipment of French muskets, no less?”

  “Nae. Ye do me verra wrong, Enya. I had only time to unload yer wedding gift.”

  The coach door swung open on creaking hinges, and Elspeth toted her bony body up the folding coach steps. Mary Laurie followed behind, and neither woman, their vision accustomed to light, noticed Duncan until Mary Laurie almost sat on him.

  At the feel of his hands clasping her ample hips, she yelped, jumped aside, and plopped down opposite him. “May God take—”

  “You remember Duncan," Enya said, smiling. Duncan’s easy, hedonistic approach to life might be just what the hard-working, priggish maid needed.

  "Hhmmp!" Elspeth snorted. Beneath her brown serge traveling cloak, her arms folded, a clear gesture of her disapproval of the new guest.

  "Unfortunately," Mary Laurie replied, “I remember him.” In the dim coach, her cheeks burned a beet red.

  Only then did Enya recall that Duncan had once tweaked Mary Laurie’s bottom by mistake. It had happened nearly two years before just after she had come to Afton House to apply for the position as Enya’s personal maid. Elspeth had taken a respite one evening on the terrace.

  Duncan, thinking the girl bending over the terrace fountain was Enya, had committed that unpardonable act and sent Mary Laurie fleeing into the house, howling all the way. Like most Scots, she was superstitious, and she had been convinced she had been accosted by an evil agent of a clan of Druid witches.

  Enya shifted her attention back to Duncan. Her eyes narrowed. "My wedding gift, you say?" What was the smuggler up to now?

  "Aye. But ye willna see it 'til ye give me a kiss. For auld lang syne."

  "She’ll na be doin’ that, ye weasel!” Elspeth said. "Not as long as I draw breath.”

  A wheel hit a hole, and Enya swayed to the side and caught the coach strap for support. "I am no simpleton, Duncan Fraser. Let me see the gift first.”

  “Ye dinna trust me? Ach, Enya. The wedding gift be too heavy to bring with me."

  "Then how can I see it?”

  “Well, now, m'lady, I dinna tell ye when ye would be a’seein’ it, did I? But 'tis grand, to be sure. Ye ha’ me word on it.”

  She chuckled. Duncan’s company had always proved diverting. "As grand as the tadpole ye put in my bowl of leek soup?"

  “That was but a wee thing, a tadpole. A grand thing, now, would be the leech you secreted in me underdrawers. Me bum will ne’er be forgettin’ that one."

  Mary Laurie gasped and put her plump hand over her o-shaped mouth. Elspeth sniffed with indignation.

  Enya began to laugh. "It could have been much worse for you, Duncan Fraser. Your poke could have been shriveled to a—"

  "Enya!" Elspeth reproved.

  “And at a grand loss for all the Afton lassies, I tell ye now," Duncan said.

  Talk of memories continued to flow between them. It had always been like that. The unabashed bluntness, the unhindered sharing, the unstoppable caring. Time and miles sped by quickly.

  A little after midnight, Enya looked out the coach window as it rattled through Glasgow’s streets. Glasgow was one of the world’s greatest shipbuilding centers, and she admired the town residences of country noblemen that lined the Clyde.

  Down at the quay, she noted activity was still afoot. By the light of oil lanterns, men unloaded sugar and tobacco off a large vessel, from one of the American colonies, most likely.

  The Lord Lieutenant’s sloop, the HMS Pelican, was not difficult to spot. For one thing, additional redcoats stood sentry before the boarding plank. From the Pelican’s mast the British Union flag stirred desultorily in the dark stillness.

  Below the British flag drooped a standard, exhibiting a red sword on a black ground and the words "Only War Brings Lasting Peace” emblazoned in gold. The personal standard of the Lord Lieutenant, so the story went at one of her mother’s salons. Both Lowlanders and Highlanders were all too familiar with the English chevauchee—those vicious tactics of laying waste the Scottish countryside, so that crop, animal, and peasant alike were destroyed

  After the frantic day and the long hours of traveling, Enya was weary. At that moment, a cabin berth was more welcome than any bed she had ever slept in. The armed sentries did not challenge her or question Duncan’s presence.

  But Elspeth did. She fixed him with her evil eye. "Are ye daft, lad? The Lord Lieutenant will have yer head for compromising his bride!”

  "My Lord Lieutenant will shortly ken that his bride is untried." Enya laughed and picked up her voluminous skirts to board the sloop.

  Behind her, Mary Laurie let out an audible gasp of shock, though by now she should have been accustomed to Enya’s frankness. To Elspeth’s chagrin, her charge would never be a coy maiden of mystery.

  The mounted escort trotted off with the empty coach. A third of Enya’s journey was over. At the end of the last third waited her intended and her new life. At the thought, she felt for the first time pleasant anticipation.

  Both maidservants hurried to catch up with her, as did the footmen toting her trunks. Half a dozen sailors in red stocking caps, smocked shirts, and trews readied the ship for sailing on the tide, scarce three hours hence. They scrubbed the planks with vinegar and holystone and hosed down the decks.

  A man’s booming voice challenged, “Halt there. Who goes?”

  She and Duncan stopped, glancing off to their left, where a uniformed man approached them. Short and bewigged, he wore the insignia of a naval officer. In the faint light of a lantern, the stocky man looked as uncertain as she. His thick white brows lowered. "Ye, I trust, are the bride of the Lord Lieutenant of the Western Highlands?”

  "That I am.”

  He bowed low over buckled shoes. However, his sharp blue-eyed gaze was cautious as he viewed the shabbily attired Duncan. "Yer escort, m’lady? Sir Oliver Wakefield?”

  “Detained. Duncan is my personal escort. My quarters, sir? I am weary.”

  “My apologies." He clicked his heels and bowed once more. "This way, madam.”

  They followed him down the companionway stairwell. Her maids’ cabin adjoined her own. She ducked her head. Ship-cabin lintels were notoriously low, and many a good bump on her noggin had taught her to remember her height.

  Her own cabin was masculinely appointed, whi
ch startled her. She had foolishly expected quarters furnished for a woman with a canopied bed, maybe a tapestried settle or stools and cushions to make more restful the middle portion of her journey.

  Across a small desk were strewn papers and maps. Nautical instruments—a polished brass telescope, a glass barometer, a brass-bound sextant, an hourglass—graced a sideboard. Alongside them were a decanter filled with a dark amber liquid, two quaiches, and a wicker basket of fresh fruit.

  "The captain sends his regrets at being unable to greet ye himself," the officer said, indicating the fruit and spirits.

  She nodded and began to untie her bonnet strings. There was still Duncan to deal with. "Now that I am safely aboard my husband’s ship, Duncan, I—”

  "But not safely at yer destination, me darlin’.’’ He faced her in a stubborn stance, his arms folded, his legs spread.

  She could order him thrown off the ship, but, alas, her affection for the grinning jackanapes stopped her just short of the command. Her shoulder blades felt the officer’s suspicious stare.

  “Quite right, Duncan. I charge you to guard my doorway.” But once at Fort William, she thought with impatience, I will send your smuggler’s hide packing.

  With a curt "G’night,” she dismissed him. After the door was closed she sighed and turned to the younger maidservant. "Unlace me, will ye, Mary Laurie?"

  A grumbling Elspeth was already prying open the portmanteau carrying her nightclothes. "A ship is no place for a bride.”

  Privately, Enya agreed as she let Mary Laurie take down her hair and braid it for the night. The resinous scent of cedar filled the hot, stuffy cabin. Four days confined aboard ship. Could she endure the monotony? No books to read, no horses to ride, no thought-provoking conversations with savants down from Edinburgh.

  At least, her husband would have provided some stimulation. Because of his military genius, Simon Murdock had been selected for the task of subduing the rebellious Clan Cameron and its brutish warlord.

  "G’night, me darlin’,” Duncan called from the other side of the door.