by Fiona Monroe
It truly was a castle, despite the modern well-kept grounds surrounding it. Catriona had grown up in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, had seen its many towers and battlements against the sky every day of her life, but Lochlannan looked much more like a story-book idea of a real stronghold. Though there was a modern wing, its main central keep rose many storeys high, uncompromising and impregnable, with narrow barred windows and castellations far, far above. The building had a sinister, oppressive aspect, and when Mr. Craig curtly handed her down from the carriage, she stood still for several moments, contemplating it.
So this was where her mother had been made so very unhappy. This was where she herself would seek to avenge the wrongs that had been done to her. And this was where the man who was now her legal guardian waited to meet her for the first time.
"Miss Dunbar?" Mr. Craig was standing, impatiently. "If you would come this way."
Catriona held her head high. She had made the right decision. She was not afraid of Sir Duncan Buccleuch; but, she resolved, he may soon have occasion to be afraid of her.
* * * * *
Three weeks earlier
"Twenty thousand pounds?"
Catriona stared at the solicitor, Mr. MacIntyre, in astonishment.
"It was the sum your aunt brought to her marriage to Sir Wallace Buccleuch in the year 1781." Mr. MacIntyre spoke in a high, wavering voice, which sounded as if he were always on the verge of tears. In fact, the elderly lawyer was as dry and unemotional as the piles of dusty books that surrounded him in the dark and dingy office in Lawmaker's Close. "Although of course upon that occasion the money became the property of your late uncle by marriage, he appears to have been... most generous... yes, most generous indeed."
Catriona bit back her words hard as Mr. MacIntyre sifted through the drift of papers over his desk, muttering little half syllables under his breath. Generous! That was the last word that could have been used to describe the late Sir Wallace Buccleuch of Lochlannan Castle, Inverness-shire.
"Here we are. Here we are." The old lawyer bent his head over another parchment and peered through half-moon spectacles at the fading copperplate script. "A letter from Sir Wallace's steward at the time, a Mr. E. Proudie. He states the case quite plainly. I will read an extract from his account to you." He held the paper up. "'Sir Wallace, in his final hours, expressed great remorse over his treatment of Miss Catherine Macleod, now Mrs. Ezekiel Dunbar, the younger sister of his first wife. Upon the death of the first Lady Buccleuch's father, her ladyship's sister came to live with them at Lochlannan Castle. When Miss Catherine Macleod was seventeen years old, she expressed a wish to marry a Mr. Ezekiel Dunbar, who was residing at the Castle as tutor to Sir Wallace's son Roderick. Sir Wallace absolutely forbid the marriage, considering Mr. Dunbar to be an unsuitable match for his ward on account of his lack of fortune and inferior social position. Miss Macleod defied Sir Wallace and eloped with Mr. Dunbar against his wishes, whereupon Sir Wallace decreed that her name should never again be mentioned in the family. Lady Buccleuch died two years later, without seeing or hearing from her sister again. On his deathbed, Sir Wallace expressed regret for what he described as his harsh treatment of Miss Macleod while attempting to prevent her marrying Mr. Dunbar, and his subsequent treatment of Lady Buccleuch, whom he believed to have assisted the elopement. He wished to make amends before meeting his Maker, and so proposes to restore to Mrs. Dunbar the sum of twenty thousand pounds which the first Lady Buccleuch brought to her marriage'. Yes. Yes. So you see, Miss Dunbar, Sir Wallace was most generous. He had no need to do that, no need at all. A deathbed fancy... yes."
Catriona could retrain her tongue no longer. "Mr. MacIntyre! Sir Wallace Buccleuch, by my mother's account, treated both her and my poor aunt abominably. If he repented on his deathbed, then I am glad, but I cannot forgive him, or describe him as generous. He was an evil, cruel man. My mother always said he killed my poor aunt."
The elderly lawyer peered at her in surprise. "Great heavens. Strong words from such a young lady! Great heavens."
"Aye, and I could make them stronger, sir. At any rate, Sir Wallace died some years ago. My mother did not receive twenty thousand pounds, or anything at all."
If she had, they would not have spent the last few years living from hand to mouth in two wretched third floor rooms at the wrong end of Souter's Close, scraping by on what her mother could earn from teaching music.
"No indeed, because she refused the bequest."
"Refused it?" Catriona sat stunned. Even as she prepared to deny this as absurd, she knew it was entirely the sort of thing her mother might have done. Her mother had been impassioned, and bitter, and stubborn, and she had also lived in the past. Life around her, the two bare gloomy rooms and the little girl from the farm who slept on the hearth and the pupils she trekked across the bridge to visit in their spacious New Town drawing rooms, had been of little interest to her. She had talked only about the luxuries of her early home and the still greater grandeur of Lochlannan Castle, of the cruelties of her brother-in-law, of the saintly forbearance of her poor dead sister, of her dead husband and even of the dead babies who had come before her only surviving child. Catriona had grown up being told that the only people who mattered were already dead, and that the life she and her mother lived in Souter's Close was a dreadful, shameful disgrace.
She herself had never felt any such thing, but then she supposed she had never known what it was to live as a gentlewoman. Nor had she lost anyone close, since her father had died when she had been too young to remember much about him, until her mother died a week ago. As to that, at the moment she felt numbed, and just a little relieved. Her mother's illness had weakened her over many months and her death had come as a blessing.
"Indeed... most unexpected and irregular. I have the correspondence here. Mr. Proudie was most thorough in preserving all the documents in the case." He held up another letter, and Catriona saw with a stab of emotion that it was in her mother's handwriting. "'I refuse absolutely to accept Sir Wallace's bequest, offered as it is as a gesture of reconciliation towards myself and my late sister. Sir Wallace's cruelty towards us both was quite beyond the possibility of forgiveness, and I will never touch a penny of his as long as I live'. Strong words again, Miss Dunbar. Good heavens. I have been a lawyer in this city fifty years and more, and I have never known anyone turn down so substantial a sum as twenty thousand pounds. Especially, if I may say, a person in your mother's— ahm—straightened circumstances."
"My mother was proud, sir."
"Hmm! Well, well. Your mother's attitude does not seem to have deterred Sir Wallace's benevolent intentions. It appears her letter of refusal reached him before his end. His final will bequeathed the twenty thousand pounds to her eldest surviving child, instead, on his or her majority—on condition that, if they had not yet attained that majority, they should become a ward of the Buccleuch family until coming of age. And you, Miss Dunbar, are your mother's only surviving child." He smiled, thinly. "You are, I understand, nineteen years of age?"
And only just nineteen, at that. Her birthday had been the month before. Catriona gazed in horror at the lawyer, as the full implication of everything he had said finally sunk in. "So... in order to claim this legacy, I would have to become a ward of the Buccleuchs?"
"Of the present laird, Sir Duncan Buccleuch, yes. Until your twenty-first birthday, that is correct."
"And can you doubt why my mother never told me of this?"
"Well... my dear Miss Dunbar... it was most remiss of her, in my opinion. Sir Wallace died five years ago. Your mother was informed of the terms of his will then. You might have been living in comfort and elegance at Lochlannan Castle all this time."
"My mother was quite right to ignore the bequest!" said Catriona hotly. "What, was she to give up her only living child to the clutches of the family that disowned her and drove my poor aunt to her death?"
"My dear Miss Dunbar, none of the Buccleuch family now living had anything to do with y
our mother's grievances, or even so much as met her. Sir Wallace's widow, the dowager Lady Buccleuch, married him two years after your aunt's death, and the present laird is her son. Your aunt's son Roderick, your cousin I should say, is long missing at sea and has been declared dead—and besides, he was only a young lad when your mother lived at Lochlannan."
"You are not actually suggesting I should go and live with these people?"
"Indeed, I am suggesting precisely that. If you do not, you will lose your claim to the twenty thousand pounds."
"I would glad pay twice as much never to go near them!" said Catriona. She pushed back her chair and stood up. "Good day to you, Mr. MacIntyre. I thank you for your time, but you may write to Sir Duncan Buccleuch and tell him that I have no intention of complying."
She left the offices of MacIntyre and MacIntyre with the high-pitched protests of the old lawyer warbling ineffectually behind her, and stormed out with her head high.
But as she pushed through the afternoon throng on the Royal Mile, on her way back up the hill towards Souter's Close, Catriona began to wonder if she had done the right thing. Her head cleared as rapidly as her feet moved.
She was attired as a gentlewoman, just about. Her pelisse was very old, but neatly repaired. Her hat was new and rather fine, and gave her appearance an immediate and deceptive opulence that just distinguished her from what she was in fact: a young woman with probably less money in her purse than the frowsy-looking girls in rags who sat in doorways at night. The very leather of her walking-boots was worn through in places, so that she could feel the hard wet cobblestones on her stocking feet.
Her home was at the bottom end of Souter's Close, near where noxious fumes from the Nor Loch often rose in a miasma that became trapped between the towering tenement buildings. She stepped over the rubbish and nameless muck in the way of the stone stairway that led to her third-floor rooms, a little above the utter squalor of the lower three storeys but not in any way aspiring to the light and luxury of the upper levels. Although it was true that the once-prestigious top-floor apartments had become considerably less desirable, now that so many of the city's wealthier inhabitants had fled Auld Reekie for the space and elegance of the vast New Town that had been under continuous construction on the fields over the Nor Loch for as long as Catriona could remember.
She knew something was wrong as soon as she made to put her key in the lock, and saw that the door to her rooms was already unfastened and slightly ajar. She pushed it cautiously, immediately fearful. She was certain that she had locked it before going out. In Edinburgh, at the wrong end of the wrong close, it was unwise to be careless.
There were voices within, and a strong smell of tobacco. As she peered round the edge of the door she saw a disorderly-looking man near the window, chewing on a cigar, talking to a young man and woman. The couple were respectably but somewhat shabbily dressed, and the woman was carrying a baby wrapped in a shawl.
"You can see how very large and commodious this room is," the man was saying. "And there is an entirely separate bedchamber through here—" He turned, and he caught sight of Catriona.
She remembered him now. He was one of the agents for the owner of the building. His expression when he saw her was cold.
"What are you doing in my home, sir?" said Catriona, equally coldly. She avoided looking at the couple with the baby.
The man made a short, stiff bow and touched his hat briefly. "Excuse me, madam. Miss... Dunbar? These apartments are to let."
"They are not! I live here. I think you will find the rent is paid!" She was sure of that, until the end of the month at least.
The agent gave an uneasy glance at the couple with the baby, then came over to her and spoke in a low voice. "Miss Dunbar, I'm sorry for your recent loss, but you must understand that Mr. Guthrie would be quite unable to rent these rooms to a young lady quite on her own."
"But sir—I am quite on my own. What am I to do, sleep in the gutter?"
"My dear madam, you must have relatives— friends—a protector somewhere?"
"No!" To her horror, she began to feel long-unshed tears prickling in her throat. If the agent had been harsh and indifferent, she would have been able to respond with defiance. But his manner was sympathetic if anything, and she could not cope with that. "There is no-one. My father is long dead and had no family, and my mother's family—my mother has no family, either. Oh please, sir, do not evict me. I will pay, I promise." Although she had no idea how she would find the rent, for she had no income of her own.
The agent shook his head sadly. "Mr. Guthrie would not consider it proper, I'm afraid. The rent on these apartments is paid until the end of this month, but after that you must find somewhere else to live."
Rather than risk a humiliating breakdown, she turned on her heel and fled.
CHAPTER THREE
Just as it had not been entirely true that her mother had no family, even if it was only a distant family acquired by her sister's marriage, nor was it quite true that Catriona had no protector. She marched back down the Royal Mile towards the smaller thoroughfare of Blackfriars Street, and banged on the door of one of the houses there until the Gorgon who guarded its inner depths appeared.
Catriona had hated this woman, whose name was Mrs. Reid, long before she had ever met her. The witch glared at her with beady dark eyes. She was considerably shorter than Catriona, but radiated menace. "Yes?" she hissed. She betrayed no signs of having met Catriona before.
Catriona maintained her facade of superiority. "Good afternoon, Mrs. Reid. Is Mr. Carmichael at home?"
"No he is no, he'll be at the infirmary, and I've telt you afore that unchaperoned callers on my young gentlemen are no welcome. Guid day to you, madam." And she closed the door with a definitive bang.
Catriona took a step backwards, her face blazing with mortification. Her relations with the Gorgon had never been cordial, but she had never until now had a door slammed in her face. She was angry with herself for having failed to consider the time of day, too; it was not long past noon, and of course Mr. Carmichael would be at lectures, or slicing up dead bodies, or whatever it was he did at the Medical School. He would not be sitting around in what she assumed was his poky room in the lodging house—she had never actually been permitted inside the house in Blackfriars—waiting for her to call.
Well, she would just have to go and find him there. She had never been admitted to the hallowed interior of the Medical School, either, but she could enquire of the porter and have him summoned. She knew he would not much like it, and she herself did not relish the prospect of facing another contemptuous doorkeeper, but the alternative was to wait for him to come calling on her, and she could not afford to wait for that uncertain eventuality. It seemed likely that within days, she would have nowhere to be called on.
She was carrying on down Blackfriars Street, when to her surprise and joy she saw the long, loose-limbed figure of Alistair Carmichael himself lolloping up from the direction of Cowgate. She watched him for a moment before he caught sight of her, enjoying seeing how he appeared when he was not aware of her presence. He was scowling to himself, his hands defiantly in his pockets like an over-large schoolboy, and for some reason he was wearing no hat.
Then he saw her, and stopped, and the frown seemed to deepen. "Miss Dunbar. What are you doing here?"
"I came to call on you. I must speak with you."
"Well, I wasn't in. Why would I be at home, at this hour of day. I was in a lecture, and now I'm supposed to be at an anatomy class, but I left my blasted book in my digs."
"And your hat, it would appear."
He brushed his hand over his head. "No, I left the damned hat at the school."
She smiled, despite everything. If anyone needed a woman to take care of him, it was Alistair Carmichael. "Do you have another at your lodging-house?"
"Only one that is not fit to be worn."
"You must wear it nonetheless, and walk with me a while."
"I have a class,
" he said, then threw up his hands. "Oh, what the hell, I've missed half of it now anyway. Wait a moment, and I'll get my hat, and we can go to the King's Park if you like."
They walked almost in silence until they reached the gates of the King's Park. It was only the second time they had met since her mother's death, of which Catriona had informed Mr. Carmichael in a short note and he had responded to with an even shorter visit. It was, however, the first time they had ever walked together alone. Mrs. Dunbar had not permitted it, and because she had been too ill to accompany them in recent weeks they had seen very little of each other for some time.
It was a pleasant spring afternoon, and the open green sweetness of the park was very welcome after the confines of the city. Catriona lifted her face to the sun and gazed up at Arthur's Seat, the curious small hill that formed the centre of the parkland.
She had one pound, four shillings and sevenpence between herself and starvation, and seventeen days before she would have nowhere in the world to lie down at night.
"I wish," she said suddenly, "that men could live as free as—those birds up there. Look at them, wheeling and crying with not a care in the world."
"Did you haul me out of class and halfway up a hill to talk nonsense?" he said. "I could have heard enough of that from old Dr. Sinclair."
It was only his usual half-gruff, half-teasing manner, but Catriona was in no mood for it. She drew further apart from him and said, "Mr. Carmichael, we must marry straight away—as soon as possible."