There were people clustered on the rooftops, hanging precariously out of windows, on makeshift platforms, clinging dangerously to the stone pier, all straining to be the first to catch sight of the royal barge. The air was filled with the discordant sound of several pipers playing different tunes, competing with the drums of the infantry regiments, and the trumpets of the cavalry. Dogs were barking. Bunting adorned the buildings and was strung across the streets. An armada of barges and pleasure craft crammed full of more spectators crowded the small crescent of the Shore where the drawbridge had been raised, and many more at anchor around the larger entrance to the harbour. Out on the Firth of Forth there were paddle steamers circling too. Was the Carrick Castle one of them? Welcome! In our hearts you reign Sovereign! proclaimed one garishly embroidered banner. Constance snorted in derision.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed the occupants of the main stand were having to shift to accommodate a party of new arrivals. A disgruntled trio were being ousted from their prime seats. A boy and a girl were being ushered along to take their place by a tall leanly built man with close-cropped black hair tinged with silver at the temples. He was wearing neither hat nor gloves nor tartan, but a plain, well-cut black coat and trousers. He had a strong-featured face, the skin tanned, the deep-set grey-blue eyes crinkled at the corners, framed by dark lashes. She knew exactly where the lines of his tan stopped. Her fingers knew every callus and scar on his hands. The first time she’d seen him, she’d been sure they must have met before. Their eyes had met and she’d felt it like a shock, the jolt of recognition. I know you.
Grayson took his place between his son and daughter, both of whom wore a sprig of heather. He leant over the better to hear something Shona was whispering, frowning slightly, casting his gaze around. He wasn’t looking for Constance, why should he be, but she sank into the shadows all the same. His daughter’s gown was the latest fashion, white muslin by the looks of it, with short, puffed sleeves and a deep ruffle at the hemline trimmed with pale blue ribbon. Her shawl was pale blue silk to match the lining of her bonnet. The whole had an elegant simplicity that was testament to good taste and the money to indulge it. Grayson’s daughter was not a beauty but she was striking, with glossy black hair and big, wide-spaced eyes under rather fierce brows and a generous mouth curved into a smile that was very like her father’s. The boy, Neil looked younger than his fourteen years. Aside from the same fierce eyebrows, he bore little resemblance to either his sister or his father, slenderly built and fey-looking with a mop of light brown hair flopping over a high brow, a face that was all pointed chin and cheekbones. He was tugging at his father’s coat, pointing out at the Firth, presumably at the King’s yacht. Grayson was nodding, listening intently to whatever the boy was saying when Shona said something that made them all laugh.
They were happy. Grayson had told her so numerous times, and here was the evidence. There was no need for Constance to feel excluded, because that would be to imply she had ever been included. There, seeing them had done the trick. She wouldn’t waste any more time pining after what she couldn’t have. Now she could concentrate on absorbing the spectacle unfolding in front of her. Flora’s heart-rending tales still needed some ballast, and heaven knows, there was plenty here.
She tore her eyes away from Grayson and his family The procession of dignitaries was unravelling as the clock ticked and the King still made no appearance. A number of the horsemen had dismounted. Did they realise they looked, in Grayson’s words, like a bunch of eejits, these men in their tasselled boots and their Spanish cloaks, surrounded as they were by the sea of faux Highland warriors in their plaids wielding their rusty claymores? What were they supposed to represent? Walter Scott’s notion of heraldry, doubtless, but they looked to Constance like a troop of minstrels in search of an audience, or the lost cast from one of Shakespeare’s more obscure plays. Their steeds were similarly, preposterously decked out with rosettes and braiding and tassels. On the other side of the Shore, archers and lancers and constables vied for space. The noise was enough to give anyone a megrim, with trumpets and cornets vying with bagpipes and drums, none of them in tune or even playing the same refrain. No wonder the King had decided not to come ashore. If she was George, she’d be contemplating turning tail and heading back to England.
She was considering turning tail herself, when a gun was fired from the Royal George, and all other noise ceased. The retort from cannon fired from strategic points across the city echoed out, and the cheering began. Excitement in Leith was at a visceral fever pitch when the King finally appeared on the deck of the yacht. He was not wearing a kilt, but a nautical uniform of some sort, presumably an admiral, since this was the highest rank in the navy, as far as Constance knew. The crowd surged around her, mercifully obscuring her view as he was lowered into the barge with its sixteen oarsmen, which then began to make its way to the harbour entrance, followed by a number of smaller official boats. Standards were raised as the royal barge passed each stage of the long procession to the jetty, and pipes wailed. It was almost half an hour before His Majesty was helped ashore, his crew standing with their oars upright, the King leaning heavily on one official, his feet barely making contact with the flower-strewn red carpet before another official flung himself on to his knees and kissed the plump royal hand. Though he was a great deal fatter than she’d imagined, the King had a certain statesmanlike dignity, Constance reluctantly conceded, and a surprisingly charming smile. She wondered what he was making of the spectacle put on for him.
Walter Scott had staged a pantomime of gigantic proportions, and she’d had her fill of it. In the midst of the thronging crowd, she had never felt so alone. Was she the only person in Leith not overcome with hysterical excitement and sheer joy to be in the royal presence? No, there was one other who she was certain would be feeling the same. One other who would appreciate the preposterousness of it all.
Grayson was staring straight at her. Their eyes met, and her heart leapt, and for a long, precious moment it was as it always was between them.
There you are.
Here I am.
Her hand was involuntarily reaching out towards him when she caught herself. She was a forty-year-old spinster without a home to call her own, whose only paid employment was coming to an end in a matter of weeks. And here she was staring longingly at a rich, successful, self-made man and his handsome, happy family, like some wee orphaned waif with her nose pressed against the window of a toy shop. Mortified, tears stinging her eyes, Constance turned away.
* * *
Shona and Neil were in their element, their eyes out on stalks as they gazed in awe at the spectacle of massed pipe bands and marching bands, and the officials in their finery prancing about like roosters, and the hawkers selling heather and flags and meat pies and wee drams, and tartan bloody everything. Grayson was bored and on edge.
It was daft of him to imagine that he might bump into Constance. Even if she was here, looking for fresh material for Flora MacDonald, he’d never pick her out in this crush. He shouldn’t even be looking for her, yet he couldn’t seem to help himself. Not a day had gone past since last he saw her, that he had not thought of her. The pain of missing her was almost physical. For days, when he first got back to Glasgow, he’d tried to persuade himself he was suffering from gut ache. Too much rich Edinburgh food, probably. Or maybe it was Constance who was too rich for his blood. Hurling himself into work hadn’t helped, and doing his best to enter into his children’s enthusiastic preparations for this visit had made it much worse, for then he had Flora’s sardonic commentary in his head, vying with Shona and Neil’s excited speculation.
He was being daft to think he’d see her, of course it was, even though the chances were she was here, watching the mayhem unfold, maybe looking for the Carrick Castle in the crush of boats out on the water. It was a waste of time, looking out for her, and what the devil good would it do anyway, if he did happen to see her? He should b
e enjoying himself, chuffed to bits to be sitting here with his offspring, for they had elected to be here with him and not with their grandparents who were up at Picardy Place waiting to witness the King being given the keys to the city.
‘Because I want to see the King actually set foot on Scottish soil,’ Neil had declared this morning.
‘And because I know the trouble you’ve gone to, to get us a good view,’ Shona had added.
He was pleased as punch to have satisfied his children, but he couldn’t care less that he’d got one over on the Murrays. In fact, he’d been hard put to not to feel guilty, seeing the disappointment writ large on Lady Glenbranter’s face this morning, when she’d called at the hotel only to be informed that the seats she had reserved for the children weren’t required. She’d come without her husband. That hadn’t surprised him.
A gun went off out on the Firth and was answered by a cacophony of cannon.
‘The King is coming,’ Shona said, clutching his hand. ‘Look, they’ve raised a flag.’
Neil, consulting a dog-eared booklet, began to read out the order of ceremony. Judging by the jostling for position, it was going to be more like disorder. Some of the officials, in their outlandish velvet and gold outfits were struggling to get back on their horses. One of the archers had fallen into the water, and was in danger of upsetting the dinghy he was clinging to. The cobblestones were still soaking from the rain which had fallen relentlessly since Grayson and his family had arrived in Edinburgh two nights ago. The appalling weather had forced the King to delay his landing, but the winds had died down today, thanks be, given the number of men there who were dressed in flimsy plaids.
Flora MacDonald would have a field day, parodying all this. Grayson had managed to lay his hands on a number of back issues of the New Jacobite Journal. Constance’s alter ego had a vicious pen and a knack of seeing past all the pomp and ceremony right to the hypocritical heart of this royal visit. Reading her work should have helped reconcile him to the necessity of their parting. If Lord Glenbranter, God forbid, ever got hold of the New Jacobite Journal, he’d have an apoplexy. If he discovered that his low-born son-in-law had been consorting with such a revolutionary, nothing would stop him in his efforts to prevent his grandchildren from being contaminated. But Flora’s writing simply evoked the author. Recognising his own words in the piece about Glengarry, Grayson had been forced to stop reading for a moment, missing her so much he felt physically sick. Her humour was so black that it was difficult to see sometimes, but what she’d been writing of late—now that was in a different league entirely. No one, reading those gut-wrenching stories of Highland dispossession could fail to be moved, surely. No wonder she found it impossible to keep quiet about what she’d seen. Had her evocative tales found a bigger audience? He couldn’t bring himself to believe it. It must be breaking her heart. It was breaking his, thinking of the waste of her talent and her time and her passion.
Was she here, wincing at the skirl of the bagpipes and wrinkling her nose at the smell of wet wool? He and she were probably the only pair of people in Leith not wearing tartan or heather. How long did it take, for the love of God, for one fat man to get off his yacht, into a barge and on to the shore? There would be all sorts of speeches to welcome the King, according to Neil’s programme of events, and then the parade would take itself off up Leith Walk. He could take a walk to Newhaven when it was over if he fancied torturing himself a bit more. Just as well really, that he had Neil and Shona with him, champing at the bit to follow the procession back to the city.
The King’s barge was finally being tied up, and someone was precariously balanced, one foot on the jetty the other on the edge of the barge, to help him out. His son informed him that the King was wearing an admiral’s uniform, and his daughter pointed out the diamond-encrusted brooch as the Order of the Thistle, but the hairs on the back of Grayson’s neck were standing on end. Looking across the sea of faces, he spotted her, and though she was a good twenty feet away, their gazes locked and his heart leapt. As she turned away, he was already on his feet. Belatedly remembering his children, he commanded them to stay strictly put before pushing his way to the end of the row, leaping down from the platform and giving chase.
‘Constance!’ He caught up with her at the front entrance of the Custom House on Commercial Street, where they had met the day they sailed to Inchcolm Island. ‘Constance!’
She turned. For a long moment they simply stared silently at each other. Then their hands found each other. They stood there together, ignored by the jostling hordes, utterly rapt in a world that was quite their own, and everything he’d been telling himself over the last month, about their parting being for the best, about how impossible it was even to think of seeing her again, of how he’d stop missing her in time, all of it, he knew with crystal-clear clarity in that moment, to be completely ridiculous. ‘Constance,’ he said softly.
She gave a start, tugging her hands free, breaking the spell. ‘You’ll be missing the speeches.’
‘Will I? Thank heaven for small mercies.’
‘You can’t leave your children on their own.’
‘They’ll be fine, for a few moments. I can’t believe you saw me in this vast crowd.’
‘I wasn’t spying on you, I—well the truth is, actually I was.’
‘I’m glad. I was looking out for you. I kept telling myself there was no chance, but I kept looking all the same.’
‘I knew where you’d be.’
‘I was where you told me to be.’
‘Because it was the best spot. I wasn’t planning on tracking you down.’
‘Constance, just shoosh. I’m glad you did.’
She nodded, her smile tremulous. ‘I know, but you should go. As soon as the speeches are over, it will be mayhem.’
‘I’ve been reading Flora’s work in that journal you write for. Some of your older writing and your most recent articles too.’
‘Paul said they’d bring a tear to a glass eye.’
‘I don’t know about that. They damn nearly brought tears to a rough shipbuilder’s eyes.’
‘“Stop trying to reason with them, tug on their heartstrings.” That was what you suggested, and that’s what I’ve done. Not that it’s making much difference. You’re probably our only new reader.’
‘You should write a book instead.’
‘Maybe I will, when this is over. You really should get back to your family.’
‘I’ve missed you, Constance. I save things up to tell you, and then you’re not there and there’s no one else to tell.’
‘Don’t. We agreed...’
‘Do you think I don’t remember every word of that last painful conversation? It doesn’t make any difference though. My head tells me we did the right thing, but I don’t want to listen to my head. If it’s different for you just tell me. I’d be glad to hear it, in fact. Eventually, I’ll be glad too.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t oblige. It’s not remotely different for me. I came here today thinking that if I could see you with your family—who you really, really should be getting back to—then it would cure me of missing you. I wanted to remind myself of how impossible it all still is, but when I saw you, I didn’t want to hear what I was telling myself.’
‘Would it be terribly wrong of me to ask to see you again, while I’m here?’
‘Yes, but if you don’t ask me I’ll be bitterly disappointed.’
‘Then you will? If you can find the time, that is, what with your writing and your duties to Mrs Winston, assuming she’s back?’
‘She is. Would you like to join Angus and I for our walk tomorrow morning?’
The relief he felt was frightening, so he decided not to think about it. ‘The usual time?’
‘Same time, same place. Now go, please.’
She gave him a shove. He threw her a smile over his shoulder then ran, pushin
g his way through the crowd, arriving back at the platform just in time to see the King’s carriage drive off. He waved at Shona, who was looking anxious.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked, when the pair of them joined him on the street.
‘I saw a friend and went to say hello. It would have been rude not to.’
‘What friend?’
‘Would you look at that, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many carriages in a procession like that. And what regiment is that following on behind, Neil?’
‘They’re dragoons.’
‘Shall we join everyone else and make our way back up to the city, or do you want to wait until the crowd goes down? Shona, what do you want to do?’
‘Neil wants to walk behind the procession.’ She took his arm, put her other through her brother’s. ‘I didn’t know you had any friends, Pa.’
Chapter Twelve
Friday, 16th August 1822
When Constance arrived at the park Grayson was already there, as he always used to be, stowing his notebook and pencil in his pocket, as he always did.
‘Still working every spare minute, I see,’ she said. She laughed as the terrier yapped frantically for Grayson’s attention. ‘Angus has missed you.’
‘Angus can wait.’
‘He can.’ She dropped the lead and stepped into his arms, burrowing her face into his chest. He held her tightly and she closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of his soap and his linen. It felt so right, but then it began to feel oddly awkward. ‘Angus’s turn now,’ Constance said, breaking free.
Grayson knelt to scratch the terrier’s head, then picked up the lead. ‘Will we walk?’
‘Did you follow the procession yesterday? I hear the King won the hearts of all by returning the keys to the city when he was handed them.’
‘I don’t give a damn about the King.’
A Forbidden Liaison with Miss Grant Page 15