The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3)

by Julia Brannan

  Her involuntary sigh of relief as the formal silence and non-committal faces were transformed into smiles and expressions of welcome told him and the others, how uncertain she was. She was led away by her husband to view her house, and much as they wanted to regale their chieftain with all that had happened in his absence, his people left him and his wife alone for a time, so that she could form her first impressions of her new home. Then they would join the rest of the clan for a meal. A cow had been killed in honour of the occasion, for which Angus was truly grateful, his stomach having rumbled loudly at intervals for the last hour. He went off with Duncan to Iain and Maggie’s house, to wash and change.

  The clan’s first impression of her was, on the whole, favourable. She was feisty enough. See how she’d stood up to Kenneth Mòr, the mere sight of whom could strike the fear of God into the bravest man? There were plenty of reservations about her physique, though. Aye, she was bonny, right enough, and no doubt well suited to an English drawing-room. But awfu’ frail looking. A general doubt was expressed as to whether she’d be capable of performing the hard manual tasks generally expected of Highland women, of giving birth to the next chieftain, or even of surviving a Scottish winter, for that matter. Only time would tell. In the meantime there was a feast of sorts to be had. There would be a greater one when the men returned safely, and time enough to worry whether Alex had made the right choice or not later.

  Unaware of this speculation, Beth was examining her new home with interest. Inside it consisted of three rooms; kitchen, pantry and living room downstairs, and upstairs a loft, accessed by a ladder, where the chief, his wife and his two brothers would sleep on heather-filled mattresses. Someone had tactfully erected a partition of wattle across the middle of the loft, to afford Alex and Beth a little privacy.

  The kitchen fire was in the centre of the floor and there was a hole in the roof to allow the smoke to escape. There was also a table which doubled as a surface for preparing food, several wooden stools, and a cupboard to store the wooden plates, pots, pans and other utensils. After examining the room, Beth moved into the sitting room, which boasted the chimney, and the peat fire. The walls were painted white, which enhanced the waning light coming through the small window. By the fire were two chairs, with another two and a bench by the far wall. The only other furniture was a cupboard, a chest for blankets which could double as a table and a few shelves, stacked with books. On one of the fireside chairs a large ginger cat had taken up residence, and eyed his new mistress doubtfully through his one remaining eye.

  “MacGregor,” said Alex suddenly. It was the first sound he had made since they’d entered the house. He had watched intently from the door as she investigated the rooms, trying to assess her reaction. Her mother had told her how Highlanders lived, and he had told a few tales of his own in the year they’d been married, but nothing could prepare you for the reality.

  Beth, in the act of moving to examine an object hanging on the wall, stopped and turned back with a puzzled expression.

  “The cat,” he elaborated. “MacGregor’s his name. He’s getting a wee bit old now, but he’s still a good mouser.”

  “Isn’t that a bit confusing, with everyone else being named MacGregor as well?” she said.

  “Aye, well, everyone else is addressed by their first name or a nickname, generally. And like all cats, he doesna answer to his appellation anyway, unless he’s a mind to.” MacGregor, presumably satisfied that the intruder wasn’t going to eject him from his cosy spot, closed his eye.

  “Is that yours?” she asked, pointing to the circular studded leather and wood shield she’d been heading for before Alex spoke.

  “The targe? Aye, now. It was my father’s. I dinna use it any more.”

  “It looks a bit bashed about.” There was a chunk missing from one edge, the leather was badly scraped in places, and there was a neat hole punched through the middle of it.

  “It’s been well used. It stopped its owner being bashed about, which is the point of it.”

  She reached up and ran her hand lightly across the worn leather.

  “Is that how he died?” she asked, her fingers halting at the hole. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”

  “Why not? No, it’s no’ how he died. The musket ball went between his arm and his body and killed the poor soul behind him. Da died in his bed, wi’ no warning. Just said he wasna feeling so well, went to sleep and didna wake up. It’s no’ how he’d have wanted it, but we canna choose the way of our passing.”

  She turned away from the targe to look at him. He didn’t seem sad, but then his father had been dead for eight years. He did seem uneasy though, hovering by the door as though seeking an opportunity to leave. She thought this strange. After all, this was his house; she was the one who should feel awkward. And then she realised.

  “Do you have another pressing appointment then, or are you thinking of staying a while?” she asked.

  The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, and he took two steps into the room.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t like it?” she asked softly, taking his hand.

  “Well, it’s no’ quite what ye’re used to,” he said.

  “Nothing about my life since I’ve been married to you is what I was used to,” she pointed out. “That’s why I love it so much. It’s a fine house, Alex. It’s well built, warm, dry and comfortable. It’s better than I expected it would be, to be honest, after all your stories about sleeping in the bracken and suchlike. I was expecting a couple of poles tied together with a blanket thrown over them at best.”

  The upturned corners became a wide smile.

  “I wanted ye to be prepared, so ye wouldna be too disappointed,” he said.

  “It worked,” she affirmed. “I’m not. It’s lovely, Alex. But I still haven’t examined the most interesting piece of furniture in the place.”

  “What’s that?” he asked. He thought she’d seen everything there was to see.

  “This,” she murmured, moving closer.

  There was a brief pause in the conversation, during which MacGregor, disgusted at what his master and mistress were doing, uncurled himself and leapt down from the chair, stalking haughtily and unnoticed from the room.

  “Please tell me,” Beth said from the floor a few minutes later, her voice somewhat muffled by her skirts, which had just been tossed unceremoniously over her head, “that the whole clan are not about to descend on the house with the welcome feast.” She pushed at the material with her one unoccupied hand, freeing her face and looking into her husband’s eyes, which seemed almost black at the moment, the pupils wide with arousal.

  “No,” he mumbled, not really caring at the moment if a full regiment of redcoats was about to ride through the room. “They’re giving us some time alone together. And if they did come in, at least they’d know ye’re more than capable of fulfilling one of the duties of a wife, anyway.”

  She meant to ask him what he meant by that odd comment, but became somewhat distracted by subsequent events, and later forgot all about it.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The men returned home from driving the cattle to market two days later, but upon realising that the chieftain and his new wife were intending to stay for several weeks, it was decided to celebrate both his recent marriage and his return together, at a feast to be held in a couple of weeks.

  “That’ll give ye the time to settle in a wee bit, and get acquainted wi’ people,” Alex explained to Beth as they sat by the fire on the evening of the men’s return. There had been many ribcracking hugs and much good-humoured railing of the chieftain by his men, who they said they had feared was becoming seduced by the pampered English lifestyle, he’d been away for so long.

  The reception his wife had received was less familiar; that was to be expected, as she was an unknown quantity, and a Sasannach too. Alex had watched his clansmen carefully as they greeted her, and was, on the whole, satisfied. They had been welcoming, warm even, obviously appreciatin
g her beauty and open friendly greetings of them. Alex had known she would not hesitate to accept the embraces of travel-stained men who smelled somewhat less than pleasant to say the least, after several days of herding cattle across the hills. He also knew that she would have coped well with any good-humoured ribbing, although there was none.

  He could do nothing about the concerns he saw in their eyes regarding her size, slender build and apparent unsuitability to the rigours of the Highland life. He had not chosen her for her ability to perform heavy manual labour or give birth to twenty children with ease; he had chosen her for her independent free spirit, her intelligence and trustworthiness, because he could not bear to see that spirit stifled, and because he loved her. Most of all because he loved her.

  He was of course aware that she was small and slight; how could he not be, when he towered over her? In an English drawing room, however, her fragility was not incongruous with the surroundings, and her spirit detracted from her physique. But here, as he saw her in conversation with the other women of the clan whilst they prepared a communal meal for the homecoming men, he realised for the first time just how pale and delicate she appeared when compared to the robust tanned MacGregor clanswomen, and started to have misgivings of his own as to how well she would cope with the lifestyle.

  He looked at her now sitting opposite him, brow creased in concentration as she attempted to knit a pair of stockings.

  “Ye’re holding the wool wrong,” he said. “Here, gie it tae me.” He took the needles from her and demonstrated, looping the wool over his index finger and letting it trail across his palm. “You see, this way the tension stays even.” He knitted a row quickly, then showed her the stitches, loose and even on the bone needle, unlike hers, which had been so tight she had to stop at regular intervals to force them along the needle. He handed the work back to her, and she sighed. “Ye dinna have to learn everything at once,” he said. “The clan’ll no’ reject ye if ye canna knit a pair of stockings. I can knit my own, anyway. Most of the men can.”

  “I know that,” she replied. “But we’re only here for a few weeks and I want to learn as much as I can in that time. And anyway, I can knit. Or I could. My mother taught me when I was a child. I’m just out of practice. I didn’t like it much, because it involved sitting still and I wasn’t very good at that then.” She looked up in time to see him grinning, and smiled back. “Well, yes, I’m still not very good at it, but at least I’m trying.” She put the uneven piece of work to one side. “I’ll use that to practice on until I get it right.”

  Before she could lean back or find something else to do he grasped her wrist and hooked her deftly from her chair onto his knee. Angus and Duncan were out, and he was glad she’d stopped knitting. He knew what clan life was like; he would not have a lot of time alone with his wife, and when he did get her to himself he wanted all her attention. It was childish, but he didn’t care. She settled comfortably into him, her head resting against his shoulder.

  “I’m looking forward to the wedding feast,” she said. “Are the men annoyed that you got married away from the clan, without asking them?”

  “No,” Alex replied. He was their chieftain. They would not expect him to ask their permission to marry, as they would ask his. “They consider it an honour that the prince was a witness to our wedding. They’ll enjoy the celebration anyway. It isna necessary to have the ceremony first. And it saves the trouble of locating a priest to perform it. I was thinking,” he continued, tracing the line of her cheek with one long finger, “of sending to Glencoe, to see if any of the MacDonalds would care to come. Would ye like that?”

  She sat up.

  “Are you serious?” she said, her eyes alight.

  “Aye. I was going tae do it as a surprise, but wasna sure if ye’d welcome it, so I thought I’d ask ye first.”

  “I’d love it!” she said. “My grandmother had a couple of sisters and a brother who had children. They’d be my cousins, I suppose. I know my grandmother didn’t have any more. She didn’t remarry after my grandfather died in prison after the massacre, and my mother was her only surviving child. She had six others, but they all died young, one way or another. Of course,” she said, smiling up at Alex, “I suppose, technically speaking, the whole clan are my family.”

  More than technically speaking, thought Alex. Although they would consider the MacGregors to have first claim on her now that she was married, in the event of any problems she could turn to her MacDonald family for help. Not just technically, but in actuality. And Highland life was so precarious, particularly for the proscribed MacGregors…

  He wrapped his arm around her suddenly, protectively, and pulled her into him, inadvertently crushing her face against his body. She gave a small chirp of protest and pulled back a little, then kissed the hollow at the base of his neck, inhaling the unique warm masculine scent of him, smiling as he made a deep, inarticulate sound in his throat that she knew was the precursor to other things. She was very happy. The clan had not rejected her. He would not have to choose between them.

  She continued to be very happy for a couple of days. She thoroughly enjoyed being able to abandon hoops and elaborate hairstyles in favour of comfortable woollen and cotton dresses and simple braids. She was enjoying caring for three men too, much preferring the honest labour of housekeeping and the company of jovial, down-to-earth people to that of looking merely decorative and trying to appear interested in trivial chatter in the company of malicious gossips.

  Having rearranged the house to her liking, she decided to set about the weed-clogged piece of ground outside the back door, intending to turn it into a herb patch, with perhaps a few cabbages and suchlike. The fact that they would not be staying long enough for her to reap the fruits of her labours, as Duncan pointed out, was beside the point. She would at least have made a start. Perhaps someone else would tend the plot while she was absent, and when they returned permanently, as she hoped they would, and soon, they would be thankful for the extra food, which would provide some variety from the staple diet of oatmeal.

  She pulled up the lightly rooted weeds, scythed down the rest, and had just resigned herself to making a start on the heavy work of digging, when Rob MacGregor poked his nose round the side of the cottage.

  “Would ye be wanting some help with that?” he asked. “It’s awfu’ heavy work.”

  She planted the spade in the soil and smiled at him. Fourteen years old, and indolent, with the black hair and grey eyes of his three brothers and deceased sister Jean, he was not one to normally volunteer for anything, although Beth did not know that. She did know that fourteen-year-old males are usually permanently hungry.

  “I’ll do you a deal,” she said. “I’ve just made a batch of oatcakes. You turn this patch over, and you can eat as many as you want.”

  In the end the fourteen-year-old had proved himself so hungry that she had to make another batch of oatcakes for the three ravenous men who descended from the mountain that evening, having spent the whole day practising their sword skills. It looked to her as though they had spent the day rolling in the mud and getting as dirty and torn as they possibly could, so she shooed them out to wash in the loch while she tried to remember how Jane had gutted and prepared rabbits for the pot.

  She was still trying to remember when they returned, clean, their hair dripping, and while Duncan expertly turned the furry corpses into pot-sized chunks of meat, Beth, Alex and Angus went outside to survey the prospective herb plot.

  Angus whistled through his teeth.

  “You’ve done an amazing job,” he said, eyeing her with admiration. “I wouldna have expected ye to do half of that in one day.”

  “Yes, well, Rob helped me,” she admitted. “I cleared all the weeds, and moved most of the stones,” she pointed to a pile of rocks, “and he did the digging. And ate all the oatcakes I’d made for the four of us.”

  “Rob?” said Alex incredulously. “Ye dinna mean Robbie Og?”

  “Yes,” she said.
In a group where almost everyone had the same surname, and a great many owned a Christian name in common too, people were usually identified by an additional appropriate adjective. Hence Rob Og, or young, being the youngest of his family. Alex Mòr, or tall, for her husband, Angus Ban, or fair, for her brother-in-law. And so on. She was merely Ealasaid, which was Gaelic for Elizabeth, as there were no others of that name.

  “Now that I’d like to have seen,” Angus said. “Your oatcakes are good, I’ll give ye that, but I still wouldna have thought them good enough to get Robbie Og off his arse.”

  She thought nothing of it, then. Nor did she think anything amiss the following day when Simon offered to carry the buckets of water back from the river for her. Until later in the day when she noticed Simon’s pregnant wife Janet struggling back with two brimming pails while he sat chatting with a couple of other men.

  “They think you’re frail,” Angus said with tactless honesty when she asked him if it was normal for clansmen to treat the chief’s wife differently to the other women.

  “Frail?” she said. She hadn’t expected that.

  “Well, look at ye, compared to the other women. Ye are smaller than them.”

  “Janet’s the same size as me,” Beth pointed out indignantly. “Or nearly, anyway. And she’s pregnant!”

  “Aye, but she’s wider through the shoulders and hips than you. And she’s strong, and used to the life.”

  “I’m strong, too,” she protested. They were walking back from the river together. And he was carrying the water for the evening. He looked down at her and she saw the doubt in his eyes. She stopped walking, and when he would have carried on, she grabbed his arm, causing him to slop some of the water on the grass.

  “Does everyone think I’m frail?” she said. “Even you?”

  He put the buckets down, and looked uncomfortable.

  “Aye, well, I hadna thought much of it before,” he said. “But ye are delicate, are ye no’? I ken that ye’re a lot stronger than ye look,” he added hurriedly, seeing the look on her face that in her husband would presage a physical assault, and attempting, belatedly, to be tactful. “Ye just need to build yourself up, slowly, that’s all.” He bent down to pick up the buckets, and she slapped his hands away crossly, hoisting them up herself and striding off across the grass.