The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3)

by Julia Brannan

  It was also the reason she had been compelled to lie to him last night. He would never intentionally hurt her; but what he would do to Richard if she told him the truth did not bear thinking about. She did not need Alex to fight this battle for her. She had fought Richard and got the better of him. They had made an agreement; she would marry the foppish Sir Anthony, and he would obtain his military commission and disappear from her life. They had both kept to the bargain, and as far as she was concerned she had got the better of that, too. Looking at her magnificent husband as he finished pulling up his hose and looked around for his shoes, she was sure of her victory. She put Richard and her deception firmly to the back of her mind. This was her wedding day, in a manner of speaking, for the third time. She intended to enjoy it.

  “They’re under the bed,” she said.

  He looked at her and smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and she lifted her arms to him. He came willingly, folding her to his chest, and she snuggled into him, inhaling the scents of linen, wool, and healthy young male. His brooch was cool against her cheek and she shifted her head slightly.

  “You’re not wearing that for the celebrations, are you?” she said, fingering the soft worn wool of his kilt.

  “God, no,” he replied. “The clan would disown me if I did. It’s the full garb of the chieftain for me tonight. I have the MacDonalds to impress, ye ken. No, I thought I’d away off for a wee walk, leave ye to talk to your kin in peace. They’re all downstairs, having breakfast.”

  Beth, intoxicated by the part of his scent that was young and male, had been about to suggest some dual activity rather more enjoyable than ‘a wee walk’, but now shot up in bed.

  “What?” she cried. “They’re all downstairs now? Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “Relax,” he said soothingly, maintaining his hold on her. “A few minutes more’ll make nae difference. Duncan is looking after them.”

  “But shouldn’t I be making breakfast for them?” she asked. “What sort of a chieftain’s wife will they think me if I leave my guests to fend for themselves?”

  “One that doesna burn the porridge, or make it too thin,” Alex said wryly. Beth’s repeated failure to successfully prepare a dish as simple as porridge was a cause for hilarity throughout the clan. It was ridiculous; she could make oatcakes and bannocks, could, now that Duncan had taught her, skin and prepare a rabbit and make various other dishes to perfection. But porridge, a simple dish of oatmeal and water, escaped her. It was either thin and runny, or cement. She had accepted the jokes about slices of porridge and filler for the gaps in walls with good humour, and given up. The three men she shared a house with were all excellent cooks anyway. Highlanders did not consider cooking women’s work, as the English did. And she could not be good at everything, as Alex had said. Even so…

  “At the very least I should be down there entertaining them instead of making love to you,” she said, breaking free of him and swinging her legs out of bed.

  “Who said anything about making love?” Alex asked, accepting his shoes as she bent down and pulled them out from where he’d kicked them the night before.

  “Ah, well…” she said, colouring prettily. “I had thought…but that was before I knew there were half a dozen MacDonalds sitting directly underneath the bedroom.” She dodged neatly out of his way as he made a grab for her.

  “You’re a hard woman, Beth,” he said mournfully, “raising a man’s hopes like that.”

  “Well, I’ve heard it called a lot of things, but never a ‘hope’. You’ll just have to lower it again until later. Have a cold swim in the loch. That should do the trick.”

  She emerged from donning her shift to find him a lot closer to her than she’d thought. Too close to dodge. He grabbed her, pinning her arms, and kissed her long and deep, smiling as he felt her body respond automatically to him. His hand slid smoothly up under her shift, caressing the inside of her thighs. She sighed, her legs turning to water, the MacDonalds forgotten.

  “Until later, then,” he said, releasing her suddenly with a mischievous grin. “I’ll no’ forget.”

  Neither would she. It took her five minutes after he’d gone to compose herself before she could go down to her family.

  Duncan had done them proud. The porridge had been cooked to perfection, the oatcakes were warm and dripping with butter and honey, and he had even brewed coffee for them, two of them never having tasted it before. Judging by the grimaces on their faces, they wouldn’t want to taste it again.

  “I tellt ye that ye wouldna like it,” Ealasaid said. “We drank it all the time in America. It’s an acquired taste.”

  “Euch,” said Meg. “I’ll leave it to the Americans and the Sasannachs tae acquire it, then.”

  They had repaired to the lounge once breakfast was over, and once Beth’s grandmother was comfortably settled in the chair by the fire, her young relatives scattered themselves casually around her.

  “The Sasannachs drink tea mainly, now,” Beth said. “At least the rich ones do. It’s very expensive, so you have to pretend to enjoy it even if you don’t, if you’re not to be thought of as ill-bred.”

  “D’ye miss it?” asked Joan. Meg and Joan were nineteen and twins. Allan, at twenty-one, was their eldest surviving brother, and Robert at sixteen, the youngest. They were Beth’s cousins, the grandchildren of Ealasaid’s older sister, long dead.

  “I’ve brought some with me. I quite like tea,” Beth said, misunderstanding.

  “I didna mean the tea, I meant the rich life, the fancy dresses and suchlike,” Joan clarified.

  Beth had to tread carefully. None of the MacDonalds knew about Sir Anthony. They only knew that Alex had met her in London, and that her English cousin was a lord.

  “No,” she said firmly. “I hate that life. The fancy dresses are itchy and uncomfortable, and all the people are horrible and false.”

  That was unfair.

  “Well, not all the people,” she amended. “I’ve got a few friends and they’re wonderful, but in general you have to watch everything you do or say, and even then rumours spread round London like wildfire. You can’t make a wrong move without everyone knowing about it within an hour.”

  “It’s no’ so different here,” said Robert, looking at his great-aunt sourly. “I hadna so much as exchanged two words wi’ Morag afore ye knew it and were thrashing me within an inch of my life.”

  “Ye’ll become accustomed to Robbie’s exaggerations soon enough, Beth,” Ealasaid said, unperturbed by the allegation of unwarranted brutality. “What he means is that he was caught halfway to imperilling his immortal soul wi’ the lassie, and I gave him a good thrashing wi’ my tongue. And if you do it again, laddie, ye’ll have cause to regret it. I’ll use more than words next time.”

  Robert’s blue eyes glittered with rebellion. Both the brothers, although of only average height and slender build, were wiry and powerful. And strikingly handsome. In spite of possessing Beth’s silver-blond hair and cornflower blue eyes, there was nothing feminine or fragile about the brothers. Their features were strong and masculine, and they could both clearly handle themselves, although Robert was not as self-possessed as his older brother. Ealasaid was clearly concerned that there would be trouble later, if Robert attempted another seduction. His expression made it clear he had every intention of doing so. Her expression made it clear that she considered him a troublemaker, was regretting having allowed him to come, and would not normally have done so, had she not wanted Beth to meet her family.

  “Have you met Angus yet?” Beth said casually. “You’d probably get on well with him. You seem to have a lot in common.”

  Robert’s face creased with concentration.

  “I’m no’ sure,” he said. “What does he look like?”

  “He looks like Alex,” she said. “They’re brothers. He’s got the height and build of Alex, but his hair is more the colour of Joan’s. I’ll introduce you later, if you like. He’s a vicious fighter,” she added, as thou
gh that was one of the things she thought they would have in common. “And he’s very fond of Morag, too.”

  It was clear from his sudden pallor that Robert now remembered who Angus was. He glanced hopefully at Allan, and was greeted with an implacable glare that told him he could expect no help from that quarter if he antagonised the MacGregor chieftain’s brother. Ealasaid hid her smile behind a handkerchief, and Beth continued talking as though she had not noticed the youth’s reaction.

  “What was life like in America, sheanmhair?” she asked.

  “Hard, at first,” her grandmother said. “But not as hard as the crossing. Nothing could be as bad as that. Nearly half of us died before we ever saw the land. And then your quality of life depended on who hired ye, ye ken. They tellt ye ye were sentenced to life as an indentured servant. But there isna any difference between that and being a slave. It’s just a fancy word tae make it sound better.”

  She settled back in her chair, and her family gathered eagerly round her. The others, Beth excepted, had heard the story before, but it lost nothing in the retelling.

  “When I was arrested, I thought they’d hang me. I wanted them to. I did shoot the Dragoon, after all, and I never tried to deny it. I was a wee bit crazy, I think. Once I knew that Ann would be well-cared for by my sister, I had nothing left to live for. I couldna believe it when they tellt me I was to be transported. Of course, there was such a fuss caused over the massacre, even in England, that they didna dare to hang a woman for revenging herself on the soldiers who’d murdered her kin. I was verra beautiful then, ye ken, like yourself,” she said, smiling at her granddaughter, “and I had my last speech all prepared. There’d hae been a riot, and the authorities knew it. So they shuffled me quietly off to America. Well, the crossing might have weakened my body, but it didna hurt my spirit, and I’d decided I’d be no man’s slave. I spent the first two years being beaten by my first master, before he gave up on me and put me up for hire again.”

  “Ye should see the scars, Beth,” said Joan, shuddering.

  “No, she shouldna,” replied the old lady before one of her great-nieces suggested she bare her back for her granddaughter. “I’m no’ proud of them. I was stupid. I couldna win, and I should have given up and accepted the life God had planned for me. He wasna such a bad man, that first one. Summerville, his name was. If I’d have accepted that I was to be a servant, I think I’d have had a far better life. He’d probably have released me, in time. But I was impossible. I tried to kill him three times before he gave me up for lost, and even then he didna give me up to the authorities as he should have done. It wasna his fault that the next man who bought me was an animal. Most of my scars are from him. He enjoyed wielding power, and the whip. He saw me as a challenge and he won, in time, in a way. He broke me, although I never let him see it.”

  She passed a hand over her face.

  “Aye, well, I dinna talk about it. After he died, I was put up for hire again, and a sorry sight I was, too, all skin and bones and crawling wi’ lice. It was a Campbell, of all things, who bought me after that.”

  “A Campbell?” said Beth. “God, that must have been terrible!”

  It was the Campbells who had massacred the MacDonalds at Glencoe.

  Ealasaid leaned forward in her seat.

  “I’ll tell ye something, lassie,” she said earnestly. “For ye’ve the same spirit as myself. I can see it in ye. You need to ken when you’re beaten, when the only person you’re hurting by resisting is yourself. I should have stayed at home, brought my daughter up myself. I’ll always regret no’ doing that. Ye need to learn when it’s wise to compromise. And ye need to learn that there’s good and bad in everyone. Including the Campbells. Ye must judge each man as ye find him, no’ by his name or his nationality. Archibald Campbell and his wife Annie were the best thing that ever happened to me. They were kind, they nursed me back to health, they put up with my insults, and then they gave me the offer of my freedom and a small farm on their land, at a very reasonable rent. I’ve never met such good people in my life. They shamed me into thinking about my behaviour. For the next thirty years or more I lived on the farm and was content, in my way. But I didna want to die in America. It wasna home. So when I thought my time was coming, I took my savings and booked my passage home. That was in ’38 and here I am still waiting to die.” She laughed. “I got that wrong, too. Ye never ken when your time’s coming, only the good Lord knows that. Ye see, I’m still arrogant, in spite of it all.”

  “I’m glad you got it wrong,” Beth said fervently. “At least I’ve had the chance to meet you. I wish my mother was still alive. She thought you were dead. We all did. Why didn’t you write to us, tell us you were alive?”

  “I was ashamed, for a long time. And by the time I wasna, there seemed no point, somehow. Most of those I’d loved were dead, killed in the massacre.” The old lady’s voice sunk to a whisper, and Beth, who was sitting at her feet, was the only one who heard the next sentence. “And I didna have the courage to face my daughter, knowing I’d abandoned her for a pointless revenge.”

  She reached down, stroked her granddaughter’s cheek.

  “It makes my heart proud to see what ye’ve come to. Married to a chieftain in front of the prince himself, and a fine man ye’ve got for yourself too, if my instincts are still true.”

  “They are,” said Beth firmly. “He’s wonderful, and I love him.”

  “He’s awfu’ handsome,” said Meg wistfully.

  “His brothers are awfu’ handsome too,” said Joan, “and they’re available,” she added practically. “Ye said Angus favours Morag, did ye?”

  “Aye, well, she canna favour him that much, if she’d let Robbie…” Meg cast a quick glance at her great-aunt’s face and subsided, blushing.

  But Duncan’s no’ courting, is he?” persisted Joan, starry-eyed.

  “No,” said Beth. “Duncan isn’t courting.” Duncan could look after himself, she knew that. He was a born diplomat.

  Angus was another matter altogether. In spite of his comments about not being ready to marry and seeing what the MacDonalds had to offer, he was sweet on Morag. That was obvious by the way his face lit up every time they met. The beautiful blonde blue-eyed MacDonald twins had been batting their eyelashes at him for two days and he’d done no more than give them an appreciative look and a few friendly words. She could only hope that Robert had taken her warning to heart, and would leave Morag alone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The wedding celebration got off to a good start, with everyone eating their fill and chatting merrily in small groups. The original intention to hold the feast outdoors had been defeated by the inclement weather, and the barn, which was large enough to comfortably accommodate the guests, had been appropriated instead. Benches, stools and tables had been brought from every house for those who needed to sit, and piles of hay had been left in the corners for those who wanted to sprawl; later they would make a bed for the children too young to stay awake, and possibly for some of the adults too.

  At the moment the children were almost sick with excitement and good food, and after having repeatedly got under the feet of every adult present, were taken outside by Iain and Angus in spite of the intermittent rain, to play a boisterous game which would no doubt result in several scraped knees and elbows and not a few tears, but which would at least deplete their energy a little.

  Alex, as he had promised, was clad in the full garb of the chieftain; tall, broad and magnificent in red and black feileadh mhor and hose, armed with basket-hilted broadsword, dirk and sgian dubh, which weaponry, tonight worn only for show, he would abandon later when the dancing started. His blue bonnet was adorned with the pine sprig of his clan and two eagle feathers denoting his status as chieftain, and he wore his hair loose, falling to his shoulders in rich chestnut waves. The right sleeve of his white linen shirt was rolled up in preparation for the impromptu arm-wrestling contest that was about to take place. A crowd of impressively-clad clansmen had gathered
round and a cheer arose from the assembly as Simon took his place opposite his chieftain. The two men locked arms, shifting elbows on the table to achieve the best position, and at a mutual nod the contest began. The men closed around, obscuring Beth’s view, but she had no fears that Alex would lose this bout.

  There was only one man here who could best his chieftain, and she looked around the room for him, finally locating him in another corner, armed with a large hunk of beef and a pewter cup of wine, his tree-trunk legs stretched out in front of him. He looked in no rush to join the proceedings and was instead watching the musicians of both clans, who were choosing a suitable spot to sit and were chatting amiably, getting to know each other. He sensed Beth’s gaze on him and looked up, smiling appreciatively at her beauty which was enhanced by the simplicity of the white dress she wore, belted with a sash of the same red and black pattern that her husband was wearing. Her hair was also loose tonight and floated around her hips in a silver cloud. She walked across to join him and he moved to one side to make a place for her on the bench.

  “Do you think he’ll win?” she asked.

  Kenneth swallowed his mouthful of beef and nodded.

  “Aye,” he said. “Simon’s a bonny fighter, but he’s no’ got the strength of Alex.” He scanned the assembly quickly. “There’s no’ a man here that’ll take him, I’m thinking, although one or two would gie him a challenge.”

  He caught her surreptitious glance at his enormous arms, as thick as her thighs, and smiled sadly.

  “It’s an awfu’ shame that I canna challenge him mysel’,” he said. “But I’m too long in the arm, ye ken.”

  She looked up at him.

  “And if you weren’t too long in the arm, you’d no doubt have strained a muscle this very day, unfortunately rendering you unable to participate,” Beth commented.