Tides of Fortune (Jacobite Chronicles Book 6)

by Julia Brannan

  Alex had listened to this in silence, his face closed although his eyes were dark with pain. Sarah had an almost overwhelming impulse to take him in her arms, to comfort him. She had liked Sir Anthony from the start, but she felt closer to this man sitting opposite her, who an hour ago she’d thought would kill her, than she ever had to anyone except Beth herself, and Murdo. It’s because he’s linked to Beth, she thought, and because Murdo was his servant.

  “Did he know?” Alex asked suddenly.

  “Did who know?”

  “Newcastle. When he sent Richard to torture her, did he know she was with child? Richard said he did.”

  “No. He was lying. Beth didn’t tell him. She said…” She hesitated, unwilling to cause him even more pain than she already was doing.

  “That’s one thing I dinna need to do, then,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Kill Newcastle. Because if he’d let Richard do what he did to her knowing she was with child, I couldna have let him live.”

  Sarah stared at him, her mouth open. The matter-of-fact way he’d said it left her in no doubt that had the circumstances been as Richard had told him, Anthony, or whoever he was, would have killed one of the most powerful men in Britain without any hesitation whatsoever, regardless of the consequences to himself. And it also occurred to her that he trusted her, not only to tell him the truth, but enough to reveal his intentions, or at least some of them. Now, suddenly, she understood exactly why Beth had not betrayed this man, not even under torture.

  “Tell me what Beth said,” he prompted Sarah gently. “I’m a grown man, and I need to know it all, so I can see what I must do to make it right, if I can.”

  “Beth said that when she found out she was having a baby, she knew that it had almost no chance of surviving in prison or in a foundling hospital, and that the only way they’d have let her keep it is if she’d betrayed you, which she wouldn’t do. So when Richard came to talk to her she deliberately goaded him, hoping he’d kill her and the baby quickly.”

  “But he didna.”

  “No. She said he’d changed, had a better control of his temper. If we can find her, she’ll be glad to know he’s dead though. God knows I am. It’s the best news I’ve heard in a long time. Anne will be happy too. But of course I can’t tell her,” she finished.

  “She’ll find out soon enough, I’m thinking,” Alex replied. “I made sure he’ll be found.”

  There was a short silence while they both drank their tea and little Màiri chattered incomprehensibly to herself while she played with a ball on the floor. Alex smiled.

  “She’s beautiful,” he said. Sarah took a deep breath.

  “Tell me about what happened,” she asked. “How he…” She stopped, incapable of saying the word. It was too soon.

  “It was in battle, Culloden,” he said. “We were waiting for the order to charge, and Cumberland’s men were firing the cannons…it was very quick,” he added.

  Sarah looked at him sceptically.

  “That’s what they tell all the women,” she said, a slight tremor in her voice the only sign of what she was feeling. “He was brave, it was quick, he didn’t suffer.”

  Alex leaned across the table suddenly, grasping her hands.

  “I’m telling ye true, lassie. You deserve that. He wouldna have tellt ye about Màiri if he hadna cared for you. He never spoke about her to anyone. He died so quickly he didna even get to finish his sentence. He really didna suffer, and I’m glad of that at least, because so many others did. And I wasna in any way to go back for him afterwards, for I was injured myself.”

  She looked down at their clasped hands. His were long-fingered and strong, and engulfed hers, as Murdo’s had. A single tear ran down her cheek.

  “John told me you were all alive when he last saw you,” she said sadly. “That was a year ago now. It gave me hope then. And later Beth said that you were all well the day of Culloden too. She told me what Murdo said to her, what he told her to tell me, if…but I thought he would have written to me, at least, if he’d survived. Beth said maybe he didn’t want to cause me any problems but she was just being kind, I knew that.”

  “John?” Alex asked, his brow creasing.

  “I’m sorry. There’s so much to tell you. John Betts – Beth’s stableboy.”

  “You saw him?” Alex said.

  “Yes. He was sentenced to death, but he escaped from prison with two other men, I can’t remember their names. He stayed with me until after the others were executed – he wanted to go, to watch them die, said he owed it to them. I told Caroline he was my brother, Jem. I don’t think she believed me though.”

  “You have a lot of problem relatives,” Alex observed wryly.

  “Not as much of a problem as the real ones were,” she answered darkly. “Anyway, he told me that you were all alive when he last saw you at Carlisle. He was going to tell me your names, you, Murdo and Jim, but I told him I didn’t want to know, because Newcastle had interviewed me once and might do it again, and the less I knew the better.” She saw him open his mouth and shook her head vigorously. “I still don’t want to know,” she said.

  “I’m thinking you already know enough to identify me, name or no,” he said softly.

  She looked up at him.

  “No, I don’t,” she replied. “I only know that you’re tall, English, with dark hair and terrible burns on your face. I can’t say you’ve got one leg because I think Lydia would remember that. But that’s all I can tell anyone. I was too frightened to remember anything else.”

  “Sarah, as stupid as Lydia is, and she is, she’ll remember that ye tellt her I was your cousin, if it comes to it.”

  Sarah thought for a moment.

  “I was afraid,” she said. “You told me you’d kill us both if I didn’t get her out of the shop. It was the first thing I could think of.”

  “But ye didna run for help when I came in here,” he pointed out.

  “No. Because you told me that you’d kill the baby if I did.”

  He let go of her hands, and to her surprise he started laughing.

  “Sarah Browne,” he said, eyeing her with admiration, “you are a wonderful woman, and I’m proud to know you. Murdo chose right with you.”

  “He told Beth…he told her that he’d come for me, when it was safe, and marry me if I wanted to,” she told him. “I would have, whether it was safe or not. Anyway,” she continued, impatiently brushing a tear away, “I haven’t done anything special – it’s only what any friend would do.”

  “No,” he said. “No, it isna. And you dinna ken me at all. I dinna want you to risk your life for me.”

  She shrugged.

  “I liked Sir Anthony,” she said. “He was funny, and he was kind. And he loved Beth and made her happy. That’s enough for me. Everything I have now is because of her. And you’ve come all this way to try to find her. And you killed that evil bastard. That alone would be enough for me never to betray you to anyone.”

  “You owe me nothing,” he insisted, reaching up in his habitual gesture when frustrated to scrub his fingers through his hair, breaking the lace that bound it in the process. Tangled waves cascaded around his shoulders and face. He retrieved the lace from the floor, started combing through his hair with his fingers.

  “Wait,” Sarah said, “I can do better than that.” She stood and walked through into the shop, returning a moment later with a brush and comb. Moving behind him, she gently started to tease the knots out of his hair. He sat for a minute in silence, enjoying the feel of the brush against his scalp. His mother had brushed his hair when he was very young, and he had always loved it. It was comforting, intimate.

  “Ye’ve changed,” he said.

  “In what way?” she asked. His hair was really beautiful; the colour was glorious, like burnished chestnuts.

  “Ye didna like people touching you, as I remember.”

  That was true.

  “I still don’t,” she said. “But you’re differe
nt. I trust you. I know you wouldn’t hurt me, not for anything.” As she said it, she realised something about herself for the first time. She hadn’t minded Beth touching her, or Murdo, because she had loved and trusted them completely. And this man was the same. It wasn’t that she hated to be touched; it was that she didn’t trust many people not to hurt her if they got close to her. She stopped brushing Alex’s hair for a moment as the realisation struck her.

  I love him.

  Not in the way she had loved Murdo; not in a romantic way. But yes, she loved him, fiercely, as she loved Beth. And because of that, she would do anything for him.

  She continued brushing.

  “Caroline is at Summer Hill,” she said. “It’s her new country house. Edwin was knighted by the king last year, and Caroline’s built a lovely house in Sussex so she can annoy all her relatives, as she puts it.”

  “Knighted!” Alex exclaimed, smiling. “He deserves that. He’s one of the most genuine politicians I ever met.”

  “I’ll go tomorrow,” Sarah said, “and see if Edwin’s found anything out about Beth yet. You can stay here. I’ll only be away a few days.” She finished brushing out his hair and tied it back with a piece of purple ribbon. He was very handsome, even with his disfigurement. “What did you do to your face?” she asked. “It looks horrible.”

  He lifted his hand to the mass of healing scratches that covered the left side of his face and laughed.

  “Just before I was due to come here I had a wee stramash – a fight that is, wi’ an acquaintance of mine, and he rubbed my face in a gorse bush,” he said. “It hurt like the devil at the time, but it also made me look hideous. It gave me the idea for how to disguise myself, but it was nearly healed when I got here so I rubbed my own face in a rose bush yesterday. I knew that if I was missing a leg and my face was ruined, people would only remember that and nothing else.”

  “Like with Sir Anthony and his makeup and clothes,” she said.

  “Aye, like that,” he agreed. “Ye spoilt it a wee bit for me wi’ the leg, but it’s maybe for the best. Lydia’ll no’ remember much about me anyway because I’m your poor cousin and beneath her notice, and it would be impossible to ride in a coach all the way to Sussex wi’ my leg strapped up under me. I take it ye’ll no’ be wanting to ride there?”

  “No, I won’t,” she said. “If I never sit on a horse again it’ll be too soon. But you can’t come with me.”

  “I have to, I think,” he said. “I owe them an apology for what I did to them as Sir Anthony. I’ve never felt good about that. And I owe them thanks for saving Beth’s life, too.”

  “You can’t,” Sarah insisted. “Edwin hates you. He thinks you abandoned Beth to save yourself. If he finds out you’re alive, he’ll call the authorities.”

  “Maybe. When I came here, I thought you might too. But ye didna.”

  “It’s not the same thing!” she protested.

  “Aye, it is,” he said. “If ye tell me where this Summer Hill is, I’ll go alone. That’ll be best. Ye’ve already done too much. I didna intend to stay more than a few minutes. I’ll leave you in peace now.”

  “No!” she cried. “You’re not going alone. If you have to go, I’m coming with you. And I am not letting my dear cousin Adam, who I haven’t seen for five years, sleep on the street or in an inn. You can stay here. I’ll go out and get a pie or a chop for us. Please stay here,” she finished, and there was a desperation in her tone that stifled his protest before it was uttered. He nodded, albeit reluctantly, and she smiled, vastly relieved. She did not want, could not bear, to be alone tonight.

  Màiri, tired of the ball, gripped hold of the leg of the chair Alex was sitting on, and pulled herself up to a standing position. She looked up at him with Duncan’s eyes, and her lips curled upward in a smile. Alex leaned down with the intention of picking her up, his mouth curling in an identical smile.

  “Papa,” the little girl said, quite distinctly. Both the adults froze for a moment, and then he lifted her up, plopped her on his knee.

  “Ah, no, a Mhàiri,” he said softly. “I’m no’ your da, my love. She looks very like him,” he added, glancing across at Sarah, who was watching the tender scene with tears in her eyes.

  “She looks very like you, too,” she replied. And then she rose and without a word took her cloak and went out to get the food, leaving him holding all that remained of the brother he missed so dreadfully. He held his tiny niece gently on his knee, and spent the time that Sarah was out telling her about the father she would never know, the tears running freely down his cheeks as he did, while she sat solemnly listening to the soft musical cadence of a language she had never heard before, as though she understood and was absorbing every word he was saying to her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The next morning Sarah tried once more to convince Adam, as he insisted she continue calling him, Anthony being inadvisable, that he should let her go to see Caroline alone, but he was adamant that he intended to accompany her.

  “I’ve felt guilty about abandoning her and Edwin ever since I ran away that night,” he said. “And I didna ken then what they did for Beth, and for you, for that matter. But I’m glad Caroline didna shoot Richard when she could have. If she had I would never have known Beth was alive.”

  Unable to sleep the night before, the two of them had sat and talked into the early hours, during which Sarah had told him about Richard’s attack on her and Caroline’s dramatic rescue.

  “He wouldn’t have been alive to torture her though,” Sarah pointed out.

  “True. But I’m thinking Newcastle would have found someone else to do the job. Richard was just convenient.”

  “I hated him,” Sarah said.

  “Aye, well, he’s dead now.”

  “No, I mean Newcastle. He treated me as though he thought I should be honoured that he was threatening me. He had a list on his desk when he interviewed me and kept looking at it as though it had some terrible secret about me on it. He didn’t expect me to be able to read, being a commoner and a woman. It said ‘roast beef, potatoes’ at the top. I’ll never forget that. It’s what told me that he didn’t know anything, so I could say whatever I wanted as long as I was careful.”

  Alex burst out laughing, and after a minute her anger dissolved and she started laughing too.

  “I called him ‘my lord’ at least fifty times because I could see it was annoying him,” she said, giggling. “In the end he told me that there was a reward of a thousand pounds for any information that would lead to your capture, and asked me to really think. So I sat there for as long as I dared, while he got more and more impatient, and then I said that there was one thing.”

  “What was it?” Alex asked.

  “I told him that when you couldn’t get violet perfume, you’d sometimes wear lavender. I thought he was going to hit me then; he went scarlet. I was terrified at the time but also really angry, but now it seems comical.”

  Alex took her hands in his.

  “It is comical. And you should be proud of yourself, because you made a fool of one of the cleverest men in the kingdom. That’s no’ an easy thing to do. But never underestimate him. He underestimated you, which made him weak and you strong. If he ever interviews you again you must take it very seriously, because he rarely makes the same mistake twice.”

  She nodded.

  “I will. But everyone seems to think Sir Anthony’s either dead or in France with the Young Pretender, so I don’t think he’ll interview me again.”

  “That depends on what happens when I see Caroline and Edwin,” Alex said. “I really think I should go alone. No one need ever know I was here, if it comes to it.”

  “Well, I’m coming anyway,” Sarah said. “I don’t think for one minute Caroline will betray you. And if she has heard something about Beth I want to know.”

  “Aye, but—”

  And I want to see the house, because I’ve only been there once, when they’d just started building it,” she continued
. “So if you don’t want my company on the way, then I’ll follow behind.”

  “Christ, woman!” he said, exasperated. “Did you learn your stubbornness from Beth?”

  She grinned.

  “I’ll get my cloak,” she said.

  Summer Hill was thirty miles away, a distance Alex could have covered in one day by riding or even walking. But travelling in a coach and with a small child was a different matter, and in the end they had to stop and find an inn for the night, which had just one room available. Any initial embarrassment at having to share it was short-lived due to the complete exhaustion they both felt from travelling along bumpy roads all day after having not slept the previous night. Alex slept on the floor, while Sarah and Màiri had the bed.

  The following morning, much refreshed after eight hours of unbroken sleep followed by a hearty breakfast, they set off to walk the last few miles to Summer Hill. It was another glorious sunny day, and the adults tried not to focus on the unpleasant reception they might get when they reached their destination, and instead just enjoy the walk, which was made easier, if slower, by Màiri’s fascination with everything she saw.

  “I must take her out into the countryside more,” Sarah said, watching her daughter’s delight in the hedgerow flowers they were passing as they walked down a lane. “I spend too much time working, trying to save all the money I can in case anything bad happens. I think it’s because…well, you know where I came from,” she said. “I don’t want her ever to have to do what I did to survive. But I also need to spend more time with her. She’s growing so fast.”

  Alex, walking by her side, smiled.

  “You should,” he agreed. He stopped and knelt down in the lane. “A Mhàiri,” he said softly, “shall we pick some flowers for the lady we’re going to visit?” He picked her up and demonstrated what he meant, collecting a buttercup and some meadowsweet from the hedgerow, and soon the tall man and the tiny child had an accord; she pointed to the flowers, he picked them and told her the name as he did so.