Highland Sunset

by Joan Wolf

  "You are?" The young viscount looked both surprised and pleased. "How is that, Lady Vanessa?"

  "I believe your father and mine have the same principles," Van said meaningfully.

  The viscount's slightly chubby face was puzzled. "Have our fathers met?"

  "No," Van replied patiently, "but I understand Lord Altop supported a venture my father was very much involved in. I refer," she continued, as he still continued to look blank, "to the Jacobite rising of 1715."

  "Oh, that!" The young man's brow cleared. "Yes, my father was all for the king over the water at one time."

  "At one time," Van repeated. She frowned. "He does not then retain those sentiments?"

  "Well, he ain't fond of the Hanovers, if that's what you mean. The thing is, you see, they serve a purpose. And it's Parliament that counts, when all's said and done." He looked at her, evidently keen to impress. "I've a seat in the House, you know."

  "Then I take it the Standons of Altop are no longer interested in seeing a Stuart restoration?" Van said in an expressionless tone.

  "Good God, no," the young man replied hastily. "The Stuarts would bring in the Catholics. And the French." Then, in an alarmed fashion, "I say, you aren't Catholic by any chance, are you, Lady Vanessa?"

  Van's profile was aloof and still. "No. We are Episcopalians in Morar."

  "That's all right, then," he replied cheerfully. He gave her an admiring glance. Van was looking extremely elegant in a pearl-gray driving outfit that emphasized the beauty of her dark coloring. "Are you still Jacobites up in Scotland?" he asked.

  Van thought of a number of replies she would like to make to this vapid apostate, but she really did not wish to make things awkward for Lady Linton. So she forced herself to breathe slowly and to say only, very calmly, "Yes. We are still Jacobites in Scotland."

  There was a moment of silence. Then he said heartily, "What did you think of the ball last night?"

  Van replied pleasantly and by the time he drove her home Lord Standish was rambling away, as comfortable as he could be. Van, however, was not comfortable. And her mood of depression had not been helped by the sight of the Earl of Linton driving Miss Caroline Ridley behind his team of beautifully matched grays.

  That evening they went to the opera. "Did you have a pleasant afternoon with Standish?" Edward asked Van as he settled a long velvet cloak around her shoulders.

  Van's mouth set. "No. I did not."

  His blue eyes glinted down at her, but as Lady Linton chose that moment to join them, he did not reply.

  The opera that evening was to be Samson by Handel. "It's really an oratorio although it is performed at Covent Garden," Edward told Van as they took their seats in the Linton box. "It's based on Milton's Samson Agonistes. Do you know Milton?"

  Van shook her head. "Is it the story of Samson and Delilah?"

  He was looking around the half-empty house. "Not really. When the opera opens, Samson has already been betrayed by Delilah, and blinded and imprisoned by the Philistines. It's more of a character study, the revelation to Samson that he, despite his guilt and his suffering, is an instrument of God."

  Van nodded slowly and then also looked around her. "Where is everyone?" she asked in surprise.

  "Samson is rather serious for most people's tastes," Edward answered. He sounded perfectly affable. "There is no spectacle, not much action at all, really. The boxes will fill up, all right, but most of the people will come in later."

  Van was horrified. "And miss half the opera?"

  Lady Linton chuckled at her expression. "I assure you, Vanessa, Edward and I are always on time."

  Indeed, Covent Garden was still half-empty when the orchestra sounded its first note. Van, however, did not notice. Nor did she notice the rustling and whispering as people slowly came in and took their seats. She was aware only of the stage, of the agonized suffering of the man who sang so magnificently, and of the man beside her whose concentration on the music was as intense as her own.

  At the intermission a chattering collection of people filled their box. Van was intensely irritated. She did not want to talk to all these people. She wanted to be quiet.

  Edward's hand touched her elbow. She knew it was he even before she turned her head. "Let's go for a walk," he said softly.

  Van's look was grateful. "Oh, yes," she said, and he guided her along to a deserted hallway, where they walked slowly up and down, talking quietly about the music.

  Van was quiet as well going home in the carriage. The concluding soprano aria, "Let the Bright Seraphim," where the singer's voice had vied with a trumpet in roulades, was still sounding triumphantly in her ears. Finally she turned to Edward, who was conversing easily with his mother.

  "Do you have a copy of Samson Agonistes?" she asked. "Might I borrow it?"

  "Of course. It would be my pleasure." And he gave her his rare, approving smile.

  After her session with Signore Martelli the following morning, Edward asked her to come into the library with him. As Van walked in through the door the earl was holding for her, she realized there was someone else in the room.

  "Lord Stowecroft," Edward said formally, "may I introduce Lady Vanessa MacIan."

  "How do you do, my lord," Van said out of a suddenly dry throat. This stocky, pockmarked man was the single most important figure her father wanted to hear news of. She looked from him to Edward.

  "I will leave you two alone," the earl said pleasantly. Then, to Lord Stowecroft, "Thank you for coming, sir."

  The older man merely nodded, and as Edward turned and left the room, Van wet her suddenly dry lips.

  "Linton said you wished to see me, Lady Vanessa," the earl said abruptly. "Do you have a message from Morar?"

  "Yes," Van said. This man, she knew, had met her father—a long time ago, in France. "There is great hope of a French landing," Van said now, tensely. "My father wants to know what English support the prince can rely on."

  "None," the Earl of Stowecroft said heavily. "Tell that to Morar. If the prince should land, he will get no help from England."

  Van's face reflected her feelings. "My father thought—" she began, but the earl cut her off.

  "I know what Morar thought. He thought he could count on me and on the other English nobles who have supported the Stuarts for all these years. Well, I would rather see a true-born Stuart on the throne than a German elector, but it is not going to happen, Lady Vanessa, and I'm damned if I'll ruin myself and my family striving for the impossible."

  "It will not be impossible if the prince's friends prove true to him," Van said.

  "It is impossible," the earl said bluntly. "It is too late. We might, perhaps, have succeeded in 1715, if we'd had the leadership. But now it's too late. This dynasty has occupied the throne for too long, Lady Vanessa. They won't be dislodged."

  "If the prince can gather a French army—"

  "Yes—that's just the trouble." The earl's heavy, pockmarked face was grim. "Do you think the English are going to welcome a prince who comes to them at the head of a French army? France is the hereditary enemy here, Lady Vanessa. I know you feel differently in Scotland, but here France is the enemy." Van was silenced.

  "Tell this to Morar," the Earl of Stowecroft said. "Tell him that England does not want a king who is beholden to France. And England does not want a king who is Catholic. And those of us who still feel differently are not foolhardy enough to set our heads up to be knocked off when such a venture ends, as it inevitably will, in defeat."

  "You speak for yourself, of course," Van said, and he interrupted her once more.

  "I speak for all of us. We've heard the rumors too. There is no English noble who will go out for the Stuarts, Lady Vanessa. Tell that to your father from me." His mouth tightened. "I should hate to see a good man like Morar get dragged down in a boy's wild venture."

  "Unfortunately," Van said in a cold and contemptuous voice, "my father's loyalties are not so... adjustable."

  The man flushed unbecomingly. "Oh,
I can guess what you think of me," he said hardly, "but I've given you the truth."

  Van's slender back was ramrod straight. "I will relay your words to my father."

  "Good." He grunted. "I'll show myself out, then. Good day, Lady Vanessa."

  "Good day, my lord." Van stood where she was until the door closed behind him; then she walked over to stare out the window at the garden behind the house. After a few minutes she heard the door open again and knew, without looking, who was there.

  "Well," Edward said, "was your interview satisfactory?"

  If he had a gloating look on his face, Van thought as she slowly turned around, she would smash him. But his eyes were not at all mocking. They were filled, in fact, with a cold blue light.

  "I have the information I was asked to get," she replied.

  "Well, I hope to God Morar has the sense to listen to it," he said viciously and, coming all the way into the room, he slammed his gloves down on a desk.

  Van's fists clenched. "You almost sound as if you were afraid of us, my lord," she said tauntingly.

  "Not afraid of you, afraid for you" was his disconcerting reply. He braced his hands on the desk and leaned a little forward. "If the clans rise for Charles Stuart, they will be signing their own death warrants."

  Van could feel the pulse beating in her temple. "Why are you so opposed to the Stuarts?" she asked suddenly. "Are you afraid of France too?"

  "We could handle France better than we could handle the Stuarts," came the grim reply. Van's lashes lifted and her eyes met his. "I have no liking at all for the Stuarts, Van," he said. "None. In fact, it would give me intense pleasure to hear that every last one of them had dropped off the face of the earth."

  "Why?" Her lips moved, although barely any sound came out.

  He gave a short, hard laugh. "Why? Because they are a selfish, arrogant, stupid, power-hungry family, that is why." He straightened up and began to walk around the room, his step long and quiet, a great golden beast loose in the room with her. "You, of course, have no notion of any of this. You have been brought up on legends of Stuart greatness." He paused in his pacing to stare at her. It seemed as if the cold, blue North Sea glittered in his eyes.

  Viking, Van thought. Sassenach.

  "Loyalty is a splendid thing, Van," he was saying. "But one must ask oneself: To what and to whom does one truly owe loyalty?"

  Van rested her fingers on the back of a carved rosewood chair. "One owes loyalty to one's king," she replied.

  "And if loyalty to one's king conflicts with loyalty to one's country?"

  Van's fingers were white with pressure. "I don't understand what you mean," she said tautly.

  "I mean that the king exists for the good of the country, the country does not exist for the good of the king. It is the country that comes first. The Hanovers understand that. The Stuarts do not."

  This was not a point of view Van had heard before. Loyalty to the Stuarts had never been something one discussed at Morar. It was simply there, a fact of life, part of the very air one breathed. She had been brought up to believe that it was the simple duty of her father, her brother, her clan, of every man in Britain, to contribute to the restoration of the rightful king. What Edward was saying was disturbing.

  "The Stuarts were good for the country," she said.

  "Yes," he replied with irony, "they were such good rulers that we executed two of them and exiled two others." He ran an impatient hand through his hair and a few dislodged strands fell like golden thread across his forehead. "There is no such thing as the Divine Right of Kings," he said. "This is the eighteenth century, not the Middle Ages."

  Van released her chair so abruptly that it rocked. "Yes," she said acidly, "this is the eighteenth century and you consider yourself a great and progressive reformer. Well, government is not like agriculture, Edward. And what is new is not always what is best!"

  "The problem, of course," he said bleakly, "is that in the Highlands you are still living in the Middle Ages."

  Van walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER 8

  Signore Martelli had spoken the truth when he said he would make Van work. She spent two hours with him in the morning and then another two or three hours on her own, working on exercises, learning, in the maestro's words, "to strip a piece down to its bare bones and then put it back together again."

  It was painstaking, tedious work. Van often longed just to break out in an exuberance of sound, but she did not. Nor did she complain. She worked.

  "Lady Vanessa is a brilliant pupil," Carlo Martelli said to Edward one morning when he met the earl in the hallway of Linton House and Edward invited him for some refreshment. "She covers what would ordinarily be four lessons in one. And she has the... the dedication." The Italian sighed and sipped his wine. "Such a pity she is a lady."

  Edward looked amused. "Being a lady should not stop her from giving concerts. They could not be public, that's all."

  Signore Martelli brightened. "That is so. A private concert—a musical evening—in a home such as this one..."

  Edward stretched his long legs in front of him. "I agree with you, maestro, that a talent like Lady Vanessa's should be shared. She, however, will have to be persuaded of that."

  The musician frowned. "It is odd. She has no desire to show herself off. None."

  "My cousin had a rather solitary upbringing," the earl murmured. "It has left her more self-sufficient than most."

  "Ah, yes. This castle she talks of with the unpronounceable name." Signore Martelli shuddered. "She sees no one of culture, the little one. No one save her mother. And yet she tells me they have paintings by Titian. In that barbaric wilderness! Titian!"

  "They are civilized savages, the Earls of Morar," Edward said. "It's a feudal world up there, maestro. They are four hundred years behind the times."

  "It's a mercy her mother had the sense to get her away," the Italian said.

  Edward rubbed his head and looked rueful. "Yes," he replied doubtfully, "I suppose it is."

  Lady Linton was enjoying herself tremendously and had begun, like any matchmaking mama, to dream dreams about Van's future. How lovely, she thought, if dear Vanessa should marry one of the half-dozen or so noble and eligible escorts who were so obviously attracted to her. She had initially had hopes that Edward might find Van appealing—she always had hopes for Edward. But lately she had given up on that idea. The two of them were scrupulously polite to each other but it didn't take a great deal of sensitivity to realize that they were at odds. The only thing that seemed to draw them together was music.

  Oh, well. Lady Linton had great hopes of her son and Caroline Ridley. Edward was spending a great deal of time in her company of late. That Caroline was interested in Edward was not in question. Every marriageable girl in London was interested in Edward. With the exception, unfortunately, of Vanessa.

  Such was the situation in the Linton household on the night of the Countess of Evesham's ball. The evening began much like any other, with Edward dancing with Caroline Ridley and Van dancing with her own collection of admirers. Neither Edward nor Van ever looked at each other, although both could have said instantly where the other was in the room at any given time.

  The event that was to set this evening off from all its predecessors occurred at about eleven o'clock, when there came a stir at the doorway and Van looked up to behold a new arrival coming in. She was standing on the edge of the ballroom floor with Lady Linton and Sir Geoffrey Austen, and both of her companions were aware of the sudden stiffening of her slender body. "Dhia gleidh sinn!" (God in heaven) she said. Then, "What is he doing here?"

  "Who?" Lady Linton replied in bewilderment. "Do you mean the Duke of Argyll, Vanessa?"

  "Yes. The Duke of Argyll. What is he doing here?"

  "Before her marriage, Lady Evesham was a Campbell," Sir Geoffrey put in helpfully.

  "A Campbell!" Van's voice was full of loathing. "Why did you not tell me this?" she demanded fiercely of Lady Linton. "I would never have
come here had I known."

  "Why ever not?" Lady Linton asked, completely out of her depth at the sudden change in Van.

  "The Campbells." Van looked as if she would have liked to spit. "They are the vultures- of the Highlands," she said, "fattening themselves on the misfortunes of other clans."

  As the three of them watched the object of Van's dislike, they saw Lady Evesham put a hand on his arm and begin to lead him around the room. Van stood like a flag, her black head high, her narrow nostrils white and pinched-looking. The duke came to a halt in front of her.

  "Lady Vanessa," he said, without waiting for an introduction. "I would know you anywhere. You have a great look of your father."

  Van's eyes glittered back at the man who was, unarguably, the most powerful man in Scotland, the chief of Clan Campbell and the MacIans' ancient foe. "I did not know the Countess of Evesham was a Campbell," she said.

  The duke looked amused. He was a slender man in his sixties, elegantly dressed in a powdered wig and red velvet coat with a froth of immaculate lace at his throat. His eyes ran over Van's own finery. "I am surprised to find a daughter of Alasdair MacIan in London," he said slowly and thoughtfully. "What are you doing here, Lady Vanessa?"

  Van switched to Gaelic. "That is no concern of yours, Mac Cailein Mor," she said through her teeth.

  "Everything that happens in the Highlands is my concern," he returned in the same language. Lady Linton looked around worriedly. They were beginning to attract attention. She was relieved to see a tall blond head moving in their direction.

  "You are not our king," said Van.

  Argyll's eyes locked with hers. "What is Mac mhic Iain up to?" he demanded.

  "Nothing that concerns Clan Campbell," Van returned, meeting his gaze with a burning look of her own.

  Argyll's cold eyes narrowed in response. Lady Linton swallowed and clutched at the arm of Sir Geoffrey for support. The entire veneer of civilization seemed to have slipped away and between Archibald Campbell, thirteenth earl and fourth duke of his line, and Lady Vanessa MacIan, there sizzled the pure hatred of centuries of clan warfare.