by Joan Wolf
"You have done well, Lachlan," she praised him. "Mac mhic Iain will remember always your loyalty and your service."
The thin, dark face of the MacIan clansman glowed briefly, like a candle. Then, "I will be returning to my father's house, my lady, if that will be all right. He is old and he will have been missing me."
"Go," Van said. "And if you and Margaret are wishing to marry, there will be a new cottage for you near to your father's"
A rare smile flitted across Lachlan's face, he gestured quickly, in gratitude, and was gone.
All the way home the clansman's head was filled with pleasant thoughts. He had done well, been loyal to his chief and his prince, and it looked as if his reward was to be sweet. He was perfectly happy until he arrived at his father's cottage to find the Earl of Linton waiting for him.
Lachlan had thought the Earl of Morar's anger was to be feared, but one look at Linton's face set his heart to slamming hard against his ribs. Edward was gray with rage. "I want to know where you have been," he said to Lachlan in the hardest, coldest voice the clansman had ever heard.
Lachlan glanced at Alan Ruadh, who stood to the side of the earl, looking like a beaten dog. "Is all safe?" Alan asked in Gaelic.
"Aye."
"Then tell him," said Alan.
"Yes, tell me." Linton's voice was under perfect control which, for some reason, made him even more frightening. Lachlan looked up at the blond-haired Sassenach who seemed to tower above him and then looked down again at his feet.
"Lady Van said to tell him," Alan repeated. Edward moved very slightly and both Highlanders looked at him in fear.
"Where have you been, Lachlan, these last two weeks?" Edward asked again, and this time Lachlan told him.
When Lachlan had finished his story an eerie silence fell upon the three men. Alan and Lachlan exchanged nervous glances and then looked cautiously at the earl's face. They looked hastily away and prayed he would not murder them.
"It was my fault, my lord," Lachlan finally said bravely. "I should not have let them come to Loch Morar. Lady Van had said Loch nan Uamh."
Edward's blue eyes touched Lachlan's face very briefly, then went to Alan's. Both men winced away from his look. "I do not want to see either of you until I ask for you." His voice was perfectly expressionless. "Is that clear?"
"Aye, my lord," they mumbled in unison.
Without another word, Edward turned and walked off down the glen. The two men stayed where they were, grateful not to have been thrown out of Morar, grateful still to be alive.
All the way home, over the mountains that had become so familiar to him these last months, Edward struggled to gain control of his temper. He very rarely lost it, usually managed to remain calm and in command, no matter the provocation. He was afraid of losing his temper, he was afraid of what he might do should he lose control of himself. He remembered vividly the time he had come upon a tenant boy torturing one of his dogs, and drew a long, deep, steadying breath. He had been younger than the boy, and smaller, but if one of the workmen had not dragged him off, he might have killed the tormentor.
He must not lose his temper with his wife. No matter what she had done, he must not lose his temper.
"I trust you," she had said to him. She had lied. What else had she lied about? All these months, when she had lain so trustingly in his arms, she had been lying to him.
Nothing and no one mattered to her except her brother and the goddamn bloody prince.
All of her promises to him—they were worth nothing. Their marriage was worth nothing. This war had defeated them. Once, perhaps, they could have built something together, but not now. She felt she could not trust him, and he could no longer trust her.
She had lied to him. She had broken her word. At his side his hands closed slowly into fists and then opened and closed again.
He did not go to the castle when he arrived back home, but went instead to the stable and saddled up Fitz. He said not a word to anyone as he mounted and rode the horse along the path to the loch and then headed west, toward the sea.
When Edward had not returned to the castle by teatime, Van began to feel really frightened. She had had no word from Alan Ruadh, either, and it was only by chance that she walked down to the stable and found that Fitz was gone.
"Lord Linton returned hours ago, my lady," one of the boys who looked after the ponies told her. "He did not say anything, just saddled the horse and rode away."
"Rode away!" Panic began to set in. "Rode away where, Fergus?"
The boy gestured down the loch and Van's heart quieted a little. He had not left her, then, if he had gone in that direction. He must know what had happened. She had to make him understand... Without pausing to think it through clearly, Van ordered a pony brought to the castle. She herself ran back up the path to change into trews as quickly as she could. Within twenty minutes she had set off after her husband.
He was standing near the edge of the sea when he saw her pony coming. His hand tightened convulsively on his horse's bridle and then relaxed as the horse pulled against the sudden pressure. He had needed Fitz this day, needed the familiar, calming presence of an animal to help him get hold of his own raging emotions. He had thought he was all right, was even thinking of returning to the castle, when he looked up and saw her approaching. Rage boiled over in his heart once more.
She slid off the pony and finished the last few yards on foot, stopping some ten feet from him, her light eyes scanning his face. They stood thus for almost a full half-minute, the only sound the slap of the waves and the crying of the birds, the two of them holding the reins of their horses and staring at each other across the pure white sand that separated them.
The air on the beach seemed to grow thick and hard to breathe, as though there were a storm coming. Van wet her lips and said in a low, throbbing voice, "I'm so sorry, Edward. But I could not tell you. I could not implicate you in any way. Surely you see that?"
But he was not listening, or rather, he was listening only to what he expected to hear. "You could not tell me. I see that well enough."
Van had never seen him in such a fury. He was white to the lips. She began to feel very frightened. He was looking at her as if he hated her. "Edward," she tried again, "don't look like that. Listen to me..."
In the grim white face before her the blue eyes darkened and blazed. This was not the ice-cold temper she had witnessed in him before. This was something quite different. It took all the courage she possessed not to back away from him.
"No!" he said, and the suppressed violence in his voice was terrifying. "I am through listening to you, Van. Through listening to your lies. You have done nothing but lie ever since we married."
"Edward!" It was a cry of pure pain. She even took a step toward him. "That's not true!"
"Do not come any closer." There was the flash of something frightening in his eyes. "I am not quite... responsible at the moment, Van," he said. "Go away."
She hesitated, not sure what she ought to do. Fitz, sensing the tension in the hand that held his bridle, threw his head up and down and pawed the ground. "I don't want to see you," her husband said. "I came here to get away from you. Will you please go back to the castle and leave me alone."
"Very well," she said quietly. Then, "I love you, Edward. That is not a lie." She turned away to mount her pony and so did not see the spasm of anguish that crossed his face at her words. But he said nothing, only stood in silence and watched her ride away. When she was quite out of sight, he turned and buried his face in his horse's mane.
Van was thoroughly exhausted by the time she returned to the castle. It was a tremendous effort to drag her body up the stairs to her bedroom. She took off her clothes with shaking hands and crawled into the bed, where she fell asleep almost instantly.
She awoke at dawn and was aware, immediately, that he was not beside her. She sat up and was struck by a wave of nausea. There was nothing in her stomach to come up, however, so she spat only a little yellow bile in
to the basin next to the bed. She lay back down again, feeling terrible.
Had he come home at all last night? Surely he was not still down on the beach?
Morag came in an hour later. Van, who was lying perfectly still to control the nausea, watched the girl as she poured fresh water and lit the fire against the cool morning air. Ever since she had married Edward there had been a fire in her bedroom, Van thought. She teased him about being a soft-living Sassenach, but she loved the luxury of a fire. The sight of Morag lighting the logs brought tears to her eyes.
"Morag," she asked in a thin voice, "did Lord Linton return last night?"
"Aye, Lady Van." Morag did not look at her. "He slept in one of the other rooms. And he left again an hour ago."
"Left!" Van tried to sit up and the nausea attacked again. She lay back and concentrated her will against it. "Where did he go?" she asked after a minute, having won this particular battle.
"He did not say, my lady. Just that he would be gone for several days."
Van closed her eyes. "Thank you, Morag," she said, and did not open them again until she heard the bedroom door close.
By ten o'clock she was able to get up without being sick and she forced herself to take some tea and bread and butter. Then she sent for Alan Ruadh.
He sent back word that he would come only if Lord Linton was not at the castle.
"He was that angry, Lady Van," Alan told her wretchedly when he finally put in an appearance. "When he saw there were no soldiers, I told him the truth of it, just as you said," Alan shivered. "Even Mac mhic Iain did not have such a temper," he said.
"What did you say, Alan?" Van asked. "Try to remember the exact words."
Her father's foster brother frowned in thought. "I said you had told me to get him away for the night, that the prince and Mac mhic Iain would be boarding a French ship in the loch."
Van's face had grown thinner over the past few days. "And what did Lord Linton say?" she asked
"He asked if Lachlan had been involved in this affair and I said that he had." At the expression on Van's face he added hastily, "You said to tell him all, Lady Van."
"Aye," she replied wearily. "What happened next?"
"Next we went to Lachlan's house and waited for him," said Alan
Dear Christ, Van thought. So he knew all about the last two weeks, knew that she had been the one to send a message to alert the prince and Niall of the ship's presence. No wonder he had accused her of lying to him.
"What did Lachlan tell his lordship?" Van asked bleakly, and was drearily unsurprised by the answer.
So he even knew that she was the one to send the boat out of Morar to Loch nan Uamh. She had done it for his sake, but she was beginning to fear that he would never believe that.
He had looked at her as if he hated her.
"I don't want to see you," he had said. "Leave me alone."
She dismissed Alan and settled down to wait for Edward to return.
Three days passed, then four, then five. The Sea Queen returned from Dublin with a cargo of food and clothing and she helped see it unloaded and the goods distributed. There was no word from Edward.
It was while Van was staring out the window at the graceful lines of the Sea Queen as it rocked gently in the loch that the thought came to her. She should be the one to leave. She should board the Sea Queen and go to France to join the rest of her family. Her departure would have the added value of diverting any suspicion of complicity in the prince's escape away from Edward. That way, should governmental scrutiny fall on the Lintons, it would fall on the right one.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she ought to go. If Edward should want to find her, he would know where she was. If he should want to divorce her, she would have given him the means. No one would expect an Earl of Linton to remain married to a Jacobite traitor.
She would go to France.
That night she sat down to write him a letter:
Edward, my love:
I have gone to join Mother and Niall in France. I do not want to leave you, but I think that, under the circumstances, my leaving will be best.
I know that you are angry. You have every right to be angry. But I wish you could understand, just a little, why I acted as I did.
Niall would not desert the prince. And, truly, I think it was best that the prince escaped. His execution would have made a martyr out of him, Edward, and Scotland does not need any more martyrs. I think you were coming to that conclusion yourself.
I did not want you implicated in any way with this venture. As it stands, you can take any oath that is asked of you that you knew nothing of Charles Stuart's activities and that you had nothing to do with his escape.
That is why I sent the ship from Loch Morar to Loch nan Uamh. I did not want you involved at all.
Edward, I am so sorry that it had to be me, but when word was brought to me of the ship's presence, I had to act. Niall is my brother. I cannot say I am sorry I helped him.
There is a line of poetry that has been going through my mind for over a year now, like the chorus from a Greek tragedy. "O God! O God! That it were possible. To undo things done, to call back yesterday!"
What I would give to be able to call back those happy days we had together at Staplehurst. When I think of you, do you know the picture that comes most often to my mind? You and Marcus in the sun at Staplehurst. Do you remember that day? You were showing off for me, you said.
But the sad truth is that we cannot go back, however much we might desire to do so. You and I can never go back to what we once were. We can only go on.
Whether we go on together or apart is up to you. If you wish to find me, you know where I am. If you wish never to see me again, I will abide by your decision.
Know this, however. I will always, always love you.
Van.
She left the letter on the mantel in her bedroom with instructions to Morag to see that the earl got it. Then, with one portmanteau of clothing, she boarded the Sea Queen and gave the captain orders to take her to France.
CHAPTER 34
Frances stood at the tall narrow window of the house the MacIans were leasing in Rouen, her grandson in her arms. Between the rooftops she could just see the glint of the river Seine, down which L'Heureux had sailed, bringing back to his family her son Niall.
In her arms the baby stirred and Frances looked down with melting tenderness into the dark little MacIan face. How Alasdair would have loved to have seen this child.
With the thought came the pain, the long, cramping pain that was Alasdair's endless absence. She breathed deeply and floated with it, and the baby opened his dark gray eyes and looked at her.
What a godsend this child had been to her, Frances thought. First there had been Jean, fearful and in the last stages of pregnancy, to be seen to. And then the baby himself, Alasdair's grandchild. Without him it would have been unbearable.
Little Alasdair began to squirm and she lifted him up until his soft, fuzzy, baby head was under her lips. She closed her eyes. Oh, the healing power of a baby.
She turned to take him to his nurse to be fed and so did not see the distant sails of the Sea Queen-come gracefully floating up the river.
Van had never felt so physically wretched in all her life. The nausea brought on by pregnancy had only been compounded by the rough September seas of the Channel, and by the time the Sea Queen came to anchor she did not know if she had the energy to walk down the ramp and onto dry land.
She managed it, however, her head high under the gaze of Edward's crew. The captain, an elderly man who had been in service with Edward's father as well, insisted on escorting the hired carriage that took her the few blocks from the quay to the house where her family was lodged.
It was a house that belonged to one of the Rouen merchants who were making a fortune manufacturing the new cloth known as Rounnerie. The merchant had met Lochiel's brother Fassefern in Paris and, upon learning of Jean and Frances, had offered them the use
of his old house. He was in the process of building himself one far more magnificent on the outskirts of the city and had been flattered to rent his old one to two countesses. Frances had been delighted at the opportunity to get Jean away from Paris, and so they had come to Rouen.
Having relinquished her grandson to the care of his wet nurse, Frances proceeded to the small salon and picked up her sewing. She was making an exquisitely stitched gown for the baby and she seated herself in the light from the window to work on it. The house was very quiet. Niall and Jean had gone out together to do some shopping.
She heard the front knocker sound and her head came up with curiosity. They kept very much to themselves, the MacIans, and did not see many people in the town. There was the murmur of voices and then steps came down the hall. The salon door opened and Van was there.
"Hello, Mother," she said. And fainted on the merchant's best carpet.
The day after Van left for France, a messenger arrived at Creag an Fhithich with a letter from the Earl of Linton to his wife. The news it contained was brief and to the point. Edward had ridden to Fort Augustus to report that he had heard rumors of the prince's escape. The officer whose tent he had shared at the fort had come down with smallpox and Edward was going to wait a few weeks before he returned home to make certain he was not carrying the germ himself.
When Morag learned from the messenger that the earl would be returning in a few weeks, she decided to wait for him rather than send the Sea Queen on another errand to France to deliver his letter.
Van awoke with lead in her limbs, wondering how she would meet another day. The morning nausea was subsiding and she found herself rather missing it. At least her physical misery had given her something else to think about.
She felt as if she were living in limbo, a gray, dreary, cheerless limbo. Three weeks had passed and still she had heard nothing from Edward. In her heart, she had thought he would follow her. She had believed that what was between them was too strong to be lost in this quarrel. It seemed, however, that she was wrong. He was not going to forgive her after all.