Rabbie MacLean, Mary’s lad of fifteen had taken over as our groomsman when his father had been kicked in the head by a horse and died two years previous. He offered me a hesitant smile, a blush staining his cheeks.
“I canna talk now, Rabbie,” I muttered.
His eyes dropped to the ground and I saw his face darken to crimson as I pushed past him to Caulley’s stall.
Leading Caulley outside, I climbed onto his bare back, wrapped his mane in my fists and gave his sides an urging with my heels. Caulley immediately sensed my mood and we galloped at a dangerous pace up the snow-covered slopes. Ice water splashed my calves as Caulley’s hooves shattered the thin layer of ice that topped the burn. I squeezed my legs tight as he stumbled over the uneven rock bed. Freezing wind whipped my hair across my eyes. I pushed my horse without mercy, his breath coming in short white puffs. Perhaps sensing my despair, he kept the unsafe pace without complaint, his black mane buffeted by the wind, steam rising from his back.
Finally I slowed him to a canter then a trot, buried my face into his mane and hugged his warm neck. He smelled of the barn, safe and pungent. I breathed deep and clicked my tongue, “Oh Caulley, old lad, what’s to become of us?” His ears pricked and he nickered as I ran my hands up his neck and down his muzzle. He uttered his sympathy with another gentle nicker, leaning into me as I nuzzled his big head. Then I noticed the rusty stains I was leaving on his coat. My hand bled freely and I pressed it to my skirts as Caulley moved beneath me.
What could I do? Who could I tell? And who would believe me? The mess seemed insurmountable. I had no evidence that Deirdre had killed Mother and now Da had married her. She was legally my stepmother. I needed Duncan so badly now and I didn’t know when I would see him again. His devilish smile jumped to the front of my mind and my chest hurt. I pushed him away and thought hard. I could ride into Uig and speak to Da’s solicitor. Yes, that’s what I’d do. Surely he would help. I’d check in Da’s study for the name of the man he dealt with and pay him a visit soon.
I squeezed my knees and clicked my tongue, turned Caulley around and retraced our path, much more slowly this time. As we neared the stables I slid from his back. Rabbie continued with his work and didn’t turn. I peered into Caulley’s beautiful, charcoal eyes and knew he understood. I pressed my forehead to his forelock and kissed his face then turned to our stable lad.
“I’m sorry, Rabbie,” I said quietly.
He turned and his eyes searched mine worriedly as he leaned on his pitchfork. “Nay, Miss Meara, no need for sarry.” He smiled uncertainly, “Can I help at all?”
“Nay, laddie I dinna think anyone can help,” I smiled sadly.
He smiled back, his blue eyes dark with concern, “I’m here if ye ever need me.”
I reached out and patted his shoulder, “Aye, I ken, Rabbie, yer a good lad,” I murmured as he leaned his pitchfork against the paddock and took Caulley from me. I looked up at the castle – my home, my refuge – but pulled back. A menacing, dark aura seemed to creep from the ancient stone, surrounding it in a halo of shadow. I swallowed and blinked several times then turned as Rabbie’s voice filtered through my confusion.
“Sorry, Rabbie, what did ye say?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“Are ye hurt, Miss Meara?” he asked, his brows drawn over his kind eyes. “There’s blood on Caulley’s neck.”
“Oh, aye, aye, just a little. It’s a wee scratch, nothin’ to fash about,” I reassured, pressing the sizeable gash against my thigh.
He gently took my hand and squinted down at the bloody mess. Pulling a clean handkerchief from his breast pocket he carefully wrapped it around the wound.
“Ye show that to my mother now. She’ll ken as what to do for it,” he urged, his eyes on my hand.
“Thanks, Rabbie, I’ll do that,” I answered, then smiled as he peered back at me. Immediately a flush moved up his cheeks and I quickly turned so as not to embarrass the lad more.
Tentatively, I looked up at Duntulm but the sinister cloud had vanished and I felt foolish. Surely it was just a trick of my troubled mind. I peered up at the overcast sky, tasted the cold of oncoming snow. Wind blustered across the courtyard as I skidded back down the slippery path. I shook with the cold, my cloak forgotten in my haste to run.
Dread of what lay ahead slowed my feet. I hoped Deirdre hadn’t told Hannah yet. I thought it would be too much for my sister to bear without me.
But I was wrong about my sister. Deirdre hadn’t yet summoned her and when I tentatively told her, she closed her eyes for a moment then simply nodded. As she shrugged her shoulders and stared out the window, I wanted to shake her, shake a suitable reaction from her. Immediately I cursed myself for the traitorous thought. Hannah needed me more than ever. I was all she had.
I unclenched my fists, adjusted the fresh cloth bandage on my hand then wrapped her wooden body in my arms and peered over her fair head. Angus met my bleak stare with sad eyes, shook his shaggy head and silently closed Hannah’s door.
******
That afternoon I searched Da’s desk and found the name of his solicitor, Alan Moffat. With no clear plan in mind, I stole away the next morning and arrived in Uig just before midday. I found the solicitor’s building easily and when I identified myself I was escorted into his office without delay. He shook my hand warmly and showed me to a seat. Before I could lose my nerve, I quickly explained all that had happened over the past several months.
“I ken yer Da weel and this is verra hard for me to believe. Ye say as yer aunt murdered yer mother?” he asked, his eyes narrowed as he took in my dishevelled appearance.
Self-consciously I smoothed my hair and nodded, “Aye, sir, I canna provide any proof just yet but yesterday she told me that she and Da have married. But my father isna of sound mind the now. This canna be legal, surely.” My stomach tightened. My story sounded contrived even to my own ears.
He took off his spectacles and polished them briskly on his coattail then placed them carefully back on his nose. “Weel, miss, I ken yer mother passed away, a tragic accident, surely. But ye might ha’ come to me sooner wi’ yer suspicions. If yer father chose to marry this woman, there’s naught I can do for ye the now.” He leaned forward and folded his hands on his desk. “I ken yer family has been through a great deal, lass. Yer father is one of my oldest clients and I wish him weel. I suggest ye remember yer place, Miss MacDonald, instead of stirrin’ up trouble where there appears to be none,” he scolded, leveling one long finger at me.
I stared at the finger then at the man with his sparkling spectacles and thinning hair. He didn’t believe me. I raised my chin, met his eyes and thanked him for his time then left the office. I reached Duntulm just before dark and crept up to my chambers. Without bothering to remove my gown, I burrowed beneath my quilt, cuddled Daisy’s small body close and didn’t have the energy to turn my head as she licked away my silent tears.
******
“Ah laddie, would ye be needin’ a handkerchief for the tears then?”
Duncan glanced up at his cousin and grinned. Ranald’s huge silhouette stood dark against the backdrop of the hazy sun. “And why do ye think I’d need a handkerchief, Wee Ranny?” Duncan asked, knowing what the answer would be. He leaned his musket against his thigh and blew on his icy hands while he waited for Ranald to answer.
“Och, I canna tell if it’s tears or snot pouring down yer face, Duncan. But it’s clear ye have no heart for this business. Ye’ve left yer heart back home wi’ wee Meara, lad,” Ranny replied, as he gave Duncan’s shoulder a hearty squeeze.
“It’s the wind makin’ my eyes and nose run, just the wind, cuz.”
Duncan, of course, wasn’t crying but Ranald had clearly noticed the grim lines on his older cousin’s face. Inside Duncan’s head, Meara’s voice rose above the enormous din and rattle of musket fire around him. Dinna fash, lad, I’ll be fine. But he was worried and he was having a difficult time keeping his mind on the drills. He wholeheartedly believed Deirdre had
murdered Jessie and he wanted to be home with Meara not here doing target practice. A tight fist of frustration battered his insides. His duty was to the regiment but Ranald was spot on; his heart was with Meara. He should be there protecting her even if she didn’t think she needed protection. She was headstrong and feisty and he loved her more than life itself.
He thought of her eyes – the green of the loch in the summer – and the saucy tilt of her head. He thought of her generous mouth, how soft her lips felt beneath his, how she returned his kisses with a passion that was somehow innocent. His fiery lass; Blessed Lord how he loved her! Then a vision filled his head; Meara, her smile broken in sorrow, her eyes glistening with tears from the loss of her mother. She needed him! He prayed Robert MacDonald would see past his grief to be rid of Deirdre and Sloan.
“Och, lad, there’s no sense in dwellin’ on it. This willna last forever and then ye can go home to yer love,” Ranald growled against the wind.
Duncan peered up at his cousin. Ranald was a Stewart, his mother’s sister’s son and was taller than him by a foot. They shared the same dark hair and blue eyes but there the resemblance ended. Though two years his junior, Ranald was a mountain of a man with fists the size of two whole hams. Duncan fiercely loved his rascal of a cousin. Both of their fathers had served with the 42nd and they had decided together to join the infantry. Britain and Spain were undoubtedly going to need a great deal of help if they were to defeat Bonaparte and they’d wanted to follow in their father’s footsteps. Now, however, Duncan was not so certain.
“Aye, Wee Ranny, yer right as usual. I best stop broodin’ and get back at it.”
Duncan squinted up at the ice-crystal halo that encircled the sun. A band of snow moved across the field toward them and he felt the bite of the wind beneath his kilt. He rubbed his hands together and blew on them again then picked up his musket. He opened the priming pan, felt in his sporran for a lead ball, bit the tip off the end containing the powder charge and spat out the greased paper. Raising his shoulder against the wind, he squeezed some powder into the pan and closed it. Snow and ice pellets swirled around his head as he emptied the remainder of the powder down the musket barrel. He rammed the rest of the cartridge down then cocked his musket.
He wiggled his eyebrows at Ranald who had just cocked his own weapon, “Well lad, let’s shoot the shite out of these targets, shall we?”
He shoved his hair off his forehead and squinted against the driving snow. A pair of green eyes danced before him as the butt of the musket kicked hard into his shoulder.
******
I was at a loss and badly discouraged. I had no family in Scotland. Da’s brother and sisters were in a place called Pennsylvania somewhere in the Americas; an ocean away. They could be of no immediate help. Da’s solicitor thought I was mad. Deirdre had a document declaring she was my father’s wife and now possessed the legal right to do whatever she pleased.
So as the snow melted into a sodden spring, I bided my time, spending my mornings with Hannah, quite often acting the fool, in a pathetic attempt to bring a smile to her lips. Hanging upside down off the side of the bed, I made absurd faces. She appeased me with a weak smile. I remembered days past when just crossing my eyes had sent her into a fit of giggles. My impersonation of Deirdre – lifting each giant foot with the help of my hands as I plodded across the room – fared little better. And as I hunched my shoulders and grabbed my crotch, walked with a backward lean and licked my lips in an exaggeration of the revolting Uncle Sloan, Hannah merely shook her head and gnawed at her fingernails. Would I ever see joy in those eyes again? I was very afraid I would not.
In the afternoon I often escaped to my beloved highland, far from the doom that cloaked the castle. Galloping across the rising slopes, I revelled in the solitude, guiding Caulley to my favourite spot, the coastline, where the sheer cliff teemed with seabird colonies and a magnificent twin waterfall cascaded down the granite face to collide with the jagged rocks and sea below. Sometimes if I sat motionless, I would be fortunate enough to see a red deer venture from the safety of the trees to nervously graze on a tuft of new heather. From time to time I would take the familiar trail south across MacDonald lands, riding for an hour toward Dunvegan castle, the MacLeod stronghold, hoping by chance, that Duncan was home from training and I would find him racing atop Tormod. Caulley had galloped this path so many times that I would give him his lead and lean back in my saddle, feeling the wind – redolent with heather, wildflowers and sea air – caress my face as images of Duncan eased my despair.
Duncan had no siblings and had endured his own share of tragedy. He had been but twelve when his bonnie mother, Elizabeth, had been taken in childbirth and Duncan’s wee sister along with her. Though I was only ten at the time, I clearly remembered Duncan’s anguish, his broken heart and his stalwart effort to be strong. And I knew he had been racked with guilt that he hadn’t been able to save his beloved mother. A rigid man, his father had sent Duncan to stay with us and it was in my own mother’s arms that Duncan finally allowed his tears to fall. I had watched secretly from the doorway to the great room and had felt my own tears wet my face as Mother consoled him. Though a new vulnerability lurked in his eyes, my mischievous friend slowly came back and before long he returned to Dunvegan. Then when Duncan was eighteen, his father, Heath MacLeod, suffered apoplexy and had lingered for several months before succumbing. Duncan had taken over as laird of the MacLeod stronghold and now at twenty he divided his time between training as an officer with the 42nd regiment and serving as laird of Dunvegan castle and the remaining crofters.
In days past dissension divided the MacLeod and MacDonald clans but all feuding had long since ended. Just before Mother died, Duncan had met with my father to ask for my hand. Da felt of Duncan as his son and had, after a little teasing, given his consent. But not ready to lose me just yet, he had asked that we wait another year to become officially engaged. I was already past the age of marrying and thought it would be the longest year of my life but of course we had agreed.
As the days after Da’s secret nuptials trudged from spring to summer, his condition declined. I had no doubt he had lost his will. He never left his room and each breath was now a laboured wheeze. It scared me to see the spots of blood that came with his cough. His skin hugged his bones and I believed his sorrow had triggered a dreadful illness that was growing worse each day; an illness that Deirdre chose to ignore. Angry at her indifference, I went to my stepmother.
“Da needs to see a doctor. He canna draw a breath without coughin’ and somethin’s wrong.”
“He just has a summer cold, Meara. That’s all it is, girl, and I bin treatin’ it with garlic,” she added, dismissing me with a wave of her hand.
“Nay, it isna workin’ at all! He’s verra ill!” I argued, stamping my foot in frustration.
“Dinna bother me wi’ that clarty imagination of yers or I willna allow ye to see yer father at all! Do ye hear me?”
Two days crawled by and I could not sleep with the worry. I felt certain Da was going to die if I didn’t do something. The next day, a sticky morning in early July, Da suffered a lengthy bout of coughing. Then without warning he began to thrash wildly about, his body convulsing uncontrollably. After a brief moment of shock, I tried to restrain him but his arm swung out and knocked me to the floor. The attack lasted about a minute then he slumped forward, unable to hold up his own head. I had never seen anything like it. Drops of blood and mucous stained the front of his nightshirt. I was stunned and frightened but as I rubbed his back and bathed his clammy face, I saw Deirdre’s lack of concern and understood she had much to gain should my father pass. Her amorous interest seemed to have waned and apparently he served no purpose to her now. She had already taken my mother’s life and there was no way in bloody hell I would passively watch Da die by her hand. Just what she had done to him, I could not guess, but I was certain she had done something.
After making sure Da was comfortable, I stole back to my room and
hastily wrote a note then slipped out to the stable to find Rabbie. He saddled up at once to deliver my urgent message to the doctor in the village of Uig.
Deirdre was enraged when Dr. Bennett appeared the next afternoon. I stood by her side at the door, silently daring her to turn him away. She vibrated with checked fury but what was she to do? No doubt, questions would be raised if she sent the good doctor away, so she stepped aside, her eyes burning angrily into mine. I stared right back at her and Dr. Bennett, I was sure, didn’t miss our silent exchange.
With brows drawn over his sharp eyes, the doctor remained silent as he examined Da. He pressed his ear to Da’s chest and listened to his struggle for breath. He shook his head and stroked the patchy beard that poked from his lantern jaw. He frowned at Deirdre briefly then his eyes sought mine. “Yer father has the consumption, lass.” Tightness spread through my chest as he glanced back at Da, a furrow parting his brows. “Nay, lass, he isna well at all. And I dinna ken what has made him so…so senseless. Ha’ ye bin givin’ him somethin’ to help wi’ the cough, Meara?”
An uneasy feeling fluttered in my belly as I shook my head, “Nay, Doctor, though Aunt Deirdre’s been givin’ him garlic,” I answered, staring hard at Deirdre. Her glance slid from mine and I watched her lips gather.
Dr. Bennett continued to rub his chin, as he stared first at Deirdre then thoughtfully back at my father. “Nay, I shad say it isna workin’ verra weel. And ye say he had a fit of some sort?” I nodded. “Weel, that’s a problem in itself and no to do wi’ his trouble breathin’, I shad think.” He stared off over my head, deep in thought for a moment. Then his eyes returned to mine. “Och, lass, for now ha’ Mary brew a pot o’ leech broth. That may ease the cough somewhat but there’s nought to do but send him away. The damp sea air’s killin’ him. He needs dry air to make him weel.”
My mind raced as I stared into Da’s murky eyes. Where could I send him? Hannah and I would have to go with him, make certain he was cared for properly. How long would we be gone? I couldn’t help but think of Duncan. Emotions ran through my head and it was a moment before I found my voice, “Aye, Dr. Bennett, I’ll see that arrangements are made straight away.” I glanced at Deirdre, felt the naked hate in her eyes. But she dared not say a word.
Megan Denby Page 4