“Why does that not surprise me?” the ironic voice came from behind her.
She ignored him, taking to her knees and fighting off the claustrophobia that caught her by the throat.
Eventually she reached the grille that closed off the passage. There was no lock on it – it was carefully hidden behind a small fall of water and looked like a drain filter.
Moments later she was through and could stand erect. Then she bent and helped him slide through.
“Phew!” he sighed, managing to stand unsteadily. “For a moment I thought I was back in a Californian silver mine.
“We are getting wet,” he added unnecessarily as the spray from the fall gently penetrated their clothes.
“Follow me, my Lord.”
A rough path led down a hill to the bottom where the ground was level and easily traversed.
There she turned and surveyed Rupert.
“I am so sorry I had to put you through all that, but there was no other way.”
He looked thoroughly exhausted and hardly able to hold himself upright.
“I am happy to be as far away from that place as possible, Miss Stirling.”
“Good. Your horse is nearby – ”
“Is there no end to all your resourcefulness, Miss Stirling?”
The ironic note in his voice was just beginning to irritate her.
“Follow me, please, my Lord.”
“Of course – what else?”
He was stumbling now.
They were out of sight of the Castle and Celina slowed her pace.
She turned and saw through the moonlight that he was nearing the end of his strength.
She took hold of one of his arms and put it round her shoulders, gently saying,
“Lean on me.”
She felt his instinctive recoil and his reluctance to accept her help – then the realisation that he needed to.
As they both staggered along, she could hear how laboured his breathing was and the way it pained him.
Something inside her, despite her strong opinion of the Fitzalan family, responded to his condition.
“I hope your ribs are not broken?” she enquired.
“It will not be through your cousin’s lack of trying if they are not,” he managed to blurt out.
At last they reached the end of the back drive.
“Here is your horse.”
He removed his arm from her shoulders and almost fell forward onto the animal.
“Prince. I thought never to see you again!”
Celina untethered Prince, put the reins into Rupert’s hands and helped him to mount.
“Can you manage?” she asked.
He looked down at her.
“Point me in the right direction for Castle Fitzalan and I will do the rest.”
She looked up at the bright sky now full of stars.
“You are blessed with a clear night. Look, there is the Plough. See where its handle points? Follow that and you will reach Castle Fitzalan.”
“The Big Dipper I know it as,” he said. “But how about you? What will happen to you with the MacLeans?”
“Fear not for me, I can take care of myself, but you will need to watch out if you stay in Scotland. Your escape will not put my uncle and cousin off their crazy mission – they will try to abduct you again.”
“Next time I will be ready for them – ”
He reached down for her hand.
“You have my most heartfelt thanks, Miss Stirling. I know no man would have done for me what you have.”
He raised her hand and brought it to his lips.
“I have not forgotten how you despise my family, but if you ever have need of me at any time in the future, you only have to ask.”
He gave her a glimmer of a smile.
“You know where to find me!”
His gallantry moved Celina.
Had it been Hamish in his position, he would not have tarried, but dug his heels into his horse and galloped away without taking his leave.
She slapped Prince’s rump.
The startled animal set off, his rider almost falling before managing to raise an arm in farewell.
Celina wrapped her arms round herself and started to walk back to the house.
*
Lord MacLean and Hamish were still at the table, drunk, but not quite incapable as Celina came into the Hall.
She had changed into her riding habit and a cloak.
Hidden beneath it was the revolver she had helped herself to from the gun room.
They looked at her owlishly.
Celina removed the large citrine ring that Hamish had placed upon her finger and laid it on the table.
“I cannot marry you,” she stated calmly.
“The devil you can’t!” he slurred. “What nonsense is this?”
“I thought you were an honourable man. You are certainly not and I will not join my life to one with so few principles.”
“You are being foolish, my girl,” came in her uncle. “You have had too sheltered a life. Our honour dictates we retrieve our heirloom.”
“Not this way,” Celina asserted calmly and walked out of the Great Hall and her life as part of the MacLean family.
CHAPTER THREE
Rupert never knew just how he managed to reach the safety of Castle Fitzalan.
Afterwards he supposed that the advice to allow the stars to guide him, plus the use of the compass still safely tucked into his jacket pocket, had enabled him to travel in a direction that eventually brought him to familiar country.
It was sheer willpower that kept him in the saddle.
It was still not midnight when he pulled up a tired Prince before the studded gates of Castle Fitzalan.
Duncan had already gone to bed.
“I’d thought ye’d decided to stay in Pitlochry,” he cried when at last Rupert’s battering on the gate brought him down to open it.
Then he saw the state his new Master was in and was horrified.
“Man, ye need more than a wee drop of the hard stuff. What the hell’s been happenin’ to ye? Ye’ll need that wound seein’ to, I’m thinkin’. Come awa in and tell your tale.”
By this time Walt had appeared and took Prince off to the stables.
Duncan just managed to catch his Master as Rupert sagged to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” Rupert murmured weakly. “I seem to have lost my strength.”
Leaning heavily on Duncan, he reached the kitchen.
There he was sat down and well supplied with whisky before the old retainer riddled the stove and heated water to clean his head wound.
Rupert sat gratefully and watched Duncan at work.
The fiery heat of the alcohol warmed his cold and badly battered body and little by little the vile headache the powerful blow had given him released its hold.
As Duncan cleaned the wound, Rupert told him the story of his kidnapping and how Celina Stirling had freed him.
Duncan shook his shaggy head in wonder.
“Mistress Stirling was it who rescued you? Laddie, that’s a queer thing – with her affianced to young Hamish MacLean.”
Disappointment shot through Rupert.
All the way to Castle Fitzalan he had been filled by a sense of warmth as he remembered the beautiful girl who had freed him.
She had been the first person he had set eyes on as he regained consciousness.
Dressed in a russet gown, blazing red hair flowing down her back, her eyes an astonishingly clear green, she enshrined an almost medieval splendour that enabled him to divorce his mind from what was happening to him.
Too soon, however, he had been forced to summon up all his strength not to collapse under first the verbal and then the physical attack by the MacLean men.
When she had suddenly appeared in his prison cell, illuminated by a flickering candle, he had thought that he was hallucinating.
The fact that she was solid flesh and had come to rescue him was hard to accept, but by the time
he had been reunited with Prince and realised that the nightmare was over, her clear voice and control over the situation had made as deep an impression on him as her appearance.
Thus the information that she was engaged to the vicious Hamish MacLean came as a deep shock.
Had all that talk about honour been no more than a cloak to cover her real intentions?
But what could they be?
Once again his head throbbed unbearably.
“She’s a bonnie lass – ”
Duncan refilled both their whisky mugs.
“I ken her father – he was a Stirling – her mother was Lord MacLean’s little sister. Francis Stirling was a braw lad that courted young Elaine many a moon afore she accepted him. There was a great weddin’.”
He lapsed into silence, no doubt remembering the celebrations.
“Of course, the Laird was no invited, but the young couple set up home not so far away. I seen them often out and about, until the dreadful day some ten or eleven years ago they were killed in a train crash. The wee lass went to live with her uncle at Beaumarche Castle.”
“So you haven’t seen her since she was a child?”
Rupert found he was intensely interested in Celina Stirling’s background.
“Aye I have. She’s often visitin’ Lady Bruce, her Godmother, who was friendly with the Laird. Not that she ever came here, but we would go over there and the young Mistress Stirling was often stayin’ with her Ladyship.
“She would never meet the Laird. He said that the MacLeans had poisoned her mind against him with false tales. But I would see her walkin’ the grounds whilst the Laird was inside with Lady Bruce – and once we talked.”
He paused for a moment, considering, and then added,
“That was only a couple of years ago and I thought how bonnie she was and how well she comported hersel.”
He looked straight at Rupert.
“When I heard that she and yon Hamish MacLean were affianced, I says to meself that mebbe she would keep him straight. From what I hear he’s a fine lad most of the time, but there’s that vicious MacLean streak in him that comes out every now and then.”
Rupert felt his sore ribs and once again wondered about the motives of Celina Stirling in setting him free.
“Now, I’m thinkin’ it’s a dish of pottage you’ll be needin’, laddie, afore you find your bed.”
Duncan’s meat soup proved to be both sustaining and comforting.
That combined with the whisky enabled Rupert to fall asleep almost as soon as he drew the coverlet over his bruised body.
His last thought before he closed his eyes was the memory of Celina Stirling saying that the MacLeans would try to abduct him again. If that was so, then he needed to polish up his riding skills.
It had been far too easy for them to take him on that evening and he was not going to run back to New York.
*
Over the next few days Rupert divided his time between assessing how Castle Fitzalan was to be restored to its former glory and riding Prince.
Gradually the bruises faded from his body and he determined that the MacLeans would not take him again.
Never far from his mind was the vision of Celina Stirling as she had stood in the Hall of Beaumarche Castle and then appeared miraculously in his cell.
Besides her beauty, there was a certain feistiness about her that appealed to Rupert.
Could he, though, trust her motives in freeing him?
Had it really been the matter of honour as she had claimed?
Her uncle and cousin certainly had no honour.
One thing he had no doubts about was his new mount. Prince was proving to be everything he had hoped – strong, fearless, athletic and very fast.
Riding him over the moors soon had Rupert feeling he was well on the way to regaining all his dormant riding skills.
“Laddie, you’re a-lookin’ twice the man you were when you arrived,” Duncan sighed a week after Rupert had returned from his abduction.
Rupert laughed – he found his retainer’s easy way of speaking to him surprisingly attractive.
“I’ve some way to go yet, Duncan. Now, how are we getting on with finding some staff to help you here?”
Duncan waved a dismissive hand.
“Och, weel, there’s a strange lack of folk willin’ to join us in this draughty auld place.”
“It won’t always be draughty. Soon, I am going to set a whole programme of repairs and renovation in hand. I have written to a firm of architects that Mr. Cunningham put me in touch with and they’re sending a partner out next month to see exactly what is required.”
“Have ye now!”
Duncan did not seem as pleased as he had expected. Then he realised that the old man did not want to change his ways too much. For him, with his memories of life with Rupert’s grandfather, the Castle was perfect the way it was.
He went to saddle Prince, wondering how he was going to bring Duncan round to accepting that life at Castle Fitzalan was going to have to change radically.
It was an invigorating day with a strong West wind blowing and he soon left the Castle behind and set Prince at a gallop.
As the days had passed by without incident, Rupert had gradually begun to feel safe.
After riding at full gallop towards a wooded hill, he slowed to a canter.
Suddenly two men rode out of the trees and, even at a distance, he recognised Hamish MacLean – it was as if the man had burned himself into his consciousness.
Rupert had no wish to engage in a fight today.
So he swung Prince round, only to find another two riders coming up behind him.
He made a quick assessment of the lie of the land.
He was in a valley with two woods on his right and a steep hill on his left. In front the valley passed through two hills along a small river. He remembered that it then widened out. If he could reach it before Hamish and his companions, he should be able to lose them.
He spurred on – then saw that two more men were coming through the gap in the hills.
Once more he was at the mercy of the MacLeans!
This time Rupert vowed that he would not allow them to take him.
Determination roared through his veins.
He turned Prince towards the steep hill on his left, bent low over his neck and urged him to gallop as he had never galloped before.
The gallant animal responded at once, charging up the rough slope as though it was a grass-lined Racecourse.
It was a bumpy ride and Rupert thanked his stars for all his riding over the last few days. It had built up his muscles and created a partnership with him and Prince.
Behind him he could hear many loud curses as the MacLeans found their mounts unable to climb up the steep slope with any real speed.
With increasing confidence, Rupert urged Prince on.
Then came the crack of a rifle and a bullet grazed his arm.
He continued and behind him heard a shout from Lord MacLean telling Hamish not to shoot, as they wanted the fellow captured – not dead.
Well, he thought smiling grimly they were not going to capture him today.
He reached the top of the hill to find that the other side sloped much more gently down.
In the distance was Castle Fitzalan.
“Come on Prince!” he shouted. “There’ll be double rations for you tonight.”
As though he understood, the horse galloped as fast as if he had not just completed a punishing climb at top speed and Rupert left his pursuers far behind.
*
“Ye’ve bin that lucky, laddie,” mused Duncan after Rupert safely arrived home. “I shall come out with ye next time and I’ll be armed.”
“We both will be if my grandfather owned anything other than that antique blunderbuss!”
“Before I forgets, Lady Bruce called and left her card.”
“Lady Bruce?”
“Ye remember I said she was a near neighbour of yourn? And that the Laird
used to visit Drumlanrigg from time to time? And it’s where I last saw Mistress Stirling.”
An unexpected and vivid image of Celina swirled before Rupert’s eyes.
“I must return Lady Bruce’s call, Duncan. When would be the best time?”
“If ye’ll be a-readin’ the back of her card, ye’ll see she suggests tomorrow for lunch if ye’ve nothing on.”
*
First thing the next morning Rupert set out with Duncan for Drumlanrigg.
Duncan had insisted that he be driven in the Laird’s ancient open carriage.
“Then ye can wear yer smart American clothes,” he said to Rupert with what could only be described as a leer.
Rupert’s main luggage had arrived two days earlier brought by cart over the moors.
He selected a tweed three-piece suit that an English tailor in New York had produced for him.
Across his chest, he arranged his father’s gold watch on its heavy chain, slipping it into the little fob pocket after checking that it was fully wound up.
It was the only timepiece in the Castle.
But Rupert could remember a long-case clock standing in the main hall from his childhood. The face had had a sun and moon that moved with the time. He supposed that the clock had been sold and mourned its disappearance.
He found the carriage waiting for him. Two sturdy, but by no means young horses were harnessed to it.
Rupert felt that this whole charade was ridiculous – he would much rather simply ride over to Lady Bruce. However, he allowed Duncan to hand him in.
It took more than three quarters of an hour to reach Drumlanrigg through towering hills and wooded valleys.
Rupert admired the scenery, but spent most of the journey wondering what Lady Bruce was going to be able to tell him about Celina Stirling and the MacLean’s feud with the Fitzalans.
It still felt rather strange to be announced as ‘Lord Fitzalan’, but he walked into Lady Bruce’s drawing room as though it was the boardroom of his New York Railway Company.
“Lord Fitzalan, I am so delighted to meet you,” said his hostess, coming forward. “I was a great friend of your grandfather, though I regret I saw little of him over the last few years as he became something of a recluse.”
Lady Bruce was a no-nonsense figure in a tweed skirt and jacket with a pair of pince-nez dangling down the front of her silk shirt. Iron-grey hair was arranged in two plaits that circled each ear. Her voice managed to combine authority with a musicality that made it attractive.
The Revelation is Love Page 4