Highlander Unbound

by Julia London

  Ellen remained in that dreamy state of wonder until Natalie came bouncing into the room. “Oh, did the captain leave? I haven’t finished my picture!” She fell onto her knees next to her mother, her expression curious. “Why are you smiling, Mother?”

  “Am I smiling?” she asked airily, feeling it sink even deeper into her soul. “I suppose it’s because I had a very pleasant chat with the captain.”

  “I rather like him,” Natalie said, fidgeting with the hem of Ellen’s gown. “He’s rather snuggly, don’t you think?”

  “Snuggly?” Ellen laughed, brushing a strand of hair from Natalie’s eye. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I don’t know…he’s the sort that I’d like to hug, like a bear. Do you?”

  Oh, yes. Yes, she most certainly fancied a hug. “Perhaps,” Ellen confessed.

  Natalie put her head on her mother’s knee. “But he speaks very strangely.”

  “That’s because he’s from another part of the world.”

  “What do you suppose it’s like there, where he lives? Do you suppose they have fairy princesses?”

  “I rather think they do,” Ellen said dreamily, reminded of the Scotland he had described.

  “I think I should like to visit one day. Perhaps he will invite us,” Natalie said hopefully, and abruptly sat up, her eye on the cake Agatha had left.

  Funny, Ellen thought as she moved to cut her daughter a piece of cake, but she rather thought she’d like to visit there one day, too, and cheerfully indulged Natalie’s discourse on princesses and castles, allowing her own mind to fill with visions of Scotland and her chest with the raging desire to feel his touch again.

  Across town, at White’s, Nigel was all smiles and well on his way to his usual state of inebriation. But he was also deeply involved in a game of whist, paired with the hapless Uckerby, who, judging by the look of it, was probably the reason why Nigel had lost an astounding two hundred pounds. He therefore had little desire to chat up the past with Liam. In fact, the more Nigel lost, the more he drank and the less enthusiastic he was about the prospect of a bit of prattle with his long-lost Scottish cousin.

  Therefore, Liam accomplished little that night, other then drinking too much himself, and privately lamenting the fact that he might instead have been carrying on a very pleasant conversation with Ellie, as opposed to watching a large man blubber in his cups with every losing hand. By the time Liam made it back to Belgrave Square, he had quite a head on him. Yet he had managed to secure an invitation to join Nigel for a partridge shoot the following day, an event at which a lot of bloody fops would, apparently, take out their guns and shoot at birds to fill the endless time on their hands. Liam was beginning to appreciate that this mission was destined to take more time than he could have ever anticipated.

  In his rooms, he divested himself of the stiff clothing as quickly as possible, and in his shirttails, he penned another letter home:

  Dearest Mother, London smells quite awfully. It shall take a wee bit longer to clean it all up. Kindest regards and so forth. Yours faithfully, L.

  Liam sealed it with a drop of candle wax and the slap of his fist. Then he stood, swaying only slightly (a marked improvement), and shrugged out of his shirt. His nose instantly wrinkled—his clothing was beginning to smell, he noted, and he thought he’d rather have to do something about that. He draped the offending garment over a chair, peeled off his trousers and his drawers. Naked, he walked across the room and fell onto the lumpy bed, legs splayed and arms wide. The last vision in his mind before he drifted off into a whiskey-induced sleep was of Ellie, standing against the door of her suite of rooms, looking like a bloody angel. Leannan.

  He was up before dawn the next morning, a little bleary-eyed, but no worse for the wear. Stuffing his knapsack full of clothing, he walked outside to Belgrave Square and a darling little bird pond there. The water was ice cold, and it was still very dark, so that he could just make out the shirts and trousers he was washing. He realized, of course, that it might have been a bit more prudent of him to wash the garments in the hip bath Follifoot drug to his room on occasion, but he calculated that by the time Follifoot had made the required number of trips with his buckets to fill the damn thing, it would be done and over if he simply availed himself of the square’s pond.

  And it was a fact that by the time the sun had come up and the denizens of London began to make their way out-of-doors, Liam was in his rooms again, his clothing strewn about on every conceivable surface to dry.

  He was shaving when Follifoot arrived with his breakfast.

  The hapless footman’s watery eyes bulged with surprise as he glanced around the room and saw the freshly laundered clothing lying about.

  “Close yer gob, Follifoot, ere the fireflies roost within,” Liam warned him as he scraped his whiskers with a dull blade.

  Follifoot closed his gaping mouth, set the tray down. Whatever he had brought, the odor was so pungent that Liam wrinkled his nose and grimaced at the footman over his shoulder. “What is it, then?”

  “Couldn’t rightly say, sir. Something rather brown-looking.”

  “Brings to mind a barnyard!”

  Follifoot shrugged. As much as Liam didn’t want to waste precious coins on food, he gestured impatiently at the tray. “I’ll no’ have it. Take it to someone with the balls to eat it, then,” he said, and hoped he might find something to put in his stomach between here and Wintershire, where he was to meet Nigel at precisely ten o’clock.

  With a sigh, Follifoot picked up the tray, and went out with one last look at the laundered clothing.

  In Wintershire, Liam found Nigel straightaway, standing atop a small hill, holding his gun like a newborn bairn in the crook of his arm. “Ah, Cousin Liam! So you came round after all!” he crowed.

  Actually, it was more surprising that Nigel should find his way out of his house before noon. “Aye,” Liam said gruffly, and noticed that Nigel was peering at his shirt, which he had opted to wear without the confining waistcoat.

  “I didn’t think to ask if you had proper attire,” Nigel said, more to himself than to Liam. “Ah, well. There’s nothing to be done for it now, is there?” He laughed as Liam looked down at his clothing, perplexed. “Have you a gun? I took the liberty of bringing one of my father’s better guns,” he said, and bent over, digging in a canvas bag at his feet, withdrew a long-nosed gaming pistol, and handed it to Liam. “Thought you’d like to have a go with it.”

  By the look of it, the thing had been scavenged from the last century and was useless for small game—it would blow a partridge to the four corners of the earth. Nevertheless, Liam smiled his thanks, and asked, “Do ye like the hunt, then?”

  Nigel laughed, rocked up to the tips of his toes as he jauntily braced his gun against his shoulder. “Can’t say, really. I’ve not made it a pastime.” He rocked back down to his heels.

  Undoubtedly, because there wasn’t enough port involved in hunting for Nigel’s liking.

  “Well, then. We’re to meet Uckerby—he’s the chap with the license, naturally, as his father is the earl. And Hingston. That makes four, of course. We’re shooting against another foursome…” He paused, put a finger to the side of his nose as he thought about that. “Can’t rightly recall who…Givens, I think. And Henley. Browning and Farnsworth—”

  “Farnsworth?” Liam asked, surprised.

  “Yes, of course. He wouldn’t miss a gaming opportunity, would he? I rather imagine this outing is double the pleasure for him, then, eh?” Nigel laughed roundly, but at Liam’s stoic expression, he sobered. “You see what I mean, don’t you? Gaming in the sense of laying a wager or two on the outcome? And then of course we’re shooting game, so in a word, that is gaming, too…” Nigel’s voice trailed off; he looked sulky for a moment, but quickly brightened again. “Shall we have a go of it, then?” he suggested cheerfully, motioning for Liam to follow.

  The game, as Uckerby described it, consisted of two rules—each team put a wager for what they exp
ected to bag, and at the end of the hunt, the gamesmen would count the game shot by each team, and one would be declared the winner. Much to Liam’s chagrin, he was forced to put up thirty pounds for the dubious pleasure of joining a hunt with an ancient gun. Their team was led by Uckerby, who gave them strict instructions to bring back four partridges a man, for he had seen Givens hunt, and he couldn’t shoot the top off a mountain, Browning was far too timid, and Farnsworth too blind to do them much good. Uckerby used these facts, along with something having to do with the whist game last night, to determine the required number of partridges per man, which, as it happened, was the bag limit in the park.

  “Very well, then, tallyho and all that,” Nigel said brightly, and turned to Liam. “Let’s shoot together, shall we?”

  If he had been in London for any other reason, anything—Liam sighed, tipped his hat to Nigel. “Will ye lead the way, then, cousin?”

  “Yes, yes, of course! Pip-pip!” he said jauntily, and they were off.

  Their first hour was an unmitigated disaster. Nigel shot at precisely four flying objects, of which only one was a partridge, and even that he managed to miss. When he pressed Liam to shoot at one partridge perched on a rock, the damn gun locked and almost blew off Liam’s hand. But he had hunted game all his life, and he was not of a mind to be humiliated in front of this group of popinjays because of the ineptitude of his cousin. With a few pebbles and a slingshot hastily made from a stick and one of his stockings, Liam managed to bring down two partridges.

  That feat impressed Nigel mightily. So much so that he had to take a bit of a rest. They were sitting on a large rock when Liam saw two men across the clearing, and recognized one as being Farnsworth. If Farnsworth recognized Liam, he gave no sign of it, and he and his companion tottered on into the woods.

  “Farnsworth, ridiculous creature,” Nigel grumbled as he examined his gun. “A tighter man you’ve not met, I’d wager, the bloody miser. And the way he treats his daughter…tsk-tsk.” Nigel shook his head.

  Now he had Liam’s undivided, rapt attention. “His daughter? And how is it that he treats her?”

  Squinting into the distance, Nigel sighed. “Oh, dear, how should I say it? Won’t allow her to go out into society, that sort of thing. Not that I think he should, really, given all that went on. Have you seen her?”

  “In passing,” Liam lied, then couldn’t resist. “Pretty lass, is she no’?”

  “Pretty? I hadn’t noticed, really. But she deserves to be out, I should think. My dear sister Barbara says that the whole of her clothing comes from her sister Eva. Shameful!” Nigel paused, looked curiously at Liam. “You’ve not met Barbara, have you? Lovely girl, truly. She’s come out last Season, you know. My father hosted a very large ball in honor of the event. Four hundred in attendance.” He nodded proudly.

  “Hmm,” Liam said, shifting his gaze to the sun, his mind still racing around the tidbit Nigel had offered about Ellie.

  “It was quite the event, really. Champagne and dancing…” He sighed dreamily. “The invitations were quite coveted.”

  Liam looked away so Nigel wouldn’t see him roll his eyes with impatience. “Aye, then, cousin, we’d best be about our shoot,” he tried.

  But Nigel hadn’t quite finished. “We had the floors polished with beeswax, you know,” he said, and leaned toward Liam to whisper, “Just like Prinny. And of course, Father laid in six hundred candles. Beeswax, not tallow.”

  “Ah,” Liam said, and calmly contemplated gouging out his eyeballs as a feasible alternative to Nigel’s blathering.

  But then Nigel suddenly gasped and sat up; he turned a very bright grin to Liam. “Why, yes, of course! You must come to our ball, Liam—say you will!” he said excitedly.

  “What?” he sputtered, caught off-guard. “A ball?”

  “Of course a ball! I was just about to say that Father thought the first ball such a frightfully grand success that he is determined to host another. The invitations have all been sent round for this very fortnight! Yes, of course you’ll come, and I shall make you a proper introduction to my sister Barbara!”

  Oh, no. No-no-no, he’d be far gone from London by then. And even if he weren’t, wild horses could not drag him to some glittery, pompous ball! “How kind ye are, Nigel—”

  “And I can’t imagine Father would mind, really, but perhaps it would be best if you came round and paid a call, you know, just in case there is some objection—you did say something about scandal, didn’t you?”

  “Did I?”

  “I’m certain you did—something about your father and a difference of opinion and all that.”

  “Ah,” Liam said, feeling suddenly very chipper. “A difference, aye. My father…” he paused, looked meaningfully in the distance, and sadly shook his head. “I shouldna speak ill of him.”

  “Of course not! I perfectly understand. I suppose each and every one of us has a row with our fathers now and again.”

  “In all fairness, ’twas more than a row,” Liam said. “The good Lockhart name is at issue—ach, there I go, speaking ill.”

  “Liam! We’re cousins!” Nigel exclaimed, slapping an arm around his shoulders and squeezing hard. “Has he done something wrong? Spied, perhaps? There were quite a lot of them wandering about during the war, you know,” he suggested helpfully.

  “Oh, no, he’d no’ spy.”

  “Wouldn’t he?” Nigel asked, clearly disappointed.

  “’Tis that our loyalties differ…there are loyalists, and there are…well…”

  Nigel brightened. “Rebellion, do you think?”

  Liam resisted the urge to snort at that ridiculous suggestion, managed instead to shrug noncommittally. “We’re cousins, Nigel. I’d no’ taint yer good name, which is why I really shouldna bother yer father—”

  “Nonsense! He won’t be bothered in the least! Just come round to meet him, will you?”

  Liam looked at Nigel with the most innocent look he could muster. “Do ye really think I should, then?”

  “Naturally! You’ll want to pay your respects, I should think, what with this unfortunate rift with your father over our good name, cousin—and you’ll certainly want to meet your uncle and give him your side of the story, should things turn…well, you know. Frightfully scandalous,” he said with all authority. “You know how people talk.”

  “I see yer point.”

  “Really? Well, then, if it’s all the same to you, shall you come around Sunday afternoon? Five o’clock? Say, for tea?”

  Liam had to struggle to keep the smile from his face. Finally, the opportunity had presented itself. Everything was beginning to fall into place.

  “Well, then? Will you?” Nigel asked eagerly.

  “Thank ye kindly. I shall look forward to it, I will.”

  Nigel reared back, clapped his chubby hands together. “Splendid! Now, shall we find your partridges? I’ve got two by my count, which means I need two more, and you, of course, need four. Goodness! We’d best be at it!” Nigel said, coming to his feet, and instantly lumbering off in the direction of the tree line.

  Mi Diah, Liam thought, and with a long, tortured sigh, followed his cousin into the woods.

  Twelve

  Ellen made Natalie stay in Belgrave Square much longer than was customary for them—the sun was shining brightly, an unusually warm day for autumn. It was so very pleasant it was easier to relive the memory of his touch, and Ellen wanted to recall the exquisite sensation, hold on to it as long as her mind would allow her. There was something about her father’s house that deadened it, that wouldn’t allow her to capture the feeling and remember what it was like to feel alive again.

  She would have been content to stay in the square all day, but Natalie grew bored of it, and at last, Ellen took her daughter by the hand and strolled up Park Street to have a look at the mansions there, resolute in her determination to relish every moment of this glorious and rare autumn day, and more reluctant than ever to return to the dark and wretched halls of
her father’s house.

  They found themselves at the entrance to Hyde Park, where London’s elite strolled about and sought amusement. To watch the procession of haute ton ladies in expensive walking gowns and showy bonnets, and gentlemen in embroidered waistcoats atop meticulously groomed horses was thrilling, and a pastime that inevitably made Natalie long to belong. But she and Natalie would never be a part of this society again, and it seemed unfair to give Natalie any hope that she would, so Ellen typically avoided it.

  It was days like this, Ellen thought, as they entered the park, that she was so thankful Natalie was still too young to understand why they were outcasts. Inevitably, the day would come when she would ask the questions Ellen dreaded, the questions for which she really had no good answer. And really, as time passed, she could only know for certain that she had once fallen in love, fallen hard and long, and had given her all to it, and then…now. Now there were just the two of them, living in the wreckage of her carelessness, virtual prisoners of a father who would neither forgive nor forget.

  Natalie would eventually ask, but today was not that day, and Ellen smiled at her daughter, who was fairly floating along the ground. “Are we going on a walkabout, Mother?”

  “I think we shall.”

  “Ooh, how splendid!” she cried, and slipped from her mother’s grasp, skipping ahead, her bonnet askew, eagerly trying to take in all the sights around her. Ellen hurried to catch up with her, feeling remarkably light of step herself for the first time in a long time.

  They walked at a leisurely pace, taking in the lovely gowns and bonnets of the ladies who strolled along the promenade. Dashing gentlemen rode by on horseback, and couples laughed with one another as they rolled through in impossibly clean and highly ornamented curricles and broughams. They were so taken by the sights that it was some time before Ellen realized how far they had walked. They had come to a small clearing near a pond where the sunlight washed over the grass, and three geese glided serenely from shore to shore to rest beneath the boughs of willow trees. Nearby, atop an incline, children played, squealing with laughter. Natalie looked at them wistfully, and Ellen, wanting so for her daughter to have playmates, put her hand in the small of her daughter’s back. “Go and play,” she said, and smiled at the buoyancy in her daughter’s step as she ran toward the children, slowing only when she neared them, approaching more cautiously.