Alyson looked from Rory leaning against the mantel to the stack of gifts at her feet, and then to the circle of small expectant faces. Grubby little hands clutched an assortment of oddities, all generously created by loving hands for just this occasion. Her hands covered her lips in surprise, and instead of opening the presents, she burst into tears.
Rory fell to his knees beside Alyson’s chair to gather his weeping wife into his arms, shaken that he’d reduced her to tears. The earl broke into gales of laughter.
“Just like her mother in that, she is. Never saw such a woman for tears as Brianna. Even on our wedding night . . .” He chuckled. “Enough said on that. She’s just happy, lad. What is it you Scots say? Don’t ‘fash’ yourself?”
The children giggled at his attempt at a Scots dialect, and Alyson granted them a watery smile. She stroked Rory’s hair, loosening strands from the ties. For a brief moment, he looked into the shattering clarity of her eyes, and happiness filled him at the joy he found there—the first heart-true happiness he’d known since the slaughter of his family.
The contents of the packages mattered little in comparison to the love with which they were given. Alyson exclaimed and laughed and admired as Rory sat on the wool rug at her feet, handing her each one to open. She cried over a lace christening gown and laughed over a rag-stuffed baby doll. She kissed the top of Rory’s head over a lovely sapphire necklace that matched the gown he had once bought for her, and then laughed with delight to discover he had had another gown made of the same satin.
“It matches your eyes, lass,” he murmured when she sighed over the silky fabric. “I like to see it on you.” That gained him another kiss.
The children’s gifts produced a kiss on each expectant face. They went away with pockets filled with candied fruits and a ha’pence or two. The music grew livelier, and chattering voices and laughter filled the once-empty hall. Tray after tray of food was laid upon the long table where the gifts had once been.
To Rory’s surprise, a final large package was spirited out of some hiding place and laughingly dumped in his lap by Myra and Dougall. From the conspiratorial looks exchanged, he gathered that his irrepressible wife was involved, and he crooked an eyebrow in her direction.
“Should the laird be only giver and not receiver, my lord?” Alyson questioned archly. “It seems I can remember being told not to look a gift horse in the mouth, or some such faradiddle. Open it.”
Rory tore open the strings, only to find a dozen smaller packages inside. Grinning at this extravagance, joining in the spirit of this first Christmas celebrated since he was a child, he opened the bulkiest package first.
Out fell a long frock coat of rich navy velvet, beautifully embroidered in gold braid and thread on the narrow buff cuffs and along the stiffened edges. It was a gentleman’s coat of the latest mode, fashionably simple for ease in riding but tailored for elegance. A gift from Deirdre in London, it suited Rory’s taste and need as well as the fashion.
Like a child, he shed his threadbare coat and donned the new one, testing the tailoring by shifting his shoulders and standing over his seated wife. “Do I look the part of laird now?” he asked, striking a pose with hand over heart and head flung back. The strand of hair she’d loosened fell across his cheek.
Alyson giggled. “If you should try on all your gifts as you open them, you will provide a great deal of entertainment. Perhaps we ought to retire upstairs before you open the next.” She lifted a smaller package and handed it to him.
Their audience laughed as Rory broke the string on a matching pair of breeches. These he held up and announced a perfect fit without need to try them on. This announcement brought a roar of disappointment. To appease the crowd, Alyson handed over an awkwardly wrapped bundle. Rory happily removed the paper, revealing a black cocked hat trimmed in gold, complete with gold pin to hold one side in place. Rory donned his new chapeau and chose the next gift himself.
A bundle of hand-stitched linen shirts tumbled out. Alyson leaned over to whisper that every woman in the household had worked at the cutting and stitching of the fine fabric. In delight, Rory strode into the crowd to buss every woman he encountered and swing her in a circle in time to the music. By the time he made a wide swath through the room, there were red cheeks all around and the dancing had begun in earnest.
The festivities lasted all day and into the night. Many of the guests chose to sleep on makeshift pallets in the hall rather than to leave in the fierce wind and darkness. Alyson retired early, leaving her father and Rory to entertain the crowd. She was not surprised when the door opened shortly after she sank into the softness of her feather bed.
Without any self-consciousness, Rory still wore pieces of his new raiment mixed with the old. Over it all he had flung the illegal clan tartan woven by the tenants of his former estate. Along with bagpipes and weapons, the plaids had been forbidden after the ‘45 as being an incitement to war. Rory had defiantly worn this gift since it was opened.
He sat on the side of the bed, and she slid her fingers over his bare neck above his linen, loosening the rest of his queue until his unruly hair fell loose over shirt and tartan. Against his dark face, the strands of auburn and the bold plaid duplicated the image of his warrior ancestors.
“I always wondered what it would be like married to a Highland laird,” she murmured, drawing him toward her.
Rory braced his arms on either side of her and brushed a kiss across her welcoming lips. “Very demanding, I should say,” he whispered against her ear. “Have you tired of the dream yet?”
“Give me another hundred years to think about it.” Wrapping her arms about Rory’s neck as he lowered himself over her, Alyson stretched luxuriously against his hard frame. He was her husband now. Whatever happened in the future could never change that.
Joyously she returned his kiss and surrendered to the bliss just his touch could produce.
***
A few miles distant, the merrymaking was of a less innocent sort. George Drummond stretched his long booted legs before the fire, swigged deeply of his brandy, flung the empty glass against the wall, then plunged his hand down the bodice of the plump wench on his lap. He ignored her wince at the sharpness of his pinch. He glanced across the hearth to his drinking companion.
“Isn’t my gift to you a winsome wench? I thought her rather handsome. I considered trying her myself, but I’m a generous man. Drink up, Cranville. Think of the happy new year around the corner.”
Alex Hampton sat near the hearth, brooding. The skinny child in his arms shivered every time he touched her. He found little pleasure in her revulsion. He had spent the evening diligently drinking himself into a stupor.
He had succeeded only in summoning unwelcome images of a black-haired female with innocent eyes that haunted his worst nightmares. He could see her glaring at him with impatience as she poured scalding water down his leg. He saw the terror turning those huge eyes to gray oceans as she leapt from the bridge of her own ship. He saw her tiny, awkward figure drop in the snow after a shot rang out.
She was pregnant. The bastard Scots adventurer had bedded her and filled her with child and carried her off to these desolate hills so he could continue his war on English aristocracy. Or so Drummond’s story went. It seemed true enough from the evidence Hampton had seen around him.
The tenants had turned increasingly rebellious since the Maclean had returned. Drummond’s house was nearly devoid of servants now. Simply obtaining a meal had become a daily ritual of torture and humiliation. He ought to leave, but he could not give up the image of that hapless female in the Maclean’s grasp. It was his fault that she had fallen into the adventurer’s trap, and to his horror, he had discovered he possessed a conscience.
Of course, his own empty home and bare coffers and Drummond’s promises held an equal grip on him. There was nothing in Cornwall for him but work, and he had never worked a day in his life. He scarcely knew how to go about it.
Drummond’s hatred of the
Maclean practically ensured the adventurer’s death at some future date. Drummond was too clever to fail. He only sought the right opportunity to prevent any implication of himself in the death. Hampton had only to wait to rescue the heiress and carry her off with him.
Only the tone of Drummond’s drunken promises had changed of late. Through the haze of liquor, Hampton watched as his host lifted the skirts of his reluctant playmate. Drummond spoke as if the girl weren’t there at all. Hampton tried to concentrate on the actual words, but they faded in and out, to the rhythm of Drummond’s crude fornication.
He squeezed the scarcely ripe breast of the child in his arms. Through the blur of liquor and growing lust, he heard his host’s chuckling promises.
“I wonder how that heiress of yours will feel when we get her. Have you ever taken a pregnant woman before? Or shall we wait until she pops the brat?”
Hampton shuddered and stumbled from the chair, carrying his “gift” with him. He intended to be violently sick and go to bed.
Behind him, the crying of the servant girl mixed with Drummond’s laughter.
33
Stagshead, February 1761
Everett Hampton, newly-returned Earl of Cranville, put his elegant buckled shoes upon the needlepoint cushion and sipped at the fine claret in his goblet. “My cousin James Hampton and I went to school together. My uncle died young and James was left to run wild, and so he did. At the time, I rather admired his escapades, and admittedly, I imitated a few too many, but as heir to the title, I had this rigid sense of duty beaten into me, so I admired from afar, as it were.”
Although his chamber had been hastily prepared from remnants found in other rooms and attics, he felt quite at home here. The weather had grown worse since Christmas, and he saw no profit in leaving the snug warmth of this apartment his daughter and son-in-law had provided. Besides, he wished to know more of them before making any decisions.
He studied his host’s rough-hewn face with interest. The Maclean was restless, but shackled by wife and family, he could not risk the perils of foul weather just to be out and about. Cranville gave him a sympathetic smile and continued his tale.
“James’s escapades went too far, too fast, when he dishonored a lady of quality. He had a choice of dueling with one of the finest swordsmen in the country or marrying the girl. Alex was the only issue of that marriage. My cousin broke his neck racing his stallion cross-country on a wager that he could reach Yorkminster before several other young fools who were bound for the same wedding.”
The earl shrugged and continued, “I had joined the navy by then and knew little of my cousin’s wife or child. I assumed my father kept them on an allowance. I doubt seriously that my uncle or cousin had much to leave them. What surprises me is that my father never brought Alex to the estate when he thought me dead. The boy had a right to learn of his heritage.”
The Maclean sipped at his whisky and stared out the narrow mullioned window to the raging snowstorm outside. “Farnley told me a little when I signed over an allowance to him to run the estate. Apparently Alex’s mother came from a family with some wealth and thought poorly of Hamptons in general. After what they went through with your cousin, that might be understandable. They refused to let your father have anything to do with their only grandchild. They were determined their grandson would be raised a gentleman, not a Hampton.”
Cranville laughed at his distinction. “The title isn’t ancient, I agree. We more or less bribed and bought it like everyone else in the last century. There always seemed to be one Hampton in every generation good at buying and bribing. The rest were scoundrels, no doubt. The line seems to be dying out, though. If Alex can’t make the estate work, we’ll become nonentities like so many others. I remember there was a time after I recovered my memory when I spent long, frustrating hours debating whether I should return to Brianna and father a legitimate heir to the title, but with wife and children already, can you imagine the devastation I might have wreaked?”
Despite the growing darkness, Rory continued staring out the window. He acknowledged the question with a polite nod. “Fate leads us down strange paths. I wish you would reconsider your decision about Alyson’s inheritance. I feel as if I came by it under false pretenses. It sits upon my shoulder like some great malevolent raven that I will never shake.”
The earl chuckled again, thoroughly pleased by the Scotsman’s dilemma. All that money sitting there waiting to be planted and tended and harvested, and all of it to be had from an English aristocrat. He clucked his amused sympathy.
“You shall just have to hand it over to Alyson, then. She seems perfectly capable of spending every cent without a qualm. I doubt that my father ever denied her anything.”
Rory shoved his hands deep in his coat pockets and studied some scene out the window. “I would prefer we live within my means, but I cannot deny her the things she takes for granted. I am not a poor man, but my income must stretch to include my clan as well as this estate. That leaves very little for the comforts Alyson deserves. So she writes to Farnley for what she wants and scorns my meager offerings.”
Cranville understood that he had just been given a very private glimpse of the closemouthed Scotsman. Very few men of his acquaintance would be troubled by a wife’s overlarge dowry. “If Alyson’s wealth is the only concern you have, count yourself a lucky man,” he replied dryly, reaching for the decanter.
His host’s back stiffened, and he smacked the window frame. The Maclean’s rigid stance warned of some event in the outside world.
“Is there someone out there?” the earl asked.
“It’s a bloody blizzard out there. The man must be mad.”
Recollecting his own arrival more than a month ago, the earl could not in all conscience comment on this remark. Madness was come by easily in this environment.
Cursing, Rory strode from the room.
Cranville contemplated the inviting decanter of claret sparkling in the firelight. It seemed a damned shame to waste all this warmth and comfort for an icy blast of snow and wind, but on the other hand, there was little enough to keep a man occupied. He rose from the comfortable chair to follow Rory through the hallway.
They came upon Alyson already struggling into boots and a fur-lined cloak, to the anxious protests of Myra. At sight of the two men, Myra flung up her hands in relief.
“Talk some sense into her. She swears there is someone out there, and it won’t do but she go out to find him herself. As if anybody in his right mind would be out there. He would be frozen to a block of ice.”
Rory snatched the bonnet from Alyson’s hands and flung it to Myra. “Keep her here. I’ll go.”
Myra’s eyes widened. Alyson merely gave him the information she could not possibly know. “It’s my cousin. I can’t tell if he’s hurt, but there’s something wrong. I don’t want you to kill him.”
Myra drew in a sharp breath and the earl looked bewildered. Rory scowled. “You don’t even know how far away he is or where he is, and you would go out after him? Is his welfare more important than yours?”
Alyson had given the matter very little thought. She had simply seen the vision and reacted accordingly. Neither Myra nor her father would believe that she knew Alex was out there, but Rory didn’t even question. Already he was pulling on his greatcoat and gloves. She should have gone to him in the first place—except she didn’t want her husband killing her cousin, or vice versa.
“Take someone with you, Rory,” she insisted.
“I’ll go.” The earl signaled for his outer garments.
Well-wrapped against the bitter wind, the two men stepped into the dying light of midafternoon. Alyson watched them go with fear, then hurried to seek a window where she could follow their progress. She still had nightmares of snowstorms and dark hills and Rory disappearing on horseback over the edge of that wicked cliff out there, but she had no premonition that this was the snowstorm to be feared. Rory would never take his animals out in weather like this. It would be
quite foolhardy.
She found their dark figures staggering against the wind, the lanterns in their gloved hands blinking as they swung between the flapping lengths of caped coats. She did not know how Rory knew which direction to take until she spied the man and horse limping down the snow-covered hillside. She held her breath as the trio of figures espied each other.
She could see the musket in Rory’s hand. He must have taken it from the stable before heading up the hill. She shivered as her cousin reached for something on the horse’s saddle. She wanted to scream at their foolishness, but screams would be futile. She could only pray that one of them would recover his senses.
***
Outside, the earl caught the Maclean’s arm, keeping him from lifting the weapon. The howl of the wind made conversation impossible, but he shouted a furious command. Rory shook off his hold and lifted the firearm, dodging the earl’s blow. The musket fired, spewing the smell of sulfur, shattering the snow-deadened silence with its explosion.
The man on the far hill stepped backward, shaken, until it became apparent the shot was not aimed at him. Water spurted from a hole blown in the ice not yards from his feet. The thin ice would never have held the weight of man and horse.
Weakly, their visitor leaned against his animal and waited for lantern bearers to show him the safest route.
Minutes later, forced by the wind and exertion into silence, the men traveled down the dangerous rock-strewn path of the hillside to the safety of the stone tower near the cliff’s edge. In a beacon of light from the upper-story window, a lone figure waited for their return.
By the time they reached the front door, the hall fire blazed and warm blankets and hot toddies were waiting. Servants scurried to remove soaked coats and boots, leaving the three men regarding each other warily. Alyson’s entrance focused their attention.
Garbed in a loose maroon wool that trailed behind her in a ripple of stiff petticoats that disguised the extent of her pregnancy, Alyson appeared as a throwback to some Highland princess amid the threadbare tapestries and tarnished halberds. Her thick black curls were untamed by pomatum and barely restrained by the combs. Only her porcelain features revealed the lack of royal hauteur. She welcomed them as if they had strolled in from an afternoon’s walk.
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