Gosford's Daughter

by Mary Daheim

  Sorcha was about to respond that sometimes she felt their only real hope was having Rob elected to the Papacy—yet, knowing Rob and his deep-seated sense of justice, even he might say no. But arguing the matter did as little good as worrying about it. Sorcha had to be comforted by the fact that Gavin Napier had finally agreed to seek the annulment at all. Indeed, he was eager to head for Rome and would have already left had not a new crisis erupted in the Highlands.

  When Sorcha and Gavin Napier had returned to Gosford’s End, the family’s elation over their safety had been considerably dampened by news of George Gordon’s incursion into Grant territory and adjacent MacKintosh lands as well. For Lord and Lady Fraser, Gordon’s brazen move was a dangerous insult to Dallas’s clan.

  Despite Father Adam’s reminder that the Church was best served by Catholic families who put aside petty clan feuds for the sake of religion, Dallas asserted that lawlessness was lawlessness, no matter what the nominal faith of the perpetrator. Iain Fraser eventually, if reluctantly, had to agree with his wife, pointing out that a Highland chieftain, such as Gordon, who flouted the King’s command, served neither his country nor his Catholic faith.

  King Jamie had obviously agreed, sending a force north to quell the burgeoning war. To everyone’s relief, Gordon retired from the field, though no one believed he had given up completely. It was said that the great earl was too ambitious to live forever in the King’s shadow. If George Gordon couldn’t rule all of Scotland, he intended to reign over the Highlands. Consequently, Iain Fraser had decided to seek an alliance, not with his Catholic brethren who were in complete disarray, but with the one man whose judgment he trusted: that other James Stewart, the Bonnie Earl of Moray. Fraser had sent his eldest son and Gavin Napier to Donibristle to discuss the combustible political situation and to consider what might be done to prevent further military confrontations. Resignedly, Sorcha had watched Napier and Magnus ride out one crisp fall morning and knew that her hopes for a wedding in the near future were dashed.

  At least, with Napier gone from Gosford’s End, the awkward situation of living under the same roof with her parents and Father Adam was not a problem. During the month after their return to the Fraser manor house, Sorcha and Napier had agreed not to make love. At first, with the promise of an annulment and the prospect of marriage shimmering on the horizon, their mutual restraint had not been too difficult. But as the heat of summer fell victim to the chill of fall, Sorcha’s yearning for her lover’s embrace grew stronger. Nor was there much comfort from Napier, whose hunter’s eyes burned with the intensity of his own desire. It was almost as if they’d come full circle, from those days of agonized uncertainty at Fotheringhay to the acknowledged, still-unsanctified passion they were forced to deny at Gosford’s End.

  While Sorcha hated being separated, she had waved Napier off to Donibristle with a sense of relief. But that had been more than a month ago. Now, a week after the unseasonable snowfall, there was still no sign of a thaw. The next day would be All Hallows Eve, and Sorcha suddenly thought of Marie-Louise and shuddered.

  “Are you that cold?” Rosmairi asked with concern. “Here, take my shawl,” she offered, starting to pluck the fleecy blue wool from her shoulders.

  “No, no,” protested Sorcha. “I just thought of something unpleasant. Ros,” she said, her tone turning brisk, “I should go back to court as soon as possible.”

  Readjusting the fleecy shawl, Rosmairi regarded Sorcha quizzically. “Why? To avoid Gavin?”

  Surprised by her sister’s acuity, Sorcha stared, then laughed. “That’s part of it—but we’re out of touch here; we have no one at the King’s side who can give us an unbiased report of what’s happening.”

  “I thought you were going to wait until Armand and the bairn and I could go with you in the spring, so that we could discuss disposition of the French properties with Uncle Donald.” Rosmairi was verging on petulance. “After all, you told us that dreadful woman claimed ownership of Armand’s land. We’ve got to get the matter settled so that we can arrange to build a home in Scotland.”

  “That’s my point,” Sorcha asserted. “Who knows what Marie-Louise is doing in our absence? Her lover Bothwell’s plots grow more daring by the day.” Always a thorn in his royal cousin’s side, the Border earl’s reputed involvement with witches had caused Secretary Maitland to urge imprisonment. At the same time Bothwell’s harassment of King Jamie seemed to have increased dramatically since Marie-Louise’s arrival in Scotland.

  “My original intention was to watch Marie-Louise like a hawk, should she show her evil face at court,” Sorcha explained. “Yet when she finally came to Edinburgh, I fled north, to warn Gavin. Now, perhaps I can serve him—and Jamie—better by returning to my place with Queen Anne.” Concluding her explication, Sorcha waited for Rosmairi to comment.

  But Rosmairi had turned rigid, her normally pink cheeks gone gray as the snow clouds that hung low over Beauly Firth. “Sweet Mother of God,” she breathed, her eyes startlingly bright, “my water broke!”

  Marie-Louise’s witchcraft, Bothwell’s treachery, even Gavin Napier and the Fraser-Grant mesalliance were all swept aside by that most natural, yet most incredible of occasions—the birth of a baby. As Rosmairi groaned in her labor, Sorcha held her hand and whispered encouragement. The midwife, a hefty, capable cousin of Catriona’s, stood in for Dr. Macimmey who was stranded by the weather in Inverness. Margery Syme had helped birth dozens of babies born to Fraser tenants and clansmen, but Dallas would have preferred to have the taciturn, pedantic Macimmey in attendance.

  If Margery Syme was aware of Her Ladyship’s preference, it made no difference. The broad-beamed midwife gave orders like a commander in the heat of battle. Even Dallas was pressed into service, assembling the linen with which to wrap the newborn babe. As for Armand, Margery dispatched him early on, to be cosseted by his father-in-law with large amounts of strong spirits.

  “Breath in, now out, there’s a good lassie,” she ordered, red, work-roughened hands helping Sorcha hold Rosmairi on the bed. “Ochs, you’re fighting it, push the bairn; the wee mite wants out!”

  Dallas winced as Rosmairi erupted with another soul-searing cry. “Does Margery Syme think my sweet daughter is a cow birthing a calf?” she whispered in annoyance to Flora. But Dallas acknowledged Margery’s skill and said no more.

  A short time later, as Rosmairi’s agony seemed to brook no respite, Margery Syme called for whiskey to dull the pain. When Rosmairi waved away the brimming cup, Margery downed it herself. Aghast, Dallas was about to remonstrate when the baby finally emerged. Margery triumphantly held the infant aloft, a husky boy, bellowing his greeting to the Fraser clan.

  A short time later, Sorcha was overcome with a sense of awe—and a tinge of envy—as she handed the baby to Armand. “Mon Dieu,” murmured the much-relieved, slightly tipsy father, “he looks like un petit Chinois!”

  “Nonsense,” snapped Dallas, “his eyes aren’t open yet. And with that mop of black hair, he looks just like Iain.”

  His own eyes not quite in focus, Armand d’Ailly gazed in bewilderment at his son. “He shall be Adam, in honor of the good priest who has shared our roof in Scotland and France.”

  Rosmairi smiled wanly, her face looking very small and pale against the mound of pillows. “He is lusty, is he not?” she asked as tiny Adam let out another thin, piercing wail.

  Armand grinned and gently bobbed the baby in his arms. “He is quite perfect. Though,” he added rather wistfully, “I should have thought he’d be fair, not so … dark.”

  “Imagine my surprise when Rob was born with red hair,” Dallas remarked, leaning over d’Ailly’s shoulder to touch the infant’s rosy cheek. “Ah, dear bairn, we’ll build a fine home for you yet, and never mind Gordons, Grants, or muddleheaded strumpets who stand in our way! Your grandmother promises, and she so hates to be wrong!”

  “That being the case, he’ll no doubt end up owning Ireland.” Iain Fraser was standing a little apart from the oth
ers, but Sorcha noted that he looked every inch the patriarch of his growing brood.

  The squalls of the baby and the happy chatter of the household members had a sudden, unexpected fatiguing effect on Sorcha. She wandered to the window, where she was astonished to see the first frail light of dawn filtering over the snow-covered eastern moors. “It’s morning,” she said to no one in particular. “It’s All Hallows Eve Day.”

  Her words went unremarked. Sorcha gazed at Rosmairi and d’Ailly, who were totally absorbed in their new creation. Some day, God willing, she and Gavin would wrap themselves in the wonder of a tiny child. Yet if the sight of her sister and husband and their babe evoked a pang of envy, the day itself called to mind the formidable image of Marie-Louise. While many would swear that they saw witches ride the lowering storm clouds in the night to come, Sorcha had no fear of such fantasies. What filled her with foreboding was the evil reality of Marie-Louise. The black arts she practiced were surely bogus, but the plots she contrived were all too genuine.

  Sorcha felt a draft blow through the casement, and shivered. She turned to observe the others: a drowsy Rosmairi surrendering her babe to Margery Syme, Armand d’Ailly gently kissing his wife’s brow, Iain Fraser with his arm slung around Dallas’s neck, Ailis helping Flora put the soiled bed linen into a hamper—the scene was so ordinary, so comfortable, so rich in familial affection. Sorcha squared her shoulders and went to take one last peek at little Adam before he was placed in the elaborate cradle fit for a prince. Marie-Louise might command all the powers of darkness, but Sorcha was fortified by the realization that in the end, love was always stronger than hate.

  A dozen deer carcasses were stretched out on the frosty ground by the stable. Gavin Napier pulled off his kidskin gloves and passed a hand over his brow. “It’s not true sport when the animals are forced by the weather to come so close in. I’ll wager we could bring back twelve more tomorrow.”

  Iain Fraser nodded absently, the hazel eyes resting on a set of magnificent antlers. “Any other day, I’d claim those as a trophy,” he remarked, “but not this time.”

  “Then I will,” declared Magnus, signaling to one of the stable boys to sever the head. “Jeannie and I have none so fine to decorate our walls at the Muir of Ord.”

  Fraser shrugged. “As you will.” He turned to Sorcha. “Was that one yours?”

  Sorcha twisted her mouth in concentration. “I don’t recall—I think it was Gavin’s.” She averted her eyes as the stable boy fetched a broadax. “At least the poor things won’t starve,” she said, stamping her feet, which had grown quite numb despite the fur-lined boots. The snow had finally melted over the course of a week, but after intermittent rainfalls, the weather had turned bitterly cold again. Gavin Napier and Magnus had ridden into Gosford’s End at the end of the first week in November, bringing optimistic news from Donibristle. King James had ordered George Gordon’s imprisonment in Borthwick Castle. The earl’s incarceration would stave off further trouble in the Highlands, at least for some time. Gavin Napier and Father Adam had been of two minds about the matter. Gordon’s ploy for power had rallied both Catholic and Protestant lords around him. Bothwell, Caithness, and the Master of Gray were numbered among his coconspirators. At best, Gordon’s aggression could not be considered solely a Papist plot. On the other hand, as the nominal leader of Scotland’s Catholic Church, George Gordon was in disgrace. It was yet another frustrating, if typical, obstacle in the way of religious unity.

  The dull thud of the ax made Sorcha wince. A hand at her elbow guided her away from the hunting party, toward the rear entrance of the manor house. “I’ve made up my mind,” Gavin Napier said, the long mouth set, though from somewhere in the depth of his eyes a touch of warmth began to wash over Sorcha. “I leave for Rome tomorrow.”

  A surge of contradictory emotions surfaced in Sorcha’s breast. She was overjoyed that Gavin Napier was committed to pursuing an annulment; she was also afraid that his quest might end in failure. Now, after less than a week of being reunited, he would be gone again, this time for several months, perhaps a year or more.

  “Does Father Adam go with you?” The question covered the disarray of her feelings. Somehow, standing there under the lackluster November sun, Sorcha felt suddenly shy. Indeed, she had grown increasingly awkward in Napier’s presence ever since their return to Gosford’s End. It was as if the constraints they had put on their lovemaking had also robbed them of any other sort of intimacy.

  Napier, seeming to sense her unease, took one gloved hand in his bare, yet warm fingers, “Nay. I can travel faster without him, and in truth it’s best for his own health that he remain here. That is,” he added with a little smile, “if your family will be gracious enough to have him.”

  “You know they will.” Sorcha’s mouth curved upward though the green eyes failed to conceal her distress. “Yet without Father Adam, who will gain you an entree to see the Holy Father?”

  Napier let out a grant of laughter and squeezed her hand. “Which Holy Father? This past year, we have gone from Sixtus to Urban to Gregory, at last count. The Holy See is in chaos.”

  Sorcha covered his hand with both of hers, feeling the strength of him flow through her suede gloves. “I’ve worried about that,” she admitted, looking at him through her lashes. “A stable Papacy would greatly aid our cause, don’t you think?”

  Napier’s smile turned grim. “All of our causes,” he emphasized, glancing beyond Sorcha to Iain Fraser, Magnus, and Armand d’Ailly, who were supervising the butchery of the stags. “The Church has been moribund ever since Sixtus died. He took a strong line against Protestant propaganda. I sometimes think it was his influence that forced Henri de Navarre to become Catholic when he assumed the French crown.”

  “That seems so long ago, yet it’s been only a little over a year since we were all in France.” Sorcha’s memory traveled back to the languid, pristine days at Le Petit Andely, to the great forest of Compiègne, to the turmoil of Paris under siege. She thought of Rob, as she often did, and brightened. “Gavin, why not take Rob to Rome?”

  The heavy brows drew close together, then lifted. “Why not? With Brother John Fraser’s blessing, Rob might aid our cause.” Napier leaned down to brash Sorcha’s temple with his lips. “We spoke before of their possible intercession. Even now, Adam is writing up the background of the … matter.” His face clouded at the allusion to his tragic marriage. “If nothing else, it will do Rob good to see the glories of Rome.”

  “It would do me good to see Rob,” Sorcha remarked, her gaze fixed on her elder brother, who was holding up the dripping stag’s head with it four-foot span of antlers. The faintly swaggering stance, the black hair, the strong, yet blunted features, the sense of substance, made Magnus seem as unlike Rob as two brothers could be. Yet their open, honest smiles and the candor of their gaze marked them as not just kinsmen, but as kindred spirits.

  “Magnus reminds me of you,” Napier said unexpectedly as he followed Sorcha’s eyes. “He is dauntless, irrepressible, genuine.” His arm slipped around Sorcha’s shoulder. “Not nearly as bonnie, though.”

  Sorcha’s eyes slid round to look up into Napier’s wolfish face. “Am I truly bonnie?”

  “Sufficiently bonnie to send me to Rome. Having pledged my heart, it seems I’d go halfway to hell for you, Sorcha Fraser.” He nudged his chin against her russet hat and grimaced.

  Her voice was a muffled, desperate cry against his leather jacket: “Come to me tonight, Gavin. Please!”

  His reply was a quick, fierce hug. Briefly, she went limp against him, then straightened, pulled away, and offered Magnus an extravagant wave as he and Armand carried off the great stag’s head with its spikelike crown and cold, dead eyes.

  There is a stark, gaunt quality to the Highlands in November that is at once forlorn and comforting. The bare trees, the wan gray light, the permeating damp chill, the sharp wind from the north descends upon even the hardiest inhabitants of glen and moor. Yet the season also brings with it a
sense of peace, of silence, of fulfillment, with the harvest brought home and the approach of the Yuletide season. From the old Caledonian forest in Cameron country to the relentless waves of Moray Firth, nature tucks itself underground, to wait with tireless patience through the long, dark nights of the Highland winter.

  Sorcha Fraser, having learned those lessons of time and place and seasons, instinctively put aside her fears and anxieties to offer Gavin Napier the unleashed passion that sprang not just from the depths of her femininity but from the very earth itself. Another woman might have wept and clung on their last night together before a long, uncertain parting. But Sorcha had looked out over the hills of Cawdor and Nairn to the east and the mysterious, shrouded sea to the north to find hope. In a few months, those hills would erupt into a bounty of color and life; the sea would grow calm, and sunlight would dazzle the waters. All things would change—except the love that she and Gavin Napier shared.

  It was well after midnight when Napier rapped softly on Sorcha’s door. She had been sitting by the fire, watching the orange-and-gold flames dance among the dry logs. On eager, noiseless feet, she flew to greet her lover, clasping him in her arms and savoring the virile intensity of his embrace.

  “I thought you’d never come,” she breathed, her face pressed against his chest.

  His grip tightened; he rocked slightly on his heels as she swayed gently, yet securely, in his arms. “Adam and I had much to discuss. And, as it turned out, so did your sire.”

  Sorcha pulled away enough to stare up into Napier’s wry face. “God’s teeth! You mean to tell me my father talked about your intentions?”

  Napier lifted his shoulders. “It’s his duty, after all. I’ve marveled that he hasn’t put me on the rack before this. Surely you’ve spoken of the matter with your Lady Mother?”

  Sorcha had. And to Dallas’s credit, she had displayed remarkable restraint. “You seem to know what you want,” she’d told Sorcha. “I only hope that having got it, you’ll not be disappointed.” At first, the words had stung Sorcha. Until she recalled that there was a time she’d wanted to marry Johnny Grant, that she’d wanted a titled, wealthy husband above all things. But those were whims, not wants. And never need, which was the fuel that fired her tenacity to become Gavin Napier’s wife.