Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

  “I shall leave this house, Father,” Abby spun around in response to his trailing threat. “And like Jack, I doubt I shall ever return.”

  “Angus, do something!” Oona cried as Abby left the room.

  “I plan to,” Haddington barked. “Now sit down. There’s something I need to say to you as well.”

  Abby paused with her trembling hand on the doorknob to her father’s study. Her blood was thrumming through her veins with the euphoria of announcing her independence from her family. It was the most daring thing she’d ever done and perhaps the cruelest, but she couldn’t find it in herself to feel sorry for it. Her family had served her many wrongs over the years. Abby felt it was time for her to set her life to rights.

  Now, thanks to Oona, there was one other thing that needed to be set right as well. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door. “Harry?”

  Aylesbury stood, greeting her with a wide smile. “Abby, you’re looking wonderful today.”

  “I… thank you, Harry.” Abby rubbed her suddenly damp palms down the front of her skirts. The marquis had been a good friend to her these past months. In any normal situation, his suit would have thrilled her. Gads, but she hated Oona for forcing this upon her. “Harry, I…”

  “No,” he interrupted. “Me first, if you please. I think you know why I’m here. What I’ve come to ask. Will you marry me, Abby?”

  “I cannot, Harry. I am so sorry,” she said with true regret.

  “May I ask why?”

  He was an incredibly handsome man, Abby thought. Tall and handsome. His inky black hair that curled about his ears and contrasted with the brilliant blue of his eyes. Eyes that were filled, in that moment, with disappointment. She would have given anything not to hurt him. Before Richard’s return, she had wished that she might have been able to love him. Harry was the perfect man, perhaps too perfect sometimes. What he truly needed was someone who managed to make him just a tad imperfect. “You have been a wonderful friend to me, Harry. I have said as much though I understand that Oona has deliberately given you reason to think that it is more than that. I do not want to hurt you, or lose that friendship, but it doesn’t reach any farther than that for me.”

  “Friendship such as ours is an excellent basis for marriage,” he persisted, taking her hands in his.

  “Even if I wanted to at this point, I could not,” Abby told him of her bargain with her father, adding her sincere apologies for using her relationship with Aylesbury so callously. “I fear I made a bargain with my father and he did not come through. It’s the principal of the thing, you see.”

  Aylesbury looked down at her, his expression a mixture of chagrin and perhaps a dash of amusement. “I don’t like to think I was being used as a bargaining chip, but I would wager a thousand pounds that that isn’t truly the reason at all. Why don’t you tell me the truth?”

  “That is the truth, Harry,” Abby countered. Most of it, at least.

  “But there is a greater truth I think,” he argued. “I have seen a change in you this past week or more. You’ve become more vivacious than ever but more confident, more outspoken as well. While you don’t crave the limelight, you don’t run from it any longer, either. But lately, there has been sadness in you as well, and I believe the suddenly absent Captain MacKintosh to be at the heart of it all.”

  Abby shook her head in amazement. Aylesbury had always seemed to be remarkably observant and intuitive, but she had never imagined that he read her so well. “If you knew, why did you still ask me to marry you?”

  Aylesbury shrugged. “Because I like you very much.”

  A half-laugh escaped Abby’s lips. “I like you, too, Harry. It’s very hard not to. But I-I love him. I have loved him my entire life. I should have realized before you even started courting me this Season that time wouldn’t change that. I could have spared you this, at least.”

  “Is he going to marry you?”

  Abby faltered, not wanting to blatantly lie to him.

  Aylesbury shifted his weight from foot to foot before adding, “Forgive me for asking, it is none of my business, of course, but is there any reason to suppose he should?”

  Abby’s eyes widened. “I don’t know what you… oh!” Abby blushed from head to toe as his insinuation sank in. “Oh, Harry! That is not in the least amusing.”

  “My pardon for making assumptions.” Aylesbury bent and brushed a soft kiss across her check. “Should you need a husband for any urgent reason, I hope you will call upon me.”

  Abby shook her head with affectionate exasperation. “You are an excellent friend, Harry.”

  “And you are an intriguing woman, Lady Abygail.” Aylesbury picked up his cane and hat.

  “I’ll be moving into my grandparent’s tomorrow, Harry.” Abby told him a brief, edited version of what had occurred and earned a smile of commiseration in return.

  “If I can endure the long walk over, perhaps you will have me for tea?”

  “I’d like that, Harry.”

  Lifting her hand, Aylesbury kissed it, adding a roguish wink. “Until then. I’ll see myself out, shall I?””

  Abby stared blankly at the study door after Aylesbury left. Was she so obvious to everyone or just the ever-perceptive Harry Brudenall? Perhaps she would tell Aylesbury the truth in the days to come. It would help to have a friend who knew. Someone she could confide in. Also, she didn’t like to deceive him. The truth would out eventually. There no need to hurt Harry further when it did.

  The door slammed back against the wall then and Abby jumped back at the sudden intrusion, her thoughts shattering into pieces. Oona was at the door, her face red with fury. She looked for all the world as if she were about to burst.

  “What did you say to him?” she demanded.

  “I told him ‘no’, Oona, just as I said I would,” Abby told her.

  “No! Not Aylesbury! What did you say to your father?” Oona clarified at a near screech.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Abby offered the partial truth. She had said many things of late to her father that she had never dared to say before. Which of those things in particular was of upset to Oona truly was a mystery to her since Oona was notoriously easy to upset.

  “He’s stripped me of my allowance and is sending me back to Scotland, back to that rat hole at Glen Sannox.” The words were as rough as coffee in a grinder and just as bitter. “It’s your fault, it has to be.”

  “Not everything that ever happened to you is my fault, Oona,” Abby countered. “Your choices were your own.”

  “You think you’re so superior, just like that friend of yours, that Captain MacKintosh.” Abby came to attention with the mention of Richard’s name. “He had the unmitigated gall last week to lecture me – me! – about my past relationships, even when it was clear that he was panting after you as if you were a bitch in heat. Oh, don’t think for a moment that no one noticed. It’s the talk of the town. Everyone is whispering that you’ve become his whore. How he used you and left you.”

  Abby smothered a jolt of despair at Oona’s words. Harry’s concerns suddenly made much more sense. “If anyone is whispering, Oona, I can only suppose that you were the source of it all. You always are.”

  “The results of your indiscretions are yours to bear.”

  “As are yours,” Abby said quietly. “Richard told me that he had words with you about Jack as well. Perhaps your mistakes are coming back to haunt you.”

  “The only mistake I ever made was marrying your father,” Oona hissed.

  Abby blinked at the rancor in Oona’s voice. “I’m sorry if you haven’t been happy in your marriage Oona, but you have only yourself to blame. You should have waited and married another.”

  “It would have been fine if your father would have had the decency to descend to an early grave,” Oona spat. “But you, you were the one who made my life hell.”

  Abby’s jaw sagged in surprise. She simply couldn’t fathom how Oona might think such a thing. “I made y
our life hell? You have done nothing but empty your venom upon me for a decade. My life has been a hell of your making.”

  “Well, it’s about to get hotter,” Oona predicted direly, pointing a finger at Abby. “You fix this thing you’ve done with your father or I will see to it that Society cuts you dead. Everyone will know you for the whore you are.”

  Abby almost laughed in amazement at those words. Wasn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? Instead, she shrugged carelessly and turned for the door. “I don’t care a whit about society, Oona. You should know that by now. And you’ve made your bed.”

  “You’ll never see Sandy again!” Oona screeched. “Never! I swear it!”

  It was the first threat Oona had ever made to Abby that truly hurt. She’d spent years without one brother because of the woman’s spite, because of her hatred. Abby was only just getting Jack back but she didn’t want to lose Sandy in the process. More importantly, she didn’t want to leave him to Oona. When this madness around them settled, she would see to it that her father sent the lad off to Eton in the fall, as he should. Then Sandy would be spared the insanity of the Haddington household.

  For now, Abby only glanced over her shoulder at her stepmother, refusing to let the woman hurt her any longer. “You must be careful about frowning so, Oona, it shows your age.”

  She departed to the sound of a shriek of anger.

  Chapter 36

  You have the power over your mind – not outside events.

  Realize this and you will find strength.

  - Marcus Aurelius

  British Consulate

  Cairo, Egypt

  January 1888

  Richard paused at the entrance of the British consulate building, knowing that when he stepped through the doors this time, he would finally be accepting his defeat.

  It hadn’t started out that way. In the beginning, they’d had nothing but optimism and confidence on their side. In fact, it hadn’t taken long at all before they had found the rebel’s camp where Richard and the others had been imprisoned. With the help of some native informants, they’d located it in just a matter of weeks.

  The landscape was everything he remembered. The Nile was just a few miles to the east. The sand had given way to rocky hills filled with caves and abandoned tombs where the nomads would stay for months at a time. Richard had been filled with hope at the sight of the crumbling sculpture of an ancient god that marked the site of the cave where he had been held. But, by that point, it had been the hope that they had been wrong, that they were in the wrong place.

  But, it was the right camp.

  The problem was that it was an abandoned camp

  His captors and comrades had been long gone.

  Riding at his side, Francis had waited expectantly for news. Better news than Richard would give him. Richard had not been able to do more than shake his head. The lump of disappointment lodged in his throat had prevented further words.

  Disheartened, they had returned to Cairo only to find hopefulness once more. Local spies had heard word of a nomadic group traveling across the southern deserts with English prisoners. To further their cause, Khedive Muhammad Tawfiq had bestowed a motley group of native mercenaries upon them as a sort of gift.

  The Khedive was a viceroy of sorts in Egypt. The title had been his father’s before him and bestowed by the Ottoman Empire. Ahmed Urabi, once his war minister, had fought against Tawfiq’s pro-European leanings and had found many supporters among other government officials and the general populace, giving birth to their rebellion. Tawfiq had sought the protection and support of Great Britain to take Urabi down in 1882.

  That had been Richard, Vin and Jace’s first foray into war following their commissioning. Tawfiq’s additional requests for assistance the previous year had led to Richard’s unit returning to Egypt and their subsequent capture.

  When the Khedive heard of Francis and Richard’s expedition to rescue the men who had aided in his cause, he had offered the men and supplies as a gesture of his thanks. Richard took the men gladly, grateful that the Egyptian Khedive felt responsible enough to help, even where his own government would not.

  Those fifty men had led them across the wide ocean that was the western desert. The natives could read the dunes that fell like waves, one on the other, as easily as Richard did the highlands of Scotland. As they traveled south deep into the desert, optimism had continued to raise its head along the way, providing enough confidence to keep them moving. Words from other bands or traders had led them first to the Dakhla Oasis, then deep into the Valley of Kings and back up along the Nile into the eastern deserts.

  During that long trek, their mercenary band had taught them how to read the land, how to dress to better bear the extreme heat and even a smattering of their native language. However, they couldn’t teach the MacKintosh brothers how to bear the mounting frustration that burned so bitterly each time they came upon yet another abandoned camp or another lead came up short.

  All they had found in the desert was acrid disappointment.

  Months upon months of searching had delivered nothing more than the certainty that they would never find the rebels who had taken their brother and friend.

  Turning back to Cairo for the last time had been a heart-breaking decision.

  Taking off his hat as he entered the consulate, Richard slapped it against his leg to shake off the excess of dust and sand that had embedded itself in every fiber. Shaking it out had become a habit he longed to forget. He only wished he could shake off his regret and heartbreak as easily.

  “Good afternoon, Captain Mac,” a voice called out to them as they entered and eventually Richard’s eyes adjusted from the bright sun outside enough to make out the young sergeant sitting behind the closest desk. Sergeant Robbins had been there each time they’d come back into Cairo to resupply and his eternal good-cheer had begun to wear thin on both Richard and his brother as the months blurred together.

  Richard gave a grim nod, “Robbins. Any messages?”

  “Yes, sir,” the younger man said with a bright smile. “We received word of your arrival yesterday. The Khedive has invited you to dinner tonight and the consul asked for some of your time tomorrow. General Patterson also requested that you attend him at your convenience.”

  Richard grimaced. Patterson was the commanding officer for the few army battalions housed in Egypt these days – most of the forces in the area were naval, given the proximity to the Mediterranean and Suez Canal. Patterson would be wondering at his intentions, Richard knew. He was long past the period he’d been allowed for both medical and personal leave. With his respect for the chain of command at an all time low, Richard knew that he would be resigning his commission. He had no desire to serve in an army that had no true care for its soldiers. “I will see him in the morning. Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir.” Robbins went into the next room and returned with a large bundle of letters that he split between Richard and Francis.

  Their other brothers and sister must have been eager for word, given the sheer quantity of letters, but Richard hoped that there were some from Abby as well. He longed to see her, touch her, hold her.

  Over the past months, he had embraced her firmly in his heart and in his mind. If he had embarked on this search without ever seeing her again, Richard knew the devastation of his failure would have consumed him, leaving him with very little left to hope and dream for in his life. He would have walked through his life with nothing but ‘what if’s’ by his side. As anyone might, Richard wished he could have it all, but he was thankful to have something so promising to look forward to left for him. Something glorious to live for. Abby and a life with her.

  Flipping through the neatly ordered stack, Richard’s heart lightened as he saw how many bore her light, flourished script. “I’ll just go read these if you don’t mind, Francis?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Same room as always, Robbins?”

  “Yes, sir, here’s your key but the
re’s…”

  Richard had already bounded away.

  Francis gave a stern look to the gape-mouthed sergeant. “What is it, lad?”

  “My lord Glenrothes, you have a visitor. You both do. I meant to say as much to the captain, but he was away so quickly,” Robbins said.

  “You might have mentioned it first,” Francis said in mild reproach wondering at who their ‘visitor’ might be. When the sergeant didn’t immediately provide the information, Francis shot him another hard look well. “Well?”

  “Looking for me?” a voice said and Robbins only pointed behind Francis.

  Richard spent an hour reading through Abby’s letters. She wrote cheerfully with news that she was no longer living with her family. Taking a portion of her inheritance, she had offered to pay for Sandy’s early enrollment at Eton. She had seen him happily settled in before traveling north to stay with Moira in Scotland while she awaited his return. In later letters, Abby added that she was returning to England to stay with her grandparents over the winter, but that Moira was coming along as well to keep her company.

  She wrote of Scotland, riding, shopping, and day-to-day events in an entertaining narrative. Each letter was more light-hearted and humor-filled than the last. And each, right down to the last, raised Richard’s spirits higher than they had been in a long time. Perhaps even since before he had joined the Scot’s Guard. There was nothing mentioned or implied to give him guilt for the extended length of his absence. Only encouragement for his search, admonitions to eat well, to take care of himself and constant mentions of her continued love for him.

  Finishing the last one, Richard laid back on the bed. The first smile he had been able to summon in months played at his lips. For once, the heat and dust didn’t bother him. His mind and heart were already back in England. He would take her back to Scotland, he decided. Take her to Glen Cairn, perhaps this spring they might play some golf at St. Andrews. It had been years since he played but he remembered Abby being pretty handy with her irons. They could spend time with his family, his brothers and perhaps help raise wee Fiona. They could do anything. Go anywhere. They had their whole lives to spend together.