Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

  To Vin’s mind, that single bit of information answered all his questions. His childhood friend surely had his hand forced to bend to the bonds of matrimony. That he’d gotten a lass pregnant wasn’t much of a surprise, that he’d been caught… A wisp of a smile crossed his lips before it faded away. “I will look forward to meeting your wife.”

  “You will soon. If you’re feeling up to it, you might return with me in a couple weeks otherwise I will come back here after the bairn is born.”

  Fatigue held Vin in its grip then as he thought of the changes that had taken place while he was gone. That, indeed, life had gone on without him. There would be new faces to his family and suddenly the prospect of having to endure the pleasantries of those introductions seemed too much for him. All these things were just the tip of the iceberg, he was certain. There would be more surprises to come and suddenly he felt unprepared to face them. He turned his head away to stare at the fire. “We’ll see.”

  Francis felt Vin’s withdrawal and sensed there was much troubling him, but didn’t feel the time was right to ask all the questions he wanted answered. “I’ll go see about your dinner, rest now.”

  When Francis rose, releasing his hand, Vin turned back to watch him walk away noting now the years that had passed on Glenrothes. The earl had changed. Everything changed. Everyone else might have too. For a moment, Vin thought he would almost be willing to return to the hell of the past years to avoid the one awaiting him. He shuddered at the thought. He would die before he let that happen. Life went on. He merely needed to catch up with it…if he could. “Francis?”

  Glenrothes turned back with his hand on the knob and raised a brow.

  “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Nay, Vin,” the older man said gruffly. “I’m glad you’re here. I have missed you more than you know. This is the best gift I could ever hope for. Happy Christmas, brother.”

  Having not realized what the day was, Vin gave a start. Aye, it was indeed a great gift to have one’s life back.

  Chapter 2

  Although the world is full of suffering,

  it is also full of the overcoming of it.

  - Helen Keller

  While Vin slept the balance of the evening away, Lord Glenrothes sat below in his study thinking about his younger brother and the changes these passed years had wrought. More than the physical, that much had become obvious within moments of Vin’s waking. The devil no longer dwelled playfully in Vin’s brown eyes as it had in years past. There was a wealth of knowledge and hardship there now. Weariness. Suffering.

  Bugger it all! Francis wished that Temple had provided some clue about what had happened these past five years! Anything that might help him understand the transformation Vin had undergone. He could only hope the close friendship they experienced as young lads would once again blossom and be enough to encourage his brother’s confidence. Only then, could Francis share in Vin’s burden and perhaps help to ease it.

  Or perhaps one of the other’s might help? As boys, the two of them had been part of an inseparable band of boon companions that included Richard, the third brother in their family, and their close friends Jack Merrill and Jason MacKenzie. The five of them spent their formative years attending school together at The Royal High School in Edinburgh playing cricket and practical jokes on underclassmen. Their families had all been friends since their own fathers attended school together.

  Life changed, however, after his father, Alec MacKintosh, died leaving Francis as the earl of Glenrothes and responsible for his ten younger siblings. While his brothers and friends moved on to Cambridge to study, Francis had married and by necessity stayed close to home attending the University at St. Andrews. The responsibility matured him in a way the others hadn’t understood. It kept him apart but longing to be one of them again.

  At loose ends after their university years, Vincent, Richard and Jason decided to buy commissions into the Queen’s army as so many younger sons of the nobility tended to do. For Vin and Richard, it seemed a practical move, an occupation. For Jason MacKenzie, the only remaining male descendant of two great Scottish families, it was seen as a youthful rebellion. His father and grandfather threatened him with disinheritance for his ‘stupidity’ as they put it. Indeed, they might have done it if Jason had a brother or even distant cousin available to inherit. As it was, Jason defied them, his future position and responsibilities, and joined anyway thinking the thing a lark. Never realizing he would truly be risking his own skin.

  Their ill-timed commissions coincided with the Urabi rebellion in Egypt that summer of 1882. As officers of the Scots Guard 1st Battalion under Major General (His Royal Highness) the Duke of Connaught’s 1st Infantry Brigade, the trio were on the first ships sent to Egypt. The troops were intent on reaching Alexandria to put a stop to Urabi’s uprising against Britain’s control over his homeland. Egypt was a land which the Crown retained possession of for its economic benefit. They weren’t about to give it up without a fight.

  Glenrothes received many letters from Vin and Richard during that time. For five weeks, they fought at Kafr-el-Dawwar while trying to reach Cairo by way of Alexandria. Their descriptions of the bloody battles proved the experience lacked the glory they assumed their service would bring. The bloodshed and deaths of many of their comrades-at-arms hardened them all quickly. That August, they finally moved on with more than 40,000 British troops invading the Suez Canal zone to destroy Urabi and his rebellion.

  The trio returned home for a visit that Christmas before shipping off to peacekeeping missions throughout the now British occupied Egypt. Their new mission to search out followers of Urabi who might renew the rebellion despite Urabi’s capture and exile to Ceylon.

  The year or two that followed allowed the young soldiers to return home periodically for brief visits. It had given their families but a glimpse of how the lads had changed into men during that time. War changed them all, especially Vin, who looked out on the world not as a careless second son any longer but as an officer with a duty to the Crown. Francis had been pleased by the changes, the pleasure of seeing his brothers grow and mature as men of responsibility and action. Vin was responsible, aye, but there was still a joie de la vivre him in then that was clearly missing now.

  In time, they were sent on to Burma to quell the insurgency there. That British victory brought about the end of the Konbaung Dynasty in Upper Burma. Burma was absorbed into the British Raj, though fighting continued sporadically keeping the men there for almost two years. Or so Glenrothes thought. It wasn’t until that fateful year in 1887 that he came to know what his brothers had been up to.

  By that fall, no one had heard from the trio for almost six months. They all feared the worst before Richard had returned with the news that they had been part of a small unit sent back to Egypt. Rumors abounded, he explained, that rebels had taken up Urabi’s cause and were inciting further rebellion. That ‘fact-finding’ mission sent their detail deep into the deserts of Egypt where they were attacked and captured by rebel supporters. They were taken as spies, which Richard could not deny as the truth. They tried escape on several occasions. Richard and Temple succeeded in their last attempt but Jason, Vincent and the other two members of their unit had been retaken. Richard and Temple had eventually found their way to a British outpost.

  The pair had been wounded, dehydrated and nearly at Death’s door and were returned to England to recuperate. Francis used the influence of the Glenrothes earldom to pressure the Crown into a large-scale search for the men, but was unsuccessful. Given the nature of their activities, the Crown thought the loss best swept under the rug. Instead, once Richard recovered, Glenrothes had joined his brother in the search for Vincent and Jason MacKenzie in Egypt but the trail of the nomadic rebels was long gone. They searched and searched tracking the band for months before Richard and Francis finally returned home in defeat.

  It took the MacKintosh and MacKenzie clans years to accept the loss of Vin and Jason. Eventually, they were
assumed dead when there was no further word of them and no demands made by the rebel forces for release or ransom.

  None of the information Richard had given five years before could have resulted in what Francis saw in Vin today. Something changed after Richard’s escape, something traumatic. Any further information Temple may have had was being played close to his chest and Glenrothes certainly wasn’t planning to prod his brother for details so soon. The only details Temple provided were that he was a part of that original covert unit, escaped with Richard and that he was there when Vin was found - nothing more. No details regarding where they found Vin, what conditions he’d been in or what happened to his captors. The haggard, drawn look on the Captain’s face, however, spoke of battles not forgotten.

  If he was haunted by what he had seen, Francis could only wonder at the demons that chased his brother.

  Chapter 3

  All for love, and nothing for reward.

  - Edmund Spenser

  Carlton Terrace

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  January 1893

  Lady Moira MacKenzie leaned against the windowpane staring sightlessly out the window of the Glenrothes townhouse in Edinburgh. So lost in thought was she that she didn’t even see the rain slapping relentlessly against the windowpanes or feel the chill of the winter air seeping through them.

  All her thoughts were instead focused on the impending return of one Vincent MacKintosh.

  Moira had known Vin her entire life and sometimes felt that she had been in love with him just as long. He visited her family’s ancestral home of Old Klebreck Tower often when she was growing up. First he came with Francis, Richard and their father and then later with her brother Jason. She could not remember a time when the MacKintosh clan hadn’t all been around her, an extension of her own family. She loved the lads all as if they were brothers…expect Vin.

  Vin, she loved but not in a brotherly fashion at all.

  Why her heart chose him over one of the others – all handsome and appealing as they’d grown to men – she had no idea, but it seemed that she spent the better part of her life waiting for Vin to feel the same. Oh, he cared for her to be sure. They’d become very close through letters and brief visits since she was seventeen and he joined the Queen’s army. She had written both Jason and Vin daily, but over time she felt it was her letters to Vin and the one’s she received from him that bound them.

  When Richard brought word more than five years before that Jason and Vin were being held prisoner by the Urabi supporters, Moira had done nothing for weeks beyond praying for the lives of the two men she loved most in the world.

  Praying became mourning when the MacKintosh and MacKenzie families eventually came to terms with the fact the two men must be dead when no trace of them could be found nor were any demands for ransom made. Brokenhearted for the loss of her brother and the keeper of her heart, Moira shunned society and closed herself up at her family’s ancestral castle, Old Klebreck Tower in the far north of Scotland, with her father, the Earl of Seaforth, and her maternal grandfather, the Marquis of Landsdowne. For years, the three of them mourned publicly for Jason while Moira privately mourned in her heart for Vin.

  Only recently had Moira begun to think about her own future. She was twenty-seven years old and alone but for her Papa and Pops, as she called her grandfather. They would not be with her forever, this she knew, for both were old men now. Solitude wasn’t what she longed for from life. Moira wanted a family to love as her dearest friends had. She wanted babies of her own. A husband of her own. Eve, one of her closest friends who was married to Vin’s eldest brother, offered to sponsor her for the upcoming Season in London. Moira was determined to pursue her goals.

  She had been enthusiastic about it. She enjoyed traveling to Paris the previous fall to have her wardrobe done at the famed House of Worth and then Eve and Francis had taken her to London for the Little Season. She met men who found her appealing and some she thought she might like as well. She made progress putting the past where it belonged and had even been looking forward to the London Season in the coming spring. In fact, everything had been going along splendidly until Christmas Eve when Lord Captain Anthony Temple arrived on the doorstep of the Glenrothes townhouse with news that Vin was alive.

  Nothing could have shocked her more. Moira was carrying in a tea service to the parlor to share with Eve and her sister Kitty when she’d heard Francis shout. “My God!” There had been such emotion in those words that Moira rushed to the parlor door to see Francis swinging Eve around in his arms joyfully. Then he’d added, “Vin is alive!”

  Shaken to the core by the news, Moira dropped the entire tea service. It shattered at her feet, the clatter drawing the attention of all in the room. “What!?” she practically screeched.

  Yes, Vin was alive - after all these years.

  Since then no one spoke of his imminent arrival, so it still seemed more of a dream than reality.

  Vin’s survival and return to Edinburgh became a guarded secret in the MacKintosh clan or rather, a secret to be kept from the bulk of the MacKintosh clan. This was to spare Vin the descent of almost a dozen siblings while he recuperated. Francis convinced them to conceal the return of their long-lost sibling as a surprise for the remainder of the family. Only those who had been at the Glenrothes townhouse early on Christmas Eve knew. Just Eve, Francis, Kitty, her husband Jack Merrill and Maggie Preston, Eve and Kitty’s mother knew the secret, but only Eve and Kitty knew Moira’s lifelong love would shortly make his way back home.

  After rushing off with Captain Temple that Christmas Eve, Francis sent frequent letters with Vin’s progress to Eve and she shared them with Moira. Francis returned to Edinburgh when Eve went into labor with their newborn bairn just two weeks ago. While the couple had been wrapped in the joy of their new son, he hadn’t provided much news and rightly so. It was their time and Moira understood that. However, since he left again this week to return to London, there was no word from him. No word of when he would return or when Vin would finally come home.

  Moira had become as nervous as a fox at the hunt.

  Soon she would see Vin for herself.

  Then what would she do?

  Because in all these years, when she hugged her love of Vin to herself and remained unwed and faithful to his memory, she had forgotten one thing.

  Vin had never loved her in return.

  She remembered one summer when her family visited Glen Cairn, the MacKintosh family seat. She was about seven at the time and Vin twelve. They had all taken the train to St. Andrews so that the men could play golf. Moira was the only girl to make the trip. With her own mother already passed and Vin’s mother, Lady Glenrothes, again laboring with another MacKintosh lad, the men were forced to take her along with them.

  Or rather, Moira set up a rather spectacular tantrum until they agreed to take her along. She insisted they teach her to play as well, so Moira scurried along behind them carrying one of her brother’s old bags.

  “Vin,” Moira could almost hear the piping lilt of the brogue she carried as a child. “I want to play with you!”

  “Go away, Moira!” her brother, Jason, snapped at her. “We’ve already got our foursome.” He pointed out Vin, Francis, Richard and himself. “You’ll play with Papa, Glenrothes and Jamie.” James, at eight years, was the fourth of the MacKintosh lads. Francis, Vin and Richard had all been born in consecutive years. Jamie had the misfortune of being born three years apart from the older boys but was two years older than Sean who was followed ten months later by Colin. He was always separate from the others. Not one of the older boys. Not one of the younger. Alone.

  If she’d felt pushed aside, she could only imagine how he felt.

  Vin came over to Moira and knelt in front of her ostensibly to help her with her shoes. “Never mind Jace, Moira, he’s not trying to be mean. We just don’t see each other very often.”

  “I don’t get to see you often either, Vin,” she told him with a wobbling chin.r />
  “But I’m Jason’s friend, lovey.” Vin shrugged looking down at her feet realizing she needed his help after all. He untied the knotted shoestrings. “You didn’t tie these right.”

  “I don’t know how,” she told him not wanting to appear incapable to him. “All my shoes button, you know.” Moira stared down at Vin as he retied them thinking he was the nicest boy ever. “I want to be your friend, too, Vin.”

  “You are, but Jace is my best friend besides Francis and Richard.”

  “And Jack.”

  “Aye and Jack.”

  “Then me?”

  “Aye, lovey,” he told her patiently. “Then you.”

  “Will you marry me someday, Vin?” she asked as he stood knowing the other lads were waiting impatiently for him. “No, Moira.”

  “But why not?” she whimpered.

  “Because you don’t marry your friends, silly.”

  “Then I don’t want to be your friend anymore!”

  “Too late,” he ruffled her hair. “Now be a sweet lass and play with Jamie. He needs friends, too. Maybe you can marry him someday. He’s closer to your age anyway.”

  “I want to marry you, Vin!” she’d wailed as he walked off his ears burning with embarrassment as all the other boys laughed at him.

  He hadn’t talked to her any more that day, but they became good friends over the years despite her childish insistence she would not. As children, Vin and Jason taught her to golf…better in the years to follow. They took her or, rather, allowed her to tag after them every summer while they fished and swam and rode. Moira and Abby Merrill, Jack’s sister, eventually became just another of the lads to the older group. Smaller, annoying lads, but just the same as they all visited one family or the other’s estate each summer through the years.