This young, innocent and pretty girl would have no chance of standing up against him.
“What can I do?” Sheinna asked in a broken voice. “What can I do?”
“You must run away,” the Duke advised her again decisively.
She made another helpless gesture with her hands.
“But where can I go?”
The Duke thought for a moment.
“I have an idea which you may think is quite mad. I am not certain whether I am suggesting an answer to your problem or letting off a bomb.”
“I don’t understand. Tell me what you are saying?” Sheinna begged.
The Duke paused again before replying,
“As it happens I am in very much the same position as you. I am being pressured by my relatives into marrying a young girl simply because she is very rich.”
“But then surely, Your Grace, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
The Duke smiled.
“I am being badgered, even as you are, until it is very difficult for me to refuse, simply because money is needed, not for me personally, but for the Castle, the estate, and of course the Clansmen, including river watchers.”
“I thought, because you were so important, you had everything you wanted,” said Sheinna. “Although I have only just passed by it, nothing could be more magnificent than your ancestral Castle.”
“It needs a lot of money to be spent on it and if I tell you the truth, I am very much in debt.”
“So they want you to marry a rich wife?” Sheinna questioned.
“They want me to marry a young girl who will find me too old for her and whom I will eventually find very boring.”
“But you are a man – a Duke. Surely you could just refuse.”
“It is not as easy as it sounds. They are appealing to me to save my home, my people and all those who look to me to save their sheep and cattle which are plundered just because we are not strong enough to resist those who covet them.”
“So you feel,” Sheinna said in a very small voice, “that you have to sacrifice yourself for the Clan.”
“That is exactly what they want me to do, just as they want you to strengthen your Clan by marrying a man old enough to be your grandfather.”
“I cannot do it,” cried Sheinna. “I cannot! Please, please help me and tell me how I can hide from them. But even if I do, I feel sure they will find me.”
“You cannot run away alone, have you no relations or friends in England or abroad who would welcome you if you asked them for help?”
“I suppose they would let me stay with them,” she said hesitatingly, “but Papa would soon find me and insist on my going back home.”
The Duke thought that was very likely and as she was young and pretty, she would not be hard to trace.
There was a poignant silence and then the Duke remarked,
“I am thinking of a way of escape for you and for myself, but it’s difficult to put it into words.”
“Oh, tell me, tell me anything,” Sheinna begged. “I am really desperate. To be honest I would rather die than marry an old man looking like Sir Ewen. Papa told me that he finds it hard to find any attractive women in this part of Scotland, who will put up with him, being, as he is, so old and ugly.”
“I am thinking, Sheinna, of something which would make your father think again and that would infuriate my relations. But neither of them could do anything about it.”
“What are you talking about?”
The Duke smiled.
“I must sound as if I am talking nonsense, but I am really thinking it out in my own mind. You are in trouble and I am in trouble. We are both under the same pressure – to marry someone we have no wish to marry.”
“That is true enough, Your Grace, but how can we refuse? You can run away, but I, as a mere woman, would soon be caught and brought back in disgrace and probably in chains as well!”
“Well, we have to give them other issues to think about rather than the marriages they have arranged for us,” the Duke said. “Therefore what I am suggesting, Sheinna, and you may think it very strange, is that we pretend that we have fallen in love and want to marry one another!”
She turned to look at him in sheer astonishment.
Her eyes were very large in her small pointed face.
“I just don’t understand,” she whispered after what seemed a very pregnant silence.
“It’s quite simple,” the Duke persisted. “I will say that I want to marry you as it is now time this ridiculous feud between our two Clans came to an end.”
There was silence before Sheinna exclaimed,
“My father would have a stroke at the idea of any MacFallin marrying a McBaren!”
“Of course he would and my own Clan would feel exactly the same. That is why, in giving them something else to think about and argue over, we will gain some time to settle our lives our own way. You could find someone you love and who loves you – and I could do the same.”
He paused for a moment before adding,
“It is something I have been trying to do for some time but have so far failed.”
Sheinna looked pensive and then responded,
“There are two things that might then happen. My father might make me marry Sir Ewen at once in order to rescue me from your clutches or he might force the Clans into actually fighting each other. I could not bear to see any of our people killed or wounded.”
“I feel the same, Sheinna, but if we are fortunate they will quickly call a truce. By the time that happens Sir Ewen will have withdrawn from the contest because it does not concern him or he could find someone else to marry.”
To his surprise Sheinna giggled.
“This cannot be true – it sounds exactly like a story out of a book. You know as well as I do that my father and his friends will rage against the McBarens as they always have, while your people will undoubtedly do the same.”
“Of course they will, but while they are doing so they will forget about the marriages they had arranged for us and we will remain unmarried and for a time at least not under any pressure – ”
He paused before he continued slowly,
“It will give us time to look around to find people who are more interesting than those we meet every day.”
Sheinna clasped her hands together.
“You make it sound as if it is possible,” she sighed, “but I cannot help thinking you are being optimistic. It’s really absurd to think that we could defy all the centuries in which the MacFallins have always hated the McBarens.”
“They will talk and they will talk, but I would very much doubt if they will take really violent action. But they will try to make it quite clear that we are unsuited to each other and, however much we plead with them, they will not allow us to marry.”
“Do you think while they are doing that,” Sheinna asked, “you might find the woman you really love and I might find a man who will really love me?”
“It’s a chance worth trying, Sheinna, but in every race an outsider sometimes wins!”
She laughed.
“It’s a fantastic idea, Your Grace, but do you really think we dare do anything quite so outrageous?”
“I am prepared to try it if you are, Sheinna. What I suggest is that this afternoon I send a carriage to ask you to come over to the Castle for tea to meet my mother and my cousin. When you see the effect that bombshell will have on them, you will have some idea what the shock will be like to your father when I tell him why I am calling on him after all these years!”
“He will not believe you are real, so please, please, Your Grace, do you really mean it? It just sounds to me so extraordinary and outrageous, but, as you suggest, it may take my father’s mind off my marrying Sir Ewen.”
“That is the whole idea,” the Duke murmured.
“And doubtless your family will be so occupied in getting rid of me they will forget for the time being that they are pushing you into marrying someone else.”
“They have begged me to marry and I will tell them I am obeying them,” the Duke chuckled. “I shall point out that it is time the feud between our two Clans came to an end. Between us we could be a formidable force together against any other Clan and also against the poachers of our salmon and the dastardly cattle-thieves.”
“Oh, it’s impossible! I know it’s impossible,” cried Shienna. “But it’s like an exciting story which you never know how it will end until you reach the last page.”
“We have a long way to go before we reach our goal, but as long as it will stop, as far as I am concerned, at least temporarily, the eternal nagging from my relatives, and save you from what you quite rightly suggest would be a fate worse than death.”
“But can we really win?” Sheinna asked nervously.
“I have told you what I think we should do. I will send a carriage for you at half-past-three. I think it would be wise if you don’t say where you are going until I return with you.”
“That will be quite easy, because I know that Papa is going out later this afternoon to talk things over with Sir Ewen. It will take him at least three quarters of an hour to get there and if they talk for an hour, then three quarters of an hour to come back.”
“That certainly gives us breathing space,” the Duke commented dryly. “As I have just said, the carriage will arrive for you at half-past-three by which time your father will undoubtedly be miles away.”
“Then we will be temporarily free and it will give us time, as you have said, to look around and meet other people. Although I enjoyed living with my grandmother, she did not know many young gentlemen.”
She looked up at the Duke as she added,
“I did attend a few dances in London, but I did not make many friends of my own age because we were so often travelling or else I was at school.”
“Well, you are now going to have every chance, if I arrange it cleverly, to meet all the young men on this side of the County. There were several dining with me at the Castle last night who were intelligent and charming. You would doubtless feel the same about them.”
“It all sounds wonderful, Your Grace, but I am only afraid that Papa will try to shoot you or the MacFallins will march on the Castle and attempt to destroy it!”
“They have tried to do that in the past and failed. In fact I think the guns we pointed at them are still up in the turrets. When you come to the Castle, we shall look for them and see if they still work!”
“I suppose,” Sheinna said after a moment’s silence, “I am awake and not dreaming.”
“You look very much awake to me,” he answered her with a smile, “and don’t forget you have caught two salmon.”
“I must take them home and delight Papa with them while he is at breakfast. Please help me carry them to the road. I have told one of our grooms to come and collect me about now.”
“That was an excellent idea, Sheinna, and we had better walk first onto your ground so that you are not seen coming up to the road from mine.”
“You think of everything, Your Grace, and thank you, thank you for thinking of me.”
She kept her hand on his arm and then continued,
“I am not sure it will work and I am more than half afraid that Papa will merely laugh, and force me up the aisle with Sir Ewen before I can say a definite ‘no’.”
“He cannot do that without a Special Licence. I am sure that when you do get married, he will want to stage a celebration so that all the Clansmen can take part.”
“That is true. In fact I think he is already planning the huge feast he will give for his guests at my ‘wedding breakfast’, as we call it in Scotland.”
“Which you are certainly not going to have with Sir Ewen. Try not to be afraid. Unless I am much mistaken they will talk endlessly and will still be doing so when we are too old to think of being married and are about to be carried into the graveyard!”
Sheinna laughed as he meant her to.
“Now what I have promised you,” the Duke said, picking up their salmon, “is that you will meet a lot of charming young men from this part of the County as well as my friends from London whom I intend to ask to stay at the Castle.”
“How can you be so kind and how can I ever thank you enough, Your Grace?”
“Really, I am thinking of us both,” he answered. “They have been nagging at me ever since I came home. Quite frankly I am sick to death of being told who I should marry and why I should do so. If I had any pride left, I would run away to America and make my fortune there as others have done.”
Even as he thought of America, a picture of Mary-Lee formed in his mind.
He was sure that his cousin would now be singing his praises to her and making it quite clear that she must marry him.
‘She has no wish to marry me and I have no wish to marry her,’ he told himself firmly.
They walked in silence until they were out of the Duke’s ground and onto the MacFallin’s.
“I am not coming any further,” the Duke said, “just in case I am seen, but if your fish are too heavy for you, I should leave them under a bush or a tree and send one of your servants to collect them later.”
“In the meantime they might be stolen,” Sheinna replied, “so I will just leave my rod, which I assure you is not so precious as these salmon I have caught myself with only a little help from you.”
The Duke laughed.
“You must take all the credit and make sure your father has no idea that we know each other until we return this afternoon telling him what we intend to do. I am quite sure it will go off like grapeshot!”
“I would not be surprised if the house falls down on our heads, but thank you again for helping me, even if the sensation we cause turns out to be even more calamitous than we anticipate.”
“If nothing else it will give them something to talk about. If the story finishes in a proper fairytale manner, Sir Ewen will marry Mary-Lee and they will live happily ever after!”
Sheinna laughed at the idea and because the sound was so infectious the Duke laughed too.
“We are doing nothing wrong,” he said almost as if he was reassuring himself, “and I am more than certain that eventually a great deal of good will come from it.”
“I shall pray it will,” Sheinna murmured.
“I was thinking only the other day,” he added, “how ridiculous these old feuds between our Clans are. It is time we thought first of Scotland and be determined to make it more prosperous and up-to-date than it is at present.”
“I think it is a lovely, lovely country and I am very proud to be a part of it,” Sheinna insisted.
“I feel the same,” the Duke answered, “but I can also see Scotland’s faults and just how far it is behind the times. So you and I have to wake it up and make it realise there are a great many new ideas and new problems which the Scots must tackle on their own.”
They came to a large tree and Sheinna propped her rod against it.
“Whoever I send for this should be able to find it,” she said. “And thank you once again for being so kind. If, when you return home, you change your mind about what we will do, just send me a note.”
She paused before she carried on,
“But I will be praying you will not do so, because I am so scared that I will find myself married to Sir Ewen even before I have bought my trousseau.”
“Whatever else we do, we have to get rid of him. Goodbye, Sheinna, until this afternoon and I will be very upset if the carriage comes back without you.”
“It will certainly not do that,” she promised.
She smiled at him as she walked away carrying a salmon in each hand.
The Duke watched her until she was nearly out of sight and then he went back to the river to collect his rod and the three salmon he had caught.
It was only as he was walking towards the Castle that he wondered if he had not been rather mad.
He had suggested an extraordinary way of escape both for Sheinna and h
imself.
Would it work?
Equally he was genuinely horrified at the idea of any young girl being married to Sir Ewen.
He remembered his father saying that Sir Ewen was a serious disgrace to his family and to Scotland. The way he pursued young women and the scandals he caused were shocking.
The Duke, however, had no intention of informing Sheinna as to just how unpleasant Sir Ewen was.
He thought that her father, the Earl, must have gone off his head if he could even contemplate allowing his only daughter to be married to such an old roué.
‘It is something I could hardly tell the Earl when I have little or no acquaintance with him,’ the Duke mused, ‘but I can definitely do so when I arrive supposedly to ask for Sheinna’s hand.’
As he walked on, he thought to himself how tired he was of his mother and the Countess continually nagging him – they were forcing him into a position with Mary-Lee from which he would find it very hard to extricate himself.
He felt sure that, if her father arrived unexpectedly in Scotland, his mother would tell him how fond her son was of Mary-Lee and she of him, and then it would be only a question of how soon he was pushed up the aisle to find himself married.
‘Whatever the final result of this challenge of the McBarens to the MacFillans,’ he told himself with a smile, ‘it will at least release me from a yoke from America.’
As he strode on, he was whistling The McBaren Call to Arms.
When the Castle loomed up ahead, he thought how much it meant to him.
Maybe any sacrifice should be made to keep it as fine and impressive as it had always been all through the past centuries.
‘My ancestors have all died for Scotland and our Clan,’ he reflected. ‘All I am being asked to do is to marry for the sake of those who bear my name and who follow on behind me – ’
Just for a moment he was almost ashamed that he would not make the required sacrifice.
He indeed had just to accept the obvious solution of marrying Mary-Lee and not only would she be thrilled to accept him and his title but her father would be delighted.
He knew without his mother or his cousin saying so that unlimited money would be available for him to put in hand all the necessary repairs and to re-establish the whole of the great estate in proper order.
Love and the Clans Page 6