Текст книги "A Kiss For a Highlander"
Автор книги: Jane Godman
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
Chapter Three
Cautiously, Martha made her way down the cellar steps. Because there were no windows, she carried a branch of candles into the dark space with her, holding it at shoulder height. She was able to view the whole of the cellar in the flickering light. Several centuries’ worth of clutter accumulated by the Delacourt family crowded the area. Broken or discarded furniture, old chests and stacks of picture frames lined the walls. To one as organised as Martha, the cellar had always been the cause of much tongue-clucking. But for Mr. Delacourt, it was next summer’s job, and because out of sight was out of mind, she too had let it be. Now that it needed to do double duty as a prison cell, she viewed it afresh and found it most unsatisfactory.
Her prisoner had not been obliging enough to die in the night, although he continued to lie still and quiet. Exactly as she had left him. A jolt of compassion—unexpected and unwanted—shot through her. It was one thing to kill him outright in the heat of the moment as, having broken into the house, he was in the act of attacking Rosie. It would be quite another to leave him to die like an injured animal on the dusty floor of the cellar. Even if he was a Scotsman. The wound to the back of his head, encrusted now with dried blood, was vicious. In the gloom of the candlelight, his strong features appeared lifeless. Pursing her lips, Martha considered him for a moment and then went away to fetch what she needed.
On her return, she set about cleaning the blood from the gash the candlestick had made in the back of his skull. Her task was hampered by the poor light, the fact that she had to kneel on the cellar floor, and the length and thickness of his red-gold hair. When she had completed this undertaking to her satisfaction, she sat back and surveyed her handiwork grimly. Having never been called upon to hit anyone over the head before, it had been difficult to judge the amount of force required. In the cold light of day, it would appear she had been somewhat heavy-handed. The injury was severe, and when he recovered—if he recovered—he would have a nasty headache and a lasting scar.
“It is quite your own fault for invading other people’s countries and then breaking into their houses,” she told the figure on the floor. It was the same voice she used to scold young Harry for his youthful transgressions.
She uncorked the little bottle of ointment that she made herself from an old recipe of her mother’s, using a mix of honey, rosemary, arnica and other herbs in differing quantities. Since the highlander’s shoulder-length hair was going to seriously hamper her efforts to apply this salve to his wound, she took up her scissors and hacked at the thickly waving locks until she was satisfied. Carefully, she pressed the sticky, scented mixture in and around the laceration. Finally, she placed a torn strip of cloth over the wound and bound another, longer strip, around his head. This she tied in place to hold the whole secure.
The cellar was chilly, and she covered the long, well-muscled figure with the blanket she had brought with her, tucking it neatly around and underneath him. A bitter smile touched her lips as she recalled her childhood in the border town of Bamburgh. Thank the Lord my father is not here to see me take such tender care of a hated Scotsman!
Mindful of the need to give him water, Martha dipped a cotton pad into the jug she had brought with her and wiped it around and inside the man’s lips. She couldn’t help noticing that his face was very handsome, with finely crafted features and a strong, square jaw. His mouth was particularly beautiful, carved as though modelled on a painting by a grand master, with a lower lip that was just slightly fuller than perfection demanded. Without pausing to consider what she was doing or why she was doing it, she allowed her thumb to trace the plump cushion of that lip. It felt like silk against her skin. Succumbing to another overwhelming impulse, she leaned over and pressed her lips to his.
“Better a wound in love from a friend than a kiss in hate from an enemy.” It was her father’s version of the Bible verse. The wound she had bestowed on him had not been one of love or of friendship. “And, oh, how I hate you, Scots bastard.” The words were a barely whispered breath into the warmth of that near-perfect mouth. The kiss of hate she gave now was for him, his kin and his countrymen. The men who had destroyed her family and left her own body scarred and grotesque. The men who had condemned her forever to her lonely spinsterhood.
Fraser waited until he heard the key grate in the lock before he opened his eyes again, although it was so dark he might just as well have kept them closed. Determinedly, he carried on with the task he had set himself before the Englishwoman interrupted him. It was a painful job, but he was slowly winning the battle against his restraints. The rope was loosening. The blanket with which she had covered him was a bonus. Next time the sly little bitch came sneaking down those stairs, she would get more than she bargained for. She’d not be kissing him again in a hurry. She’d be lucky if she was ever able to kiss anyone after he’d finished with her.
His mind sought a word bad enough to describe her. His mother’s word for evil treachery spurred him on. “Sleekit lips,” he muttered. He needed to shed his bonds so that he could free his hands and wipe the feel of her foul mouth away. He needed to remember that, soft and gentle though her lips had been as they briefly touched his, they were English lips.
Hate him, did she? Aye, that suited him just fine. She could not hate Fraser Lachlan more than he hated her. He had been raised on his hatred of the English, suckled it with his mother’s milk, learned it alongside his letters, hewn it in fire into the blade of his sword. It was the force that drove Fraser to be one of the first clansmen to swear allegiance to Charles Edward Stuart when the prince landed at Mallaig and declared his intention to retake the crown of England and Scotland for the true heirs. It was the burning emotion that kept him at the prince’s side as the man they called Bonnie Prince Charlie toured the length and breadth of Scotland, gathering supporters from among clan leaders who had followed his father thirty years earlier. It was the reason he was here now with a dent in his head and the crowning indignity of being at the mercy of a miserable, crab-apple-tempered excuse for a woman with no more meat on her than a butcher’s pencil.
His head throbbed unmercifully, but whatever she had done to him had eased the pain somewhat. And she had cut his hair. His face burned with the indignity of it. While she had him bound and helpless, she had toyed with him like a cat with a mouse. But she would pay. Oh, how she would pay.
The most important thing, of course, was to get Lord Jack away from this hellhole so that they could be on their way to the border. On their way back home. His mind, however, insisted on dwelling on the various ways in which he was going to wreak his revenge on the loathsome Englishwoman as well.
A grim smile fixed itself on his lips as he finally freed one hand from the rope that bound him.
Mr. Henry Delacourt was the wealthiest landowner in the area. His estate lay north of Derby, closer to the town of Matlock, and he was known locally as a kindly landlord and a charitable man. The fact that he was a capable and efficient farmer was entirely due to the fact that he employed Tom Drury to manage his extensive estate. Mr. Delacourt was an intellectual who found everyday life tiresome and distracting. Tom, who had been born on the Delacourt estate and started out as a farmhand, now occupied lodgings over the stable block. He had risen to his current position through hard work, honesty and a sound knowledge of the farmland and its surrounding area.
Mrs. Delacourt, a gentle, pretty lady, whose daughter Rosie greatly resembled her in looks, had died giving birth to Harry. Her husband had been genuinely bereft at her loss. He had also been distraught at the prospect of raising a newborn babe and a seven-year-old daughter on his own. A series of nurses for young Harry and governesses for Rosie had provided varying levels of satisfaction. It was his housekeeper, Mrs. Glover, who had set him thinking when, while watching ten-year-old Rosie play with her young brother, she had sighed fondly and said, “It’s family the young ’uns need around them, sir, and no mistake.”
Exerting himself, for once, to discover something about life beyond his own home and his ancient tomes, Mr. Delacourt had set about the task of finding a suitable family member to take on the duties of caring for his children. After sending and receiving a series of letters, he came to believe he might have found her in the form of his cousin’s daughter. Martha Wantage’s story had shocked and touched him. That such villains should still live in this day and age. Upon hearing that she had been taken in by a community of nuns who ran a refuge for the poor and needy near Bamburgh, he had wasted no time and set out for the border at once.
“She was not expected to live,” the kindly abbess who welcomed him into the convent of St. Justine had explained. “Even now, she is not strong. Although—” a wry smile touched her lips, “—I would not recommend you mention that fact to Martha herself.”
Mr. Delacourt had formed no very clear idea of what to expect, but the sorry creature who stepped into the room some minutes later had not once featured in his imaginings. Martha Wantage had been sixteen years old at that, their first meeting, but she was so small and waiflike that she was scarcely bigger than his daughter. Her light-brown hair was thin and lifeless, her pale skin stretched tight across her bones, giving her face a skeletal appearance and exaggerating the size of her upturned nose and generous mouth. She had a nervous air about her, and Mr. Delacourt, the gentlest of men, found her inability to make eye contact with him heartbreaking. Her curtsy was gauche, and her hand shook pitifully when he took it between his. Any thought he may have had that this sad excuse for a girl could take care of his children fled his mind in that instant. But, having found her, his conscience would not allow him to then abandon her.
“I was very sorry to hear about your parents, my dear. Your father and I were close as children, although we grew apart when he married your mother and came here to the North-East to live. I have only just learned of the dreadful circumstances…”
Although her light-blue eyes shone with unshed tears, she had snatched her hand away from his. “I neither want nor need your pity.”
“Martha! You must apologise at once for your rudeness…” The abbess had hurried forward to remonstrate, but Mr. Delacourt held up his hand.
“It is I who should say sorry for wounding you with my crass words, child. As your nearest relative, I have come to take you home to live with me alongside my own children.”
“I’ll not accept charity, sir. From you or anyone else. Sister Mary—” her eyes flickered over to the nun who stood to one side, watching their interaction anxiously, “—told me you seek a governess for your daughter. I am well educated. I believe I can fulfil your requirements.”
Her pride, although sadly misplaced, was touching nonetheless. “Then I have indeed come to the right place. It is my belief we will deal well together, my dear.” The profound sigh of relief uttered by the abbess was audible and left Mr. Delacourt wondering just what his family’s future might hold once this strange girl became part of it.
Their journey south had begun the next day, and they had arrived at Delacourt Grange as evening was falling over the beautiful Derbyshire countryside six days later. Martha, alighting from the carriage, had viewed in silence the warm, golden manor house with its curtain of honeysuckle draped lovingly around the door. As she gazed at this idyll, Rosie came tumbling out of the open front door, closely followed by a tearful Harry.
“Papa, oh, Papa! Do come quickly. The most dreadful thing… Harry was climbing on the bookshelves in your study, and when I tried to lift him down, we both fell backward and we knocked over the inkwell and ink has spilled out all over your new books.”
Before Mr. Delacourt could summon up an answer to this catastrophe, Martha responded in brisk tones. “We will have to go and clear up the mess in your papa’s study, of course. First of all, let me fix your sash, which is sadly awry, and straighten your hair. Good heavens, it looks like you have been playing in a hedge. You have? Well that explains the matter. There, that looks so much better. Now, you must be Rosie. I am your cousin Martha, and this—” she turned to address the stout, ink-and-tear-stained little figure on the doorstep, “—is Master Harry, I presume?”
Mr. Delacourt watched in some bemusement as his children went, with unaccustomed decorum, hand in hand with the new arrival back into the house. Some ten minutes later, there had been a knock on the parlour door. At Mr. Delacourt’s command, Martha entered.
“The children wish to see you, sir. If that is convenient?”
A subdued, and considerably neater, Rosie had led her brother into the room. “We are very sorry, Papa, for going into your study without your permission. It will never happen again.” She cast a quick look at Martha, who nodded encouragingly. “Oh, and Cousin Martha cleaned up the mess and there is no damage to your books, although Harry’s shirt is quite ruined.”
“Shall I speak to Mrs. Glover about the children’s dinner now, sir? Do they spend some time with you before their bedtime or do they follow a different routine?” Mr. Delacourt realised then that, until the descent upon it of this odd, taciturn girl, his household had no fixed routine. But Martha’s arrival changed that. Order had arrived at Delacourt Grange.
During the intervening ten years, he had won some battles. They stood out in his memory because they were rare. Martha now called him “Cousin Henry” instead of “sir”. She could look him and a few of the men she knew well—like Tom Drury—in the eye, although she continued to flinch nervously away from strangers. He had been amazed at the beauty of her shy smile the first time he saw it tremble into life in response to Harry’s silliness. He had even heard her laugh once or twice. She had filled out a little and, although still very slender, had lost the gaunt, haggard look that used to worry him.
Martha had fallen instantly, irrevocably and stubbornly in love with the old dower house. Mr. Delacourt, for his part, had categorically refused to allow her to take up residence there alone.
“It is not necessary for you to do so, my dear. Delacourt Grange must be your home. We are your family now. Besides, you are too young to live alone. ’Twould not be seemly. And, in any case—” his voice held a note of triumphant finality, “—the house is not fit to be lived in.”
He never quite knew how it happened. All of his objections were unarguably sound, and Martha had not raised a single argument. Yet within six months, the old dower house was not only restored to its former glory, it had become Miss Martha Wantage’s home. Mr. Delacourt was forced to agree that it was an arrangement that suited everyone. The children spent the day at the old dower house for their lessons, and Martha often ate with the family at Delacourt Grange in the evenings. She was able to preserve the veneer of independence that was so important to her. Mr. Delacourt, meanwhile, was able to reap the benefits of her considerable organisational skills whilst still indulging his reclusive tendencies.
Mr. Delacourt occasionally knew a moment or two of trepidation. When the day arrived that Rosie married and left Delacourt Grange, he believed that Martha would feel under an obligation to go with her to care for her children. But he dismissed such fears as nonsensical. Rosie, although the reigning belle of the neighbourhood, was young and showed no signs of flying the nest just yet. And it wasn’t as if Martha herself was likely to receive any offers of marriage!
“I think the one upstairs is definitely sleeping easier,” Rosie said, as she joined Martha at the kitchen table for a late breakfast. “Are you quite sure there are no signs of life from the other one?”
The question struck them both as so funny that they began to laugh uncontrollably. It was into this scene of mirth that Tom strolled some minutes later.
“I take it he is not dead, then?” He pulled another chair forward so that he could join them.
“Which one?” Rosie asked, mopping her eyes on her handkerchief as Martha signalled frantically to her. They had decided not to tell anyone about the inconvenient appearance of the second rebel. Martha’s reasoning was that, if he regained consciousness, they could speedily send him about his business by warning him that he must leave Mr. Delacourt’s property immediately or risk be handed over to the redcoats. The fewer people who knew about him, the less chance there was of attracting the soldiers to their home and the fact that they were sheltering the first rebel being discovered. Rosie had been unconvinced. A man bold enough to break into a house in the dead of night might not be cowed by feminine threats, she had reasoned.
“Don’t worry,” Martha had said, with more assurance than she felt. “He will be too pleased to escape the hangman’s noose to try any further nonsense.”
If he died, of course, the situation was altered. Martha would be guilty of murder, and a whole new subterfuge, such as burial of a large and cumbersome body, would be required. Even if he was only a Scotsman, Martha pointed out, murder was a sin. She would rather not advertise her crime to the world.
“If he dies, it will take the two of us a week to dig a hole large enough to bury someone that big,” Rosie had said, with a glum expression.
“Rosie is being nonsensical.” Martha frowned in her young cousin’s direction. “We were trying to fathom how many rebels may be lying low around the countryside in houses like ours. But do tell us, Tom, what news is there of the prince?” She poured milk into a tankard for Tom and cut him a thick slice of bread.
“It is much as expected. The Jacobite army is on the march back toward the border, pursued, so it is said, by Cumberland’s troops.”
“Will there be more battles?” Rosie’s eyes were troubled.
“Undoubtedly. If Cumberland can catch up with the rebels, that is. The prince is equally determined to stay one step ahead. If Cumberland cannot meet the prince and face him in England, he will cross the border and follow the Jacobites deep into Scotland with the goal of re-establishing the king’s supremacy over that land. It is a battle of wills now between the two men.”
“And yet they are kinsmen, these two who would meet on the battlefield and do each other to death,” Martha said.
“Yes, indeed. Cumberland is the prince’s distant cousin and the two are of a similar age. In other circumstances they might even have been friends. But their loyalties lie in very different directions. The prince, of course, is sworn to fight for the true bloodline of the Stuarts through the Scottish crown. Cumberland is the youngest son of the current king and must defend the Hanoverian cause.”
“I confess I am at a loss to comprehend why the highlanders are on the side of the prince,” Rosie said.
“It has become as much a Scottish civil war as a fight between England and Scotland. It’s no wonder you cannot keep up with it all. I doubt the prince himself would be able to unravel the intricacies of his own support.” Tom shook his head over the vagaries of the warring sides.
“The man upstairs does not look like a highlander.” A soft blush touched Rosie’s cheeks. Martha and Tom exchanged a look laden with foreboding.
“He may be an English or Irish nobleman loyal to the Stuart cause, even possibly one of the French nobility who form part of the prince’s retinue. The Jacobites are a diverse group, as are the king’s supporters. Whatever he may turn out to be, perhaps I had best go and check on him?”
He rose from the table and Rosie went with him. She turned back at the door. “Will you be joining us, Martha?”
“No, I have something I need to attend to in the cellar.” Was it guilt that drew her eyes constantly back to the closed door? The persistent memory of the brief touch of the Scotsman’s lips against her own had left her emotions in turmoil. Restlessness and confusion were new emotions for Martha, and she wasn’t sure she liked them.
“Again?” Rosie bit her lip as though catching the next words before they could escape her mouth. “You will be careful, won’t you?”
“Certainly I will,” Martha said, her unruffled manner disguising the heavy thud of her heart. “It may be very cluttered down there, Rosie, but I wouldn’t describe it as hazardous.”
“I am being foolish, of course…” Rosie cast a glance up at Tom’s increasingly bewildered countenance. With a little laugh and a shrug, she made her way out of the room and up the stairs.
“Proof indeed, if such a thing were needed, that a handsome invalid can do much to disorder a maiden’s mind,” Tom said to Martha, before he followed her.
Martha began to clear the table as she pondered the matter of how to get the highlander in the cellar out of the house—alive or dead—without alerting Tom, or anyone else, to his presence. She was still considering the matter when a sound like a hunting horn startled her so much that she almost dropped the jug she was holding. Master Harry Delacourt burst into the kitchen with his devoted retriever, Beau, close on his heels. Harry had recently attained his twelfth summer and was a sturdy, athletic young gentleman who had something of his sister’s countenance, but none of her grace. The recent incursion by Jacobite troops into the county had fired his imagination, and he wore a wooden sword and an expression of importance.
“What’s going on, Cousin Martha?” he asked, while stuffing apples into his pockets.
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Why is Rosie staying here with you, instead of at home?”
“I asked her to keep me company following the invasion,” Martha improvised rapidly.
Harry’s eyes lit up. “I will take Rosie’s place. I can protect you,” he exclaimed, brandishing his sword with enthusiasm. “You will need a guard to keep you safe from these desperate brigands.”
“I do not need protection, thank you, only a companion,” Martha told him firmly and he shrugged. He had clearly decided that, on balance, spending time with his prim cousin would be less interesting than hiding out in the woods to watch for marauding rebels. She might even expect him to work on his handwriting, always a contentious issue between them.
“Why on earth do you need all those apples?” Martha eyed him in some astonishment.
“Sustenance.” He went out, his swagger only slightly impaired by his bulging pockets. His faithful hound threw a longing look in the direction of the breakfast table before reluctantly trailing behind him.
