Island of the Swans (40 page)

Without waiting for the duke’s reply, she dashed out the side door onto the terrace and ran across the manicured lawn toward the tower. Arriving breathlessly at the scene, Jane shifted her worried gaze from her daredevil five-year-old son to his equally boisterous nine-year-old half-brother perched atop the scaffolding cradling the old castle tower during the ongoing repairs and additions. Jane kept a concerned eye on the littler George who by this time had lost his courage and was whimpering with fright. The older George was perched on the wooden plank above him, looking out at the surrounding estate with studied nonchalance.

On the ground, Alexander hurried across the lawn with his architect, John Baxter, along with the duke’s ever-present butler-confidant, William Marshall. The trio had been discussing the planting of still more trees and shrubs to decorate the evolving parkland. The carefully designed landscape would eventually provide a fitting setting for the princely mansion, which was now all but completed. The castle’s two new Georgian pavilions surrounded the stark fourteenth-century tower of the original structure. It was the construction scaffolding that had tempted the two little Georges to wager which of them could climb higher.

“Don’t either of you scamps move a muscle, do you hear me!” Jane shouted up through the gold and red October foliage of a larch tree that stood nearby. “Stay right where you are, you wee devils!”

The Gordon’s seven-year-old daughter, Charlotte, stood next to the tower, twisting the strands of her dark curls. She smirked up at her nemeses.

“Now you’ll catch it, you naughty boys,” Charlotte crowed. “Mother warned you.”

Jane ruefully noted the little girl’s clipped accent, reflecting the influence of the English tutor the duke had engaged for the lass’s education. In fact, none of Jane’s children had a hint of the Scottish burr that still clung to her own speech inflections, despite her frequent exposure to the court of St. James and the grandest social circles in London.

“Shush, Charlotte,” Jane said sharply, as little Madelina, aged three, began to wail, fearing she, too, might soon receive a measure of her papa’s wrath. The baby, Susan, lay on a tartan rug under a tree, sleeping soundly through the uproar caused by the rowdy antics of the two Georges. Nancy Christie, the nursemaid who was now of marriageable age, wrung her hands distractedly.

“Och! Those Geordies…” stammered the eighteen-year-old to the assembled adults. “I was playing a game with the lassies, ma’am, and minding my sister Jean as well,” she said, referring to the pretty, five-year-old daughter of their housekeeper, Mrs. Christie. The child had pale hair and none of the sharpness of features that marred her mother and sister’s looks. She was about the same age as the Duchess’s George, as everyone referred to the mischievous Marquess of Huntly. “The Duke’s George scampered up there when I wasn’t looking!” Nancy lamented, pointing to the scaffolding embracing the old castle tower. “And sure, if your Duchess’s George weren’t right behind ’im!”

Jane smiled to herself over the name the family and staff had adopted for the duke’s two sons. Jane supposed it was the talk of the Highlands that the two half-brothers looked so much alike and were being brought up together, as if their parentage were the same. The Duke’s George, however, could be a holy terror, as he had certainly proved this very afternoon.

Jane watched Alexander sternly lecture his two sons perched overhead. Her eyes drifted to the brilliant hues of the seasonal foliage. Suddenly, a memory flashed before her of the sheaves of Thomas’s letter from America, tumbling among the russet leaves, which had dotted the graveyard by the banks of the River Eye near Ayton House. Despite all that had happened between Alex and her, despite her seven-year struggle to disavow the deep bond she felt for another man, nothing seemed to lessen the void she continued to feel over her loss of Thomas… a loss that struck her at times she least expected it.

Sternly, Jane forced herself to mentally recite a familiar litany of happy times, times when she and Alex had been able to share a sense of satisfaction over their life together. Both took great joy in the children’s small accomplishments and she hastily reminded herself of the many times Alex had honored her by soliciting her opinions and incorporating many of them in his day-to-day decisions concerning his northern empire. He had supported her plans to encourage weaving and other cottage industries among the poor, and he often credited her publicly for the fact that a new way of life was slowly emerging for women tenants in the region who spun wool and knitted stockings with materials supplied by the estate. The products were then sold and the monies split with the wives of the crofters.

Forcing her thoughts back to the problem at hand, Jane watched with relief as Alex coaxed the elder George down to a plank within striking distance of his rescuers. Her husband reached up effortlessly and lifted his elder son to the ground. However, George Gordon, the Marquess of Huntly, resolutely refused to budge an inch farther.

“Well, Mr. Baxter… you’re the architect,” Alex said jovially. “Any notions of how we get this last wee lad down from the tower?”

“Excuse me, Your Grace,” said William Marshall, “but perhaps a tether thrown up to the boy that he could tie around his waist… then we could lower him slowly, pulley fashion.”

“That scaffolding’s far too unstable!” snapped Jane, her distaste for the butler barely disguised. “Nancy, lift Susan off that tartan rug. We can all hold it for this kelpie to fall into.”

“What a capital idea, Your Grace!” said Baxter, the architect, admiringly. Marshall looked subdued at her suggestion and remained silent.

Nancy Christie shooed her little sister Jean to one side and scooped up the sleeping toddler, Susan. Jane snatched the blanket from the freshly clipped grass and handed the corners of it to the three men. The adults gathered in a circle, creating a wool basket out of the tartan blanket. With a sigh, little Huntly closed his eyes and pushed off, tumbling harmlessly into the blanket held tautly on all sides by the adults. The lad bounced a few times on the stretched wool tartan, squealing with delight by the time he came to rest.

“Again! Papa… please… may I jump again?”

Everyone, including Jane, burst out laughing as Alex scooped up his son, bringing his face close to the boy’s tear-smudged countenance, which was now wreathed in smiles.

“No, you may not, you little savage! And both you and your brother had better not let me see you up there—
ever
!”

Alex’s lecture was suddenly interrupted by the sound of horse’s hooves pounding along the gracefully curving entrance drive to Gordon Castle. Coming toward them at a dead run was Jane’s brother, Hamilton Maxwell, who urged his mount off the path in the direction of the tower. Grass divots flew from the turf in his wake as he reined his horse to an abrupt stop.

“You’ll not be riding my Dougal Dan again, if you abuse him so, brother mine,” Jane said indignantly, pointing to the necklace of sweat on her favorite horse.

Hamilton was in the army now and appeared totally preoccupied with military life. This attitude quite annoyed their mother, Lady Maxwell, who felt her middle son should be seriously looking for a wife. But Ham liked riflery, wine, and wenching, in that order, and thus far, had shown no signs of settling down.

“’Tis official!” Hamilton panted, ignoring Jane’s caustic comment and throwing himself out of the saddle. “Master Simon has today received a warrant from the king to raise the 71st Fraser Highlanders to fight the American rebels!” he continued excitedly. “They’ve ordered two Highland battalions, Alex… that’s more than twenty-three hundred men who must be recruited up here by next April! The ships will sail from Greenock by the first of May to join General Howe in Boston. His Majesty’s government has finally decided to send the kind of lads who can put an end to the bumptious nonsense going on over there!”

Two Fraser battalions!
Jane thought excitedly. Surely Thomas would want to transfer from the Black Watch in Ireland to his godfather’s own regiment. Such shifts were accomplished all the time. After all, he’d been with the forty-second nearly ten years now. Hamilton’s news could mean Thomas would be returning to Scotland—at least for a while.
Perhaps they would meet…

Twisting the corner of the tartan fabric she still grasped in her hand, Jane soundly chastised herself for her disloyalty and turned her thoughts to her old enemy, Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat.

Grudgingly, she had to admire that canny laird. He had played the English bootlick for thirty years since the disastrous affair with Bonnie Prince Charlie, and, finally, it had won him the prize. His years as a respectable lawyer and soldier, during which he had maneuvered to recover his father’s estates in Beauly from the Crown, had achieved their purpose. The man she blamed most for Thomas’s departure to America had finally gotten his Highland lands back from the king—at a price tag of twenty thousand pounds, paid in 1774 to the Treasury. The old goat would now achieve the further honor of having a regiment created in the name of Clan Fraser, and receiving a promotion to the rank of General in the bargain.

Over the years, she had made efforts to shrug off her long-buried resentment toward her neighbor—once in Edinburgh, now in the Highlands. Yet, whenever Jane had encountered Queen Charlotte during the fashionable winter seasons she and Alexander spent in London, she always managed to convey something mildly disparaging about the almighty Simon Fraser. He might be able to supply the highest quality cannon fodder for Britain’s overseas adventures, but, thanks to her influence through the queen, Jane doubted the king would ever truly trust the son of the Fox. Much to Jane’s satisfaction, George III had declined Simon’s bid to have his title of Baron restored.
She was a duchess
, she thought with grim pleasure,
and Simon, still a commoner!

Jane felt her husband’s piercing stare even before she turned toward him. Alex was studying her features as if he were trying to read her thoughts.

I should be praying to St. Ninian that Thomas stays with his old comrades in Ireland and leaves me in peace!
Jane lectured herself sternly, secreting away the longing that the news had instantly aroused in her.

But the thought of seeing him again could not be so easily extinguished. Try as she might, in these last years there had not been a day she didn’t think of Thomas, wonder of his whereabouts, worry for his safety. She had forced herself to accept the fact that she could never be Thomas’s wife, but she knew, with the awful certainty of the damned, that she could never completely give her heart to Alex. The price of Thomas’s survival was the terrible burden that all three of them carried wherever they went.

“Master Simon has
personally
asked me to form a company within the regiment,” Hamilton continued excitedly, “and he asked me to convey to you his hopes that Your Graces will sponsor my attempts at recruitment on Gordon lands. My reward will be a captaincy,” he said proudly.

“Why, of course, Hamilton,” Alex said quietly, continuing to stare at Jane with a look she found exceedingly unsettling. “Jane and I will do everything we can to assist your success in this venture with the Frasers, won’t we, my dear?” He addressed her brother pleasantly. “I expect your lovely sister’s dispensing the King’s Shilling to each new recruit would serve as quite a draw, don’t you think, Hamilton?”

“I wouldn’t go much out of my way to help Simon Fraser, I can tell you that!” Jane retorted, before her brother replied or she could check herself. “But since ’tis to be your own company, Ham,” she added in a tone she hoped conveyed merely support for a family venture, “I’ll do whatever Alex deems fitting.” Jane turned abruptly to face the children who were staring at their Uncle Hamilton in awe. “Now, ’tis time for all this foolishness to end!”

“That’s right,” Alex agreed. “Back to the nursery with the lot of you. Ham, will you join me for a dram of whiskey in the library? I’d like to hear more of this recruiting enterprise.”

Alex and the other men headed for the castle entrance, leaving Jane with whining children tugging at her skirts. She would have preferred nothing more than to follow the men into the library to hear every word of what Hamilton had learned about the new British offensive to subdue the rebellious Colonies. She had always found it extremely irksome that women were excluded from such discussions as a matter of course.

“All right, children,” Jane shouted above the din of the youngsters’ chirping voices. “Nancy is going to take you in for your tea. I want the boys cleaned up and you, girls, minding your manners when the cake is passed out. I will see you in the nursery in three-quarters of a hour and I expect you to behave like proper lads and lassies.”

She ruffled the hair of both Georges, despite her best resolve to be stern with them. The two troublemakers looked at her adoringly, grateful she had miraculously spared them from their father’s wrath.

“Yes, Mama,” her George said dutifully.

“We’ll be extra good all day, Your Grace,” echoed the Duke’s George, and, like ducklings, they followed Nancy Christie and her pretty little sister Jean along the path to the house.

Jane walked across the green and leaned against the bark of the Duchess Tree, attempting to sort out the jumble of feelings quietly at war within her. If Thomas transferred to the Fraser Highlanders, she was bound to see him before the regiment sailed for America, if only at a distance on a parade field. She wondered if Thomas would find her much changed after seven years? Despite four full-term pregnancies, her figure, at age twenty-five, was as trim as ever.

Jane reflected on the startling news Hamilton had brought to her cloistered world at Gordon Castle: Scottish troops were being mobilized for duty in America; there was an excellent chance that Thomas Fraser would be returning to the Highlands, if only briefly, from his long exile in Ireland. Alex had all but endorsed the idea of her helping Hamilton recruit for the 71st Fraser Highlanders within the vast stretches of Gordon land.