Island of the Swans (43 page)

She was barely aware of Alex withdrawing his body from hers and then standing beside the bed. She rolled over onto her side and gazed at her husband’s profile, recalling the scene, etched permanently in her mind’s eye, of Jock Sinclair, clad in his tanner’s apron, lying along the bank of North Loch, dead from an apoplectic seizure exactly ten years ago.

Alex will die someday… and I won’t weep a tear… not after this day…

Sighing deeply, Alex sat next to her on the bed and idly stroked her arm.

“Jane, I—I’m—”

He ran a slender finger along the line of her clenched jaw. Jane flinched slightly and reached down to smooth her skirt along the length of her bruised legs. Wordlessly, she turned away from him onto her left side, curling her legs against her stomach to gather warmth from her own body.

After a few minutes of continuing silence, she felt Alex rise from the bed. A gentle breeze caressed her body as he drew up the blood-red counterpane to cover her. A curtain of fog seemed to drift over her, blanking out all thought of what had just occurred and bringing with it, a blessed unconsciousness.

When she awoke two hours later, Alex was not in the room. Two maids carrying a heavy brass tub slung between them deposited their burden with a thud in front of the chamber’s roaring fire.

Jane raised her throbbing head from the pillow as one of the maids poured scalding water from the first of several steaming kettles the two lasses had hauled up from the kitchen.

“His Grace asked me to tell you, m’lady, that an urgent matter of estate business forced him to return immediately to Gordon Castle,” said the maid with a mass of carrot red ringlets capping her head. The other young maid turned to hoist a second kettle of water over the tub while her companion stirred in a mixture of highland herbs, including elderflower, comfrey, coltsfoot, dried heather, and thyme, which gave the water a pungent fragrance Jane could smell from across the room. “The duke asks that you follow him to Fochabers in a few days’ time,” Jane’s informant continued, knitting her orange brows together in concentration in order to recite the duke’s words exactly as he’d told them before his abrupt departure. “He begs you to stand in for him as chief representative of Clan Gordon at the troop’s reception tonight.”

“Thank you,” Jane said wearily. “And now, please leave me for an hour. I can manage on my own.”

Hundreds of candles glowed in the grand salon of Culloden House. The mellow light transformed pale lemon-colored walls, enlivened with ornately carved molding, to the shade of golden amber. The sounds of a string quartet playing pieces by the fashionable German George Frideric Handel washed over the room now filled to capacity with the scarlet-coated officers in formal attire. Their swords and epaulets glittered among the taffeta and silk gowns worn by the small number of women in attendance.

Jane held her brother Hamilton’s arm tightly to steady herself as the pair descended the broad staircase and entered the ballroom. Despite her long, soothing bath, Jane felt stiff and sore with each step. If the two maids had seen several small bruises on their mistress’s body as they assisted Jane into her sea green taffeta dress, the young women had kept these observations to themselves. The burning coal of anger and humiliation embedded in Jane’s breast flared momentarily at the memory of Alex’s cruel behavior toward her. Husband or not, he had assaulted her… raped her, was a more accurate description, she thought wretchedly. No doubt, there were many soldiers in this very room who had similarly attacked women who’d crossed their paths in the lands they had conquered. With an overriding sense of despair, Jane wondered how she would ever survive the long reception ahead filled to overflowing with the male of the species.

Looking around the room, she knew instinctively that somewhere among the blur of red jackets stood Thomas—tall, broad-shouldered, his garnet mane making him stand out from the crowd. Would his features still be as sharply defined, given the years since last they’d met? She wondered how time had changed him. How many women had he taken to bed—or plundered—since last they’d met?

A chill passed through her body, despite the hot room and the heady odors generated by the assembly of humanity pressed together in the stuffy chamber. Judging from the pungent smell assaulting her nostrils, many of the King’s Cavaliers had foregone the luxury of bathing for some time. Perhaps Thomas, too, was less fastidious in his person, having lived so long among the heathen Irish. Did he, too, now assume the male prerogative of taking a woman sexually, whether she desired it or not? As Hamilton led her across the large chamber, Jane attempted to blot out the image of Alex and the blood-red bedchamber upstairs.

Perhaps Thomas had decided, after all, to avoid a meeting altogether.
’Twould be for the best
, Jane thought, feeling her throat thicken with unshed tears. Better to live with the dream of a kind and loving man than to discover Thomas had become like Alex, a man for whom love, jealousy, and vengeance seemed one and the same.

Jane’s head began to ache fiercely once again. She longed for a breath of fresh air and wished fervently she were miles from this crush of bodies and ripe odors.

“Have you seen to the arrangements, Ham, so I may leave at dawn for Kinrara?” she said in a low voice while smiling and nodding greetings to a few familiar passing faces.

“I can’t think why you must rush off in such a hurry!” he replied, his exasperation apparent in his voice.

The unexpected change of plans caused by the duke’s abrupt departure, and now Jane’s unaccountable desire to depart for the most remote corner of the Gordon estates was a damned inconvenience.

“Why do you insist on such an out-of-the-way route back to Gordon Castle? Kinrara’s but a poor farmhouse, and here, there’ll be several more days of festivities before the officers get down to the business of whipping the recruits into shape,” he complained.

“I wish to be far from the sound of drums beating their tattoos and troops drilling beneath my window,” Jane replied, trying to keep her tone light, as Hamilton held a gilt chair for her. Sitting down was no mean feat in a gown with yards of sea green flowered silk taffeta swirling over wide panniers that extended on either side of her tight, corseted waistline.

“Had your fill of Army life so soon, Jenny mine?” Hamilton teased, his good humor returning at the sight of the punch bowl a few yards away. “You certainly seemed to enjoy yourself, dancing with those brawny lads in the village squares.”

“Aye, that I did, but now I long for peace and quiet, and
that
brought to mind Kinrara. A few day’s rest is what I want, so I expect all to be in readiness tomorrow at sunup,” she commanded, attempting to sound every inch a duchess.

What she didn’t tell her brother was her determination not to see Alex again until she had time to consider whether she wanted to see him at all.

“Duchess! How lovely you look!”

Jane’s meandering thoughts were interrupted by their host, John Forbes, who bowed before Jane’s chair, kissing her gloved hand.

“M’lady,” he said with an appreciative glance at her full bosom swelling above the low-cut neckline of the gown’s bodice, “I’m so sorry the duke was called away but, if you will do me the honor of taking my arm, we shall form the reception line straightaway.”

“That is most agreeable,” Jane replied, grateful for the chance to get through the formalities a quickly as possible and then escape the ballroom’s oppressive heat by retiring to bed.

John Forbes led the Duchess of Gordon to the far end of the room, indicating to Hamilton and several other officers enroute to join in their wake. Before she was quite prepared for it, she was face to face with her old nemesis, Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat.
General
Fraser, Jane corrected herself ironically.

She could hardly believe that at her last encounter with the stocky campaign veteran, she had flailed against his chest in the middle of Edinburgh’s High Street, screaming curses at him. He’d actually looked gaunt and haggard then, but all that had changed with the miraculous reappearance of his godson from beyond the grave and the return of the Fraser lands by the Crown.

She gazed at Simon’s well-fed countenance and took measure of the son of the Fox. She had to admit to herself that at age forty-nine, decked out this night like a peacock in full Highland regalia, he looked healthy and prosperous. And why not? The escalating conflict in the Colonies had been good for the Scottish landed gentry. Troops needed warm clothing spun from the wool of Scottish sheep to shield against New England winters. Fighting men required all sorts of provisions that Simon Fraser and the Duke of Gordon and others were only too happy to supply—for a price.

“Good evening, Your Grace,” Simon said stiffly, regarding her warily.

“Master Simon,” Jane answered curtly, inclining her head only slightly in greeting. “I can’t believe the rumors I hear that you aren’t accompanying your troops to fight for the king in America. Can such slander be true?” she asked, wide-eyed, knowing full well it was.

“His Majesty has assured me that the homage I pay in supplying such fierce, fightin’ men as these be sacrifice enough,” Simon replied testily. “My estates require my full attention, if they’re to contribute to the needs of the Crown in fighting this war.”

“Surely, ’tis not yet considered a
war
?” Jane parried. “’Tis only a serious disagreement.”

“Well, whatever the Parliamentarians wish to call it, ’twill soon be an all-out battle, and no one can say the Frasers haven’t answered the king’s call!” he replied grimly. He scrutinized her closely, and a goading look crinkled the corners of his eyes. “’Tis the talk of the Highlands how even the Duchess of Gordon rallied to our standard.”

“My loyalties, sir, lay first and foremost with my own family and my wish to serve my brother’s cause,” she said, bristling. Abruptly, Jane turned from Simon as if she had dismissed him, which she had.

Forbes signaled for the string quartet to cease playing, and a sudden silence fell over the throng. The host of Culloden House stepped forward as a piper entered the room, the wails of his instrument echoing throughout the hall. As the last notes drifted off, Forbes officially welcomed his guests and bid them file past to greet the evening’s guest of honor, Her Grace, the Fourth Duchess of Gordon.

A long scarlet line of officers began to wind its way past the fireplace. The soldiers chatted briefly with their commanders and filed past Jane with more than a curious glance. As rumor had it, she raised a significant number of troops in a most unorthodox manner.

Jane drew a sharp intake of breath when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a garnet-maned head that rose a foot taller than the other officers in the procession. Soon she saw Thomas Fraser making his way down the reception line. Her back straightened slightly and she prepared the warm but impersonal smile she had graced so many others with in the preceding minutes. In an instant, Thomas was towering over her, the sweep of his tartan sash all but shielding her face from view. He extended his hand. Jane found she could only stare wordlessly into the depths of his eyes, their unusual gray-green color reminding her of the waters of the River Spey on a day of sun and shadow.

Thomas’s hand served to steady her and prevented her from swaying dangerously on the heels of her satin slippers.

“Good evening, C-Captain,” she stammered, painfully aware that Simon Fraser was standing not four feet from them.

“Duchess—” Thomas replied formally, bowing respectfully, though his eyes conveyed a far different message.

“’Tis good to see you, Thomas,” she said sincerely, not caring any longer who overheard them, as long as she could keep hold of his hand.

“Aye… and you too, Jenny,” he replied softly, gently extricating his fingers from hers and preparing to move down the line.

“Would you be so kind as to ask the footman for a glass of that punch…” she blurted, inventing an excuse to prevent his leaving her side. For the first time in her life, she felt she was about to faint. “I’m feeling the need of refreshment… ’tis so warm in here. Perhaps he could bring it over to that chair by the window?”