Island of the Swans (85 page)

1789–1797

Thou Beauteous star whose silvery light
Enchanting came upon my youthful sight.
Ah, what a blaze was hid by virgin rays
Whilst I, in woods retired, have past my days
Now silver’d o’er by Times eventful hand,
I greet thy evening beam in Scotia’s stand.

—Poem to The Duchess of Gordon
by the Earl of Buchan

Thirty-One

S
EPTEMBER
1789

J
ANE’S ESTRANGEMENT FROM THE DUKE WAS NOW ALL BUT OFFICIAL.
Alex remained silent when, after a courtship of several months, twenty-one-year-old Charlotte and Colonel Charles Lennox, heir to the Dukedom of Richmond, were betrothed.

Soon after the ceremony, Jane packed her trunks once again and headed for the glorious autumn foliage blanketing the Spey Valley, to begin planning the construction of Kinrara House. With Charlotte and Madelina now the mistresses of their own manor houses, Jane brought with her her third daughter, fifteen-year-old Susan, and the two younger girls—Louisa, whose thirteenth birthday fell three days after Charlotte’s wedding, and eight-year-old Georgina. Even Alexander, who would be four in November, was included in the party. Petted and spoiled by his three sisters, he chased after butterflies with a net in the bottom of the garden and was taught how to fish the Spey by old Angus Grant.

During those moments when the estate factor wasn’t overseeing the logging and spinning and cottage knitting operations, or instructing little Alexander on the fine points of scooping up a brown trout or salmon sculling in a nearby pool, he met with Jane, and together they paced out the foundations for the new country house.

“Do you like these renderings, Angus?” Jane asked earnestly, pointing to several drawings of the proposed dwelling, which showed two tall, rounded half-towers studded with large, paned glass windows facing the river. “Do you think the design is suitable?”

“Aye, m’lady,” Angus said thoughtfully, studying the graceful lines of the roof. The bantam-sized retainer was perched on his haunches in the shade of a tree, studying the duchess’s drawings, looking for all the world like a forest gnome sitting under a toadstool. “I like it. ’Tis a style that seems to harmonize with the natural beauty surrounding it.”

“I was so hoping you’d say that.” Jane smiled, pleased with his verdict. “Let’s see… ’tis nearly October… if we wish to start raising the timbers by spring, we’d best be seeing to the brick making.”

“Inverness is the best place for that, Your Grace,” Angus replied. “There’s a factory there that was founded when Culloden House was built.”

Jane flinched at the mention of the place where Alex had treated her so brutally. However, since Kinrara House was to be made of brick and plastered over in an eggshell color, the sooner she put in her order for materials, the sooner the house would be standing on this very knoll.

She looked out over the fragrant birch and Caledonian pines covering the surrounding hills and breathed in the slightly musky smell of dying leaves and wilting heather.

“Will you be traveling to Inverness to see to the bricks yourself, Your Grace?” Angus inquired.

“Aye… I’ll place the order when I go north to join the duke in November,” she replied, referring to her obligatory appearance at the annual Inverness Gathering early the following month.

“Have you thought about that man I apprised you of a while back as a possible factor… Thomas Fraser of Struy? I haven’t run into him in a long while and don’t know if he’s still raising sheep, but I think ’tis worth considering, m’lady.”

It shocked Jane to hear the name spoken aloud so casually.

Thomas…

Her mind raced back to the last time she’d seen him that night in the room at the top of the stairs of Simon Fraser’s tumbledown townhouse in Edinburgh.

Come to the Highlands with me
, he had begged her, before she’d fled into the snowy night.
We can live a good, simple life.

How ironic that this was the same sort of existence she was presently seeking at Kinrara. Angus had said Thomas was barely subsisting on the few acres left to him as the courts endlessly debated the complications surrounding Simon’s will.

Don’t come to me unless you want me forever in your life
, he had told her that night.

Jane looked down on the sparkling River Spey dancing over the amber rocks. The water’s mossy banks were studded with heather and lush ferns. Across the glen and behind the hill lay Loch-an-Eilean, crowned by its jewellike castle. Kinrara was her touchstone, her confirmation that there was, indeed, love in the world. She would build a beautiful house and devote herself to the simpler life Thomas alluded to that night. If only she could
share
this life with Thomas. If only—

An involuntary gasp escaped her lips. She had vowed there were to be no more “if onlys” in her life!

Yes! Oh, yes, Thomas
, her heart cried out.
I very much want to be with you in the Highlands!

Jane took a deep breath, looked over Angus’s stooped figure, and stared blankly at the river. She had lived her life at the behest of others long enough! Why should she continue to punish herself? She wanted Thomas with her any way it might be possible… and she would do whatever she had to do to have him.

Propriety be damned!
she thought fiercely.

If Alex could flaunt Jean Christie in the corridors and drawing rooms of Gordon Castle and along the High Street in Fochabers,
she and Thomas
could find a way to be together in the remote outpost called Kinrara. If they were discreet…

Her heart ached at the thought of his scratching out a living these last years in one of the most desolate districts of Scotland. Thomas had waited for her such a very long time…

Angus Grant looked up and was gazing at Jane with a puzzled frown. She had not responded to his inquiry about seeking an estate factor.

“I will send to Struy for the chap myself after the Inverness Gathering,” Jane said, recovering the train of their conversation. “How shall I find this Thomas Fraser?” she asked casually, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Och! ’Tis simple as can be,” Angus chuckled. “He told me once he’s the only crofter left south of Erchless Castle on the Cannich-Struy Road. ’Tis a half-day’s ride from Inverness to Beauly, and half that to Struy.”

The Duke of Gordon departed for Gordon Castle the day following the annual autumn festivities in Inverness. There had been the market fair, the Highland Games, and the Harvest Ball, all of which Jane and Alex attended side by side. Jane awoke at the Church Street Inn exhausted from the strain of so much pretending.

Pulling herself upright in bed, she stared out of the window of a low-ceilinged room at the crisp November day, and felt apprehensive. She was forced to acknowledge to herself that her determination to have Thomas live with her at Kinrara was fraught with peril. What if Alex found out? What if he—

…
living life at the behest of others…

The phrase whirled around and around in her brain. Suddenly, she kicked off the bed linen and hurriedly stood on the carpeted floor. Harking back to the days when Eglantine and she disguised themselves in men’s clothing to attend Parliamentary debates, she prudently donned a pair of Lord Huntly’s breeches that she’d found stuffed in a chest at Kinrara to wear seeking Thomas’ whereabouts. She swiftly secured her hair on top of her head and clamped a tattered black tricornered hat over her tresses. Looking like a disreputable footman, she requested a horse from the local livery in the name of the Duchess of Gordon.

“And who’s to be saying ’tis all right for you to have this pony, laddie?” the sharp-eyed stableman asked, cocking his head sideways and staring at her.

“I’ve a note from my mistress,” Jane said in the deepest voice she could muster. “I shall be back before evening.”

The stableman glanced briefly at the scrap of parchment Jane had penned herself and handed it back. Jane realized instantly the man could not read.

“All right, laddie. This nag ought to do you. See that you feed and water her, now… and no running her too hard, you hear me—or the good duchess’ll have your hide!”

“Oh no, sir,” Jane replied obediently, anxious to be on her way. “You can count on me to be kind to ’er.”

The road toward Struy led over the stone bridge from the center of Inverness and along the rutted lane that flanked the Beauly Firth. Dawn’s light was just bathing the bay the color of slate. Jane soon passed the point of land where the water funneled into the blue River Ness, home of a monster said to dwell in the depths of the loch several miles downstream. A cold, brisk wind blew off the bay, giving a hint of the winter storms that would soon be thundering out of the Arctic north, blanketing northern Scotland in snow and ice.

Jane spurred her Highland pony to a trot. The forests on both sides of the steep-sided glen grew denser, casting deep shadows across the road. The air was damp and silvery, with an alpine tang to it. Only the sound of the wind reached her ears, a sighing, lonely whisper that seemed to convey a secret message she couldn’t discern. She sensed she had entered a magical kingdom, ruled by some ancient chieftain unanswerable to any king.

Her pony plodded on, deep into the valley bisected by the ribbon of the River Beauly that wound its way toward the remote lochs and braes seen only by stags and hawks. Jane felt a tightening in the pit of her stomach. What if Thomas refused her proposal? What if he would not countenance her unorthodox plan that he should become Kinrara’s factor by day and her…

Her thoughts veered away from what the outside world might think of a man who kept house with a duchess who was not his wife.

It was just after noon when she passed the forbidding walls of Erchless Castle, a stronghold of the Chisholms in the heart of Strathglass. Thomas had told her once that close by, in Glen Moriston, was a cave nestled in the rocks where the Bonnie Prince himself had hidden out with seven men—three of them the fearsome Chisholms. This was prior to the prince’s escape to France, disguised as a maid to a lady named Flora MacDonald. It had been in these very hills that Thomas’s mother had starved to death, and his father succumbed to the effects of his imprisonment in the dungeon in Edinburgh Castle after the Rebellion of ’45.

Jane shifted her weight on the sure-footed Highland mare and anxiously scanned the next hillside for a glimpse of a cottage or small farmhouse. With great anticipation, she crossed Struy Bridge and entered the tiny village of Struy itself.

Ahead of her was a collection of low-lying stone structures with sparsely thatched roofs greatly in need of repair. A filthy youngster, barefooted, thin as a rail post, and dressed in rags, stood in the middle of the dusty road and stared at Jane with vacant eyes. Jane was struck by the vision of hungry children living in a place of such heartbreaking beauty. It was for these people, Jane thought suddenly, as well as for Thomas himself, that he had fought so long and so hard to reclaim his patrimony. A working estate provided a way of life for an entire community. She glanced up the hill behind the village and glimpsed, through the trees, what she surmised was Struy House with its massive walls of rough Moray freestone. The looming structure appeared as unkempt as the village, and likewise deserted.