The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3) (11 page)

Beth was aware of being observed discreetly, but no one addressed a comment to her directly. They were waiting for Alex to introduce her, that was clear. She waited too, thinking that it would probably be a mistake to perform her own introductions.

After a minute or so of this he swung himself down easily from the saddle, reaching to lift her from her horse and placing her by his side.

“This is my wife, Beth,” he said simply.

She smiled in what she hoped was a welcoming and friendly way, although she felt almost paralysed with fear. The children were staring up at her as though she had two heads. One of them started to cry, and although it wasn’t due to the sight of Beth, but because his brother had slyly pinched him, it didn’t make her feel any better.

“Christ, Alex,” came a deep booming voice from behind her, “she’s tiny. Ye didna tell us ye’d married a wee bairn.”

The wee bairn, ever sensitive about her diminutive stature, spun round on her heel, her fear temporarily replaced by indignation, to be confronted by the tallest man she had ever seen in her life, who had only now belatedly emerged from his hut. He topped even Alex by a head, and was as well-built as his chief, in due proportion. She tilted her head back to look him in the face, which, framed by a shock of long red hair, was rugged and merry, although his light blue eyes were shadowed and there were deep lines of care etched into his forehead.

“My God,” she said, amazed. “I haven’t believed in giants since I
was
a wee bairn. I’ll never doubt their existence again. Where’s the beanstalk?”

The giant responded with a grin, impressed by her fearlessness, although he had no idea what she meant by her last sentence, having never heard the fairytale. “Are all the English as wee as you, then? If so, I’ll take half a dozen men wi’ me the night and march directly on London.”

“If all the Scots are as big as you, you’ll probably be successful,” she replied.

“Dinna underestimate her, Kenneth,” advised Duncan. “She nearly did for me the first time I met her.”

“And she favours her MacDonald mother rather than the English side, so she tells us,” added Angus.

“Do ye so?” said the giant.

“Yes, I do,” said Beth. “And if you’d met my English brother and cousins, you’d be very glad I don’t favour them, believe me.”

“Beth, let me introduce ye to your clan,” Alex said. “Even though this loon has ruined the formalities. This is my wife, Beth, as I was saying afore I was interrupted. Ye’ll make her welcome, and treat her as she deserves.”

Whatever that might mean. Beth’s fear started to return. She swallowed it down, and spoke to them all, although she didn’t know if she should without being invited to.

“This is my first visit to Scotland,” she said, “although my mother told me a lot about it, and I understand the Gaelic, if you speak slowly. I want to learn your ways, and I will, if you’ll help me. If I do something I shouldn’t, please tell me so I can learn. If I offend anyone, it’s likely to be unintentional, and if it’s not, I’ll tell you so, and why.”

She looked at her husband nervously, aware that she’d said more than she’d intended to. Had she sounded too arrogant? She had no idea what she was expected to do, and realised now that Alex had not, in all the long ride here, given her any pointers as to how to behave. That this had been deliberate, in the hope that she would behave naturally rather than follow a list of instructions, she was not aware. His clanspeople were down to earth, honest, and did not appreciate artifice. Alex was certain they would like Beth. How could they not?

Her involuntary sigh of relief as the formal silence and non-committal faces were transformed into smiles and expressions of welcome told him and the others, how uncertain she was. She was led away by her husband to view her house, and much as they wanted to regale their chieftain with all that had happened in his absence, his people left him and his wife alone for a time, so that she could form her first impressions of her new home. Then they would join the rest of the clan for a meal. A cow had been killed in honour of the occasion, for which Angus was truly grateful, his stomach having rumbled loudly at intervals for the last hour. He went off with Duncan to Iain and Maggie’s house, to wash and change.

The clan’s first impression of her was, on the whole, favourable. She was feisty enough. See how she’d stood up to Kenneth Mòr, the mere sight of whom could strike the fear of God into the bravest man? There were plenty of reservations about her physique, though. Aye, she was bonny, right enough, and no doubt well suited to an English drawing-room. But awfu’ frail looking. A general doubt was expressed as to whether she’d be capable of performing the hard manual tasks generally expected of Highland women, of giving birth to the next chieftain, or even of surviving a Scottish winter, for that matter. Only time would tell. In the meantime there was a feast of sorts to be had. There would be a greater one when the men returned safely, and time enough to worry whether Alex had made the right choice or not later.

Unaware of this speculation, Beth was examining her new home with interest. Inside it consisted of three rooms; kitchen, pantry and living room downstairs, and upstairs a loft, accessed by a ladder, where the chief, his wife and his two brothers would sleep on heather-filled mattresses. Someone had tactfully erected a partition of wattle across the middle of the loft, to afford Alex and Beth a little privacy.

The kitchen fire was in the centre of the floor and there was a hole in the roof to allow the smoke to escape. There was also a table which doubled as a surface for preparing food, several wooden stools, and a cupboard to store the wooden plates, pots, pans and other utensils. After examining the room, Beth moved into the sitting room, which boasted the chimney, and the peat fire. The walls were painted white, which enhanced the waning light coming through the small window. By the fire were two chairs, with another two and a bench by the far wall. The only other furniture was a cupboard, a chest for blankets which could double as a table and a few shelves, stacked with books. On one of the fireside chairs a large ginger cat had taken up residence, and eyed his new mistress doubtfully through his one remaining eye.

“MacGregor,” said Alex suddenly. It was the first sound he had made since they’d entered the house. He had watched intently from the door as she investigated the rooms, trying to assess her reaction. Her mother had told her how Highlanders lived, and he had told a few tales of his own in the year they’d been married, but nothing could prepare you for the reality.

Beth, in the act of moving to examine an object hanging on the wall, stopped and turned back with a puzzled expression.

“The cat,” he elaborated. “MacGregor’s his name. He’s getting a wee bit old now, but he’s still a good mouser.”

“Isn’t that a bit confusing, with everyone else being named MacGregor as well?” she said.

“Aye, well, everyone else is addressed by their first name or a nickname, generally. And like all cats, he doesna answer to his appellation anyway, unless he’s a mind to.” MacGregor, presumably satisfied that the intruder wasn’t going to eject him from his cosy spot, closed his eye.

“Is that yours?” she asked, pointing to the circular studded leather and wood shield she’d been heading for before Alex spoke.

“The targe? Aye, now. It was my father’s. I dinna use it any more.”

“It looks a bit bashed about.” There was a chunk missing from one edge, the leather was badly scraped in places, and there was a neat hole punched through the middle of it.

“It’s been well used. It stopped its owner being bashed about, which is the point of it.”

She reached up and ran her hand lightly across the worn leather.

“Is that how he died?” she asked, her fingers halting at the hole. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“Why not? No, it’s no’ how he died. The musket ball went between his arm and his body and killed the poor soul behind him. Da died in his bed, wi’ no warning. Just said he wasna feeling so well, went to sleep and didna wake up. It’s no’ how he’d have wanted it, but we canna choose the way of our passing.”

She turned away from the targe to look at him. He didn’t seem sad, but then his father had been dead for eight years. He did seem uneasy though, hovering by the door as though seeking an opportunity to leave. She thought this strange. After all, this was his house; she was the one who should feel awkward. And then she realised.

“Do you have another pressing appointment then, or are you thinking of staying a while?” she asked.

The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, and he took two steps into the room.

“Did you think I wouldn’t like it?” she asked softly, taking his hand.

“Well, it’s no’ quite what ye’re used to,” he said.

“Nothing about my life since I’ve been married to you is what I was used to,” she pointed out. “That’s why I love it so much. It’s a fine house, Alex. It’s well built, warm, dry and comfortable. It’s better than I expected it would be, to be honest, after all your stories about sleeping in the bracken and suchlike. I was expecting a couple of poles tied together with a blanket thrown over them at best.”

The upturned corners became a wide smile.

“I wanted ye to be prepared, so ye wouldna be too disappointed,” he said.

“It worked,” she affirmed. “I’m not. It’s lovely, Alex. But I still haven’t examined the most interesting piece of furniture in the place.”

“What’s that?” he asked. He thought she’d seen everything there was to see.

“This,” she murmured, moving closer.

There was a brief pause in the conversation, during which MacGregor, disgusted at what his master and mistress were doing, uncurled himself and leapt down from the chair, stalking haughtily and unnoticed from the room.

“Please tell me,” Beth said from the floor a few minutes later, her voice somewhat muffled by her skirts, which had just been tossed unceremoniously over her head, “that the whole clan are not about to descend on the house with the welcome feast.” She pushed at the material with her one unoccupied hand, freeing her face and looking into her husband’s eyes, which seemed almost black at the moment, the pupils wide with arousal.

“No,” he mumbled, not really caring at the moment if a full regiment of redcoats was about to ride through the room. “They’re giving us some time alone together. And if they did come in, at least they’d know ye’re more than capable of fulfilling one of the duties of a wife, anyway.”

She meant to ask him what he meant by that odd comment, but became somewhat distracted by subsequent events, and later forgot all about it.

The men returned home from driving the cattle to market two days later, but upon realising that the chieftain and his new wife were intending to stay for several weeks, it was decided to celebrate both his recent marriage and his return together, at a feast to be held in a couple of weeks.

“That’ll give ye the time to settle in a wee bit, and get acquainted wi’ people,” Alex explained to Beth as they sat by the fire on the evening of the men’s return. There had been many ribcracking hugs and much good-humoured railing of the chieftain by his men, who they said they had feared was becoming seduced by the pampered English lifestyle, he’d been away for so long.

The reception his wife had received was less familiar; that was to be expected, as she was an unknown quantity, and a Sasannach too. Alex had watched his clansmen carefully as they greeted her, and was, on the whole, satisfied. They had been welcoming, warm even, obviously appreciating her beauty and open friendly greetings of them. Alex had known she would not hesitate to accept the embraces of travel-stained men who smelled somewhat less than pleasant to say the least, after several days of herding cattle across the hills. He also knew that she would have coped well with any good-humoured ribbing, although there was none.

He could do nothing about the concerns he saw in their eyes regarding her size, slender build and apparent unsuitability to the rigours of the Highland life. He had not chosen her for her ability to perform heavy manual labour or give birth to twenty children with ease; he had chosen her for her independent free spirit, her intelligence and trustworthiness, because he could not bear to see that spirit stifled, and because he loved her. Most of all because he loved her.

He was of course aware that she was small and slight; how could he not be, when he towered over her? In an English drawing room, however, her fragility was not incongruous with the surroundings, and her spirit detracted from her physique. But here, as he saw her in conversation with the other women of the clan whilst they prepared a communal meal for the homecoming men, he realised for the first time just how pale and delicate she appeared when compared to the robust tanned MacGregor clanswomen, and started to have misgivings of his own as to how well she would cope with the lifestyle.

He looked at her now sitting opposite him, brow creased in concentration as she attempted to knit a pair of stockings.

“Ye’re holding the wool wrong,” he said. “Here, gie it tae me.” He took the needles from her and demonstrated, looping the wool over his index finger and letting it trail across his palm. “You see, this way the tension stays even.” He knitted a row quickly, then showed her the stitches, loose and even on the bone needle, unlike hers, which had been so tight she had to stop at regular intervals to force them along the needle. He handed the work back to her, and she sighed. “Ye dinna have to learn everything at once,” he said. “The clan’ll no’ reject ye if ye canna knit a pair of stockings. I can knit my own, anyway. Most of the men can.”

“I know that,” she replied. “But we’re only here for a few weeks and I want to learn as much as I can in that time. And anyway, I
can
knit. Or I could. My mother taught me when I was a child. I’m just out of practice. I didn’t like it much, because it involved sitting still and I wasn’t very good at that then.” She looked up in time to see him grinning, and smiled back. “Well, yes, I’m still not very good at it, but at least I’m trying.” She put the uneven piece of work to one side. “I’ll use that to practice on until I get it right.”