The Pretender (17 page)

Eithne’s mouth pressed into a tight line. “You’re a muckle blind man, Douglas MacKinnon. Tell me one thing then, and I will ne’er speak of this again. If she was so happy with her life of privilege and ease and servants ready to see to her every wish, why then did she end up in your bed?”

Douglas looked at her. “It was the whisky.”

“Och, it wasna the whisky, you daft lad. She could
have chosen anyone, Douglas, anyone at all. Yet she chose you.”

“Enough,” Douglas finished. “This talk a’tween us is not doing any good. It is late, and I must go.”

Douglas lowered his head to kiss her on the temple, then turned to leave.

Eithne stood and watched him go. He was as dear to her as her own son, but sweet
Dia,
how she wanted to clout him sometimes.

By the time Douglas left Eithne’s cottage, it was raining. The clouds had moved in off the Minch, gathering and swelling, muting the moonlight to a dull distant glow. The air was thick, heavy with the damp as it churned and lashed a twisting path across the mist-shrouded strath.

He hadn’t been aware of the rain while he’d been tucked away inside Eithne’s cozy cottage. Judging from the depth his foot sank with each step, a steady downpour had been falling for some time. He trudged across the soggy glen, impervious to the rain soaking through his plaid; He found himself thinking back on Eithne’s words, and frowning against the bite of the wind.

Look me in the eyes, right this moment, and tell me truthfully, if you can, that you feel nothing for this lass, nothing at all. Tell me you have no’ thought of her, have no’ looked into her eyes just once and wondered what could be if she were no’ a Sassenach lady, but a simple Scottish lass. . . .

It didn’t sit well with him that she’d been able to see through him so clearly, that she could sense such thoughts, thoughts that he had refused to acknowledge himself. The truth was that he
had
looked into Elizabeth’s eyes, more than once, and he’d seen something more than the eyes of a noble daughter. He’d seen pride and he’d seen intelligence, two things he respected, particularly in a woman. But he’d seen something else. He’d seen life.

Douglas thought back to the last time he had seen Muirne Maclean, at a meeting at Kilmarie House shortly before the rebellion had begun. It had been early summer, the heather was just coming into bloom, and Douglas had sat listening while his uncle and Malcolm Maclean had debated the various conditions of their impending marriage.

Muirne had been perched on the edge of a chair beside her father, her feet tucked together, her hands folded gently in her lap. She had always been a lovely girl, with dark hair and a comely face. It was a thing Douglas knew had been passed to her from her mother, a once celebrated beauty on the isle.

More than once that day Douglas had glanced to Muirne, for a glimpse of who she really was. Their eyes had met once, for the briefest of moments, but she’d looked away. He couldn’t recall what she’d worn, whether her gown had been light or dark. But he remembered other things, the way she kept her head bowed shielding the lifelessness that had clouded the lovely pale blue of her eyes.

Douglas had long ago accepted that he would wed the Maclean daughter for the good of the MacKinnons. It
made sense to put an end to the feud that had estranged the two clans for centuries.

At the time, while Muirne sat so mutely, Douglas had merely thought her as disinterested as he. The terms were clear. They neither of them had any choice in the matter. Only now did Douglas realize that it hadn’t been disinterest at all. It had been hopeless, forlorn surrender.

Douglas paused a moment as he reached the hill above the cottage. The rain fell heavily and a gleam of lightning slashed the black sky, a jagged thrust of silver against the night. The hour was late, well past midnight, and he expected Elizabeth to be abed. He would slip in quietly, would change his clothes, and would sleep for a couple of hours. He would be up afore the dawn. With any luck he could be away long afore she ever woke.

The fire was not lit when Douglas came into the cottage, nor was there a lamp burning. The place was shadowed like a cave inside, silent as one, too, with just the sound of the rain trickling through the thatch overhead, puddling on the doorstep outside.

Douglas stepped inside, crossing the room to the cupboard to find a candle. He nearly jerked out of his trews when he heard a voice come suddenly from the far corner of the room.

“I could not find any candles.”

“
Dia,
lass. What’re you doing sitting alone in the corner like that? The fire is out. ’Tis chill as a tomb in here . . .”

“I know. I could not sleep.”

“The storm?” And then Douglas remembered her fear of the dark. “Or was it . . . ?”

“The bed. It is wet.”

Douglas felt certain he had just heard her wrong. “Did you say the bed is wet?”

“Yes, I did.”

Douglas had made his way to the cupboard, where now he fumbled, opening drawers and feeling in the darkness for a rush wick. He found the flint box and within seconds a single flame was flickering to life. He turned to look at her. He could scarce see her in the darkness, even with the dithering light of the wick.

“I’ll tend to the fire and then see about the bedding,” Douglas said, and started for the far side of the room where the extra peats were kept.

“While you’re at it, you can see about the table, the floor, and the chair in front of the fire. They’re all of them soaked.”

It was only then Douglas realized he was standing in a shallow puddle. A fat drop of water plopped precisely on the top of his head, running down to the tip of his nose. He dashed it away and looked up. The sounds of the rainfall weren’t coming only from outside the cottage. There was a mixture of steady drips leaking from various places overhead.

“The roof.”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “That idiotic goat has eaten it through. Fortunately, I managed to construct a cover before the place flooded.”

Douglas held up the flickering flame of his rushlight. What he saw defied description.

She had suspended her dress panniers from one of the rafters using a stocking garter to tie it. The hoops that she usually wore beneath her skirts were now stretched out in an oblong cone like a voluminous white bell. A
lacy stretch of petticoat was draped tent-like to form a canopy just above where she sat.

“At least they are of some use,” she said as he stared dumbfounded at the contraption. “They certainly were of no use in milking the cow earlier today.”

“You milked the cow?”

She scowled at him. “Of course. That is what you meant when you said I’d have to fetch the milk for my tea, isn’t it?”

“No, lass. In truth, I meant you would need to fetch the milk
from the larder
at the back of the cottage. Did you not see it?”

Apparently she had not, but then she could never have known to look for the milk in the larder. All her life, milk for her tea, candles for lighting, a sturdy roof over her head, all of it had simply been
there,
awaiting her pleasure. She’d never had to fetch anything, had simply to ask and it had been provided.

“I’m sorry, lass.”

“It doesn’t matter.” Elizabeth stood. Without the bulk of her panniers, her heavy skirts dragged on the floor behind her. She didn’t seem to notice. “I had to do something to pass the time. I made a soup, with Eithne’s help, but I’m afraid ’tis long gone cold. The fire was doused some time ago. Then I—”

She fell silent when a slow creaking came suddenly from overhead. And then the roof gave with a giant
whoosh.

Elizabeth shrieked as Douglas grabbed her by the arm, pulling her away while copious amounts of water, turf, and bits of thatch started showering down around them.

“Come, lass,” he called, drawing her underneath the protection of his plaid. He rushed for the door. “We’ll not be sleeping here tonight. We’ll go to the byre where ’tis warm and dry.”

Elizabeth kept herself tucked close to his side as Douglas led them out of the cottage. They stepped quickly along the muddy pathway, splashing as they cut across the yard. Elizabeth could feel mud squishing between her toes and had a fleeting thought that her silk shoes would be ruined.

When they stopped, she heard the sound of a door opening and closing, then felt Douglas release her, though he kept the plaid wrapped tightly around her. The scents of fresh hay and warm animal surrounded her. It was dark. Too dark. Inside the cottage, she had at least had a window and the muted moonlight to comfort her. Now there was nothing but endless, fathomless black.

She heard rustling and a familiar
naa
’ing that sounded from the shadows. But she was too wet and too cold, and it was too terrifyingly dark, for her to care. She stood frozen to the spot where Douglas left her and waited.

Moments later, the warm glow of lamplight sparked to life, illuminating the tiny byre. Elizabeth released the breath she had been holding as Douglas turned to face her.

He looked as pathetic as she felt. His hair was soaked, falling over his eyes and curling around his ears. Mud spattered his legs, and his shirt was plastered to his skin.

“We could run for Eithne’s, but it’s quite a distance and the rain is falling harder now.” His face grew concerned. “Lass, you’re trembling like a lamb.” He took
her hands. “They are like ice. There are spare plaids in the cottage. I’ll go fetch them.”

Her first impulse was to ask him not to leave her, but she couldn’t through the chattering of her teeth. Until he’d said it, Elizabeth hadn’t realized how very cold she was. Now her arms began to tremble and her fingers felt as if they might snap like twigs if she tried so much as to bend them.

It seemed to take hours for his return, when in truth it was only minutes.

Douglas ducked under the door with an armful of plaids and a jug which he quickly uncorked. He pushed it into her hands.

“Drink.”

“What is it?”

“ ’Tis whisky.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I d’nt want it.”

“Drink it, lass. It will warm you.”

Too cold to protest any further, growing colder by the second, Elizabeth lifted the jug to her mouth with trembling hands and took a small swallow. It was enough to send a shock of fire running straight through her insides. She grimaced against it and handed the jug back to Douglas, who tilted it to his own mouth and took a generous swallow.

Douglas led Elizabeth across to the other side of the byre, away from the cow and the goat and the chickens, who were looking at them as if they’d run mad. She stood and waited while he laid out the plaids, making up a bed on a cushion of fresh hay.

Even as she stood there, Elizabeth felt her eyes begin to drift closed as the heaviness of fatigue threatened to
overtake her. The whisky had settled in her belly, giving off a dull warmth that wasn’t at all unpleasant. She thought of her bed at Drayton Hall, the soft, perfumed pillows, the huge marble hearth that was always burning with a roaring fire. She longed for the feel of fresh sheets just warmed with a pan of hot coals, she dreamed of a steaming teacup in her hands. She didn’t realize that Douglas had returned to her until she felt his hands loosening the hooks of her gown.

“What are you doing?”

“Your clothes are soaked, lass. You’ll catch ill if you don’t get out of them. I’ll leave you your shift, but we’ve got to get you warm and dry afore a fever seizes you.”

Elizabeth didn’t have the strength to fight him.

In minutes Douglas had removed her gown and stays, and Elizabeth was standing trembling in her chemise. He helped her to lay back upon the hay and draped a heavy plaid over her body. When he doused the lamp, it was dark, but Elizabeth was so tired, she scarcely acknowledged it.

She was half asleep when she felt him lower himself onto the hay beside her. She thought he said something, but she couldn’t understand him. The warmth of his body next to hers was immediate and so very inviting that she unwittingly turned into it, burrowing her head against the solid width of his chest. As he folded her into his arms, enveloping her with the heat of his body, she let go a soft, sweet sigh.

Lulled by the steady beating of his heart against her cheek, Elizabeth descended into the arms of Morpheus, never realizing that the body that was pressed so closely to hers was totally, utterly unclothed.

Everyone who knew Eithne MacKenzie thought her a reasonably sensible woman. She’d raised her son, Roderick, alone, without the support of a husband, rearing him into a fine young man who was as strong as his father, as bright as his mother, and handsome enough to turn the heads of lasses from the age of six to sixty. When her husband died suddenly of an epidemic fever only four months after Roderick’s birth, Eithne left the Scottish mainland and her sad memories behind, returning to the place of her birth on Skye, where she could raise her son surrounded by the love and support of her family and friends.

Not many things surprised Eithne. She hadn’t endured over half of a century in the Highlands without coming up against her own share of adversity. Still, Eithne would be the first to admit she had been stunned when the MacKinnon chief Iain Dubh had arrived at the door of her snug glen cottage one summer afternoon, asking her
to foster his nephews, Douglas and Iain, who had just lost their mother.

“As elder brother to their sire, I will see to their fathering,” the MacKinnon chief had said. “Their mothering, however, will require a woman of patience, with a warm and giving heart, a woman of sense and wisdom and endurance.”

A woman, Iain Dubh had decided, like Eithne.

It was an honor, she knew, to be chosen by the clan chief, and Eithne had willingly taken on the responsibility. That had been nearly three decades ago. Since then she had raised the two lads as her own, watching as Douglas matured into a man of unrelenting loyalty and honor, trying desperately to live up to the memory of the father he’d never known. Iain was the rash one, always acting on impulse regardless of the consequences. Douglas was the thinker, a man who carefully weighed every possible outcome before setting out on any course of action.

A man of
sense.

Because of this, he rarely made a questionable decision, which was why, standing as she was at the open door of the byre, Eithne had to wonder if her eyes were somehow deceiving her.

She cocked her head to one side as the sun climbed higher in the morning sky. True, the light was low and the hour was yet early, and her eyes were not quite as clear as they’d once been, but it certainly looked to her as if Douglas was lying asleep on a bed of straw, as naked as the day he was born, and wrapped around a lass he claimed to have no feeling for—the same lass who he claimed had no feeling for him.

A slow smile crept across Eithne’s lips as she stood there holding a basket filled with laundry that needed washing and pondered what she should do in the face of this altogether awkward situation. She could turn and leave, she knew, but then anyone else who might be about would happen upon them, and Douglas would be left with some explaining to do.

In fact, Eithne had to admit, she was more than just a little curious as to just why Elizabeth’s underthings were hanging from the rafters in the cottage—while these two were out here hanging on to each other.

She glanced at the goat, who had just poked his head in the doorway. “Just what the devil went on here last night, eh?”

The goat blinked and shook his horned head.

In the end, and to spare sensibilities, Eithne decided upon a simple clearing of her throat. It was discreet, and it was civilized, and if that didn’t prove adequate enough to wake them, well then, perhaps the cowbell hanging on the wall beside her would.

Eithne gave her quiet little cough and stood back to wait.

Douglas was the first to stir. He’d always been a light sleeper and he rolled slowly onto his back, blinking up at the rafters. Beside him, Elizabeth slept on as if the hounds of hell wouldn’t rouse her.

Eithne waited until Douglas sat up before she spoke.

“ ’Tis fortunate for you that it was me who found you and not old Lilias. She’s ninety-seven years, has lived through five rebellions, single-handedly faced down four of Cromwell’s men, birthed sixteen children, and buried three husbands, but I’m quite certain the sight of you
lying needle-naked in the byre would be enough to shock her to her grave.”

“
Dia!
” Douglas scrambled for a plaid to cover himself. “What the de’il are you doing here at this hour?”

“ ’Tis I should be asking that of you, Douglas MacKinnon. I’m no’ the one sitting there without a stitch to cover myself, now am I?”

Douglas scowled, stood, and wrapped the plaid quickly around his waist. Despite the fact that she was a good two decades older and had wiped his snirty nose as a lad, Eithne had to admit he was a braw fine figure of a man. ’Twas easy to see why the lass would be taken with him.

Eithne watched as Douglas shoveled a hand through his hair, glancing once at the still-sleeping Elizabeth. When he finally spoke, his voice was no higher than a murmur.

“The roof was leaking in the cottage.”

“And you thought that by hanging her privy garments from the rafters you could stop it?”

“Nae.” Douglas’s mouth tightened into a frown as he led her out into the daylight. His face was shadowed by a night’s growth of beard, and his hair was mussed, falling about his eyes. His brow drew tight above the bridge of his nose. “ ’Twas she who rigged it in that way in an effort to keep dry afore I got here last night.”

“Well, that might do to explain how the hoops got tied to the ceiling, but it still doesn’t explain why you decided to strip down to your
quhillylillie
and—”

“The fire had been out for some time,” Douglas cut in. “She was cold and wet and shivering. Her clothing was soaked. I thought she’d catch ill, so I tried to keep
her warm with my body heat. My clothes were wet, too, else I would have left them on.”

Eithne lifted a skeptical brow. “I see.”

“Nothing happened. Nothing.”

“Aye, ’twas that same declaration that got you wed to the lass after you woke in her bed the last time, lad.”

Douglas fell silent. He could not deny it.

“So why have you come then?” he finally asked.

“I promised the lass I would take her with me to the burn to wash the linens this morn.” She gestured toward the basket she had set upon the ground at her feet. “I expected you’d be up and gone by now.”

“Aye, that was my every intention, until last night. Now I’ve got to stay and mend the turf on the roof.”

“As well you should.”

Eithne stared at Douglas a long moment, then slowly shook her head. Her thoughts, she decided, would be better kept to herself. “Well, I’ll take the lass with me to the burn. ’Twill give her something to do whilst you mend the turf. Go, fetch me your washing and find something more to cover yourself with whilst I go in to rouse her.”

“So, are you nearly finished with treading those blankets, lass? Lass?”

Though some small part of her might actually have heard Eithne, Elizabeth certainly wasn’t attentive to it. She was standing barefoot, calf-deep in a sudsy wooden tub, her skirts hitched up about her waist, diligently employed in the close study of the native landscape—

—the one in which Douglas was standing atop the cottage roof wearing naught but the kilt.

Sweet saints above, the man looked like a veritable divinity.

Even as she was horrified at herself for it, Elizabeth found herself distracted time and again by the sight of him. She told herself she was not fascinated by him. No, she was simply enthralled with the art of his work, the ancient method of turfing a roof with precisely cut sods of moor grass and heather.

But deep down, she knew it was the simple potent strength of him, the way the flatness of his belly rippled in the sunlight when he moved, each muscle defined like solid stone.

How had this happened to her? She was actually,
unbelievably
unable to tear her eyes away from him.

Elizabeth had always thought that if she ever were to actually fall in love with a man, he would have to be her intellectual equal, someone who could discuss politics and philosophy. He wouldn’t try to repress her but would encourage her curiosity, respect her opinions no matter if they didn’t quite agree with his own. He would be a man of honor and wisdom, a man of patience and compassion . . .

. . . . a man who quite frankly didn’t exist.

“Lass, can you hear me?”

“Hmm? Oh, the blankets?” She glanced quickly at Eithne. “Yes, yes, I think they should be finished by now.”

Elizabeth stepped from the tub, toes dripping, and padded barefoot to where the burn ran cool and clear over a bed of pebbly stones. Eithne had brought along a spare kirtle for her to wear for the washing, showing her how to wrap the length of her hair beneath a kerchief to keep it off her face while they worked. The airy linen
sark and loosely fitting “working” stays had at first felt peculiar, almost improper. But after passing the morning bending and kneeling, scrubbing clothes and treading blankets, comfort had quickly prevailed. Now she didn’t think she’d ever willingly don the hoops again.

Elizabeth watched as Eithne paused where she was kneeling at the burn, scrubbing a shirt with a flat, round stone. She stood, flexing her fingers and arching her back to ease the stiffness from washing, then cupped some of the water in her hands and splashed it over her face to cool it.

“Och, lass,” Eithne said, “come, douse your face afore it turns as red as a bogberry.”

The sun at midday was ablaze in a cloudless sky, and the midges had worked themselves into a full offensive swarm. Earlier, when they had made their way to the burn, Eithne had shown Elizabeth how to pick fresh sprigs of fragrant bog myrtle and fix it to her kerchief to help keep the pests away.

Elizabeth knelt on the bank and dipped in her fingers, touching a hand to her cheek. The water felt like ice against the heat of her skin. In the back of her mind, she heard her mother’s voice, urging her to cover her head when she went out of doors lest she freckle.

“You’ll end up looking like some sort of brown, spotted native,” she would say, referring to a faraway fictional island she’d once read about in a novel where the populace ran around half naked in loincloths and speaking in guttural yelps.

“Ladies should have skin as white as the dewflower and as soft as the finest Chinese silk.” The duchess and her sisters had spent many a fine summer’s day
slathering on concoctions made of purified wax to vinegar, even the juice of a white lily, in their quest to keep their faces as pallid as their supper plates. The duchess had tried, albeit failingly, to instill that same practice in her eldest daughter. But such measures had rarely done more than exasperate Elizabeth.

The two women spent the next quarter hour rinsing out the blankets and then wringing them dry, unfurling the length between them across the burn and twisting until every last drop was squeezed from the wool. As they worked, Eithne softly hummed a pleasant tune while the omnipresent goat munched happily on tufts of marram grass and vetch.

The women twisted and coiled, pulled and shook. By the time they had finished wringing out the last blanket, Elizabeth’s arms felt as limp as tallow.

“Well, I think we’re about through with the wash no’,” Eithne said, gathering up the damp clothes for her basket. “We’ll just take these things back to the cottage and drape them o’er the gorse to dry whilst—”

She never finished her thought.

Elizabeth turned to see what had caused Eithne to fall silent. She found her staring downstream with a look that was nothing short of terror.

“Eithne? What is it?” She turned, looking downstream, but saw only the sun reflected in a blinding swell of light that shifted and faded, shifted and faded with the ripple of the water.

Eithne didn’t answer. Her eyes remained fixed on that same distant spot. Soon, her hands began to tremble and she dropped the shirt she had been holding. As Elizabeth bent to retrieve it, a menacing cloud appeared from
behind the hills, drifting across the light of the sun and throwing the whole of the glen in shadow.

“Do you see something there, Eithne? What is it?”

Eithne turned. Her eyes were vacant.

“Se do leine, se do leine ga mi nigheadh . . .”

She chanted in Gaelic, repeating the phrase over and over in a quivering voice. Her eyes were filled with anguish, moist with unshed tears. Elizabeth found herself reaching for her, covering her hands, hoping to ease their shaking.

“Eithne, please, I don’t understand you. Can you tell me what you are saying? Can you tell me what has made you so upset?”

But she just shook, mumbling that same peculiar phrase as tears slowly slipped down her cheeks.

“Bean Nighe.”

It was all she managed to say before she fainted.

Elizabeth looked up from the fire when the door to Eithne’s cottage creaked open behind her.

“You’re back.”

Douglas had been gone for so long, hours now, she’d begun to fear the worst.

“Aye, lass. It took me some time, but I found him.”

Roderick entered the cottage, crossing the room to where his mother sat in a rocking chair, wrapped in a plaid before the fire. He knelt down before her, taking her hands, and spoke to her in Gaelic. The moment she saw him, Eithne’s eyes let some of the light in, glistening with unshed tears.

“Come, lass,” Douglas said, motioning for Elizabeth to follow him. “We can come away now.”

“Will she be all right?” Elizabeth asked as they walked slowly across the shadowed glen. He looked tired, she thought, as if he hadn’t slept in days.

“Aye, now that Roderick is there. I’m only sorry it took me so long to find him. He was on the mainland, and the crossing seemed longer than it should have.”

Several moments passed, broken only by the sound of their footsteps and the wind fleeting through the tall moor grass. The heady sweet scent of gorse filled the air. Somewhere, the plaintive
baa
of a new lamb called out for its mother. The goat, ears flopping, trudged slowly at Elizabeth’s side. He’d been there since the episode with Eithne at the burn, as if he somehow sensed the turmoil. Oddly, Elizabeth found herself comforted by the beast’s just being there.

“Douglas, what does
bean nighe
mean?”