Wolf, Joan (34 page)

Edward and Alan Ruadh left before seven the following morning. He kissed Van's cheek courteously before he departed and she went to the window to watch him and Alan walking down the drive. Edward was wearing buckskin breeches and boots and his russet riding coat. He should have taken a plaid, Van thought. There was nothing like a plaid to protect you from the Highland weather. She could have given him one of her father's. A plaid was about the only thing of Alasdair's that would fit him.

She straightened her spine. If he caught cold on his way to Inverary, it would serve him right, she thought fiercely. And her father's clothes would fit Alan. She would bring him a kilt and some clean shirts that morning.

The day after Edward had left for Inverary, word came to the prince and Niall in Corradale that they would have to leave that hitherto safe refuge. General Campbell of Mamore had just sailed into the waters around the Uists with a squadron of ships and he had landed a regiment of three hundred local militia, MacLeods, on Benbecula. The hunt was up in earnest and it was coming nearer.

On June 5 the prince's party left Corradale and sailed to the little island of Ouia, where they remained for a few days while they desperately tried to determine where it was safe to go. At last Niall and the prince left the others on Ouia and tried for Rossinish, to see if they could get further news. From Rossinish they began to move cautiously southward.

The hills were crawling with militia and the lochs and inlets were filled with hostile ships. The only thing that saved the fugitives was the underground network of loyal well-wishers, who appeared with magical regularity to warn them of troops on the next hill or ships in the loch.

"We must get off the Long Island," Niall said desperately to Charles as they sheltered from a gale in what was no more than a cleft in the rocks above Loch Boisdale. "We must get across to Skye."

There had been fifteen enemy sails in the loch when Charles and Niall had deserted their own boat to take to the land. The weather, miserable though it was to be out in, was in reality a blessing. When the gale had finally blown itself out, a local man appeared with the news that a party of militia was but one mile away. The man, a schoolmaster named Neil MacEachain, volunteered to lead the prince and Niall to Ormacett on the west side of South Uist. There, he told them, he knew someone who could assist the prince to escape from the island. The someone was a woman and her name was Flora MacDonald.

CHAPTER 27

Alan was much safer in Morar than Niall and the prince were on the Long Island, but he too was looking for ways to escape.

"I must get a ship to France," he told Van a week after his arrival. "I cannot hide here in Morar forever."

"It isn't safe for you, Alan," Van said wretchedly. "And I don't know where to tell you to go."

"I'll go north, toward Skye," he returned. "The French must know the prince is in the Isles. There is a good chance of a ship in the Sound of Sleat."

"I wish you would stay here." Van looked at him worriedly. He had put on weight this past week, and he was clean and shaved once more. Why could he not stay in Morar?

"I am of no use to anyone skulking here in Rory's cottage," he answered when she expressed this sentiment. "And I may well be a danger to you when your husband returns. He will not like it, if you continue to shelter a government fugitive."

Van said nothing.

"I must go." They were walking together in a field of heather about a quarter of a mile from Rory MacIan's cottage. It was one of the rare days that June when the sun was actually shining. Alan stopped now and Van stopped also, "I must go," he repeated. "And you must stay here with your husband." His face was unutterably bleak.

"Alan." Van made a gesture with her hands and dropped her eyes. She could not bear to see him look so.

"It is not thus that I dreamed once of you and me," he said.

"I know." Her head was bent, her voice muffled. "I am so sorry, Alan."

"It is not your fault."

She looked up, her thin nostrils flaring. "When will you go?"

"Tonight." He forced a smile at her expression. "I will be all right, Van. I'm a dandy hand for skulking in the heather."

She laughed shakily. "The birthright of a Highlander."

"Aye." His mouth was smiling but his eyes were grave.

She drew a long breath. "I think you will be safe, so long as the prince is still in the Isles. The hunt is concentrated there."

"Aye. If the luck is with us, we will all get a ship together."

"Oh, God, Alan, I hope so!"

At that he reached out and took her hands. "I know I have no right to ask this of you, Van," he said intensely. "But will you kiss me good-bye?"

"Of course I will, Alan," she said immediately, and raised her face to his.

She knew, as soon as he touched her, that she had made a mistake. He kissed her passionately, intensely, with the hunger of a man long denied water who is finally brought to drink. And she felt nothing.

She smiled bravely when he stepped away from her. "May God keep you in the palm of his hand," she said.

"Farewell," he answered. "My love.". And she turned and walked away, walked over the mountains and did not look back.

She saw Alan Ruadh as she came by the vegetable garden. Edward was back.

She did not want to see him. She was afraid to see him. She went straight to her room and, thankfully, found it empty. She wished she could lock the door. Morag told her the earl was out, however, and she thought she was safe for a while.

She would change her clothes, she thought. She would change her clothes and after she had composed herself, she would go to sit in the drawing room. That was the best place to meet him.

She almost made it. One of the housemaids was fastening the hooks on her dress when the door opened and Edward came into the bedroom. Her head jerked up like a startled colt's and she stared at him out of dilated eyes. She could say nothing.

"Aren't you going to welcome me home?" His voice was pleasant but distinctly cool.

"Welcome home," she said. Her heart was plunging; she felt close to fainting. She made a tremendous effort and added, "I hope the weather did not catch you out too badly."

He shrugged and leaned his shoulders against the wall by the window. He was looking at the housemaid, not at her.

"Thank you, Fionna," Van said reluctantly. "You may go."

As the door closed behind the girl, Van turned slowly to look at Edward's silent figure. In the light from the window she could see the golden stubble of beard on his face. His eyes were as blue as sapphires— and as hard. Blue and gold he was; Saxon, with no trace of Celt about him.

And she loved him. Alan's kiss this afternoon had told her that with painful clarity. She had not married Edward to save Morar. It was no longer possible to hide behind that convenient excuse.

He looked so tall as he stood there next to the window watching her. So unyielding. "Did you see Mac Cailein Mhor?" she asked in a clear, steady voice that was forced out with all her remaining self-control.

"Yes."

"And what did you go to see him about, Edward?" Her heart was beating heavily still. She wondered that he could not see.

"I have been planning for some weeks to import food from Ireland in order to feed Morar," he answered. "I went to see the duke about the feasibility of getting food into Lochaber and Badenoch as well." His eyes were unfathomable as he watched her face. "The Duke of Argyll may be a Campbell, but he is also a Highlander and a Scot. He has no wish to see the innocent suffer for this unhappy rebellion. He has agreed that the Campbell militia will help get food into the areas that need it."

The room was filled with an intense silence. Van stared at her husband, her slender hands opening and closing on the folds of her yellow silk gown. Finally, "You have been planning to import food for some time? You never said anything to me."

"You must know that I have been visiting all the clan and checking the food supplies," he answered. He had not moved from his post by the window.

"Aye, but..." Her voice trailed off. She had not wanted to know what he was doing, had tried to avoid him as much as possible, had been so busy hiding from the knowledge forced on her today by Alan's kiss... "I suppose I was too concerned about my mother to take much notice," she said faintly.

"So I had thought. That was before I realized you were simply staying as far away from the 'lord conqueror' as you decently could."

It was a moment before she realized he was quoting her own words back at her. She had called him a lord conqueror, she remembered. She looked now at the flinty expression on his face and understood that she had hurt him deeply.

Oh, God. What a stinking, rotten, disgusting mess she was making of this marriage.

She turned her back. She could not bear to look at him, could not bear to see that expression on his face.* She closed her eyes. "I wish we were at Staplehurst," she said. "I wish none of this had ever happened."

She heard the sudden sharp intake of his breath. "Do you mean that?" he asked.

At the note in his voice she opened her eyes. "Of course I do. The prince has brought us nothing but sorrow."

"Not that." His voice told her he was coming closer and she turned to face him. He was looking impatient. "Do you mean what you said about wishing to be at Staplehurst?" *

She thought of the beautiful golden stone house, the green fields, the horses in their pastures, the peace... to be there with Edward, to be able to love him in rightness, with a whole heart. To be able make music again. "Oh, yes," she cried in an aching voice. "Oh, yes, Edward, I do!"

He was looming over her, the golden stubble on his cheeks very evident now he was so close.

"Christ." Then he was holding her against him, holding her so tightly that her ribs ached. She didn't care, but flung her own arms around his neck and blindly lifted her face to his. She kissed him passionately and saw in his narrowed, concentrated eyes what was in his mind. The strength gave way in her knees and she swayed against him. Everything in her gave way. He might do with her as he liked. She didn't care about herself anymore, could not bear to be only herself, alone. So lonely. It was so lonely without him. Edward. She quivered all over as he unhooked the gown Fionna had just fastened, and reached up eagerly to draw him to her when he came to her on the bed.

He slid into her slowly and they lay very still for a long time, holding each other, scarcely breathing, afraid to move because that would trigger passion and they did not want passion just yet, only this quiet, this blissful, quiet union. Finally, however, the male in Edward could take no more, and he stirred and moved, and very shortly had brought them both to a familiar precipice from which they plunged wildly to earth, together.

"I will send the
Sea Queen
to Dublin as soon as she returns from France," Edward said to Van as they sat together in the office the following morning going over lists.

"There will be an influx of refugees into Morar once word gets out what you are doing," Van said.

He was looking at a paper, a very faint frown between his brows. "I don't care about that," he said absently.

Van's eyes were troubled. "What will the government say?"

His frown deepened very faintly. "I don't care about that, either." His eyes looked steadily into hers. She was seated on the opposite side of the desk, directly across from him. "I will give no shelter to Charles Stuart, though. Van. I promised the duke and I mean to keep that promise. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." It was the greatest effort of her life to sustain that blue gaze.

"I don't care about these other wretched souls," he went on. "Shelter as many old friends as you wish. But not the prince." There was a long silence as their eyes held. Then, "Do I have your promise on that, Van?"

Her face was bloodless. The skin under her eyes looked bruised. He knew what he was forcing on her but he felt it was necessary. "Do I have your promise, Van?" he asked again.

Her pale lips moved. "Yes," she said. "I promise."

It was the night of June 21, the shortest night of the year, when Niall and Charles Stuart walked over the moor to the summer shieling in South Uist, where Flora MacDonald was tending her brother's cattle. Neil MacEachain hid them in a barn while he went to talk to Flora. The moon was bright as Niall and Charles watched the schoolmaster cross the yard and enter the small house.

"If we do not get off this island very shortly, MacIan," the prince said somberly, "we are done for."

Niall knew he was right. The hounds were yapping at their heels and escape across the sea was their only hope. In the semidarkness of the barn the two pairs of eyes, one light and one dark, met and held. "I shall never forget you, my friend," said Charles Stuart.

Niall's teeth flashed white in the blackness of his beard. "I will hold your highness to that promise when you are come into your own." After a moment the prince grinned back. "Here is MacEachain," Niall said, his eyes swinging over Charles's shoulder to the man approaching them from across the yard.

"Come with me," said the schoolmaster, and the two figures followed him to the shieling, where they entered through the low door, ducking their heads in similar gestures. They were greeted by a grave-faced girl in her early twenties, who curtsied to Charles.

"Mistress MacDonald's stepfather is Hugh MacDonald of Armadale in Skye, your highness," MacEachain explained. "He is an officer in the militia and could certainly issue Flora a passport to cross to Skye to see her mother." MacEachain looked at the girl. "And, Flora, could you not also get a passport for a servant to accompany you?"

Flora MacDonald's serious young eyes looked troubled. She looked at the prince. "I would like to help you, your highness, but my stepfather is a captain in Sir Alexander MacDonald's regiment. It would go hard with him should Sir Alexander find out that I had assisted in this deception."

"Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat is one of the two great lairds of Skye, sir," Niall explained in a brief aside to the prince.