Dawn on a Distant Shore (75 page)

Moncrieff coughed.
"It has nothing tae do with politics. Should Breadalbane come tae Carryck
it will have tae do wi' blood. They'll drive us out wi' whips and canes, the
way they drove my grandfaither out o' Dumfries in the riots. He died in the
mud, watching his roof burn. His guidwife would ha' froze tae death beside him
and my faither wi' her, but for the auld laird. But he gave them work, and a
croft and a place tae make their confessions, and tae hear the Mass without
fear. Ye wi' yer superiority and yer weeping for the Africans, ye care nothing
for what we've suffered under your countrymen. You stand there and speak tae us
of eggs."

Elizabeth drew herself
up to her full height. "You have suffered great injustice, but we are no
part of that, sir."

Moncrieff's mouth
twisted with disgust. "She doesna understand," he said to the earl.
"I told ye how it would be."

"She understands
well enough, and so do I," Nathaniel said. "You want to hold on to
what's yours--there's nothing unusual in that. You're Catholics, and I'd guess
you're Jacobites, too."

There was a sudden
silence as Carryck and Contrecoeur looked at each other.

Contrecoeur said,
"Our political aspirations are modest. We are interested only in surviving
in these ungodly times."

Elizabeth let out a
hoarse laugh. "You must think us very dense indeed, sir. You are asking us
to join a lost cause. To allow ourselves to be used as pawns in your holy
war."

"No," said
Contrecoeur, leaning forward, his fervor so bright that it changed his face
into a martyour's mask. "It is exactly that which we hope to avoid. The
best way to keep the peace is to keep Carryck free of Campbell influence."

Nathaniel studied the
priest's face. "Your name ain't Contrecoeur, is it? You're no more French
than I am."

Carryck looked up in
surprise. "Can ye no see the resemblance tae Angus? Before he took his
vows he was called John Moncrieff."

"Brothers,"
said Nathaniel. And saw it then, in the line of the jaw and the set of the
eyes.

"Half
brothers," said Contrecoeur.

Elizabeth said,
"They sent you to France to be educated by the Jesuits."

Contrecoeur looked at
his half brother. "You were wrong about her, Angus. About both of them.
They are not so witless after all."

Nathaniel swallowed
down the bile that rose in his throat, and he looked at Contrecoeur.

The man was nothing
more than a priest. A priest like all the other priests he had ever known, steadfast
in his conviction that his heaven was the only worthy goal and that every
creature on the earth was in the world to serve his church, and his needs. He had
known anger deep and cold enough to sear, and it all pushed up now from deep in
his gut. He swallowed it back down, but it took everything in him.

He said, "So what
happens to an exiled priest returned in secret to his homeland, if he's found
out?"

Contrecoeur inclined
his head. "You wish me ill, Mr. Bonner. Your life in the endless forests
has hardened your heart."

Elizabeth said,
"If we are hard, sir, it is because you have put our children in
danger."

He put out a mangled
hand, palm up, as if to offer her something worth taking. "As are the
children of the church, Mrs. Bonner. As are we all."

Nathaniel took
Elizabeth's arm. "There's nothing else to be said here. You'll have to
find another way out."

"You were
baptized in the church," Contrecoeur said. "You are tied to this
place by blood and faith."

Nathaniel laughed out
loud. "I will never belong to this place. Do you hear me, Carryck? Marry
the French girl and get yourself a son, or make peace with your daughter. I'm
taking my family home."

The earl stared, his
expression stony.

"I am sorry for
your troubles," Elizabeth said to Mrs. Hope. "But we cannot help
you."

Moncrieff put himself
in front of Nathaniel, swaying slightly on his feet. "Ye'd turn yer back
on yer blood kin?"

"Get out of my
way," Nathaniel said softly.

Moncrieff did not
move. "I should ha' taken the boy and killed ye when I had the chance."

Nathaniel studied him
for a moment: the long face and sunken cheeks, the dark eyes bloodshot and
still bright with anger.

"I was just
thinking the same thing about you," he said. "I still am."

"Stand aside,
Angus." Carryck's voice was hoarse, but steady. "Let them go."

"Aye,
Angus," Nathaniel echoed. "Stand aside."

Hannah meant to read
while she waited for her father and Elizabeth to come back from dining with Carryck,
but the afternoon in Carryckton had been more tiring than she realized. She
fell asleep after just a few pages, and dreamed of the bear wandering blind through
the fairy wood, trailing a chain behind herself, and calling out for help.

The sound of her
father's voice, hushed and urgent, woke her. Hannah righted herself so suddenly
that the book in her lap slid to the floor with a muffled thump.

"What?" she
asked, frightened by the expression on his face. "What's wrong?" She
looked to Elizabeth and Curiosity, who stood behind him. "Is something
wrong? My grandfather?"

And then she saw what
her father held in his hands: the buckskin sacks, double sewn, that he had worn
against his skin for so much of this journey. Empty.

She unfolded her legs
and tried to stand up, suddenly as unsteady as a new colt. Her father steadied
her with his free hand.

"Did you hear
anything?" he asked. "Did anybody come in here while we were
gone?"

Hannah shook her head.
"No. Nobody."

"You see,"
said Curiosity. "I told you, I would have heard it if somebody came in. I don'
sleep that deep, not here."

"All the
coin?" Hannah asked. "All of it gone?"

"Yes," said
Elizabeth. "All of it. One hundred and three gold guineas, and four pounds
sixpence in silver. The sacks were undisturbed when I fetched a shawl in the
late afternoon."

Hannah rubbed her eyes
and tried to collect her thoughts. "I saw Mac Stoker," she said. "He
was leaving."

Her father's back went
very straight. "Where? When did you see him?"

"In the
tunnels," said Hannah, and she saw how the grown-ups all looked at each other.

"Speak up,
child," said Curiosity. "And tell us what you know about Mac
Stoker."

It was quickly
told--the tunnels under the castle, the staircase built into the thick wall of
Forbes Tower that came out in the kitchen window casement. And Mac Stoker with
a sack over his shoulder on his way to find his crew and his ship.

"I thought maybe
he had stolen a teakettle, or a silver platter," she finished.

"I don't think it
could have been Stoker," Nathaniel said. "He couldn't come up here
without being seen. And the timing is off--that was before we left for
dinner."

Curiosity's mouth was
set in a hard line. "But who else knew about the coin?"

"Moncrieff,"
said Elizabeth. "Moncrieff knew, and he wasn't at dinner."

"Angus Moncrieff
has not been in these rooms," said Curiosity firmly. "I could smell
the man a mile off, rat that he is."

"The maids,"
Hannah suggested hesitantly. "The maids might have known. Maybe he sent
one of them--"

"Or maybe Stoker
did," said Elizabeth. "He is good at getting women to do his
bidding."

Hannah watched her
father's face, seeing the anger there just below the surface, and the
frustration. He turned to Elizabeth.

"How much will it
cost to buy passage home for all of us?"

Elizabeth spread her
hands out on her lap. "About six pounds per person, if we want cabins.
Perhaps half that for the twins. Another three pounds for provisions for each
of us. Counting your father and Robbie that would be--"

"More than fifty
pound," said Curiosity. "Might as well be a thousand."

"If only there
were some way to contact my aunt Merriweather," Elizabeth said. "But
I have no idea where she is."

Nathaniel turned away
without a word. He took a candle from the mantelpiece and disappeared into the
dressing room.

"Now what?"
muttered Curiosity.

Elizabeth put her arm
around Hannah. "I don't know."

A few moments later
Nathaniel was back. He held out his hands, full now: a silver comb embedded
with pearls and a set of brushes to match. A pair of shoe buckles encrusted
with square-cut stones that caught the candlelight and cast it out again in a
rainbow. A hand mirror, inlaid with ivory and pearl, and deeply carved: Sans
Peur. He let them fall on the table and the sound of it was very loud in the
room.

"Would these
bring in enough money?"

"In London,
yes," Elizabeth said. "But I doubt there are any jewelers in Carryckton.
Perhaps in Moffat."

"Jennet told me
about Moffat," said Hannah. "It's a place where rich people go to
take baths."

A smile flickered at
the corner of Elizabeth's mouth. "A spa, yes, and quite a fashionable one
with the aristocracy. There would almost certainly be a way to dispose of these
things."

"Lady Isabel is
there, too," said Hannah. "And some of the Campbells."

Three heads came up
suddenly to look at her. She said, "You made me start at the end, or I
would have told you already."

Curiosity said,
"Sounds like a long story, indeed. Let's set down."

It took almost an hour
for Hannah to tell it. As she recounted what she had learned at the Laidlaw
cottage, Nathaniel filled in the background that Contrecoeur--
John Moncrieff,
Elizabeth reminded herself--and Carryck had given them during their visit to
Lady Carryck's chamber.

"A fine
mess," Curiosity concluded when they had finished. "Priests and
hidey-holes and runaway daughters. There ain't nothing like religion to bring
out the worst in folks."

Elizabeth gestured
toward the empty buckskin sacks. "And then this--"

"It don' much
matter who took it," said Curiosity. "Not as far as I can see. Either
way it's gone."

Nathaniel leaned
forward to study a shoe buckle. "I don't know, Curiosity. If it was
Moncrieff, or Carryck even, then that means they'll go to some lengths to keep
us here. What we need is an ally, somebody to help us get away."

"I have rarely
heard a master or landlord so universally praised," said Elizabeth.
"It is hard to imagine that any one of his servants or tenants would be of
any assistance. I think we must depend on ourselves alone."

Hannah said,
"There's the Campbells. They want us gone, anyway. Maybe they'd help, once
they know we've got no interest in Carryck."

"Maybe they would,"
said Nathaniel slowly. "But just because we don't want to claim this place
don't mean we got to hook up with Carryck's enemies."

Curiosity put her chin
down to her chest and gave Nathaniel a piercing look. "I don' wish the man
ill, either. But tell me, what choice do we have? Cain't you talk to this Isabel,
if not her menfolk? See if she's willing to send us on our way?"

Elizabeth watched
Nathaniel struggle with this idea. She put a hand on his, and he looked at her.

"We must go to
Moffat anyway to sell these things." She picked up the mirror and it
flashed in the candlelight. "It might do some good to call on Lady Isabel.
For us and perhaps for Carryck, as well."

Nathaniel ran a hand
through his hair. He had discarded his coat, and the white linen of the shirt strained
against his shoulders, all the tension in him rising up.

"I don't know,
Boots."

She said, "Let me
go. I could make the trip in one day, with a good horse."

Curiosity laughed.
"Now, there's a rare idea. Send you off with a load of jewels in your pocket--on
your own, of course--through strange countryside to find the Campbells, after
they put two bullets in your husband."

Elizabeth tried to
keep her composure. "The Campbells do not know me," she said. "I
am just another lady come to Moffat to take the waters."

Hannah cleared her
throat and Nathaniel turned toward her.

"Say what you got
on your mind, Squirrel."

After a moment she
said, "It's when you two split up that there's trouble. I think you should
both go."

Nathaniel's face went
very still, and then he reached out a hand to put on her shoulder. "You're
right. Sometimes it takes a child to point out the truth of a thing. What do
you say, Boots?"

"I'd like to hear
what Curiosity thinks of the idea," Elizabeth said.

Curiosity tapped the table
with one long finger, her jaw working thoughtfully. "I suppose I can keep
people out of here for a day, and there's goat's milk enough. We managed that
way once before, after all. But how you going to get horses, without letting
Carryck know what you up to?"