Journey to Enchantment (2 page)

“Aye, miss,” he replied in an unexpectedly deep bass voice. “A verra fine gentleman is the Captain. And me name is Lockerbie, ma'am.”

The accent was broad Scots, and come to think of it, the MacTavish had not said their guest was English. The shadow lifted from her heart. “It is a Scottish gentleman, then! I might have known my father would not be offering a bed to a Sassenach!”

The thin shoulders drew back and the scrawny head lifted proudly. “Captain Delacourt is an Englishman, miss. And a right fine one, I'll hae ye tae know,” he declared with an almost fierce defiance.

“Indeed?” said Prudence haughtily.

“Ye forget your place, ma wee mon,” asserted another female voice from close at hand.

Prudence turned eagerly to the housekeeper, and the manservant stared as though transfixed. A fine figure of a woman was Mrs. Cairn, small of stature, large of spirit, her body softly rounded, her dark hair always neat and glossy, and her pleasant face set off by a pair of large grey eyes that were at the moment flashing with indignation.

“Ye will do well tae get yon great pile o' luggage cleared away frae the hallway rather than standing aboot saucing y'r betters,” she went on sharply.

“It was a misunderstanding, merely,” said Prudence. “I'd thought Lockerbie's gentleman a Scot.”

“More's the pity he isnae,” muttered the housekeeper.

Lockerbie gathered his impedimenta and made his laden way up the stairs grumbling
sotto voce
about the hospitality in this house.

With a pang of guilt Prudence said, “Poor fellow, he does look overburdened. Are there no footmen or maids to help him?”

“They're all busy.” Mrs. Cairn glanced at Prudence, and her mulish expression softened. She said with a grin, “Too busy tae be spared fer aiding the likes o' that dirty turncoat, at all events. A fine thing fer a free Scot tae be fetching and carrying fer a Sassenach! And an officer o' murdering redcoats at that! Miss Prue, what in the worrruld is the MacTavish aboot?”

Had anyone else dared to question an action of her father, even so bewildering an action as this, Prudence would have fired up in immediate defence of him. She had a suspicion, however, that the pretty little widow regarded the MacTavish with a particularly fond eye, and that her father's interest was more than a little engaged in that direction, and thus she only sighed and said with regret that she understood Captain Delacourt to be a friend of Master Robert's. “Have you seen him, Carrie?”

“A glimpse only and 'twas more than enough!”

The hostility in the grey eyes was marked, so that Prudence felt obliged to point out that her father
had
invited the Captain to stay here. “We must not allow him to carry away a poor notion of Scots hospitality, must we? Besides, I understand he is ill. What ails the man?”

“Ah dinna ken,” declared Mrs. Cairn, folding her arms across her ample bosom. “One can but hope that whatever 'tis, 'twill prove fatal and we'll hae one less Sassenach tae fash the wearrry worrruld!”

*   *   *

The robe
à la française
hanging from the open door of the clothes press was light blue, the low neckline and the front openings embroidered with white, and the underdress of white satin. It was one of James MacTavish's favourite gowns and, having selected it with a judicious eye to charming her papa at dinner that evening, Prudence clung to a chair whilst her abigail tightened the laces of her stays, then draped her wrapper about her. It was a minute or two before she recovered her breath and seated herself at her dressing table. Despite her own anxieties, her attention was not upon her own reflection, however, her blue eyes wide as they fixed upon her abigail's round, pleasant face. “He … fought at Prestonpans?” she echoed incredulously. “And—and still my papa allows him in our house?”

Kitty Campbell nodded, her light brown curls bobbing under the snowy mob cap. “Aye. But the MacTavish is a canny body, Miss Prue. He'll hae his reasons, for all it seems crazy.”

Prudence tried to gather her thoughts. “Do you know what ails him?”

Kitty fastened a velvet bluebird amongst her mistress's high-piled curls and said after a moment's consideration that it was possibly the onset of old age.

“Foolish girl! I dinna mean the MacTavish—and he's neither old nor feeble!—I mean this Captain, whatever his name is.”

“Ah. Well, his mon says as he took a piece of shell casing through his shoulder in the battle. I doot they expected him tae survive it.”

Flinching a little, Prudence said, “But the Battle of Prestonpans was fought last September. Is he
still
so very ill of his wound?”

“Aye. In a verra bad way. His mon says he was improving, but wouldnae rest, and then they'd tae smuggle him away frae Prestonpans and couldnae get tae the Border, so had tae come up here. He went intae a decline, for which ye couldnae hardly blame him. 'Tis a long, horrid time the puir laddie's been through, no question.”

“Poor laddie, indeed,” snorted Prudence, recovering her sense of values. “Is a monster, and likely murdered scores of our fine Highlanders before he received his just deserts!” She handed Kitty her pearls and, as they were fastened about her white throat, enquired, “What like is this Sassenach?”

“Och, I've not set eyes on him, Miss Prue. But Mrs. Cairn said he wasnae all
that
great on looks—a puir puny thing, she said, and will likely die on us, for the steel pierced his lung and he's surely doomed.”

Appalled, despite herself, Prudence said a rather feeble, “Oh. Well, it's none of my bread and butter, save to hope he repents his sins before he meets his God.” Following which pious observation, she went down the hall to see if her aunt had been able to learn anything of their unwelcome guest.

Mrs. Hortense MacTavish was the relict of James MacTavish's younger brother, Victor. She was a pale, willowy lady with the aristocratically fine features her niece yearned to possess, white fluttery hands, and the constitution of an ox. In her youth she had been a great beauty, and several odes and one very bad sonnet had been written in her honour. The composer of the sonnet, a tragically inclined young man, had entitled his effort “Hortense, Ethereal Queen of Moonlight.” James, who had been wont to play rounders with the ‘Queen of Moonlight,' thought this hilarious and had for years teased his sister-in-law unmercifully about what he delighted to refer to as her robustly ethereal shade. Hortense, however, had thought it delicious and romantical, and had ever since attempted to live up (or down) to the appellation, wearing wispy dresses, insisting upon draping a length of zephyr about her hair and developing what was to prove a lasting, and often irksome, interest in matters astrological. She had not been blessed with children, a circumstance for which she chose to hold her husband responsible, ignoring the well-known fact that Victor had two sturdy sons by his mistress. Hortense had moved in with her brother-in-law when James' wife had died of blood poisoning from a blistered heel, and in her erratic fashion had done her best to mother his two energetic children. Robert had been her darling, and she had indulged herself with orgies of lamentation when he'd ridden off to join the forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie, but she was also genuinely fond of Prudence and now looked up from her desk with a welcoming smile as her niece came into her private parlour.

“My love,” she said in an almost audible voice, “how charmingly you look. Never say I did not warn you.”

Accustomed to both the whispering voice and trailing wisps, Prudence tripped to the bed and arranged herself on the end of it. “Warn me about what, Aunty Mac?”

With mild interest Hortense watched one of her shawls drift to the floor. “That a tall, dark, and handsome man would enter your life before the moon was at the full. You chose not to heed me. As everyone chooses not to heed me, alas. But it was written in the stars. All the signs were confirming. And you see, dearest Prue, that I was perfectly right.” She removed her attention from the now motionless defector, and rested a patient smile upon her amused niece. “Laugh, then. But”—she raised her white hand in a graceful gesture of emphasis—“one of these days you all will be obliged to cease your mockery.”

Prudence jumped up and ran to hug her. “Of course we do not mock you, dear one. We love you—you know that.” She kissed the cheek lifted to her and went back to her perch, remarking, “But I think you are not quite right this time, you know, for you said ‘tall and handsome' and from what Cairn says, our horrid intruder—”

“Prue! Your papa's guest!”

“—horrid Englishman is neither tall nor handsome.”

“Cairn!” sniffed Hortense, forgetting, as she occasionally did, to be ethereal. “Much she knows of it! She is so biased she'd likely think an Englishman a goblin were he a veritable Adonis. You may believe
me,
Prudence. The laddie is both tall
and
handsome, and has the prettiest dark curls, for all they were tangled on his pillows when I saw him.” She hove a tragic sigh. “So young to die, poor boy.”

Curiosity getting the best of her, Prudence restrained an indignant comment. “So you've seen him.
Is
he going to die, do you think? I hope not. It would be purely wretched to have a funeral from Lakepoint.”

Shocked, Hortense mourned the fact that her niece had been sweetly gentle as a bairn. “When did you become so heartless? If you could but have seen him lying there, his fine face all white and wasted and lined with suffering, yet”—she clapped a handkerchief to her lips and went on, fainter than ever—“yet smiled at me … so bravely.”

Prudence was finding it difficult to maintain her callous air, for there could be little doubt but that her aunt was genuinely affected. She said uneasily, “Never cry, Aunty Mac. We'll contrive to coddle the creature, I've no doot, though
I'll
have none of him! Oh, all right! Never go into the boughs! I'll speak politely tae him—no matter how many he may hae foully murdered wi' his bluidy sabre!”

Hortense shuddered and said wiltingly, “How like you are to your sire, poor child. The angrier you become, the more broad is your speech.”

Bristling, Prudence decided not to wait for her aunt and departed in search of her father.

She found him in the book room, as usual, dressed for dinner but poring over a tattered, leather-bound volume. He looked at her vaguely, then his eyes lit up when he saw her demurely clad in her great-skirted gown, her pearls, and her powder. Prudence cast down her eyes and, with her hands loosely clasped before her, said meekly, “I have made you angry, Papa. Indeed, I did not mean to, and am very sorry.”

She expected him to put down his book and come and kiss her and say she was a naughty puss but that there was no prettier girl in all of Scotland and the Isles. Instead, there was a silence. Stealing a glance at him, she saw that he had set the book on the reference table and stood frowning down at his hand still resting on the closed volume. Dismay touched her. Was he really very angry? Over a miserable Sassenach? Astonished, she cried, “Papa? I dinna understand this business!”

He smiled suddenly and came over to her. “Of course you do not, child,” he said, dropping a kiss on her temple. “Wherefore, I must explain.” He led her to sit beside him on the brocaded cushions of the window seat. “We are,” he said slowly, “indebted to Captain Dela-court.”

Prudence watched him, her curiosity deepening by reason of the remark and his infinitesimal stumble over the name. “How?” she asked baldly.

“He was, ah, kind to your brother. Er, when they were at school.”

“I suppose that means Rob was under the hatches, as usual, and—”

“And I could wish he had not taught you that shocking cant! Further, Miss Sauce, your brother was not in just that—particular kind of embarrassment. The point is not what he suffered, but that our guest came to his rescue at a—a time he needed help.” Here, noting that his daughter's gaze was lowered but that her chin was rebellious, MacTavish seized the latter article and tilted it up so that her stormy eyes met his. “We are
indebted
to the gentleman,” he reiterated firmly. “And he truly is a gentleman. I'd hoped you'd be away by now to your aunt in Edinburgh, but—” He broke off, then finished, “I must insist that you treat him with courtesy. And that you welcome his friends, should they come here.”

She took his hand and held it in both her own. “Such as that silly wee Sassenach who came tripping and lisping here today?”

MacTavish frowned and stood. He was not a large man, nor of intimidating aspect, but when angered he was impressive. He was angered now, and realizing for the first time how deep were his feelings in this matter, Prudence gazed up at him, her heart beginning to flutter with fright.

“Lord Thaddeus Briley,” said MacTavish in a voice of ice, “is, I grant you, an Englishman. He is also a very good man. That this recent folly occurred to bring down such bloodshed and grief upon our dear land is a tragedy beyond belief. I fear it is a tragedy with ramifications we Scots have yet to feel. For those of us who were not enamoured of your handsome Prince, it is a deeper tragedy. And I remind you, Prudence, that many English gentlemen fought for the Jacobite Cause and have given up their lives because of it.”

She had already come to her feet and, shaken but stubborn, she countered, “Aye, sir. But our guest did not! He was a Captain in the service of that German usurper! He is one of the very men our Robbie fought, and we—”

“That will
do!
” The voice was not loud, but Prudence shrank. “I have extended the hand of hospitality to Captain Delacourt. If you, by word or deed, offend him, you besmirch the honour of our house. And that, Prudence, I will not tolerate!”