The Pretender (15 page)

They walked to the small house on a crooked path Douglas had cut countless times in his boyhood. Suddenly, Elizabeth stopped, rooted to the very spot.

She wasn’t going to go through with it. Truth be told, he couldn’t fault her for it.

“Lass . . . ?”

“There is a goat on top of our house.”

Douglas looked to see a small kid standing atop the turfed roof of the cottage, contentedly munching on a patch of sod.

“
Truis!
” he said, shooing it away in Gaelic.

The goat took one look at him and let out a plaintive
naaa.

Douglas glanced at Elizabeth. “He’s a breed that live in the wild. He’ll come down on his own. Let us get inside. I feel the rain starting again.”

At least the place was clean inside, everything neat and tidy, and fresh linens had been brought for the bedding. The press had been stocked with the necessaries, flour, tea, sugar.

Elizabeth’s trunks were set in the middle of the floor. Apparently the boat carrying them had made it safely to Dunakin, for he had sent along a letter with them to his foster mother, Eithne, asking that she prepare the cottage for their arrival. He’d been worried the boat would have been captured on the seas because of the reports he’d heard of the heightened patrols. It was for that same reason he’d insisted he and Elizabeth travel by land. He was glad to see they had arrived safely.

Elizabeth was standing before her trunks, her mouth screwed into a frown.

“Is something the matter?”

“Yes, something is the matter. One of my trunks is missing.”

“Missing? You are certain?”

She opened the two trunks, searching through layers of stockings and petticoats and flounces.

“Yes. My books are not here.” She looked at him, clearly perturbed. “Douglas, I packed them myself in a separate trunk with all my writing paper and quills. It was the smallest of the trunks. And it’s not here anywhere.”

Douglas shrugged. “Well, at least it was only the books and not your dresses.”

“
Only
the books?” She spun around to face him. “I couldn’t care less about the dresses. My books . . . they are more important to me than a bunch of lace and satin! They mean everything to me—and now they are gone!”

Douglas was afraid she might cry. He’d never met a woman—and an English woman no less—whose sun didn’t rise and set upon the state of her wardrobe. It was all they could think about, all they could talk about.

But not so Elizabeth. It was clear from the way she was tossing stockings and slips aside, digging deeply through each trunk, that the loss of her books was far more distressing.

“I will go and inquire as to what happened with the trunk,” he said. “Perhaps they haven’t yet brought it.”

“Yes.” Her eyes lightened immediately. “It was quite heavy. Perhaps they needed a cart to bring it and haven’t yet managed. You are right, Douglas. Thank you. And I would be very grateful to you if you would inquire after it.” She looked at him. “
Now.
”

“Right now?”

She nodded.

“But it is raining . . .”

She frowned. “The rain didn’t stop you an hour ago from riding across the glen.”

Douglas took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. He wasn’t of a mind to argue with her. “I’ll go. I need to let the others know we are safely arrived anyway. You’ll be all right here alone while I go?”

“Certainly. I’ll brew some tea and unpack my
clothing”—she glanced at the garments she’d strewn about the room—“whilst you are away.”

Before he left, Douglas quickly stoked a fire and showed Elizabeth where to fetch the water from the barrel outside for tea. He set the kettle upon its hook to boil and ferreted out a pewter cup and spoon from the wall cabinet before then heading out the door—into the rain.

“We were pursued by a naval cutter, laird. Sixteen guns at least. We had no choice but to dump the trunk overboard. It was too heavy in that small skiff with all those books inside. It was weighing us down.”

Seated by the light of a crackling fire in the study at Dunakin, Douglas nodded to the man, Thomas MacKinnon, who stood fretfully giving his report. He understood perfectly the reasons his crew had abandoned the trunk to the depths of the Minch—if they hadn’t, they would certainly have been arrested by the English patrol and possibly imprisoned.

It didn’t, however, make the task of breaking the news to Elizabeth any more palatable.

“Have you heard from the others?”

Thomas relaxed enough to take the chair beside him. “The word from MacDonald of Dunvegan is that the prince is afoot in the outer isles. There are rumors he has been spotted on Benbecula, Lewis, even Uist. The Minch is teeming with Sassenach cutters looking to capture him, and they’re raiding the estates of any clan known to have been out in the rebellion in hopes of rooting him out. Thus far, the worst of what they’ve done was at Raasay.”

“Old MacLeod?”

“Aye. They didna kill him. He wasna there, but they did lay waste to the isle. They killed the sheep and all the cattle. They burned everything from castle to cottage. They violated the women, laird, lassies and nursing mothers alike, and killed any who dared protest. They thought it would force someone to reveal the prince’s whereabouts. They are that desperate to find him.”

Douglas’s throat tightened at the news. The MacKinnons and the MacLeods of Raasay were allied through the marriage of his uncle, Iain Dubh, the MacKinnon chief, to his second wife, Janet, daughter of MacLeod of Raasay. Thus an affront to the MacLeods was an affront to the MacKinnons as well. “Who ordered this?”

“A Captain John Fergusson of H.M.S. Furnace. They burned Raasay House, Brochel Castle, laid waste to whatever crossed their path. ’Twas followed by a militia raid headed by a Captain Caroline Scott. His men simply finished the job begun by Fergusson’s men. They are working their way through the isles, laird. It is only a matter of time afore they come to Dunakin to do the same.”

“They will not find the people of Dunakin as powerless as those on Raasay.”

Douglas looked into the fire, knowing the next question he had to ask, but fearing the answer. “Anything of my brother?”

“Nae, not as yet. But young Iain was not at Culloden, laird.”

This bit of news took Douglas by surprise. “He was not?”

“Nae. I have heard it from the others that Iain had been sent north with a detachment of MacKinnons to
join Cromarty’s forces in search of Jacobite gold. The rebellion was lost long afore they ever knew it.”

“And my uncle?”

“Iain Dubh was among the other chiefs attempting to rally the clans after Culloden. The prince had already decided to give up the fight and advised every man to survive as best he could. I’m told the chief returned home to Kilmarie a fortnight ago.”

Douglas closed his eyes. His brother was alive, and his uncle had returned to Skye. And the MacKinnon chief was the one person who would know where Iain was hiding. He looked at Thomas. “We’ll head for Kilmarie on the morrow. ’Tis time I spoke with my uncle.”

Early the next morning, Elizabeth came into the cottage to find Douglas preparing to leave.

“Are we going somewhere?” She had been in the byre searching unsuccessfully for a tub—she would give just about
anything
for the luxury of a bath—and had come hoping Douglas could tell her where to find one. Certainly there must be one somewhere for doing the laundry. At this point, she would settle for a large bucket. Instead she stood and watched him as he collected his things in the dim firelight inside the cottage.

He fastened his sword around his waist and shrugged on his coat over his cambric shirt. “
We
are not going anywhere, lass. I’m to ride to another part of the isle for a time today. I should return by nightfall. You’re to stay here.”

“Nightfall?” Elizabeth looked out the small window onto the muted light of the horizon where the sun was just rising. “But day has barely broken.”

“Aye.” Douglas took a swig of tea from the pewter cup on the table beside him. “I had intended to be away afore the sun’s rise, but I didna wake early enough.”

“You’re going to leave me here . . . alone? What am I to do whilst you’re away?” she asked. “I haven’t any books to read, nothing with which to write. Everything I had is lost. I cannot even write to my family to assure them we have safely arrived.”

Douglas looked at her, his voice softening. “I very much regret the loss of your things, lass. As I told you last night, it was unavoidable. The men did their best to save them, but in the end they had to save themselves. I cannot swim to the bottom of the Minch to retrieve them. This isn’t Edinburgh or London. Books are scarce, so replacing them won’t be possible right now.”

Elizabeth simply stared at him.

Finally, he sighed. “I will see if I might at least get hold of some foolscap and quills when I return today so that you may write to your family. Until then . . .” He looked around the cottage, gesturing toward a twig broom that stood leaning against the bare stone wall. “Perhaps you might busy yourself with sweeping the floor.”

“Sweeping the . . . ?” He might as well have just suggested she paint the Mona Lisa. “But it is a
dirt
floor!”

“Aye.”

“You want me to sweep a
dirt
floor?”

“Aye.”

Elizabeth stared at him. “Do you really not comprehend the ridiculousness of your suggestion?”

Blank as a fresh page, Douglas shrugged. “Well, if not the floor, then I’m sure you’ll find something to occupy
your time. There is always much to do on a croft.” He took up his pistol, pulled on his cockaded bonnet, and made for the door.

“I’ve put the kettle on for tea,” he said over his shoulder, “but I’m afraid you’ll have to fetch the milk yourself. There’s some meal and a bit of cheese in the cupboard for breakfast and extra peats for the fire outside the door. Dinna expect me for supper. I’ll not likely be back for it.”

Elizabeth stood watching, mute as a swan, as Douglas walked out the door. Even after he’d gone, she remained standing for some time, staring at the closed door from the middle of the room with her brow creased in utter disbelief.

Supper.
Surely he didn’t expect
her
to cook his supper?

Now he was joking. Other than to poke her head in to ask the cook for tea when one of the other servants wasn’t at hand to do it for her, Elizabeth had never once stepped foot in the kitchens at Drayton Hall. It had been a hot, smoky cave of a place, filled with clashing smells and noise and clutter. She was Elizabeth of Drayton Hall, after all, a lady of quality and refinement. She was the daughter of England’s most powerful duke . . .

She was also the wife of a Highland farmer, at least for the next two months.

Elizabeth thought of her father, of how he’d refused an immediate annulment because he intended her to learn what it was to be a wife.
A wife.
In all honesty, when he’d said that, offering her the arrangement of two months with Douglas in exchange for her freedom, she hadn’t really considered exactly what being a wife might
entail. In her experience, having spent four-and-twenty years watching her mother, the role of wife had hinged mainly upon stitching pillow covers, walking in the garden, driving about the estate to chat benevolently with the tenants, instructing the servants, and otherwise smiling pleasantly while saying “Yes, dear” when her father was in a temper. That was the role of a duke’s wife.

“But I’m not a duke’s wife, am I?” she said aloud to herself. “I am a farmer’s wife, a
Scottish
farmer’s wife, and that is a very different sort of wife altogether.”

Elizabeth noticed a column of steam rising from the kettle’s spout and went to take it from its hook above the fire with a pair of iron tongs. Tea, she thought, now that was something she could do quite effortlessly. She’d been making and serving and drinking tea since she’d been all of five years old.

Elizabeth found the tea caddy and a spoon with which to measure out the leaves. She scoured the cupboard for something to eat and found a small sack of meal, but she hadn’t the first clue to how to prepare it. She imagined she should mix it with something—milk, water probably—but at that moment, she couldn’t bring herself to attempt it. Her only other find was a small chunk of cheese that was wrapped inside a cloth.

Elizabeth looked around for the milk, which she took with her tea, before she remembered that Douglas had told her she’d need to fetch it. Fetch it from where? Perhaps there was a jug outside, so she pulled on a woolen blanket to use as a wrap and quickly crossed the room.

Outside, the air was damp and kissed with the earthy scent of the hills, the salt of the sea hidden just over the
braes. A cuckoo called out from the tall grass, its familiar song echoing across the still glen.

How odd, she thought, that but a few hundred miles away, a team of gardeners worked day and night to trim and clip and shape a garden made of perfect angles and lines. Here, on this untamed swath of craggy hills, colors soft and dark mixed one into the other in a place where ghosts of ancient warriors and the spirits of fierce beasts were equally at home.

Pulling the edges of the blanket around her, Elizabeth searched for the milk, but found nothing even remotely resembling a jug. She walked around to the side of the cottage, only to find a small drystone enclosure. Standing in the midst of it was a shaggy orange figure of a cow.

Elizabeth blinked at the cow.

The cow blinked at her, letting out a most plaintive
mooo
.

And then Elizabeth realized what Douglas had meant when he’d said she would need to
fetch
the milk for herself.

He expected her to milk the cow.

Elizabeth could very well have forgone the milk in her tea, and at first, that was her every intention. She even started to leave. It hardly seemed worth the effort, but then, as she turned and headed back for the cottage door, she found herself wondering whether Douglas had purposely left her the task as a challenge, as if he didn’t quite believe she could do something as simple as milk a cow.

Well she had every intention of milking that cow; in
fact she’d have buckets full of the stuff waiting for him when he returned.

How difficult could it be, milking one cow?

The cow gave her a cursory glance as she approached, then lowered its head to breakfast upon a small patch of grass at its feet. The closer she came to the shaggy beast, however, the more Elizabeth’s confidence flagged.

How, exactly, did one milk a cow? She’d never really, actually seen the thing done, had only read about it in books, farming manuals, and the like. Was she supposed to get acquainted with the beast first? Offer her some sort of food? Elizabeth came to a halt two feet from the animal and extended her hand in shy greeting.

“Good morning,” she said, eying the beast warily. “Pay me no mind. You just continue to enjoy your breakfast whilst I crouch down here beside you—”

Elizabeth set the bucket on the ground directly beneath the cow’s swollen udder. She was not so cosseted as to think that was all it took. After all, even a well had to be worked to give water. So she bent at the waist, reaching out her hand while trying not to tumble forward—

She yelped when the cow swished its slender tail, swatting her right on the cheek.

“What was that about?”

A chortling
naaa
sounded suddenly from behind her. Elizabeth turned and saw the same goat that had been gnawing on the turf roof the day before. The beast was now standing several yards away, watching her from the shelter of the byre. It was white, one horn shorter than the other, with a whiskery beard and floppy ears. Though
her intellect told her differently, she would have sworn the little fiend was grinning.

“And I suppose you could do any better,” she muttered, ready to turn back to the cow for another try, until she noticed a small wooden stool set against the wall of the byre. That would certainly make things a lot easier, so she went to fetch it, tossing the goat a sour look.

“Do you expect me to believe you were trying to tell me where this stool was?”

The goat simply blinked. “
Naaa.
”

“Oh, do be quiet.”

Elizabeth took up the stool and started back for the cow, only the cow had abandoned that particular spot, knocking over her bucket in the process. She now stood several yards away.

Snatching up the pail with the stool propped under one arm, Elizabeth tromped after the beast, holding her skirts aloft and stepping carefully through the tufted grass. Once she reached the cow, she placed the bucket back underneath its belly, situated the stool alongside, and then attempted to lower herself onto it, no easy task given the bulk of her panniered skirts. But she wasn’t giving up. Oh, no. Not now.

After several rather ungraceful attempts that would have sent her mother into a certain fit of hysterics, Elizabeth managed to perch herself upon the stool. Her skirts billowed on either side of her, puffed up like a syllabub. And when she reached for the cow, the beast shifted its weight to one side, knocking Elizabeth back off the stool and onto her rump in a
swoosh
of ruffled petticoats.

Elizabeth clamped her jaw tight, biting back a curse. Her face grew flushed as she watched the cow amble
further away, leaving her—and the very dry bucket—behind.

Naaa.

Elizabeth turned murderous eyes on the goat. It had come closer, but was still standing out of reach.

“Go eat a roof, then, and leave me in peace.”

A half hour—and three more failed attempts later—Elizabeth managed to loop a rope she’d found around the cow’s neck so that she could tether it to a tree. Her skirts were muddied, her hair was falling out of its braid, but she was as determined as ever to accomplish this one simple task.

Dropping onto the stool easily now, Elizabeth reached with two hands for the cow’s belly. She grasped hold of the teat with conviction, took a deep breath, and gave a healthy pull, then another . . .

Nothing, not even a drop, issued forth for her effort.

And then she heard that all too familiar
naaa
’ing come from behind.

Elizabeth simply dropped her head forward against the cow’s girth and willed herself not to burst into tears. She was an educated woman, by heavens. She could decipher Latin texts and tabulate multiple columns of figures in her head. So why,
why
couldn’t she manage something as simple as the milking of a single cow?

“You can try singin’ to her a bit,” came a voice suddenly from behind. “Tha’ always seems to help when they’re stubborn of givin’ their milk.”

Please, God, please tell me that it isn’t the goat who’s talking to me.

Elizabeth slowly lifted her head as a figure advanced from the shelter of the byre. It wasn’t the goat, thank the
saints. It was a woman. She looked to be of middling years with soft brown hair and softer brown eyes that smiled from behind a careworn face. A white kerchief of sorts covered the back of her hair, twisted and knotted upon the crown of her head. In her arms she carried a basket, and she wore no shoes beneath her tattered tartan skirts.

“Good day t’ you,” she said, smiling as she stepped easily through the rutted pasture. “I’m Eithne MacKenzie.”

Her voice was soft, lilting, the sort that could soothe the distress of a crying babe. It certainly soothed Elizabeth.

“You must be Roderick’s mother, then?” Elizabeth caught herself staring at the petite woman with the kind face who looked so like the young man they had met at the Highland inn.

“Aye, that I am. Douglas’s foster mother, too.”

“I’m Elizabeth. Douglas’s wife.”

“Indeed?” The woman looked intrigued. “Well, I’ve come t’ see how you’re settling in and to bring you some things you might be needin’.” She looked to the cottage. “Douglas is no’ at home?”

“He said he had to go to another part of the isle. He thought he might not return till nightfall.”

“Nightfall?” Eithne shook her head and clucked her tongue softly. “The mon’s got rocks in ’is heid, he does, leaving you alone ’ere with naught but that cow for company.”

The goat lifted its head from the end of the rope it was chewing to offer a protesting
naaa.

“Truis!”
Eithne called to it, the same name Douglas had used the day before. The goat nickered, then trotted off to the shelter of the byre, flicking its short tail.

Eithne joined Elizabeth beside the cow. “Well, afore you can milk this sweet lady, lass, you’ve got to get better acquainted with ’er. Here—” She took up Elizabeth’s hand and helped her to stand, drawing her toward the cow’s shaggy head. “Her name is Honeysuckle.” Eithne placed Elizabeth’s hand flat against the cow’s shaggy brow, then scratched her behind her ears, murmuring, “
Tairis,
sweet Hinny. There’s a good girl.”

The cow lifted its nose, sniffed. Finding nothing to eat, it lowered to the grass once again.

“Now, to milk her, ’tis best to sit on her left side, like this.” Eithne crooked her legs and positioned herself effortlessly on the stool, leaning her face full against the cow’s girth as she reached underneath. She grasped on with both hands, closing her eyes as she pressed into the creature’s warm belly. Softly she started murmuring a tune.