Chapter 23
D espite the fact that I have been at Balmoral for over three months now, it seems that I have never trodden the same path twice. It’s as though a new path opens up for whatever one may desire, then grows over again at the close of the day, only to be rediscovered when it’s truly needed. I think I could live at Balmoral for a century and still have not seen it and its grounds in its entirety.
Fraser and I walk for a mile or two, and the only few living souls we pass are those of the herd of deer that watch us from afar as we cross the fields. Swooping birds of prey circle the skies, their wide wingspans casting shadows across the heather and their screams riding on the breeze. We walk in relative silence. There is no reason to say a word, for we are both taking in our surroundings and the warmth of the company. Fraser only disturbs the paradise to point out a rare flower, or to hold my hand when the terrain gets rough and I lose my footing in a rabbit warren.
Coming to the edge of the forest, Fraser stands before me, obscuring my view of the path ahead with his winning smile. ‘Now can you remember what you said to me after I said that Balmoral wasn’t ready for love?’
Nodding, I return his smile. ‘That this place was built on love.’ The memory steals a fond place in my heart and it warms me to know he remembers too.
‘I had a wee think about that. I’ve been to the place I’m going to show you a hundred times, and yet until you corrected me, I had never truly understood its purpose or its importance.’ Fraser glances over his shoulder, and I steal a peek too. A stone structure fills the distance, and I am eager to see for myself what he is getting at.
The piper turns around to finish the journey, and I follow at his side. As the trees clear, a stone pyramid fills the landscape. Its magnificence isn’t dwarfed by, nor does it dwarf, all of the beauty surrounding it. For a manmade edifice, it slots right into the backdrop as though it had sprouted from the earth in the times of the Celts and Picts. ‘For centuries Scots have lain stones in a structure called a cairn as a memorial or to mark a place of significance. The grounds of Balmoral are full of them,’ Fraser begins as we draw up to the pyramid.
Running my hands along its weatherworn surface, my fingertips tingle at the touch of the cold stone.
‘Most of them were erected at the request of Queen Victoria, and this one is by far the biggest and most beautiful. Now, at first, I had always believed it was more of a symbol of status: The Balmoral Pyramid, the great monument. But, it’s only now that I’ve realised it is a monument to love.’
Walking around the perimeter, I listen intently to Fraser and his story. ‘This is the Prince Albert Cairn. It was erected after his death and has stood here since, in this wilderness, a tribute to the loss of the queen’s greatest love. Here—’ Fraser points to a large engraving on the side of the structure and we both read the words in silence.
To
the Beloved Memory
of
ALBERT,
The Great and Good,
Prince Consort,
Erected by his Broken-hearted Widow,
VICTORIA. R.
21st August
1862
Then beneath it, a smaller inscription reads:
He, being made perfect in a short time,
Fulfilled a long time,
for his soul pleased the Lord.
Therefore hasted he to take
him away from the Wicked.
Wisdom of Solomon
Chap IV, verses 13 and 14
My heart throbs at the sight of it, with both pleasure and pain. This isn’t simply a stack of granite in the sticks. This is grief and love objectified. A pyramid, a monumental structure, that persists through the wind and the rain, that stands against the attack of time to personify a widow’s love. In this pile of stones, that love, and the grief of losing that love, lasts in this natural world for the rest of time.
In nearly two hundred years, it seems to have hardly crumbled, and I can believe that Queen Victoria’s love for her Albert would have still endured too, and her grief in losing him would still stand fast even after all of this time. The queen has made sure that her love for her husband survives her in every acre of this estate, and thus this landscape tells a love story no author, no fairy tale could ever replicate.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I breathe. Fraser looks to me with his bright eyes, and the soft drizzle slides over his dimples. ‘Thank you for showing me.’
‘It’s only fair that I share this place with the woman who finally made me understand it.’ Fraser’s eyes search my face, and I fight the urge to reach out and rest his cheek in my palm.
‘It strikes me how plain it is compared to her memorials for him in London.’ I speak in an absentminded babble. ‘And yet, this one seems to hold more feeling. It’s raw. Unlike the glittering gold of the Albert Memorial at the Royal Albert Hall, this one is personal. I can imagine the grieving wife sat on a fallen tree, looking over this little pocket of the world with her stacked-up love beside her.’ This memorial feels like my relationship with my home. London is glitz and glamour, gold-plated and stuck on a pedestal. But here, in Scotland, away from everything, I am honest, unrefined, and more authentically me.
Perhaps love isn’t supposed to come bathed in gold, lifted high for all to see and out of reach to touch. Perhaps love is a pile of stones meticulously placed to overlook the happiest part of the world, and left alone to endure the weather.
Perhaps love isn’t the heir to some fortune, or the son of a man with a title. Perhaps love is a bagpiper who lives in a cabin in the woods, who remembers all of the times I have smiled when telling a story, and who will protect me from a world that’s always threatening to chew me up and spit me out. Love is Fraser Bell, his burnt auburn hair, his deep dimples, and the feeling of calm he brings with his entrance into every room.
Looking at him now, deep in thought as he reads the engraving over and over, I blush. As much as I have tried to repress it, I’m falling for him. I am falling for Fraser Bell, Piper to the Sovereign, when everything in our lives keeps screaming at me to stay away.
‘Fraser?’ I say his name softly and his eyes snap to mine in an instant. For a moment every single word of confession is on my tongue, and then as soon as his gaze fixes upon me, they are locked back up like sins forbidden to see the light of day.
He waits patiently for a moment for me to speak again. ‘Alice?’ he asks, encouraging me gently.
If I speak now, I will tell him I love him. It has crept up on me so slowly, in a feeling so perfect and yet entirely foreign, even I can hardly comprehend how I feel.
‘I … I …’ I bumble out, my heart so desperate to release the pressure in my chest, but my brain, trained for years and years to constrain my emotions, refuses to allow such a confession past my lips. ‘I would like to go home now.’ My voice is quiet, and I hardly recognise it as my own as I speak.
Fraser releases a breath as if he had been holding it in and then mildly replies, ‘Aye, aye, of course.’
Wandering back the way we came, neither of us say a word until Balmoral is back in our sights. When we are just far enough away from the castle walls that we can see the bustling staff leaving with suitcases and smiles, Fraser clasps me by the hand, preventing me from travelling any further. ‘I have been trying to work up the courage to ask, because, well I don’t even know if you’d be allowed let alone want to, and it’s just that, I would really love it if you could and I reckon it would do you good to get out of here …’ the piper babbles, his cheeks turning pink, his eyes looking everywhere but into my own.
‘Fraser.’ I place my hand on his and smile at him softly. ‘Just spit it out.’ I chuckle and his face cracks into a grin.
‘I’m only going for a couple of days. The accommodation isn’t the best – it’s just my mate’s gaff – but I can make sure you at least get a bed. The lads are all right, an acquired taste but they’re military so they know how to behave when they have to and they know how to treat a royal lady …’ He trails on and my lungs seem to struggle in my chest as though with every word it becomes harder and harder to catch my breath.
‘Fraser …’ I breathe, reminding him to get back on track before the both of us end up hyperventilating.
‘Would you like to come to Inverness with me?’ He speaks so quickly but I catch every syllable, every inflection, every single movement of his lips.
‘I’d be honoured to.’ I grin, and Fraser’s face lights up. So overcome, he grasps me by the cheeks and leans closer, and closer still—
‘Where’ve you two been all morning? I’ve been looking for you both everywhere.’ Sophie’s voice takes us by surprise. I pull away from Fraser frantically and face my friend, still panting.
‘Fraser took me to see the pyramid,’ I say guiltily, as though that isn’t the truth and we have in fact been off making love in the wild on a bed of heather. That thought makes me blush even harder and Sophie gives me a questionable look.
‘Oh, nice,’ Sophie says, a little distantly, and my stomach sinks. She must know. Surely she must know there is something going on between us. There’s no way that she doesn’t hate me. Especially not after this. ‘I was just going to see if you both had any plans this afternoon? I wondered if you fancied going for lunch somewhere in town? We’ve just finished here.’
‘I still need to start packing for my leave,’ Fraser replies to Sophie, though his words are directed at me and a knowing smile slots onto his face. ‘Although, I feel as though I can spare enough time for a picnic?’ he suggests, finally removing his gaze from me, and his words light Sophie’s eyes.
‘Oh my gosh, yes, that would be perfect. I can lift a load of stuff from the kitchens. No one will miss it; it will only go off whilst everyone’s away anyway.’ She turns to me, buzzing with excitement. ‘How’re you fixed?’
‘Sounds like a plan to me.’ And so, the three of us wander back up the garden path and head towards the kitchen. Sneaking in the back door, each of us takes a corner of the room to scour for leftovers. With our arms suitably stacked, and us only having to hide from Mrs Buchanan behind a couple of suits of armour once, we run back through the grounds until we reach the clearing of Fraser’s cabin. We leave our bounty on his little patio table, and Fraser nips inside to retrieve a blanket and soon enough we are sat around, feeling the fallen twigs beneath our bottoms, laughing into the king’s leftover finger sandwiches and little glasses of jelly.
‘Have you thought any more of what you’re going to do for the couple of weeks we’re away, Alice?’ Sophie turns to ask me after we have fully feasted and the three of us lie side by side with bloated bellies.
I shouldn’t lie to her. She deserves better than that. ‘I’m going to head to Inverness for a couple of days,’ I say a little vaguely.
‘It is lovely down that way. Have you got some friends there? Or family?’ Sophie clearly hasn’t put two and two together to realise I’m leaving with the piper and my face betrays that fact as I steal a glance at his pink-dusted face. Sitting up straighter, Sophie looks between us, back and forth, piecing everything together. ‘Are you two …’ she waggles a finger between us ‘…shagging?’
‘Yes,’ I answer at the same time Sophie finishes her sentence.
The three of us stare at each other open-mouthed as I realise what I have just inadvertently said. ‘No, no. God’s no.’ I overcompensate with a laugh. ‘I thought you were asking if we were going together.’
Fraser stays silent, his cheeks hot.
‘Oh God, am I third-wheeling? Did I interrupt a date?’ Sophie rushes, her eyes ablaze with worry, and her cheeks flushed.
The sick feeling rises in my throat. ‘It’s nothing like that, really. I think Fraser just felt sorry for me here alone.’ I look to him for backup.
‘Aye, it’s nothing,’ he mutters, refusing to return my gaze.
‘Could there be room for another?’ I ask Fraser, my guilt and feeling of betrayal outweighing my politeness. Perhaps if Sophie came too, I wouldn’t be in danger of being so in love with him. Perhaps with them both away from work, they can finally explore their relationship more. And I can simply be their travelling wing woman.
‘Aye, room for the whole castle population. If they don’t mind sleeping on a sofa.’
‘Well?’ I ask Sophie, trying to look excited. ‘Why don’t you come too?’
‘I don’t want to get in the way, or force myself onto you both.’
‘Oh hush,’ I reply.
‘You’re always welcome, Soph,’ Fraser says, sincerely this time. ‘Plus, it’s nothing like you think it is. My mates and my sister will be there, hardly a romantic rendezvous.’
Sophie’s face lights up. Her wide dark eyes are full of her excitement as she accepts the invite, and the three of us part ways to pack.