Chapter 18 #2
“My vote is fer sharing,” he returned with a grin, then stepped up into the bed of the wagon and pulled her up after him.
“Though I dunnae want ye getting a chill. The next village we pass through, we’ll find ye someaught warmer to wear.
” Arran glanced over his shoulder again, then patted Howard on the back. “Let’s be off, lads.”
“How close do you think they are?” she asked in a low voice, as the wagon jolted through the rutted stable yard and back onto the road.
Arran shrugged. “I cannae see ’em, but I can feel ’em. Like a storm coming. Or perhaps it’s only that I’m expecting trouble.”
“That’s not encouraging, either way.” She leaned toward the driver’s bench. “Can we go faster, Howard?”
The fresh team accelerated into a canter. “For a time, we can. I’ll push ’em, but I don’t want them bottoming out in the middle of nowhere.”
With the midday still overcast and soggy, Mary was beginning to wish she’d asked Arran to barter for a coat or a blanket, after all.
But it wasn’t just the weather. She wasn’t certain if it was his statement about having a feeling, or the knowledge that they were drawing near the Scottish border.
Something, though, seemed poised to strike.
And that something was likely her father and another dozen angry Campbells.
Arran cleared his throat, making her jump. “I’ve a yen fer a good Highlands song,” he said. “Peter?”
“Aye. Someaught to chase the gloom away.”
Mary sent him a dubious look, but Arran was smiling. “That’ll give the Campbells pause, I wager. Whatever ye please, Peter Gilling.”
“You don’t think they’ll hear him?” she whispered.
“Nae. With this rolling land he’ll echo like a banshee. And they’re likely to spy us before they hear us, anyway.”
Then, as she was looking about for something to jam in her ears, the sweetest tenor she’d ever heard began, and she froze. “Twa Bonnie Maidens,” a song even she knew despite her limited visits to the Highlands, soared up around them.
There were twa bonnie maidens, and three bonnie maids,
Came o’er the Minch, and came o’er the main,
Wi’ the wind for their way and the corry for their hame,
And they’re dearly welcome to Skye again.
“Ye think we’re nae in enough trouble already, that ye choose a Jacobite song?” Arran said, but he was chuckling and already tapping his foot.
Come along, come along, wi’ yer boatie and yer song,
My ain bonnie maidens, my two bonnie maids!
For the night it is dark, and the redcoat is gane,
And ye are dearly welcome to Skye again.
By the second chorus she and Arran were singing along, and she thought his fine, rollicking baritone seemed even more delicious than it had in Wigmore.
Perhaps he wasn’t Bonnie Prince Charlie returning to the Highlands in the guise of a maid, but he was a Highlands prince returning home.
And she was going home, to a place she’d only ever been allowed to glimpse.
Even Howard attempted the last chorus, which nearly made Peter fall off his seat. “I think ye might be part Scottish, Howard Howard,” he proclaimed, chortling.
“I like the tune,” the driver admitted, humming as he turned up the lapels of his coat against the chill. “Will you teach it to me, Gilling?”
“Aye. Dunnae sing it in London, though. They might hang ye fer it.”
“I actually had a thought that I might try to make a go of it here,” Howard returned after a moment. “I left nothing behind but a room in Whitechapel I shared with three other lads, and a drawer full of clothes which they’ve likely divided among themselves by now.”
Mary had never considered whether he might have a wife or children waiting for him back in London.
The fact that he didn’t was small excuse for her thoughtlessness.
All she could conjure in her defense was that he’d seemed to belong with them from the beginning, and he’d never mentioned anything he needed to return to.
“I dunnae expect we’ll have a grand hoose, Howard,” Arran said slowly, removing his coat and tucking it around Mary’s shoulders. “But when Peter returns to his duties at Glengask, I reckon I’ll have plenty of work fer two men to do. Nae driving though, more than likely.”
“I’ve always had a yen to try my hand at farming, my lord. I’d be honored to join you if you’ve a place for me.”
“It’s settled, then.” Arran crushed Mary to him in a tight hug. “I told ye he was ours,” he whispered, chuckling.
She stifled a laugh in the warm folds of the wool coat. However odd the entire conversation, the notion that a London hack driver would become a Scottish cotter to a pair of exiled aristocrats made as much sense as anything else.
“I’ve been thinking some thoughts myself, Laird Arran,” Peter said abruptly. “My task as given me by yer brother was to look after ye. And so I think I might continue with seeing ye and yer lady safe.”
“Ye grew up aroond Glengask, Peter. I dunnae want to take ye away from that.”
“And ye grew up inside Glengask,” the footman countered. “I reckon I like this wee clan o’ yers, and so I’ll be staying. And that’s the end of that.”
“As ye say, then.”
Arran’s light blue gaze remained on the horizon. Mary could guess what he was thinking; they both came from large, powerful clans. And now with Peter joining them, and counting her aunt and uncle, they were six. She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “We’re not alone,” she murmured.
He blinked, looking down to kiss her mouth in that possessive, toe-curling way of his. “Nae. Our clan’s grown again by a third just in the past five minutes.”
She was fairly positive that they would be adding yet another to their number in just under nine months, but she would wait to tell him that until she was absolutely certain. That was a conversation for just the two of them, anyway.
Aside from that, he already had enough weight on his broad shoulders to break most men. Arran, though, could still laugh and sing and hold her. And heaven help anyone who tried to come between them.
* * *
The last time Arran had come through here he’d been heading south, stopping only to rest Duffy and seize an hour or two of sleep when he could no longer keep his eyes open.
He’d made it from Glengask to London in just over four days.
Ranulf had written a letter, and he’d mentioned a Charlotte Hanover four different times.
And that had sent him flying south, ready to stop a match between the chief of clan MacLawry and an unfit Sasannach lass.
At the time it had made sense; their mother had been English, and after their father’s death she’d swallowed poison rather than be trapped in the Highlands with four children. As far as Arran had been concerned, one Sasannach was very like another, and clearly Ranulf had lost his mind.
It had taken far too long for him to realize that Ranulf wasn’t mad.
He was in love. And to keep his lady safe, he’d done things he might not have previously contemplated.
Arran had chided him for it, had argued that Ranulf wasn’t using his head.
And then he’d met Mary, and berated his brother for not understanding his position or the connection he had with her. Idiot.
If it hadn’t been far too late, he would have apologized to Ranulf, both for the mess he’d left behind and for the way he’d chosen to view Charlotte.
He understood now. Of course Ran hadn’t wanted him hanging about Mary; stirring up trouble with the Campbells was precisely counter to the safety he’d been trying to create for Charlotte.
But Ranulf wasn’t the only MacLawry in love. And Arran was not about to allow anything—or anyone—to come between Mary and him. Not even his own family.
All he could do at this moment was hope that one day Ranulf would come to the same understanding that he had.
If not, well, it would be a damned shame.
And he still wouldn’t spend a moment regretting the past few weeks and this woman beside him.
She was his clan, and making her happy had become his new purpose.
A low, crumbling stone wall appeared along the horizon ahead of them.
It dipped along the valleys and topped the hills, nearly six feet high in some places, and no more than two stones set atop each other a few yards beyond that.
At the road it stopped, only to begin again immediately on the other side.
“Who owns all this land?” Howard asked, from around his pipe. Evidently he either drove the horses, or he puffed a pipe. At least the man knew what he enjoyed.
“It doesnae mark one man’s land,” Arran said, waking Mary from her light doze so she could see it, as well. “It marks the end of the civilized world.”
Mary lifted her head from his shoulder, the withdrawal of her warmth leaving him chilled. “Hadrian’s Wall. My goodness. We’re nearly there.”
“Aye. Only seven or so miles to the border and Gretna Green beyond.” Frowning, he took her hand. “I wanted to marry ye in a proper Highlands ceremony, but it’s another hundred and twenty miles to Fort William. I dunnae think we can risk waiting that long.”
“We’ll nae even reach Gretna Green by nightfall, m’laird.” Peter flicked the reins, and the team jumped into a gallop.
“Slow ’em doon, Peter. No sense spending ’em fer no good reason.
” Every instinct Arran possessed wanted him to send those horses flying, but they would still never beat the sundown.
“Keep yer eye oot fer a good place to hide us off the road until morning. If ye pass by the village, that wouldnae be a poor idea.”
“You think they might be waiting for us there?” Mary asked, worry sending her sweet voice lower and quieter.