Chapter 14
SHE WAS SAFE, she was dry, she’d been given a hunk of bread and some ale, but she never expected to be put here … in a dungeon.
She thought of the wet afternoons at Ingledew, the stink of the stables, the brisk rattle of Lady Beth’s voice, Cook explaining the proper making of a savory pie.
Little things that flitted through her mind, but they meant home.
What had she gotten herself into?
It had all been so magical … seeing Castle Caladh for the first time, taking in the beauty of the land, the stateliness of the castle, the multi-green expanse of the Scottish Highlands … all with the magnificent Highlander at her side and indelicate thoughts in her head.
And then the worst thing happened.
That blasted Captain Luxbury.
He and six of his soldiers rode toward them from the north, suddenly surrounding them, weapons aimed, words shouted, horrible punishments threatened.
They’d escorted them the rest of the way to the castle.
Keir demanded that she be allowed to rest in what he called the wine cellar, led there by a servant named Elspeth, with a young English soldier to guard her.
Now she sat on a folded horse blanket on an ancient chair in a low-ceilinged room with a single small window, waiting, trying to ignore the red-coated guard at the door.
She scratched her fingernails across the table top and flicked away some crumbs, wondering if they were still having the ball right now at Beldorney Hall.
***
KEIR WAS FURIOUS.
His father was giving fair attention to the spewing lies from the mouth of this wallydrag of an Englishman.
“Laird McKelvey, we have proof your son is an insurrectionist.”
Luxbury puffed his chest out.
He held the parchment he’d taken from Keir as well as two letters he had, their seals broken, and waved them all in the Highland laird’s face.
“Coded letters from Horace Sylvan to Keir McKelvey and a copy of such to Hubert Beldorney, your son-in-law, I believe?”
Laird McKelvey nodded, grabbed the epistles from Luxbury’s gloved hand and perused them.
“Aye, I see, I see.
And that parchment?”
“Treason!”
He unrolled the document and pointed at the signatures.
“Your son has spoiled the princess.
Forced her into a marriage to thwart the future plans of English men far wiser than any Highland blunderbuss.”
It was all Keir could do not to grab the nearest vase and shatter it in anger, but he knew he had to hold his temper in check if his father were to believe him.
“She wasna forced.
Ye can ask her yerself.
What makes ye think she be a princess? What royal name is Fletcher? See her scribble?”
He snatched the parchment and pointed to her scrawl.
“She signed it Eleanor Ainsworth Fletcher.
Not Hanover or Stuart or Barclay or Bruce.”
Laird McKelvey looked from his son to Luxbury, and glanced at the remaining men in uniform, then back to Luxbury.
“We shall solve this like civilized Scots if ye’d be so kind as to accompany me and me son into the library? And leave yer men here.”
***
THE DOOR OPENED, and a shaft of candlelight fell across the floor.
Eleanor breathed easier when a lovely young woman, red-haired and freckled, spoke kindly to the guard, offered him a plate of bread and cheese, and then entered the dismal room and closed the door behind her.
“Hello.
I’m Rory.
Those are my skirts yer wearin’.”
Eleanor hopped up.
“I thank you.
I’m Eleanor … Eleanor …”
She burst out crying and blubbered that she didn’t know her last name.
“Och,”
Rory said, sounding like her brother, “dinna fash.”
She gently pushed Eleanor back into her seat.
“I’ve heard yon menfolk blatherin’ on aboot ye.
The lass who rides a gallopin’ horse like a lad, with short hair to match.”
She scanned Eleanor’s face.
“Ye can call yerself McKelvey now, since I ken ye married me brother, Keir … though I’d sooner be expectin’ such behavior from Jack or Logan, impulsive little cubs.
I cannae imagine Keir elopin’.
Ye’ve captured his heart, must be.
I’ve nivver known him to change his obstinate mind … except fer someone he loves.”
She seated herself on the second chair and placed her hands on the table between them.
Eleanor clasped her hands in front of her to keep from fidgeting with her borrowed skirt.
She bit her lip and didn’t respond to the lie of their marriage.
If Keir was somewhere in the castle making a case for a legal, binding marriage, then she’d not say a word against it.
Rory cocked her head and smiled.
“Ye’re not as pretty as Anabel MacLeod, but there’s a gentle spirit aboot ye.
A fairy glow … that I sense … and I expect Keir feels it too.
Can I ask ye why he married ye so quickly?”
Her plumpish face tilted in curiosity.
The sigh was heavy.
“It seemed the right thing to do.
Do you know the particulars of … hmm … a princess coming to Scotland to learn to be a queen?”
Rory’s face gave her answer before her tongue.
“’Tis aboot that secret letter I helped him decode? He aimed to dissuade the princess and …”
Her hand went to her mouth.
“Are ye the princess?”
She dropped her gaze.
“I thought at first he meant to murder me, but his heart is kind.”
“Aye.”
“And once he learned my story, he pledged himself to help me.
To help me find my mother.”
Eleanor sighed again.
“But now I’m here, imprisoned I suppose, in this dungeon.”
A quick laugh from Rory echoed once against the stones.
She glided her fingers over the lace at her sleeves, the sound of her breathing giving warm life to the chamber’s seclusion.
“Castle Caladh has no dungeon.
This was once a storage room, fer wine … with a secret passageway.
I’m sure Keir himself convinced those English jackanapes to put you here, where they, too, would think ye’d be imprisoned and easily guarded.
Ah, but we could wrest ye back without their knowin’.”
She leaned closer to Eleanor and whispered.
“I’ll be leavin’ ye now, but ye’ll hear the clang of the hilltop irons soon, as I’ll be callin’ in the clansmen that’ll help us persuade the English to leave us.”
***
LAIRD MCKELVEY SLAPPED his kilted thigh and squinted at Luxbury.
“Ye’ll think me mad, captain, but I insist ye leave and take yer soldiers with ye.
Ye’re in Scotland now, and this parchment stands.”
He pressed a hand against the rolled document now lying crosswise on the library desk.
His back was to an impressive wall of shelves filled with expensive leather-covered books.
“I ken ye wish to take the lass to England, but she’s bound to me son now and here she’ll stay.”
As if lending punctuation to his words there came the resonant sound of metals, a portentous clang from the hill behind the stable.
Luxbury put his hand on his sword handle and spoke slowly.
“I dare say the princess would not have married a Scot on the very day she met him.”
Keir interrupted.
“I’ve kent Eleanor since the day she disembarked the ship ye brought her here on.
I spoilt yer plan, aye, but she’d rather be wed to me than … than the King of England.”
Keir took a step toward Luxbury.
“Step back, sir, or I’ll be obliged to call in my soldiers.”
He turned his head toward the father.
“Laird McKelvey, I swear the parchment must be a forgery.
Let us speak to the maiden and set things right.”
“Ye have me word, captain, that we’ll speak to the lass, but first, if ye’ll wait outside a moment, I’d like the favor of havin’ a harsh word or two wi’ me son here.”
Luxbury tightened his grip on the sword.
“I’ll take back the traitorous letters.”
He held his left hand out to receive them.
The laird pressed them into his palm with a grunt.
“They prove nothing.”
“I’ll not have you burning them.”
He turned on his heel and left the library, his boots barely making a sound on the red and gold rugs that covered the stones.
Laird McKelvey glared at Keir, his dark jade eyes going darker, and the lines on his forehead deepening.
“Since yer mum died ye’ve been a changed man, Keir McKelvey.
What were ye thinkin’? Ye’ve lost us the MacLeod lands.
Ye’ve risked yer life fer some palace revolution and then ye turned yer back on the verra dissidents ye meant to work with … and stolen this woman.”
He slammed his hands on the desk between them and growled.
“Now ye’ve put me in an impossible position.
We’ll have the whole of Scotland and England ag’inst us.”
He lifted his hands, turned, and went to the window to look out.
“Yer sister sounded the alarm.
Did ye nay hear it? The hall will be filled with men willin’ to fight fer us … fer …”
He growled again.
“Fer ye and fer yer sister’s worthless farmer, too.
Fenella could ’ave wed a McDoon or a —”
He stopped speaking.
“Father,”
Keir moved to stand beside him at the window, “ye loved me mum, aye? And she loved ye back, I ken.
There wouldna be a moment o’ love between Anabel and me, but there’s somethin’ grownin’ between me and—”
“Yer princess? ’Twould be best if she’d deny the princess part.”
“She may.
She hasna seen her mum since she was a wee lass.
I promised to help her find this Mary Fletcher.
Her mum can name the father or deny him.
Without a link to the royal lineage …”
“Aye, I see yer point.
Perhaps we can make a deal with the captain … to search alongside ye.
’Twould be an appeasement o’ sorts.
And if ye could get the mum to say the father was a commoner …”
“Och.”
Keir looked to the hills and watched several men heading toward the castle.
Directly below stood a soldier holding the Englishmen’s horses.
“He’ll hafta send the troops back.
I’ll nay have Eleanor suffer the attentions of a dozen eyes upon her.
’Twill be nuisance enough to have Luxbury trail us.”
The laird grunted and moved back to the desk.
He unrolled the parchment again and studied the document.
“She could barely write her name, if that’s her real name.
And this vicar who signed … the signature is faint, nearly illegible, and where are the witnesses’ names?”
He looked up at Keir who now stood next to him.
“Son, yer face has paled.”
“Father … the vicar died … before we said the vows.”
***
BERNARD LUXBURY HAD left the father and son in the library, gathered the four soldiers that stood in the great hall of the castle and told one to alert the man holding the horses to be ready for a quick get-away.
He told a second soldier to go down to the cellar where the servant had taken Princess Nora and bring her and the other guard up.
To the two remaining soldiers, his most trusted men, he spoke quietly and told them to ready their arms.
He reminded them they were here to rescue the princess and to expect some resistance as they carried out their orders.
He spoke roughly and with great authority to his men, keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword to evoke the urgency of his words.
Laird McKelvey strode out of the library, Keir at his heels.
“Where be yer other men, captain?”
His voice echoed in the great hall.
His brows snapped together and his eyes burned with the question.
“Readying our horses, sir … and we shall collect Princess Nora and be off.”
The laird stopped, folded his arms across his chest, and nodded at Keir.
“Out wi’ye.
See to … our new guests.”
Luxbury frowned and whispered to the soldier on his right, “Follow him.”
Alone with the laird and a single soldier, Luxbury smirked.
“So … your son has confessed? The marriage is a sham, is it not?”
The laird narrowed his eyes further.
“I’ll let the lass tell ye.”
He looked beyond Luxbury where Eleanor was coming into the hall, flanked by two of his soldiers.
Luxbury turned his head enough to discover what held the laird’s attention.
He twisted all the way around.
“My dear Eleanor!”
This was not a woman for whom he should be feeling any sort of amorous inclinations, and yet he was.
He bowed deeply, hand still on the sword.
“I’m so sorry for the …”
He stopped speaking when he realized she was without bonnet, cap, or wig.
“What have they done to you? Your hair …”
Suddenly he was repulsed by her appearance.
Eleanor glanced at the large entrance doors then at the Highlander who looked so much like Keir.
She stopped, dropped her chin, and curtsied.
“Lord McKelvey?”
The laird’s face cracked into a grin as wide as Keir’s and he strode quickly toward Eleanor.
The soldiers on either side of her snapped into a defensive stance, but stepped aside as the older McKelvey embraced Eleanor.
“Daughter,”
he said, with false affection.
He kept a hand on Eleanor’s arm and said to Luxbury, “Ye may ask her yer question, captain, and if her answer is yea ye must leave her to her husband.”
Luxbury stood shifting his weight from one boot to the other.
“Did you marry that Highlander of your own accord?”
Eleanor held his scrutiny, candle light from the wall sconces glinting in her eyes. “I did.”
Luxbury huffed.
His contemplation of the fact might have taken longer, but a roar of voices sounded outside and his eyes went wide.
The great doors fell open and light and sound exploded in.
“’Tis a riot, aye.”
The laird spoke calmly.
“Our neighboring clans dislike the Sassenachs.
Perhaps we can achieve a compromise.
Me son tells me his lady wishes to find her mum.
’Tis likely ye’ll learn of the lass’s true parentage if ye travel wi’ them.
She may be a princess,”
he nodded pleasantly at her, “or she may not.
But either way, I claim her as a McKelvey now.”
A crowd of men, led by Keir, pushed the soldiers inside.
The soldiers’ hands were tied behind their backs, their faces contrite.
Keir yelled across the great hall.
“We’ll nay hurt yer men, Luxbury.
They’ll be free to return to England and you and I can hunt for the truth together.”
Luxbury dropped his hand from his sword and motioned to the soldiers with him.
“Go.
Get back to England … and not a word of this to anyone.”
***
ELEANOR FELT AS exposed as she would if she’d been found bathing in a lake.
The laird’s embrace, Bernard’s capitulation, the clansmen’s stares … it was all too much.
Why hadn’t Rory given her a bonnet? Or a shawl she could hide herself with?
And there was Keir across the hall, now marching toward her, getting closer, his face a mask of emotions she couldn’t read.
The yells and hoots from the Scotsmen at the doors met her ears in waves.
She wished she’d hunted for that secret passageway.
She could have escaped on her own, stolen a horse, ridden to …
To where?
Luxbury was saying something to her as Keir reached her side.
What was it? Something about never letting her out of his sight? What was going on? The voices seemed to go mute, but mouths were still moving.
The edges of her vision darkened.
She couldn’t catch her breath.
She’d felt this panic before.
But why now? Wasn’t she safe? Keir was beside her, his arm around her waist.
Ugh, his grasp on her tightened as her knees bent, her head bobbed forward of its own accord.
She couldn’t get a frightened word out of her mouth.
As she collapsed completely onto Keir, her head fell back, her eyes barely open, but she could see up.
A balcony.
A servant girl.
Rory. Flowers—
Her body crumpled like the tip of a spent candle, her mind no longer registering the people around her.
…
She woke in a soft bed, Rory at her side.
“Och, ye’re alive.”
Rory laughed.
“’Twas the right thing to do, yer faintin’ like a baby bird.
The men go all a’muddle and forget they’re a’fightin’ each other.”
Eleanor pushed up on her elbows.
“I fainted? I never faint.”
“Well, then, ye ken how to fall into a deep sleep and stay that way ’til things settle themselves.”
Rory rose from her chair and walked toward her wardrobe.
“I’ve been gatherin’ things and then sittin’ a spell to watch ye. Here,”
she swung a hand toward a trunk, “are the clothes I think will fit ye best and travel well.”
She grinned at Eleanor.
“And look,”
she held up a gorgeous gown, “’tis trimmed in green velvet with a matching bonnet.
It should make a fine impression upon yer mum when ye meet her.”
Eleanor swung her legs over the side of the bed and perused the room.
It was as luxurious as Lady Beth’s suite at Ingledew.
There were two fireplaces, a writing table and a dressing table with tall-back chairs, an embroidered lounge settee, and a standing mirror with hardly any glass waves, trimmed in brass.
The bed she now rose from was piled with quilts and pillows, the headboard intricately carved with a meadow scene of deer and trees and pond and ducks.
This was the bedroom of a princess.
She looked again at Rory and marveled at how different she was from Keir, his dark-haired brothers, and the laird himself.
“You must favor your mother.
Keir told me a bit about her.”
Unconsciously she ran her palms along the soft fabric on the bed.
“Aye, all of us female McKelveys have the scarlet-hair blessing and the fiery temper curse.
When ye birth Keir’s bairns, ye’ll see.
The lads’ll be dark as minks and the lasses will glow like foxes.”
The heat that rose up her neck when Rory mentioned having Keir’s offspring, cooled quickly when Rory lifted an improbable pair of trousers.
“These troosers I keep hidden fer when I take it in me mind to ride one of me brothers’ horses.
I best get Keir’s permission a’fore I lend them to ye.”
A servant knocked on the door and Rory called her in.
“M’lady, dinner is served.
Shall I bring a tray fer …”
she sneaked a glance at Eleanor “yer guest?”
“Are the Englishmen still here?”
“Only the one … the captain.
The village men saw to it that the others rode off.”
The girl kept her eyes on Rory.
“Good.
No tray then, just make sure there’s a place set for … my new sister.
Elspeth, this is Keir’s wife.”
The girl’s face showed her surprise, but she quickly suppressed it, curtsied, and backed out of the room.
Rory tilted her head at Eleanor.
“Ye do feel up to it, aye? But we’ll make them wait a bit, while I braid what I can of yer short locks.
A few ribbons on the ends will make them seem longer.”
She pulled open a drawer at the dressing table.
“Come sit here.
May I call ye El? It seems to suit ye best.”
The use of her shortened name brought a lump to Eleanor’s throat.
A pang of homesickness wrenched her.
Hannah always called her El.
She missed her so much, and yet, this sister of Keir’s seemed a remarkably soothing replacement.
***
“THE GREAT HALL is used for clan meetin’s, feasts, and large gatherin’s,”
Rory told Eleanor as they came down the stairs.
“We’ve a smaller dining room me mum liked to use when we used to have the eight of us here.”
She chattered on about how long her sisters Fenella and Elsie had been married, how often Keir was away, and how much she hated being the only female left in the castle.
“Tonight ’twill be nice to have you with me.
Last night I had to endure a lonely meal with me father.
I’m so happy fer yer company.”
“Thank you.”
Eleanor’s comfort around Rory was undeniable, but the closer it came to the time to be with the McKelvey men, the more nervous she became.
Her eyes darted around the castle when they reached the bottom step.
“Perhaps we won’t be away long.”
“Oh, ’tis me hope.
’Twill be wonderful to have yer companionship … and advice … I’m to be married soon.”
They entered the dining room which had a long table with seven armless chairs and one that resembled a throne, with a higher back and sturdy arms.
Plates were set at both ends, but the other three place settings were grouped near the bigger chair.
Rory whispered in Eleanor’s ear, “He’s put the Sassenach away from us.”
Eleanor smiled to herself to think how insignificant and small Bernard might feel sitting at the far end.
She took a seat next to Rory and across from Keir which meant their eyes connected often throughout the meal.
The conversation was stilted and strained as Captain Luxbury either fumed or pouted, then threatened or pleaded from the distant end.
Rabbit stew, bread, and cheese completed the first course.
Eleanor could not have described the food as bland or spicy, since her other senses were busy enjoying the sight and smell of the younger McKelvey.
Right there, so close.
His foot once touched hers and their gaze met between bites of food she wasn’t hungry for. Yet this, she knew, would be a most memorable meal.
Elspeth brought a pie that steamed.
She kept their wine glasses full, though she never poured more than an inch into the captain’s.
At last the topic turned to the search for Eleanor’s mother.
A plan for travel was laid out, but the men could not agree on a direction to start.
Keir ignored every suggestion Luxbury made by taking a sip of his wine.
When he finished the glass, he said to Eleanor, “Me sister Fenella spoke of a brooch ye had that may be a clue to find yer mum.”
He waved off Elspeth’s offer of more wine.
Eleanor’s eyes darted quickly left then right.
Laird McKelvey and Bernard Luxbury were watching her intently.
She had ignored the captain throughout the meal.
Her hand went to her bosom to feel for the hard metal of the brooch pinned beneath the garment.
“Yes, Lady Beth said my mother always wore the matching one, but Fenella told me she saw it on a lad … a long while ago … at a fair, I think.”
She tapped her fingers against her throat to obscure the fact she was confirming that the brooch was safely fastened underneath.
Keir nodded.
“She gave me the particulars.
Could ye draw us a picture of the brooch? So we’d know what to look for?”
Her mind flashed on the writing desk in Rory’s room, then she thought of a similar desk in the room she’d had at Beldorney Hall and that made her think of Hannah.
Her face drooped with sadness.
She sighed.
“Yes, I can draw its likeness.”
“Make two drawings,”
Luxbury said.
“I’ll require one of my own.”
He swallowed violently, his Adam’s apple seizing and jumping.
“Yes, Bernard, certainly.”
But the look on his face gave her a chill and she wished she was anywhere else but here.
She did not want him to know she had the brooch and she did not want to draw him a picture.
She lifted her glass and sipped the wine, thinking.
The laird, who suddenly seemed in a hurry to end the meal and the evening, said, “Rory, ye shall show the captain to Jack’s room.
Keir, ye may install yer wife in Fenella’s old room.
’Tis closest to yers.
But as long as the captain has a question about the authenticity of the parchment, ’twould be best to humor him, and leave yer nuptials till the facts are resolved.”
He gave a capitulating nod toward Luxbury.
Keir huffed.
“There’s a kirk not far.
We could repeat our vows there.”
Before Luxbury could respond Keir added, “Captain, you could be our witness.”