A Heart In The Highlands

6-1

6“There must have been an accident? Niall is three days overdue,” the Duchess said for the thousandth time.

“His Lordship may have been held up by floods or by a bridge having been washed away,” Iona replied.

She had made the suggestion before, in fact in the past three days she had put forward every possible explanation of Lord Niall’s absence in her efforts to soothe the anxiety of his stepmother.

“If the Duke had any natural feeling in him,” the Duchess said, disregarding Iona’s remark, “he would send a groom to Inverness to discover if there is any news of his brother.”

The Duchess had made the same request of His Grace at dinner the previous night, but the Duke had merely replied that Niall was old enough to look after himself and he would not thank his relatives for being over anxious about him.

Iona had noticed that the Duchess was not half so persistent in her fears for Lord Niall’s safety when the Duke was present. Indeed she kept her complaining and her unceasing speculations for when she and Iona were alone.

After three days at the Castle Iona had begun to think that the subject had been exhausted in all its possibilities. To be honest she was growing tired of the very sound of Lord Niall’s name. The Duchess was interested in nothing else and Iona was beginning to wonder if the days were to pass endlessly with her doing little but listening to the Duchess’s querulous, grumbling voice and getting no better acquainted with the Duke.

She saw him at meal times, when he sat at the head of the wide dining table, but with a footman behind every chair intimate conversation was impossible, and Iona was well aware that the Duchess thought it both forward and presumptuous on her part if she spoke without being addressed.

When they were alone together, the Duchess behaved as if there were a kind of truce between them. She was obviously quite pleased to have someone to whom she could grumble incessantly and who was forced to spend many hours of the day in her company. But when the Duke was there, the Duchess allowed her enmity to reveal itself quite plainly, and making no pretence of politeness she made a practice on every possible occasion of taunting Iona with being an imposter.

The situation, Iona felt at times, was almost impossible, but she hoped that, when more people arrived at the castle, it would perhaps be easier for her to find occasion to speak with the Duke and to be alone with him. She was growing exceedingly weary of the Duchess with her doleful forebodings, her whining voice that seemed to run on endlessly, her questions needing no answer, her remarks inviting no comment.

“What can he find to interest him in Inverness?” the Duchess asked, holding out her hands as usual towards the warmth of the fire. “It is a poor, dingy little town, for all these uncivilised Scots are proud of it. Heavens above, as I have told them often enough, if they saw London or York or Canterbury, they would laugh to think a few scattered crofts and vermin-ridden inns should dare to style themselves a town. But then these poor, uncouth barbarians know nothing better.”

There was venom in Her Grace’s voice, as always when she spoke of the Scottish race, but although she was expressing her genuine conviction about the Scots in general, Iona was well aware that the sneering criticism was meant also for her personally. She was wondering what to reply when the door opened and a footman came into the room.

“What is it?” the Duchess asked impatiently as he approached her.

“His Lordship’s carriage is approaching the bridge, Your Grace.”

“The bridge?” the Duchess exclaimed. “Then he is nearly here? Why wasn’t I told before? Go at once to the front door and ask his Lordship to wait on me immediately.”

“Very good, Your Grace.”

The footman withdrew and the Duchess started to her feet. She turned towards a mirror and patted her elaborately arranged hair with anxious fingers, then drew a small pot of salve from her reticule and reddened her lips. There was a sudden light in her eyes and for the moment she looked younger and not unattractive.

“She loves him,” Iona thought with sudden clarity and wondered if Lord Niall reciprocated the affection of his stepmother.

There was the sound of footsteps outside and the Duchess turned eagerly towards the door. Embarrassed and anxious not to intrude, Iona withdrew into an embrasure at the side of a window and was half hidden by the draping folds of the crimson silk curtains. She stood looking out on to the loch, wishing that she could have retired to her own room, but it was too late now for her to suggest it. She heard the door open but did not turn her head. Then the Duchess’s cry of relief rang out,

“Niall! At last! What has happened to you? I vow I have been nearly demented with anxiety.”

“You flatter me, Belle-mère,” he replied a low, smooth voice.

“You told me you would return on Wednesday,” the Duchess scolded. “Do you realise it is Saturday today and I have had no word from you, no explanation of what happened to prevent your return?”

“I had no idea my absence would perturb you so unnecessarily.”

“You know full well it would,” the Duchess replied. “If you had not come today, I would have sent a groom to Inverness to make inquiries, though it is beyond my comprehension to imagine what interest you could find there.”

“The groom would have returned as ignorant as he went,” Lord Niall said in a tone that was unmistakably bored, “for I have not been to Inverness.”

“Not been to Inverness?” the Duchess queried. “But you said you were going there!”

“I changed my mind,” Lord Niall replied, “instead I turned off the road at Glen Urquhart and stayed with some friends of mine.”

“Who are they?” the Duchess asked suspiciously.

“You have never met them, so their names are not important,” Lord Niall answered.

“Then you have not been to Inverness at all?” the Duchess insisted.

There was an obvious note of relief in her voice.

“Have I not said so?” Lord Niall asked impatiently. “Why the cross-examination?”

The Duchess answered him truthfully.

“I thought perhaps you had encountered Lady Wrexham.”

“Lady Wrexham?” Lord Niall repeated in surprise. “But is she not here?”

“She too has been delayed,” the Duchess replied.

“How strange!” Lord Niall said, “but then it is to be expected when she is coming such a great distance. Now that I think of it, someone mentioned to me that the roads from England were in a bad state and that there had been floods in Yorkshire.”

“Who told you that?” the Duchess asked.

“I have not the slightest idea,” Lord Niall replied. “The subject was not of any interest to me, but now it seems to account for Lady Wrexham’s non-appearance.”

“Well, it is of no consequence,” the Duchess said quickly, “and now that you are here, Niall, I have a thousand things to tell you.”

There was a low and intimate note in her voice and Iona was uncomfortably aware that Her Grace had forgotten her presence.

For the first time she turned and looked into the room. The Duchess had her back to her, but Lord Niall was facing her, and as she moved she attracted his attention. Her heart gave a startled beat and she felt the blood drawn away from her cheeks for she recognised him instantly – recognised the sardonic face and the air of authority and distinction, the glittering magnificence of his coat and sparkling diamond buttons. She had seen them all before and she knew, as their eyes met across the room, that he also remembered her.

“So we have a visitor, Belle mère!” he said softly.

The Duchess turned impatiently towards Iona.

“I forgot that you were here, girl,” she said. “If you wish to withdraw, we will excuse you.”

Iona curtsied demurely, but Lord Niall’s curiosity was not so easily circumvented.

“I beg you to present me,” he said, and it was a command.

The Duchess tossed her head.

“Indeed it is a difficult thing for me to do, for I have not the slightest idea who in truth this person may be. She claims to be your sister Elspeth, who was drowned seventeen years ago, but I vow I have no credence in such a tale. In the meantime until her claim – presumptuous as it is – is proven to be false, she is called Iona. ‘Miss Iona’, if you can credit such an appellation.”

“You believe that you are my sister Elspeth?” Lord Niall asked.

His eyes narrowed and somehow Iona found it impossible to meet his gaze.

“His Grace has the proofs, if it will interest you, my Lord,” she stammered.

“They interest me greatly,” Lord Niall said, “but I would rather hear your story from your own lips.”

Iona wondered wildly how she could refuse him, but the Duchess came to her rescue.

“There is plenty of time for that,” she said impatiently. “Come with me to my boudoir, Niall, I would talk with you.”

Before Lord Niall could answer, Iona curtsied and hurried from the room. Outside the door she stood for a moment with her hands raised to her hot cheeks into which the blood returned tumultuously, then she lifted her skirts and ran up the stairs.

‘Was there ever such a tangle?’ she thought. ‘That it should be Lord Niall of all people who had seen her coming from Hector’s bedroom in Inverness! What must he have thought?’ she wondered. And in shame she knew the answer.

Desperately she tried to think what she should say when he spoke of the incident. Then she remembered that he had told the Duchess he had not been to Inverness. Why had he lied? What was he hiding by such a falsehood? Could not his desire for secrecy be turned to her advantage?

She felt her embarrassment and confusion forgotten as she tried, with every instinct alert, to sort out the hard facts from a chaotic muddle of coincidence, suspicion, fear and distrust.

There were too many mysteries, too many secrets for which she had no explanation. The Duke’s presence in Paris, which he did not wish known, the Duchess’s probing with regard to the Prince, her own unfortunate encounter with Lord Niall at Inverness which fortunately – or so it appeared at the moment – he could not disclose without revealing his own presence there.

“What does it all mean?” Iona asked herself a dozen times, and felt that the more she considered everything that had occurred the more complicated and bewildering it all became.

She had been in her room but a few minutes when there came a knock on the door. She bade the person who knocked to enter and a maid came in. Her name was Cathy and she had been Iona’s maid since she first came to the castle. Bright-eyed and smiling, she was wearing a frilled cap of starched linen over her hair and an apron which rustled as she walked.

She shut the door behind her and crossed the room to Iona’s side.

“Theer’s a body below who wad speak wi’ ye, mistress,” she said softly.

“Someone to see me?” Iona asked in surprise. “But who can it be?”

“’Tis Dughall, mistress, an’ he has brocht a message for ye.”

“A message?” Iona echoed, feeling that she was being stupid, but cudgelling her brains fruitlessly to think who could be sending her a message.

Cathy glanced over her shoulder.

“’Tis important, mistress, tha’ Dughall should talk wi’ ye alane. He told me no tae say he was here if anybody was wi’ ye.”

“I will go to him at once,” Iona said. “I will not be seen?”

“Not if ye’ll let me lead ye, mistress!”

Iona picked up a light woollen shawl and put it round her shoulders before following Cathy from the room.

The maid avoided the main staircase and led the way along the passage until after several twists and turns they reached a narrow, winding stairway. It had obviously been built inside a tower and the only light came from arrow slits in the massive stone walls. More than once Iona stumbled in the darkness and would have fallen but for Cathy who put out her arms to save her. After some minutes they reached the bottom of the stairs and Cathy hurried along another passage. They were now, Iona could see, in a disused part of the castle. There was a close, musty airlessness in the atmosphere, the windows were shuttered, the pictures covered and the chairs and furniture was protected by dustsheets.