A Highland Bride (Bonnie Bride Series Book 1) Page 14

  Chapter Twelve

  All of Flora's protestations were in vain. Mr Farquhar would not listen to her, and pulled her back to the house with set and stony face. As they came back into the hallway, he dropped her arm for, she supposed, appearance's sake, and gave curt orders to the footman to have the trap called for and to make their apologies to Lady Buccleuch.

  "Mrs Farquhar is indisposed, and we must leave immediately," he said.

  In what seemed to Flora like no time at all, they were in the trap, joggling away from the gaiety and light into the cold, dark Highland night.

  Neither uttered a syllable all the way back to the Manse. She knew that Mr Farquhar did not want to talk about what had happened in the gazebo in front of the servant, but it was agony to be bursting with an explanation of her complete innocence and yet to be unable to speak. Mr Farquhar seemed so very angry with her. What if he would not hear the truth at all? Worse, what if he would not believe her? She had stammered out as much of the story as she could as he had hauled her up the gravel path from the gazebo, and yet he had been unmoved.

  Perhaps he would turn her away, and send her back to her father's house in disgrace. She buried her face in her hands and tried to hide her tears until the trap turned into the driveway of the Manse.

  Flora did not even wait to be ordered to her bedroom, she ran upstairs with her handkerchief over her face and slammed the door.

  Then she struggled for a few minutes to compose herself, heaving convulsive breaths. She was consumed now by the same anger that had been burning on a low fuse ever since Mr Farquhar had scolded her for dancing with Lord Daventry. Perhaps in that instance she ought to have put obedience to her husband over considerations of courtesy to their host, but she still thought that she had had little choice and had certainly done nothing improper; and in this second matter, she had done nothing wrong at all. She had accompanied Miss Buccleuch to the gazebo in good faith, indeed she had done so partly in pursuit of her Christian duty as the Minister's wife to listen to the troubles of the women of the parish. She knew now that Miss Buccleuch had somewhat dissembled, had intended to meet Lord Daventry there and had involved her in the scheme in a calculated manner that she thought somewhat low. But Miss Buccleuch's cowardice in fleeing was not her fault, and it was certainly not her fault that Lord Daventry had decided to seize her and overpower her with a kiss. How could she have prevented that? He had been quick and unexpected and too strong for her.

  Almost immediately she heard Mr Farquhar's step on the stairs, and it had the same rapid, heavy note that she remembered from the night she had laughed at Mr Urqhuart.

  "I did nothing wrong!" she cried eagerly, as soon as he opened the door. "Miss Buccleuch asked me to go out to the gazebo with her because she wished to talk to me, and Lord Daventry came after, but Miss Buccleuch ran away when she heard you coming, and then Lord Daventry grabbed me and kissed me and I could not help it! I am innocent of wrongdoing, sir, I am innocent!"

  "You are far, far from that," he hissed, and his eyes were icy cold. There was not a trace of warmth in his face. "My God, forgive me. I have married the Whore of Babylon."

  "No! No! Oh sir, how can you say such a thing? Please, please believe me." She collapsed to her knees in front of him.

  "I had my doubts. I worried that your soul was tainted. I did not believe you would prove me right so very soon, and with such a creature as Viscount Daventry."

  "I did not! He forced himself upon me!"

  He was talking quietly, with a flat undertone that chilled her heart. "I cannot put you aside. Scripture says that a man may cast off his wife for adultery, but I cannot do it. My vows are sacred to me, even if they were ashes in your lying mouth."

  "No!"

  "I have no choice but to remain bound to you, even if you kill the love in my heart."

  He struck his chest with his fist, and Flora looked up imploringly from his feet. There was anguish in his expression now.

  Once more, desperate now, she said, "I am innocent."

  And she realised there was a gleam of tears in his eyes. "I will cure you of lying, too," he said, and turned away.

  The tawse was still where he had left it on the mantelpiece, and he reached for it.

  Down below, but sounding very close, there was a hammering at the door.

  Mr Farquhar stopped, with the tawse in his hand, listening with a frown.

  Flora's chest heaved with hope. She wondered wildly if it were someone from the castle - Miss Buccleuch, Sir Duncan, even Lord Daventry himself - come to explain everything. It was nearly two in the morning, an unlikely hour for ordinary visitors. And the knocking below had a frantic quality about it.

  Almost immediately, she heard Mrs MacDonald coming up the stairs, and tapping quietly but insistently on the bedroom door. "Mr Farquhar, sir?"

  Still holding the tawse, Mr Farquhar opened the door.

  "I'm sorry to disturb you, sir, but there's an urgent message come from Carraig House. Mrs Buchanan is very ill, they say she's dying, sir. She wants to speak to a minister before she goes."

  "Very well, Mrs MacDonald, I will set out immediately."

  He put the tawse back on the mantelpiece and strode out without a backwards glance at her.

  * * * * *

  Flora listened to Mr Farquhar's footsteps crunching on the gravel of the path below her window, then to words spoken in low male voices, and then to the clipping of hooves receding into the distance. From the sound of it, Mr Farquhar had elected to ride horseback to Carraig House, presumably to get there as fast as he could. She stood at the window and watched the night anxiously. The sky was cloudless and there was a little moonlight, but she was still worried for his safety on the dark, narrow roads. Carraig House was not, she believed, very close.

  Then she turned from the window, and put those thoughts out of her mind. Her heart was aching. If Mr Farquhar did not believe her innocent, would not even let her speak, then he did not and never had truly loved her. In fact, he had said that he could no longer love her but would be her husband henceforth only out of a sense of duty.

  She took up the tawse and turned it over in her hands, feeling its weight and remembering the white-hot pain of each lash.

  Briefly she considered throwing the hateful object into the still-smouldering fire, but she replaced it on the mantelpiece with trembling hands and changed as quietly as she could from her ballgown finery into her plainest, warmest outdoor dress. She was too shaken for tears. She had wept enough, and she was empty of everything except the desire to walk away from the man who no longer loved her.

  She listened with her ear against the door for full ten minutes, but could hear nobody moving about in the house. Mrs MacDonald must have been glad enough to go to bed after waiting up for them to return from the ball, the girl whose name was not really Jane had probably been asleep for hours, and John slept above the stable. John, who must have brought out the horse for Mr Farquhar, was her only real danger. Though he was not in the house, he was probably still awake, and she had to pass by the stables to get to the road.

  She made herself wait another fifteen minutes, hoping that this would give John enough time to settle to sleep in his mysterious quarters. Then she turned the handle very, very carefully and crept through the pitch-dark house.

  * * * * *

  She knew to avoid the stair that creaked, even in the complete inky darkness, and she knew the house well enough by now to guide herself noiselessly to the kitchen by running her fingers lightly along the distemper walls of the back corridor. There was light in the kitchen, because the great cookfire only ever burned down as far as glowing embers. She found a basket, a deep wicker one, and filled it rapidly with two loaves of bread wrapped in brown paper, a couple of cheeses from the larder, and half of the ham pie Mrs MacDonald had served at lunch; earlier in a day that felt now like another life. These provisions should be sufficient until she found a hostelry on the road, or a crofter's wife to sell her something else to eat along
the way. She checked that she had money, which she had taken from her own small store of cash, and found her walking boots and outdoor cloak where they usually were by the back door.

  Nobody in the house stirred. She could hear only the ticking of the longcase clock in the hallway, loud in the silence. The sun would be up in a few hours, and then she could try to find someone on the road to convey her to Inverlannan, where there was a stage-coach inn. Plainly dressed as she was, with her hood over her head, she hoped that she would not even look at first glance like a gentlewoman.

  The prospect of returning to her father in disgrace to live the rest of her days as a lonely spinster was as miserable as ever, but she did not now hesitate to choose it over life with a man who hated her, who believed her capable of betraying him with another.

  Flora lifted the latch of the back door and slipped out into the garden. The air was chill, but she cared nothing for it. The pain in her heart numbed her. She made her way along the grass verge, avoiding the path so as to make no noise on the gravel, and was relieved to see that the little window above the stable was dark. Nobody stopped her, nobody saw her as she crept through the still, shuttered village, and turned onto the long road that led down the glen.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dawn was dark and grim, as Farquhar plodded home on horseback. The sky was boiling with black clouds, which had blown up over the mountaintops quite suddenly after the clear, cold night. Weather in the Highlands was apt to turn from fair to foul as if on the whim of God, he thought wearily.

  His heart was heavy within him, and he made no haste homewards even as the rain started in fat drops. Mrs Buchanan, all of twenty years old, had died in her sobbing husband's arms just as the first grey light of day showed at the window. They had been married a year, less. There was a baby dead a week before, and the mother had sunk under grief and the dreadful fever that too often took hold of women sometimes days after an apparently safe delivery. Young Buchanan had told the whole story in broken tones. A pink, healthy boy, his wife happy and quickly gaining strength; then the child's convulsions and sudden death, and the mother's rising fever. She had lingered for days, but he had known the night before that he was about to lose her too. Ten days ago, the young solicitor had had a beloved wife and a son and heir. Now he was alone in the sudden vastness of Carraig House, as the rain drove harder.

  As a minister, Farquhar had seen death often. He had stood by the bedside of many younger than himself, praying for their souls as they went to their eternal reward. It was unwise, it was even sinful to become sentimental about these winnowings, for every life was in the hands of God and it ill became man to question the purpose of the Almighty in gathering these souls early to His bosom. But tonight - or this morning - he could not fight the feelings of horror and sombre reflection. Mrs Buchanan had been only a year older than his beloved Flora, and their marriage a scarce few months longer than his own. He could so easily lose Flora in such a way.

  And all the while that Mrs Buchanan lay slowly dying, he could not rid his mind of the image of Flora in the embrace of that devil incarnate, Daventry. The shock had been so overpowering that his senses had been clouded in a red mist, but now - in the dark, close, putrid death chamber - he began to remember rationally, and see how she had been struggling against him and squealing in her throat. Why had she gone there with him? Ah, but she had told him. She had gone with Miss Buccleuch, who had then fled. He saw too the desperate, near hysterical light in her eyes as she pleaded the truth even in the face of his rage.

  And then, just as he was wearily taking his horse from the Buchanan's stableman, he overheard the words ‘Lord Daventry' and ‘terrible business' from over at the kitchen door, which let out into the stable yard. With a feeling of great uneasiness, he handed the reins back to the stableman and went to confront the kitchen maid and the dairyman's boy. Had news of the incident at Lochlannan got out and begun to circulate amongst the servants of the parish? Perhaps they should not have left the ball early and so called attention to themselves, but in his state of agitation he could not have remained there.

  The dairyman's boy was a gangling, insolent-looking youth, who was using his duty to deliver butter and eggs as an opportunity to flirt with the maid. She was a fresh-faced girl who seemed to be enjoying the attention, and did not look much affected by the tragic events in her own household. They both stopped talking as Farquhar approached, and looked at him warily. The maid dropped a curtsy but the dairyman's boy preserved his insolent air.

  "You, lad," he said. "Did I hear you mention the name of Viscount Daventry?"

  "Yes, sir," said the boy, touching his cap in a barely deferential gesture.

  "And what have you to say of his lordship? I do not think the affairs of gentlefolk are a suitable matter for backdoor tittle-tattle, particularly in a house of mourning."

  "Sorry, sir."

  "Answer the question, boy."

  The boy looked taken aback, and shuffled his feet. It was evident that he had taken the Minister's remarks merely as an admonishment, not an interrogation. "It was nothing important, sorry, sir."

  Something in Farquhar's head began to thump. He knew he was making things worse by appearing too interested, but he could not remain in ignorance. "That is for me to decide. You will tell me what you said of his lordship."

  "I'm only telling what I know to be true, sir, because I had it from the girl at the castle that used to be with you, sir. Phemie, her name is. She told me that the servants are all in uproar because last night Lord Daventry tried to have his way with one of the parlour maids, Mairi McLeod, and she being a good girl, she fought him off with a carving knife. They say she cut him and he knocked her senseless and was found by James the footman about to, well, sir, you know. He had blood dripping down his arm, Phemie said. She saw it, sir. Mairi was carried up to her room still senseless and Phemie says, sir, nobody knows if she's lost her virtue. Lord Daventry left at first light, they say that he quarrelled with Sir Duncan and he turned him out the house."

  "They say altogether too much," Farquhar snapped, cutting off the flow of words. "Do not go around the country repeating this scurrilous and doubtless much-embroidered tale at every kitchen door. Remember the Ninth Commandment - thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour."

  "Yes, sir."

  "It's a terrible business though, isn't it, sir?" put in the kitchen maid, who had listened eagerly.

  Farquhar turned away without a word to her, and mounted his horse without even acknowledging the stableman.

  He knew Mairi McLeod. She was a superior young woman, who well filled the post of parlour maid and had ambitions to become a lady's maid, and whose good sense and religious devotion were beyond question. She never missed a service at the kirk, and she had impressed him with her intelligent questions on Scripture. He had at her request lent her several inspiring books, which, despite the limited free time of a servant, she had read and returned promptly. That she was a virtuous, indeed a devout girl he had no doubt, and if she had been driven to defend herself with a knife then Lord Daventry's attempt must have been very much unwelcome to her.

  He felt bitterly ashamed. He knew at once that this servant girl, who was nothing to him, had been the unwilling victim of the wicked viscount's lust; but he had not believed his own dear wife, when she had fallen prey to the same scoundrel only hours earlier. Clearly Lord Daventry had intended to have any woman he could get his hands on last night, and if he hadn't intervened, it could have been Flora. And he had blamed her for it.

  The memory of her pleading, tear-stained face with its stricken expression of love wounded and scorned haunted him as he plodded through the ever-heavier rain, mingled with the image of Mrs Buchanan's, stilled forever. When he got home he would humbly acknowledge his error, and ask her forgiveness.

  The rain had soaked through every layer of clothing, and was running from the brim of his hat in waterfalls, by the time the Manse came into view.

  He knew somethi
ng was wrong before he had even dismounted his horse, and stood holding its reigns as Mrs MacDonald ran through the rain towards him. "Oh, Mr Farquhar!"

  She must have been watching out for him.

  With a huge lurch of fear he was sure that Flora was dead. "What is it, Mrs MacDonald?"

  "It's Mrs Farquhar!" The flinty Highlander was more agitated than Farquhar had yet seen her. "She's gone. She's gone, sir."

  He felt a blackness around him. "How..."

  "She must have left in the night when we were all asleep, sir. She took a basket and some things from the kitchen, and her cloak and boots are gone."

  "Thank God," he breathed under his breath, as he realised that gone did not mean what he had for one terrible moment been sure that it did.

  "Sir, I am so sorry, I didn't hear a thing. John has gone to try and find her, and sir - there's something else. An old woman arrived..."

  "An old woman?"

  "Aye. She's in the kitchen."

  "I've no time for old women, Mrs MacDonald." He put his foot in the stirrup, ready to swing back up on the horse. "I must go after John and find Mrs Farquhar."

  "But Mr Farquhar, sir! Wait! She's Mrs Farquhar's old nursemaid. And oh sir, you cannot go out again like that, you must come in and put on dry clothes."

  "Mrs Farquhar may be out in this rain!"

  "She will have had the good sense to take shelter, I'm sure, sir. Come in and get dry for ten minutes, I beg you."

  He saw the sense in it, and he was also keenly curious to talk to the nursemaid. A memory stirred, of an old servant who had approached them in the street as they had been driving out of Edinburgh.

  In ten minutes he had flung off his wet things and thrown on some dry clothes, and ran down to the kitchen.