A Highland Bride (Bonnie Bride Series Book 1) Page 15

  * * * * *

  The wizened little woman was ensconced in the wooden armchair by the roaring kitchen fire, where Mrs MacDonald snatched her moments of repose when she could. As Farquhar entered, she rose stiffly and curtsied.

  "Be seated, my good woman," he said.

  But she tottered towards him. "Mr Farquhar, sir. Ah, forgive me, but when my wee lamb wrote to me, I had to come and see her for myself."

  "Mrs Farquhar... wrote to you?"

  "Aye. Aye. Oh, a terrible letter." She reached into her voluminous shawl and pulled out a crumpled letter, which she handed to him.

  Farquhar unfolded it and found it to be covered in his wife's handwriting, the ink blotted with what looked like dried splashes of tears. He read it with a mounting sense of horror. "But... this simply is not true. I have done my duty as a husband and chastised her misbehaviour when need be, as I told her father I would before he gave permission for us to marry. Mrs Farquhar was brought up too indulgently, as he was ready to admit. I did not want her to suffer her sister's fate, and nor did her father. I have been strict, but never cruel. We are - happy together. I cannot believe she has written these things..." He trailed off, suddenly realising that the very circumstance of her disappearance belied these last words. If she was happy, if she loved him, why had she run away? And how, in that case, could she have written these words?

  His consternation must have shown on his face, for suddenly he found that the old woman was clasping his hands. "Dinnae you worry, sir. I kent it would be like that. You're right, they were aye let run wild, they two wee girls, after their poor mither died o the flux, and poor wee Maggie nearly too. Mr Campbell, he wouldnae check them, nor would he let me or anyone. Aye, I knew what would come of it." She shook her head. "But Miss Flora is a good girl, Mr Farquhar. She has a better heart in her than her poor sister."

  "I know... My good woman, have you come all this way alone?"

  "Aye, alone. I'm no afeart. I'm an auld woman, sir, but I've walked, and got rides on carts, and I would have walked the length of Scotland to make sure my wee lamb was safe."

  "I... cannot assure you that she is. Nettie? Your name is Nettie?"

  "Aye, sir."

  He looked at the kitchen window. The rain was pounding against it in squalls, for the wind had risen too.

  "I will go out there and find her," he said, with determination. "But not to return her here against her will. Since she is unhappy with me, you will escort her back to her father's home, Nettie. I would not by any means keep a wife by force."

  He would live the rest of his life, or hers, alone.

  "God bless you, sir," said Nettie, still grasping his hands.

  He pulled away rather coldly, a heaviness in his heart.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The rain started some time after dawn.

  Flora trudged along the dark road for what felt like hours, sustained by the bitter resolve that had settled into her soul, until the sky began to lighten and the shadows of the mountains and trees grew sharper. Her legs became weary and her feet sore, but she welcomed the ache at first.

  She had nearly reached the foot of the high road to Scourie, and could see the main road snaking its way around the loch below, when she turned one of the path's many bends and saw an unwelcome figure climbing up the other way. Even at a distance and in the poor light of an overcast dawn, she recognised Tam the farrier, whose ailing wife she had visited often in the last few weeks. He was plodding uphill on his old workhorse, and she was sure that he looked directly at her.

  Flora pulled the hood of her cloak further over her head and turned quickly back up the bend in the path so that she was out of sight again. It would be a few minutes before Tam and his horse reached the corner. She considered her options in a panic. Perhaps she ought to have carried on walking down the road and passed Tam with a courteous greeting, and perhaps he would have thought nothing of seeing Mrs Farquhar walking down the glen quite alone at the earliest hour of dawn, but she was sure that he would carry the report around Scourie within the hour. She looked desperately around for a way of escape or a place of concealment where she might hide herself until Tam had passed by. On one side of the road, the mountain rose steeply, almost sheer, and on the other, dropped away into forests of pine towards the loch far below.

  To her relief, she spotted a path leading down into the woods, and she hurried that way. Within minutes, she was climbing steadily down a narrow but well-cleared forest path, quite out of sight from the road. She hoped that Tam would decide that his brief glimpse of Mrs Farquhar had been a phantasm of his imagination, or had not been her at all.

  She sank down on an overturned log to rest, suddenly very weary. Should she wait a while, then climb back up the path to rejoin the road once she was sure that Tam would have passed? But it seemed to her that there was every chance of meeting another parishioner on the way, and as each hour passed, the path would become busier. Her idea that she could make it all the way to Inverlannan without being recognised began to seem foolish, if she travelled the main roads.

  The forest path seemed as if it might take her some way in the right direction, at any rate; it must lead somewhere, perhaps to the lochside. She needed to find someone with a vehicle of some sort, going towards the town, who did not know her.

  She heaved herself to her feet, her muscles protesting, and carried on following the path downwards. It began to rain, and though the trees protected her a little at first, as the downpour grew heavier it seemed to Flora that they began to act as a conduit between the heavens and herself, sluicing great rivers of freezing rain in sudden waterfalls upon her. Her cloak was soon sodden, her boots were filled. She trudged miserably, head down in the teeth of the wind.

  More than anything in the world she wished she could go back to her cosy sitting room in Scourie Manse, where Mrs MacDonald or Jane would bring her tea and oatcakes; or to be tucked under the blankets in her bedroom, a fire blazing in the grate, and Mr Farquhar's arms wrapped around her. It was not the house in Charlotte Square that she longed for, not the clean little girl's room and the narrow, comfortable, lonely bed. Why was she trying so hard to get there?

  Tears mingled with the freezing rain on her face as she stumbled onwards.

  And then, as she turned around a sharp bend in the path, she glimpsed the roof of some kind of building through the trees down the hill, a distance below. It seemed to be slate, not the thatched grass common to crofters' cottages, so she supposed it might be a superior class of dwelling. At any rate, it would offer shelter until the storm abated.

  The path she was on, however, seemed to be wending in the opposite direction from the cottage. She was almost directly above it, and it did not look too far. She was sure she could take a shortcut down the slope of the hill.

  Cautiously, she began to edge downwards.

  Almost at once, Flora realised that leaving the path had been a mistake. She slipped and slithered and could not get a firm foothold on the sodden ground, which was much steeper than it had seemed from the top. She was a good way down before she realised that she was too frightened to attempt to climb back up, and yet the roof of the cottage still seemed a dizzyingly long way down and she was no longer certain that there was a direct path towards it from the slope. Further and further she inched, clinging to every tree as she reached it, less and less sure that there was any safety below. The rain pelted her relentlessly, blinding her.

  Then her foot slid in the mud, and before she could scrabble for a hold she was skidding and tumbling helplessly into empty space.

  * * * * *

  She did not lose her senses at any point. She was aware of flying through vacancy, and a wet, hard impact, but after a few moments she was able to lift her head and look around.

  She found that she was on a bank of grass and leaves, at the bottom of a kind of narrow crevasse with steep walls all around. Above, she could see the edge of the forested cliff she had fallen over. There was a swollen, rushing stream running
through the middle of the crevasse, and rocks which would have broken her had she hit them instead of the grass. She had, she saw, been very lucky. After a few more stunned moments she was able to get to her feet and look around, none the worse for her tumble.

  Except that she could see no way out of the crevasse. On both sides were sheer, unclimbable cliffs, at the back was a steep rocky waterfall, and downstream, a huge tree had crashed across the mouth of the gorge. Somehow scaling the fallen tree seemed to be the only possible escape.

  Flora lifted her sodden skirts and waded through the stream. When she reached the tree, she saw that climbing over it would be as least as impossible as scaling the rocky cliffs. It was the upper part of a fully-grown Scots pine, gigantic when brought down to earth, its mass of branches and leaves bristling dozens of feet into the air. It was completely impassable.

  She was trapped.

  Flora staggered back to the bank of pine leaves that had cushioned her fall, and broke into tears for the first time since the night before. All her anger was gone. She knew now how foolish she had been to run away, how wicked indeed; for even if Mr Farquhar had ceased to love her, even if he called her the Whore of Babylon, it was her duty nonetheless to honour and obey him. And even if he no longer loved her, she could not feel the same; she could not alter the feelings of her own heart. Now she might die here, alone, with all her sins upon her, knowing that she had defied her husband and broken her marriage vows in spirit once again. That was how he would remember her, too. He might even think she had run away not because she was innocent and heartbroken, but because she was guilty and wanted to escape him.

  All she could do now was shout. She yelled for help until she was hoarse, but the only reply was the echo of her own voice on the walls of the crevasse.

  Eventually, though she was soaked through and sore and the rain still fell, she sank to the ground in despair and fell into an exhausted sleep.

  * * * * *

  She heard her name called in a dream.

  There was water all around her. She struggled to reach the surface, crying out for help, no noise coming. Then she broke free and was shouting, "Help! Help! Help!" and gasping for air as if drowning.

  At first she thought she must be still asleep. Far above her, almost as if he were hovering in the air, was Mr Farquhar. "Flora!"

  Flora staggered to her feet and held out her hand, still wondering if he was a delusion conjured up by her desperate imagination. "Mr Farquhar! Oh, Mr Farquhar! I am trapped here, there is no way out."

  "Are you injured?" he called.

  "No - no - I fell onto soft ground - "

  "Thank the Lord!" He disappeared from sight, and she heard him shout rough words of Gaelic. After a few moments more, he reappeared and lowered a knotted rope towards her. "Can you hold onto it, Flora? If not, I will come down to you."

  "No - I'm able to." She was determined not to let him put himself in a perilous situation, through her own stupidity.

  "Good girl. Tie it around your waist and grasp it tightly. Use your feet if you can against the cliff wall. It is not very far. John and I will both pull this end, so you will be quite safe."

  She did as he told her, knotting the rope around herself and gritting her teeth as a powerful force lifted her from the ground. But her long skirts and petticoat were leaden with water, and prevented her from getting any kind of purchase with her boots on the slippery face of the crevasse. She had to be dragged up by force, clinging for her life to the rope, her eyes squeezed shut. Then she felt strong hands lifting her and she half-collapsed against Mr Farquhar, smelling sodden smoky wool fabric and wet horse as he clasped her tightly to him.

  “Flora,” he breathed. “My love. Thank God.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The cottage which Flora had so foolishly attempted to reach by way of the mountain side was in fact at the end of the path she had followed into the wood, and not very much further along it either. John knew all about it; the cottage had until the summer before been home to Old Ruaridh the woodcutter and Old Ruaridh's wife, but the couple had both died within days of each other from the ague. Their son, who was supposed to have carried on his father's trade, had suddenly gone for a soldier, and the cottage now stood empty. But it had never been cleared, perhaps because Sir Duncan or his steward intended it for the use of another woodcutter, perhaps because given its remote situation it had been all but forgotten.

  After helping her up the mountainside back to the path, Mr Farquhar had lifted Flora onto his horse and walked holding its reigns as they followed John the short distance down to the cottage's front door. Flora was mortified to realise that had she only carried on along the path, she would have reached a place of shelter in safety. But in that case, would Mr Farquhar have found her before she carried out her plan to get to Inverlannan and the stagecoach to Edinburgh? Already, the skies were clearing and spring sunshine had succeeded the rainstorm.

  John opened up the cottage, which was dark and smelled musty but clean, and quickly and efficiently set a fire in the grate. There were still nice dry logs piled neatly on the hearth. Flora stood shivering in the gloom, taking in her surroundings. Though superior to the thatched crofter's cottages - the fact that it had a fireplace at all, rather than a pit in the middle of the floor immediately distinguished it - this seemed to be a typical two-room ‘but and ben' type house, with a kitchen hearth in the living room and presumably, one bedroom for the family beyond the single interior door. The ceiling beams were low enough to make Mr Farquhar stoop. There were two plain wooden armchairs before the fire, a stool, and a rag-rug, and a simple table, and very little furniture else.

  "Go back to the Manse and fetch dry clothes for Mrs Farquhar," Mr Farquhar said, once a fire was crackling, "and saddle the grey pony for her."

  "Aye, sir."

  Once the door was closed on the servant, and they heard the wet clop-clop of the grey pony plodding away up the path, Flora drew her arms around herself and hung her head. She was suddenly close to tears once more. "I am so sorry, sir. Please forgive me."

  "You must get out of these wet clothes." His voice was husky, brusque.

  Flora offered no resistance as he unhooked her cloak, and raised her arms obligingly like a small child as he pulled her soaking gown over her head.

  "You are soaked to the skin," he said, feeling the fabric of her shift. "Off, off."

  "Sir... what if John returns?"

  "He will not return, not within these three hours. He will be returning on foot, as I instructed him to saddle the grey pony for you. Three hours, at least. "

  "How did you find me?"

  "You were seen on the road."

  "By Tam the farrier?"

  He had removed her wet shift likewise, and now unfastened her stays so that her breasts sprang free. At once, she felt the welcome heat of the fire on her bare skin, and gasped as he cupped one breast in his hand.

  "Aye, by Tam. He came back with us and showed us the path where he thought you must have gone, because you disappeared from the road. We followed the path down to the cottage because John thought you might have taken shelter here. When we found it empty, I despaired. But on the way back up John, thank the Lord, spotted marks on the slope where you must have slipped."

  "I'm so sorry, sir," she said again, in a whisper.

  She felt his mouth on her bare neck and shivered.

  Then he let her go, and strode back into the little room. "Flora," he said, after a long pause, "I wronged you."

  "No, sir, I - "

  "Please listen, Flora. I realised last night that you told me the truth about what Lord Daventry did, and about why you were there with him. I realised it even before I received news that after we left Lochlannan, he made a violent attempt on the virtue of a very respectable parlour maid there."

  Flora was stunned. "Oh, great heavens!"

  "I was wrong not to believe you. I ought to have trusted your word, indeed trusted your virtue altogether. For that, I apologise, and most he
artily."

  She had no idea what to say. She wanted to ask whether the parlour maid had indeed been violated, or harmed in any other way, but she could not find the words.

  After staring at her with blazing eyes, he turned aside. His face set. "Now, since you have proven most clearly by this attempted flight that you regret becoming my wife, I would not, by any means, compel you to continue so. We are bound together by holy matrimony until death, but I would not bind you to my side when by word and deed you have expressed your misery. Once we return to the Manse I will have Mrs MacDonald pack your trunk, and John will take you back to Edinburgh as soon as tomorrow."

  Flora found her voice at last. "No! Oh, no, Mr Farquhar, please do not turn me away!"

  "Turn you away? You ran away!" His voice lost its cold, controlled edge. "You nearly got yourself killed, also. If we hadn't found you..." He drew in a sharp breath.

  "My heart was broken," she cried, breaking into sobs. "You called me the Whore of Babylon!"

  "I was - that was an unforgiveable thing to say, Flora. And yet, I ask you to forgive me."

  Without thinking, she flung herself at him and he embraced her warmly.

  "Oh, my Flora," he murmured into her hair.

  "I do not, I do not regret becoming your wife. Indeed, I love you."

  "And yet, you wrote these words." He let go of her, and pulled something out of his inner jacket.

  Flora's heart sank within her. It was damp and the ink was blurring, but the paper folded in Mr Farquhar's hand was certainly the foolish letter she had written to Auld Nettie. "How did you... get that?" she whispered.

  "Your old nursemaid is at the Manse this very moment. She was so worried by this letter that she came to find you. So you see, Flora - word and deed. This is how I know you want to be free."

  Flora made bold enough to take the letter from his hand. He let it go easily enough. She went to the fire and flung it into the flames, then turned and kneeled at his feet. Her hair was drying now, and it fell forward over her face and bare shoulders. "I will never be free. Throw me off if you will, but my heart is yours forever."