The Highlander’s Trust (Blood of Duncliffe Series) (A Medieval Scottish Romance Story) by Emilia Ferguson (2)

“Blast this rain,” Richard Osborne, son of the baron of Ensfield, swore. He looked down to where his man walked beside his horse.

“Quite, sir,” his valet, Bromley, nodded.

Richard looked into the trees, shuddering. The close encounter in the woods still unnerved him. What had he been thinking? He could have died. If it had been a soldier he'd caught, he could be dead now. Not that anyone would miss him, he thought sourly. His own father had seemed all too happy when he finally left the hall and headed north with the militia.

“Almost back?” he asked Bromley.

“About two miles more, sir. Not long now.” He seemed a little surprised, as if Richard's need to get out of the rain was somehow overstated.

“Mm,” Richard nodded. “Just can't bear this wretched weather.”

“Indeed, sir.” Bromley nodded.

Richard sighed. It wasn't the need to get out of the rain that spurred his sense of urgency – or not only that. It was the need to put as many miles between that wretched wood and himself as possible, in as short a time as possible.

I must have been seeing things.

The possibility had occurred to him – seemed more likely – that the figure he'd seen had been conjured from a fevered brain. That was, he reckoned, all the more reason to get out of the weather. Why would a beautiful woman like her have been in the woods, alone? On such a cold day, too? Why would she have spoken English, for Perdition's sake? It made no sense.

No, I must have the fever.

That made it all the more immediate, his need to get out of the cold. Out of here, and into a nice warm room with something to help sweat out the illness. He shivered. If he had it, probably the rest of the men were getting it too. That would be just terrific. The King's Own Scottish Borderers, reduced to pale wraiths unable to keep control of their bowels, never mind the borders. In the rising unrest in the country – the unrest Richard was here to repress – he really could do without that.

“You feeling ill, Bromley?” he asked.

“Ill, sir?” Bromley frowned.

“Yes,” Richard sighed. “That way you feel when you're not quite well, you know?”

He grinned as Bromley scowled at him. They both laughed. Unlike many of the officers in the Borderers, Richard was very close to his manservant, who rode with him on the marches. As a private with the army, Bromley was also incredibly useful. A loyal, steadfast soldier in the regiment of which Richard was lieutenant.

A fine regiment, too. However, if we're all going to be sick, we're not going to do any good. I should get back, see the camp doctor, and go to bed.

He tightened his grip on his horse with his ankles and headed off more quickly.

“Wait a mo', guv,” his manservant – a Londoner – yelled out. “I can't walk as fast as that.”

“Fine.”

They proceeded more slowly back to the barracks.

When he reached his billet, he quickly changed out of his wet clothes. The shirt clung to his back, and he peeled it off well-formed muscles, shivering as he felt the cold air on his skin. The mirror against the wall showed him toned muscles, a narrow waist and wide shoulders. Not too bad, he thought, smiling, for a fellow who'd spent the last few weeks creeping about in the bushes.

Gathering intelligence, they called it.

“I've likely lost more dratted intelligence, getting cold and wet and fevered, than I've gained,” he sighed. “And now it seems like I'm seeing things too. Well, can't be helped.”

He poured a finger of brandy in a glass then stuck his head out the door.

“Bromley?”

“Yes, guv?”

“Get your wretched self out of the cold and come and have a drink to warm you.”

“Oh! Splendid, sir,” he grinned. Richard rolled his eyes as the man's crinkled, well-humored face appeared in the doorway, eyes creased in a smile.

“And get those wet things off, Bromley. If we all die of a fever we'll do no good for anything.”

“Fever, sir?” Bromley asked, as if the very idea of being sick were dangerously unheard of to him.

Richard sighed. “Yes. The thing you get when you sit about in wet clothes after getting caught in the rain. You heard of that?”

Bromley laughed. “I never got it, sir,” he said. “But I've heard o' it. If you insist, I'll do summat about it.”

“I do insist,” Richard said thinly. “I'm staying by the fire until I've warmed through. I suggest you do the same. And if I start raving, please call Dr. Marsden.”

“Yes, sir,” his man nodded. “One question, sir?”

“Yes?”

“How would I know if you's raving?” he grinned. “Never can tell.”

Richard closed his eyes. “Bromley, I should have you shot for intransigence. Luckily, my humor hasn't been corroded that far. Now, get out and get warm before I have you court-marshaled.”

“Yes, sir.”

Richard noticed that the man was still grinning when he left.

He sat down by the fire, staring searchingly into the flames. Who was that woman? He shook his head, trying to forget her.

She wouldn't get dislodged from his thoughts, though.

With that long, curling red hair, her pale skin and those big brown eyes, she had captured his soul from the first glance.

And not just my soul.

His body ached with longing and he tried – fairly pointlessly – to forget the feel of her pale skin under his hand when he'd touched her neck, the wild scent of her tresses.

He felt his loins ache and gritted his teeth, not wanting to fall prey to the longing he felt. He had tried to avoid using camp followers, and not only because of his father's muttered plans to marry him off when he got back. It was something he preferred not to partake of – the sorry sale of bodies for dignity, an exchange almost always dispassionate and detached; hurting both sides. Those two words were the last thing that came to his mind now – detached or dispassionate. Now, remembering the way she'd looked up at him, the sweet curves of her hips, waist and bust, the way her red lips parted as she stared at him, making a little moue of surprise that he'd ached to kiss. He felt attached and passionate, both. Enchanted.

Drat. Now I'm pining for hallucinations. Time for help.

He tipped back the brandy, made a face and stuck his head out into the rain.

“Private?” he called to a man with the right number of bars on his epaulets.

“Yes, sir?” the soldier came to a halt by the door, big eyes round in surprise.

“Is Marsden, the doctor, in?” Richard asked.

“Reckon so, sir. You need him?” He looked instantly aggrieved.

“Well, not now,” Richard admitted. “But if anything worse happens to me, I'd like to know he's nearby and not out on some wretched battle site somewhere.”

“He was at his lodgings when I saw him, sir.”

“Thank you.”

Knowing that help was at hand, should he need it, made Richard feel a little better. He returned to his desk and looked at it. He had to file reports.

So far, he wrote in his own private notes, no sign of insurrection. Woods peaceful.

He hoped that was how it would stay.

Drat the French.

It was their fault, he thought, vexed. The possibility of a war between the Jacobites and Hanoverians should have been just that, by now – a possibility. If the Stuart claimant to the throne were not right there, under the French King's care, the rising of twenty-four years ago – a year after Richard's birth – would have been all. However, no, that was not the case.

The Hanoverians were fools, Richard thought – and he counted himself among their foolish number – to let that stay as it was. If anyone among them had any sense, they would have had the fellow quietly removed. Now, if the French king wanted to take Britain out of the picture of Europe, all he had to do was produce the fellow, send enough ships with him, and let the loyal Scots do his work. France would have a puppet king on the British throne, and that would be that.

“Blast the French,” he swore. He glanced at the brandy on the shelf.

It was French.

“Fine,” he modified, smiling. “They are quite welcome in some respects. Just not when they start wretched wars in our land.”

“Sir?”

He closed his eyes. It was Bromley. All he needed was for his manservant to have heard him talking to himself. Then he would never hear the end of it – how he was raving, and wouldn't he like something for the fever.

“What?” he said. He let his voice be as ominous as he knew it could be. He saw Bromley pause.

“Um, sir? Dispatch, sir.”

“Dispatch?” Richard stood. “Let's have it.”

Bromley handed it over. Richard broke the seal. He smiled.

It was from the commander at Fort William. He had never actually met the fellow, but he had exchanged a dozen messages and come to like him well. He smiled.

“Let me read this,” he explained to Bromley. “I'll send you back with the reply when it's done. Probably tomorrow,” he said, glancing at the clock. It was six of the clock – almost time for dinner.

“Very good, sir.”

Richard nodded to him as he left, then settled down at his desk, looking forward to the fellow's flowing style.

“To my esteemed lieutenant of the Borderers, greetings.” He read it aloud, smiling at the florid start to the letter. He read on.

It was hard not to smile. The man took delicious irony out of the task – which was, more or less – keeping heavy patrol on lands that had been peaceful for two decades. Yes, there were Jacobites everywhere – they all knew that. However, their local governing officer had shown that they could be made loyal to the Crown. Most of the officers were as bored as his friendly Lieutenant Peter. He hoped it would remain so.

Myself, I sometimes wonder.

His own reports from Bromley – who could go among the locals more readily than Richard himself, blending in a little more easily than he did – were otherwise. He had seen people giving the Jacobite toast in the public house, and heard talk of rising here and there.

There is something to worry about. Nevertheless, for the moment, I'll keep it to myself.

Richard wasn't sure how to proceed – it would, he reckoned, seem foolish to disrupt the local peace with half-rumored threats of insurrection. Best to wait until there was something more incontrovertible to say. Besides, he had his doubts about his own fitness.

I am seeing imaginary ladies. I'm not sure I'm in the best place to write factual logs.

He set aside his pen, thinking about it. He would certainly not log the lady into his book of events! He could, however, record Bromley's information about the Jacobite supporters in his own private notes. He would report a state of peace to his friend Lieutenant Peter – at the moment, that was all he had to report.

As he reached for his pen to start the reply, he noticed part of Peter's letter he hadn't read earlier.

“Oh?” he frowned.

Just to inform you, we are all invited to the home of a local lord, known in some circles as a Jacobite. It's ostensibly for dinner, but I suspect to count our numbers. If you go, keep your profile low and observe caution. Yours in anticipation of good cooking, C

“I wonder.”

It was likely that matters were as Cornelius Peter thought – that the dinner was a ruse to get them all in one place at one time. If the motive was simply a head-count, like his colleague assumed, he would feel much happier. He, himself, suspected trouble of a worse kind. Thoughts of the tales he'd heard – of blood-feuds solved by slaughtering whole families at dinner – played wildly through his mind.

All the same, it would make a change from Hudson.

Sergeant Hudson, the staff cook, was appalling. If it meant a change of scenery in the cooking vista, Richard was all too pleased to try.

“I'm going,” he said, standing up.

He sought Bromley, and found him at the stables.

“Yes, sir?” Bromley said, appearing at the door.

“I hear of a party. At a local hall? Know you of it?”

“Oh. Yes, sir – heard a little about some gathering when I was at the Public house. Duncliffe's hosting it. Fellows say the officers are going – some of them. You, too?”

Richard nodded slowly. “I think so, Bromley,” he said.

He would have to risk it. It wasn't just the cooking, either... Another thought had occurred to him. Duncliffe. Was it a manor? Was it, perhaps, the manor he'd been nearby, recently?

In which case, now was the ideal time to find out if the girl really lived there.

You're a fool, Richard. However, he would have to risk it and discover more. He couldn't forget her, no matter how he tried.