An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (43 page)

Her voice was almost affable and Iona was instantly on her guard.

“Very few, ma’am. I lived in straitened circumstances.”

“But even so,” the Duchess went on, “you must have heard talk of the great personages. The French people are fluent talkers, aren’t they? They must have gossiped about the King and Queen, the Court, and those who visited France.”

“Yes, I suppose one heard gossip of that sort, ma’am.”

“Did you hear them speak of the Young Pretender, Charles Stuart?” the Duchess asked casually.

“I have heard talk of him, of course,” Iona replied slowly. “Did you ever meet him when he was in Scotland, ma’am?”

The Duchess glanced sharply at Iona, but her eyes were wide with innocence.

“I did not,” the Duchess said quickly, then added, this time in the disarming tone she had used before, “But perhaps you have seen him in Paris? Is he there now, do you know?”

“I heard tell,” Iona answered, “that the Prince was not allowed into France by order of King Louis.”

“Yes, yes,” the Duchess said, “but there are rumours that he returns when it pleases him.”

“Are there?” Iona questioned. “But surely, ma’am that would be rash of His Royal Highness?”

The Duchess shrugged her shoulders.

“You have heard naught of this?”

“Nobody has ever spoken to me of Prince Charles’s return to Paris,” Iona said in all truth.

“It would be amusing to know if he dared defy the French King, wouldn’t it?” the Duchess asked. “You have friends, perhaps, who could find out if such an escapade were likely?”

“I am afraid not, ma’am.”

Iona spoke decisively. The Duchess shrugged her shoulders again and leaned back in her chair.

“How industrious you must have been in your milliner’s shop,” she said sourly. “It is a wonder you ever consented to leave it.”

“I thought it my duty to come to Scotland,” Iona answered, “and I wanted above all things to see the country which I have always known was my own.”

The Duchess gave a derisive sound.

“You will be disappointed,” she said. “It is a bleak land, comfortless and unfriendly. When I first came here, I thought to find it charming, but I was mistaken. You will find out your mistake and you too will wish to go scuttling back to the gaiety and warmth of Paris.”

“I think that is unlikely, ma’am,” Iona said quietly. She glanced out of the window and added, “It is sad that Your Grace does not like Scotland.”

“Like it?” the Duchess’s voice was strangely shrill. “I
hate
it!”

The words seemed to fall like a naked sword between the two women. For a moment there was silence and then the Duchess said,

“Yes, I hate it! I hate the cold and the loneliness, the dreary monotonous life I live here, and I hate the people, too, with their sanctimonious expressions and their underlying treachery.”

The Duchess spoke vehemently with a kind of smouldering passion, and when she had finished speaking, her mouth twitched and her whole body seemed to quiver, Iona felt there was nothing she could say. She realised the woman was a mass of nerves, that her body was tense, and that her eyes were dark with the tempest of her emotions.

After a moment the Duchess finished her wine, put down the glass on the table and took up the golden bell standing there.

She shook it violently.

The door was opened almost instantly and a footman appeared.

“I told them to bring me tidings the moment Lord Niall’s carriage appeared on the hill,” the Duchess said.

“The order has been given, Your Grace,” the footman replied, “but there is as yet no sign of his Lordship.”

“He should be here by now,” the Duchess said.

“It is but half after noon, Your Grace,” the footman replied.

“Go and see if there is any news in the stables,” the Duchess commanded. “A postilion may have been sent ahead with instructions.”

“I will inquire, Your Grace.”

The man left the room and the Duchess got to her feet and walked restlessly towards the window.

“Niall promised to return yesterday,” she muttered, more to herself than to anybody in particular. “He is late, he should be back by now. Something must have happened to him.”

There was a sudden pain in her querulous voice, and Iona wondered why the Duchess should care so deeply about the movements of her stepson.

The door opened and the Duchess turned eagerly, but the expression on her face altered as she saw it was the Duke who entered. Iona rose to her feet at his entrance, but he looked only at his stepmother.

“You have remembered that Lady Wrexham is arriving today?” he said. “I have sent a coach to Fort Augustus as arranged.”

“Her room is prepared,” the Duchess said indifferently. “I cannot think why a woman with the whole of London to amuse her wishes to visit an outlandish spot like this.”

“Doubtless she has her reasons,” the Duke said evasively.

“I should be surprised if she hadn’t,” the Duchess said, and there was an unpleasant undertone in her words.

The Duke looked at her.

“I have heard a great deal about Lady Wrexham,” he said. “Have you ever seen her?”

“Not since she was a baby in arms,” the Duchess replied. “Her parents lived close to my home, as she reminded me in her letter inviting herself to stay. But I cannot believe it is my
beaux yeux
which have drawn Beatrice Wrexham from St. James’s to Skaig.”

“And I am not conceited enough to imagine it is mine,” the Duke said impassively.

The Duchess laughed unpleasantly.

“Perhaps the Marquis of Severn is curious about you, my dear Ewan. I am told that his favourite method of inquisition is to send Beatrice Wrexham ahead of his executioner.”

“That is indeed interesting,” the Duke said, “for you have put most ably into words something I have suspected, but hesitated to formulate even to myself.”

Iona watching closely thought that the Duchess’s expression changed and she looked disconcerted. Then she shrugged her thin shoulders and turned towards the fire.

“I am but funning, Ewan. Beatrice Wrexham has no ulterior motive in coming here other than to admire the Highland scenery and to enjoy the hospitality of Skaig.”

The Duchess’s change of tone was entirely unconvincing and left both her listeners with the impression that she was anxious to cover up a previous indiscretion.

The Duke glanced at the clock on the mantelshelf.

“At any rate her Ladyship will not be arriving until the afternoon,” he said. “The road from Inverness is in bad repair and I should not imagine she will leave particularly early.”

“I had forgotten she came from Inverness,” the Duchess exclaimed, and there was suddenly a strange and wary look in her eyes as if she found the knowledge strangely perturbing.

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.