The Autumn Duchess- The Seasons' Fairy Tales Page 3

  “You’re tired,” he said, scraping back his chair to create a space in front of the fire, before removing the blanket he had been using as a shawl. He laid it down on the wooden floor of the bothy and smiled apologetically. “The best I can do, I’m afraid, unless you want this one too, he said playfully placing a hand on the top of the blanket wrapped around his waist.”

  I blushed, not used to such grown up teasing. “I’m good thank you,” I said as primly as I could muster.

  He sat back down, still grinning and as I laid down on the blanket and tried to get some sleep, I did my best to ignore the fact he was half-naked and gorgeous. The floor, never a comfortable option, was made a hundred times worse because of the bruises all over my body, and now the whisky was starting to wear off, the pain in my shoulder flared. The sooner I got to sleep, the better.

  I woke in the morning to the smell of morning damp and stale wood smoke and an otherwise empty bothy.

  CHAPTER FIVE.

  “Great!” I muttered, gathering the blanket around me to stave off the morning chill, no longer caring how gross it was—me and that blanket were on best-friend terms by now. I had at least managed to get some sleep and much of the hot pain that had riddled my body yesterday were now a dull ache; still very present but better.

  I stood and made my way to the door, hoping Glen was out gathering water or had just gone for a piss but the moorland was empty except for some great bird of prey circling overhead. As far as omens about my survival went, this wasn’t great.

  “Glen!” I called out, my voice carrying down the valley louder than I anticipated, as the mountain sides funnelled the sound. “Glen!”

  I felt so stupid, standing and yelling out the name of a boy I hardly knew. The bird circled lower. There was no other response.

  “Looks like I’m on my own,” I muttered heavily.

  I thought about making a warming cup of tea, but that would have involved getting the wood burner lit and then worrying about leaving it still alight when I left. In the end, I decided that the best thing to do was just get moving. Before leaving, my eyes were drawn to the table where a piece of card had been left. As I approached it, I saw the burnt charcoal tipped stick that had been used to draw out a crude map. It wasn’t great and not knowing the landscape, it wasn’t a great deal of help, but at least it was something. I had a vague direction. And I could identify the series of small lochs that lead to a large sea loch, and what looked like a large standing stone. What gave me most hope though was a large X, under which was scrawled VLGE, which I hoped stood for village.

  I snatched the map off the table and made my way out into the morning mists, heading towards the lochs and the stone. If it had been drawn to any kind of rough scale, then it was only going to be a couple of hours walking, perhaps a little longer if I had to scale any kind of mountain path.

  Within the hour, the sun had burned off the early low clouds and the sky had opened up to reveal a perfect blue. It was one of those beautiful autumn days that at any other time, might have been enjoyable, but not today. I was in the wrong world at the wrong time.

  Eventually I made it to the edge of the big loch and the village. It began with a couple of small farm dwellings with chickens clacking excitedly around my ankles as they mistook me for someone who might feed them. It was quiet and I’d never felt more conspicuous in my life. I pulled the tartan blanket closer around me and silently raged that Glen should have left me to deal with coming here alone. The small stone church was on my right, surrounded by a small tidy graveyard enclosed in a low stone wall, just high enough to stop the free range sheep from entering. Someone was pottering at the back of the grounds, raking leaves into a pile. It was the first sign of human life I had seen.

  “Rah!” a noise came from behind me and I spooked at the combination of noise and the fleeting touch of hands on my waist. I turned ready to fight if I had to. It was Glen, grinning like a fool, his auburn hair tied back from his face with a piece of leather and transformed from the slightly wild and naked guy I’d met last night. Today he was dressed in a white shirt, tweed jacket and kilt that did everything to emphasise his physique.

  “Glen! For God’s sake!”

  He raised his finger to his lips. “You can’t say that. It’s blasphemy. It’s taken seriously here.”

  “You were lucky I didn’t say anything worse.”

  “Well, yes, you’re going to have watch that potty mouth of yours, lass.”

  I offered him a frown and narrowed my eyes at him. Where did he get off on being all jokey and jolly when the bastard had left me? Some hero! “You just disappeared,” I scolded.

  “Yes, sorry about that.”

  I looked at him, waiting for him to give some kind of justification or excuse but he didn’t. Instead, he took my arm and led me away from the small dirt road and steered me towards a small copse of trees.

  “We’re you going to just waltz into the village looking like that?” he asked, scanning me up and down with disapproval.

  “I didn’t think to bring a suitcase,” I snarked. From the look on his face I might as well have been speaking a different language and the I realised I probably was. “A change of clothes,” I expanded, at which he nodded and smiled.

  “Maybe take those funny blue things off,” he said.

  “My cut offs?”

  He nodded. “The rest, you might be able to get away with—but put your hair down.”

  Reluctantly, I slipped out of my denim cut offs and saw him smirking as I shimmied them down to the floor. He liked me. I blushed with the thought of it. Staring him straight in the eyes, I pulled my hair free from my pony tail and smiled. “Better?”

  He cocked his head and reached out to tousle my hair. “Now you look the part.”

  “Which part?”

  “The part of the damsel in distress that I have gallantly rescued and brought here to the village for shelter.”

  I laughed. “Don’t you mean the damsel in distress you abandoned and left to make her own way here.”

  “I’ve apologised for that. You’ve got to learn to let things go.”

  I huffed and bit down on the side of my cheek. He really did think that just because he was handsome as hell that he could get away with anything.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “Good!”

  All at once the ground pitched from underneath me and I found myself thrown over his shoulder.

  “Woah, what are you doing? Put me down!”

  “I told you, I’m rescuing you.”

  “Put me down,” I said, beating at his shoulders with my fists. “You don’t just pick girls up and sling them over your shoulder like a bloody cave man.”

  “Ach, sure you do, lass!”

  We had made it a good way into the village before my complaints and continual fighting finally forced him to put me down.

  “You’re not like the other girls, are you?” he said laughing.

  I didn’t reply as I smoothed down my hair and clothing.

  “Well, here we are,” he said, nodding to a large stone cottage, topped with a heavy heather roof and which had been built adjoined to a much older stone castle tower. “Home.”

  At that, a woman came to the doorway, wearing a stiff white apron and cotton cap. “Glen McGarrick, where have you…?” her admonishment was stopped short by the sight of me. I wrapped the blanket tighter around me as she stepped out of the cottage and circled me.

  “And who might this be?” she asked with a tone that could split granite.

  “This is… Skye,” he said, dipping his head slightly. It was the first time I had seen him show any sign of contrition.

  She continued to stare at me and I felt myself shrinking under her inspection.

  “Please don’t tell me she’s some hoor you’ve got into trouble!”

  “Nanny Fi, please!” he said, solving the mystery of who the woman was to him. “This is Skye…” he paused turning to me when
he realised he didn’t know my last name.

  I frowned to find myself kind of doing some kind of half-assed curtsey nod thing, which I didn’t really know why I was doing other than this woman was a freaking dragon and it seemed only sensible to flatter her ego. “My name is Skye Lennox, Miss.”

  “She’s English!” She spat the words in Glen’s direction as if this was worse news than the possibility he had got a whore pregnant.

  “Yes, but she’s not one of them,” he said defensively.

  “Ach aye, she told you that has she? Then it must be true,” she said, cuffing him around the ear. “You wait until your mother hears of this… bringing some English harpy to our door.”

  The commotion had brought forth another figure from the house. Younger, taller, straighter, putting me in mind of the Scotch Firs on the mountain sides, an effect emphasised by the beautiful dark green silk gown she wore.

  “What’s all the commotion Fi?” the woman asked, looking from the older lady to Glen and then to me.

  “The young master has only gone and brought an English… girl to the village.”

  The woman looked at me hard and ushered us all into the cottage, looking either way down the quiet street as she did.

  It took all of my self-control not to gape at everything inside the house, which was deceptively larger on the inside than the outside. I watched with fascination as the woman in green swayed through the room and eventually took a seat in one of carver style chairs.

  “So, son, please explain.”

  Glen shuffled his feet before leaning on the fireplace, trying to hold his own in the power struggle. “I found her out wandering the moors. She was lost and hurt—and then storm came in.”

  The way his mother turned her face to me reminded me of something feline. The green of her eyes matching the silks of her dress. “And what was the lass doing out on the moor all by herself?”

  Shit! I really hadn’t given much thought to any kind of story, which now seemed more than a little stupid. I smiled, stalling for time and I could sense Glen stiffen.

  “I… my father… he’s French,” I said, scrabbling to remember as much of the history I could remember from our trip to the Culloden museum. “We’re old aristocracy,” I lied, thinking there were still enough scattered aristocrats in France to get away with it.

  “And your mother’s English?”

  “Scottish”

  “Your name—it doesn’t sound very French?” she said eying me suspiciously.

  “We take my mother’s name when we are here. It’s…”

  “Yes,” the woman sighed with the first trace of sympathy she shown since they’d met. “It’s political times.”

  “I was schooled in England for most of my childhood,” I offered, hoping that explained my London accent.

  “And how did you come to be wandering out on the moor by yourself?”

  “We were travelling on the Applecross pass and…” I made sure to fix my eyes on her. I really needed her to believe my story and I’d always been a terrible liar, “Our carriage… the cloud came down. The horses spooked. I don’t remember much after that. I woke to find myself in the heather, badly hurt.” I let the blanket slide from my shoulder to show her my wound and to add credence to my story. “Glen found me at the bothy where I’d taken shelter, and he stitched up my shoulder.”

  Glen’s mother turned to him looking for confirmation.

  “A real knight in shining armour,” she said with sarcasm.

  He nodded and grinned proudly. This seemed to satisfy her for the time being. “Fi,” she said, turning to the eves-dropping housekeeper, “could you please get us some tea and maybe some food. I’m sure the young lady is quite famished after such an adventure.” Her eyes returned to mine. “I’ll be sure to have some of our men head out to the pass to see if there’s anything that can be done about your parents,” she said with sympathy but I could tell from the edge in her voice that she wasn’t the kind of woman who would fall for a tall story easily and I’d need to be extra careful.

  “Come and warm yourself by the fire, Skye—such an unusual name,” she said beckoning me closer.

  “The island was a special place for my parents.” The more truth I wove into my lie, the more plausible I hoped it would become.

  The next hour was the most awkward of my life although I couldn’t deny that the shortbread was the best I’d ever tasted. Glen’s mother took the opportunity of the seemingly innocent act of hospitality to quiz me further in a hundred tiny ways, trying to trip me up.

  In the end, either she tired of it all or something more pressing demanded her attention and she stood, issuing instructions to Fi to show me to a room and to help me dress.

  “You should rest for a couple of days and when you’re feeling a little better we can get a letter to your household or family law man,” she said, casting a glance at Glen before sweeping out of the room.

  As soon as she was gone, Glen let out a heavy sigh. “Well, that went as well as it could.”

  “She doesn’t believe my story,” I whispered.

  “Sure she does. You’re just on edge.”

  “You need to help me find a way home, Glen—and soon. I need to get home. This place, it’s…”

  “You’ll get used to it, lass. Just keep your head down and your mouth shut,” he stood, stretching his limbs into the air. “I’ve got to go, so try not to get yourself into any trouble whilst I’m gone.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Clan meeting with our beloved English Duke.” He spat the words out in such a way that made his feelings about the Duke perfectly clear. Glen hated him.

  The look on my face must have revealed my ignorance.

  “Yes, the Duke of Gifford, who has been placed as George’s watch -keeper in that big castle up on the hillside. The King wants to make sure we’re not joining the Jacobite cause.”

  I look out of the small windows and out towards the red castle on the opposite hill.

  “But you are, aren’t you? I mean… you’re a Jacobite.”

  He flashed me his signature grin and tapped the side of his nose. “Depends on who you’re talking to. You’ve got to be smart as well as strong in these times.”

  “But surely the Duke knows the truth? Unless he’s stupid?”

  “He’s a drunk and even more so now. His latest wife died in childbirth.”

  “How terrible,” I automatically reply.

  Glen’s mouth twists before he nods as if to say it would have been a little less terrible if the man hadn’t been an enemy.

  “So you’re going to meet with him today?”

  “Yes, once a month he calls all the clan representatives up to the castle, feeds us and hopes that if we get drunk enough, one of us will let slip our true allegiance. We never do. Us Scots know how to hold our liquor and our counsel. It’s a good way of keeping our ear to the ground and in some ways we’re lucky we got the Duke of Gifford rather than the Duke of Cumberland—now there’s a mean and canny bastard, excusing my French.”

  I’d heard of the Duke of Cumberland and knew he was one of the main reasons for the horrors that happened on the battlefield of Culloden. Glen was right to fear him, but the Duke of Gifford clearly hadn’t earned his place in history. I could recall nothing of him.

  “Besides,” Glen said, “The Duke of Gifford is too interested in filling his belly and his bed rather than his head. I can’t imagine he’ll get very far in life. I’m not even sure how’s he managed to find such favour with King George already—unless sending him here to the savage highlands is a convenient way of getting the fat oaf out of London.”

  I laughed. It seemed so strange to be living history.

  Glen tapped the back of the chair and told me again to obey every instruction Fi gave me before he headed into the depths of the house to prepare for his meeting.

  As I sat there, waiting for Fi to return, I wished I could have gone with him. Not only because the thought of being left i
n this strange house with these cold unwelcoming women filled me with dread but because I really wanted to witness the gathering of the clansmen. I let out a puff of air and told myself there were far more important things for me to be wishing for—like finding a way home.

  CHAPTER SIX.

  Two weeks passed and still that hadn’t happened.

  Not surprisingly, the men who had been sent out to the Applecross Pass, a lethal, winding track that led up a two-and-a-half-thousand-foot mountain range, had come across no sign of my parents or the carriage wreckage. Fortunately, the distance the path covered was long enough that not finding them for many months was a possibility, especially if their carriage had careened off the path above the loch. For the meantime, my story was believed and my strange behaviour put down to grief and shock—and being half French.

  I was told I could stay as a guest at the McGarrick house and had been given a small guestroom in the old tower; as far away from Glen’s rooms as possible.

  However, it was soon clear to me that Glen used his charm like a currency to ease his way through life. It meant that whenever he set foot in the village, he was followed by a small gaggle of young women from the village, who whispered about me behind my back. It was clear my close proximity to Glen was causing much jealousy even though they had nothing to fear, I mean it wasn’t as if I was going to stay around and make him fall hopelessly in love with me.

  Things were at their most dramatic at church on Sunday morning, which I was expected to attend as part of my ‘integration’ into eighteenth century life. I’d never been to church in my life. My mother had a very cynical belief system that stemmed from having been brought up by strict Catholic parents.

  As I’d sat in church, it soon became clear that this expected Sunday attendance was far less about communing with the great almighty and more about the opportunity to see and be seen. Talk of my arrival featured heavily in the weekly gossip exchange. There were many who were not happy about my presence in the village. Times were hostile, and it was hard enough even trusting your neighbour who you’d grown up with never mind a complete stranger who had emerged from nowhere and had such close links with the English.