Page 19 of The Scot Who Loved Me
Aunt Flora with her merry blue eyes was his lifeline. She was cheery in black wool. Like her sister, she wore the same severe gowns they’d favored when he was a boy. Aunt Maude was surly as usual, her mouth pursing disapproval. He was certain she came out of the womb with a sour expression, but that sameness comforted him, the good parts of his past visiting the present.
He touched Aunt Flora’s shoulder and dropped a gentle kiss on her round cheek. “It’s good to see you, ma’am.”
Her work-scarred hand touched his. “Wee Will, what a sight ye are. An’ so braw an’ handsome.”
His heart pinched. More gray hair than ginger was pinned around her mob cap. She was Clanranald’s favorite spinster aunt, the one who tended unruly, motherless lads at large gatherings, lads such as he. Quick to wipe skinned knees and soothe troubled brows, Aunt Flora had an answer for all the world’s ills. When words wouldn’t do, a warm hug did. If she used the endearment given when he was a sprite of a boy, so be it. She’d earned the right.
“I canna believe you’re in London.” He tossed back his coattails and took a seat in a great chair between the table and the settee.
“Been here a few years now, but I want tae go back tae MacDonald lands.” She was quiet, reverent. “I miss the green. It’s no’ the same green in England, is it?”
“No, ma’am. Nothing like it.”
Longing blossomed in his chest. He missed her Ayrshire accent. Aunt Flora and Aunt Maude had spent their youth in Ayrshire with their merchant father, and the accent stuck. Hearing it was like going home. It was good to be among his people, to get a whiff of Aunt Flora’s verbena perfume and smell bread baking in the kitchen.
He was as ravenous for kinship as he was food.
Aunt Flora leaned closer to him. “The gold we’re stealin’... some of it will buy sheep for our herds. They were wiped out you know.”
“Yes, ma’am. I heard.” Hands in his lap, he could be a youth again, listening, nodding, paying respect.
“Some of the gold we’ll steal will buy passage for our kin who want tae go tae the colonies.” Her eyes were dim and watery. “After the war, many were desperate tae leave but they couldna pay the passage. Indenture was the only answer. Boys sent tae one colony, mothers and fathers tae another.” She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “It breaks my heart.”
“A fair number of our indentured kin are in the colony called New York,” Aunt Maude said in a sad hush. “Do you know of it?”
“Only what I’ve read in newspapers, ma’am.”
Guilt stabbed him. Words of theft coming from the tenderhearted old spinster, it wasn’t right. Nor was it right, his clansmen selling themselves. He knew only of his father and others living free and well in the colony of Virginia.
“After the war, English sailors came ashore and put Moidart to flames. I canna go back. I have no home and my father is dead.” Cecelia rubbed her thumb across the rim of her cup, her polished English curiously gone, replaced by clipped western Scots. “I want to spite the Government. That is why I am here.”
“The English hunted forty Clanranald men on the Isle of Eigg,” Anne said across the room. “Our men, lured by false promises, trusted the English and surrendered in good faith only to be put in irons and sent to one of the king’s plantations.”
Aunt Flora dabbed wet eyes again. “They’re gone, Will. Lost tae us forever.”
He reached out to comfort her weathered hand, but Aunt Flora gave him a reassuring squeeze. This was a lot to take in: gold for sheep and gold for his kin’s safe passage out of Scotland. The state of MacDonald lands was worse than he thought.
His first months on the prison hulk, he’d been desperate for news of home. Near the end, he’d been desperate to forget. Hadn’t they forgotten him? Vague reports of trouble had been whispers in the wind. Skirmishes of a few hardheaded highlanders. He’d become lost to his people, an abandoned foot soldier. Severing the past was akin to cutting off a rotting limb. He’d done it to survive. Now his people were calling him back. His kin. Their cry was soft, the weight of it heavy. He shifted in the fine upholstered chair, this new burden a very real yoke on his shoulders.
Aunt Maude poured a cup of tea and nudged it toward him. “I hear yer going tae the colonies once yer done helping us.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll make a home there.” He cupped the steaming dish with both hands and sipped.
“I canna blame ye. Arisaig is no’ what it once was. Farms burned. Houses empty. An’ the isles...” Aunt Maude wiped glistening eyes. “It’s no wonder ye canna go back,” she said in a watery voice. “Only the strongest heart could.”
“There, there.” Aunt Flora patted her sister’s hand. “Wee Will’s heart is strong and good. He’ll find a wife in the colonies, an’ get a passel of bairns in the bargain.” Aunt Flora beamed at him. “Ye can start by practicin’ with Anne.”
He nearly spewed his tea, while his cousin giggled behind her hand.
“I—” he set down the cup, coughing hard “—I’m no’ sure what you mean.”
“She means you will play my betrothed,” Anne said blandly. “It’s part of the plan.”
He faced her, his throat and lungs giving him fits. Surely, he was red faced. He could feel the hard coughs watering his eyes.
“No need to look so pained,” she drawled.
Lacking a handkerchief, he swiped a sleeve across stinging eyes. “What you see is shock, madame.”
