The Highlander's Redemption

Piercing blue eyes, disconcertingly penetrating, searched her face. Madeleine returned to playing with her cutlery. She was strangely reluctant to tell him the truth. She put the fork back on the table and forced herself to meet Calumn’s gaze. ‘We have known each other since childhood. Guillaume is my best friend.’ That, at least, was true.

Calumn raised his eyebrows sceptically. ‘And how came you to be here in Edinburgh alone?’

‘Everyone else thinks Guillaume is dead. No one will listen to me, I had no option but to come.’ The truth was, she had run away, but if she told this man the truth she doubted he would help her. More likely he would insist on packing her back to her father, and she could not risk that, not when she had already risked so much just to get here.

‘Won’t you be missed?’

She shrugged, deliberately offhand. ‘They will guess where I am.’

‘I see,’ Calumn said drily, thinking he did, now. She was obviously in love with the missing Comte, in all likelihood had been his mistress, and had equally obviously been abandoned. If he was not dead, this Guillaume de Guise, he had most likely taken up with another woman. Calumn had seen it himself many a time with his own men, stationed far from home for months on end, falling for a pretty local girl and abandoning all thought of the one waiting for them back home. Whether her swain was dead or unfaithful, Madeleine Lafayette was doomed to disappointment.

Callous bastard, not even to have the guts to tell her! If Guillaume de Guise had been one of his men! Calumn sighed and shook his head. ‘You’re probably on a wild goose chase, you know,’ he said gently.

A film of tears glazed her eyes, but Madeleine shrugged fatalistically. The defensive little gesture touched his heart more than her tears. He did understand, of course he did. He’d been the same, all those months when Rory was lost to them. Calumn felt in the pocket of his waistcoat for his handkerchief and handed it to her. Wild goose chase or no, she’d been very brave to come here like this all on her own, so determined and so steadfast in her belief. He, of all people, could not but admire her for that. She deserved to find out the truth, even though she was heading for heartache. Why not help her?

He took her hand in his again, enjoying the feel of it again. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he told her. ‘I’m not promising, but I think I can get you into the castle, if you’re set on it. And I have a friend here in Edinburgh who can check the records, make sure de Guise’s name isn’t on any of our lists for deportation or—or anything else.’

‘I knew you understood,’ Madeleine said softly.

The intensity of her gaze made him uncomfortable. Calumn threw some coins on to the table. ‘Come on, let’s see what we can do about finding this precious Guillaume of yours.’

Chapter Two

Calumn set off at a brisk pace with Madeleine hurrying along breathlessly at his side, buoyed up by the prospect of making progress at last. The Grassmarket was the disembarkation point for most coaches coming in and out of Edinburgh. At the far end stood the gallows, and towering high above it, perched on its plug of volcanic rock, stood the castle.

‘Everything here is so tall.’ She gazed up in wonder at the lofty buildings climbing four, five, some six storeys high. To one whose experience of a metropolis was limited to the small Breton market town of Quimper, the Scottish capital, with its crowded thoroughfares and bustling populace, was like an alien world. The houses were packed so tightly against one another it seemed to her that they, like the people on the street, were jostling for space and light. Inns and coaching houses took up most of the ground-level accommodation, separated from each other by the narrowest of alleyways. The skyline was a jumbled mass of steeply gabled roofs and smoking chimneys, with washing lines strung out on pulleys from the tenement windows, fluttering like the sails of invisible ships. ‘So many people living on top of each other, I don’t know how they can bear it. It’s like a labyrinth,’ Madeleine said.

‘Aye, and a badly built one at that, down in this part of town,’ Calumn replied. ‘Some of these wooden staircases are treacherous. The problem is there’s too many people and nowhere to build except up, because of the city walls.’ He pulled her adroitly out of the path of a dray loaded with barrels of ale.

‘Where are we going?’

‘To see a friend of mine.’ He led the way through a wynd, which rose sharply between the two streets it connected, then turned left into a small courtyard where more rows of laundry took up most of the cramped space, flapping on lines stretched between poles across its width. ‘Mind these stairs. See what I mean about treacherous?’

The staircase wound up the outside of the building, almost like a wooden scaffold attached rather precariously to the stone tenement. Madeleine lifted her petticoat and climbed nervously, relieved when they stopped at the first floor.

‘Jeannie,’ Calumn called, rapping briskly on the door.

A young woman answered, her pretty face lighting up with pleasure when she saw the identity of her visitor. ‘Calumn, what a surprise.’

Her vibrant red hair was caught up in a careless knot on top of her head. Her figure was lush, with rather too much of her white bosom on display through her carelessly fastened shift, Madeleine decided prudishly.

‘I brought Mademoiselle Lafayette to meet you. Madeleine, this is Jeannie.’

‘Good day to you, mademoiselle,’ Jeannie said, bobbing a curtsy. ‘Come away in, the pair of you, before we have the rest of the close wanting to know our business.’

Despite the fact that she was obviously not a respectable female, Madeleine warmed to her. Jeannie ushered them into a room which seemed to serve for living, sleeping and eating all at once. A huge black pot simmered over the fire, suspended on a hook which hung from a complicated pulley-and-chain device inside the chimney breast. A large table and an assortment of chairs took up most of the space, all covered with piles of neatly folded clothing. In the far corner a recess in the wall, like a cupboard without a door, was made up as a bed. Jeannie bustled about clearing some chairs and bade them sit down. ‘I’m sorry about the clutter,’ she said to Madeleine.

‘Jeannie takes in laundry,’ Calumn said, leaning comfortably back on a rickety wooden chair, clearly quite at home in the crowded room. ‘She washes my shirts and I give her young brother fencing lessons in return. She also does the washing for some of the prisoners up at the castle.’

‘Those that can afford it, any roads. I’m up there most days. It’s a sorry sight, I can tell you. Some of those poor souls have been locked up there for years.’

Realisation finally began to dawn on Madeleine. ‘You mean you can talk to the prisoners,’ she exclaimed.

‘Aye, of course.’

‘Mademoiselle Lafayette is looking for someone who may be held there,’ Calumn said, responding to Jeannie’s enquiring look. ‘A Frenchman called Guillaume de Guise.’

‘What does he look like?’

If only she possessed a miniature! Madeleine screwed up her eyes in an effort to picture Guillaume’s face, but after so long without seeing him it was as if his image had blurred. She could remember things about him—his smile, the way he strode across the fields, the sound of his voice calling to his dogs—but she couldn’t see his face clearly. Instead, she described his portrait, taken for his twenty-first birthday and a good likeness. ‘Tall, though not as tall as Monsieur Munro. Slimmer too, with dark hair, though he usually has it cut short, for he wears a wig. Blue eyes, though not like Monsieur’s either, paler. And he is younger, he will be twenty-three now.’ She looked at Calumn, lounging with careless grace on the chair next to her. He had such presence, an aura of power, of—of maleness—that she could not imagine ever forgetting what he looked like. In contrast, the memory of Guillaume appeared boyish, disappointingly ephemeral.

Jeannie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t recall having seen anyone like that.’

‘Wait a bit though, did you not say that Lady Drummond’s being held in the Black Hole?’ Calumn asked.

‘Aye, she’s there with her two daughters, and a damn shame it is too, to see such a proud woman brought so low. I have some of their shifts to take back today. Beautiful stitching on them.’

‘Lord Drummond was the commander of the Écossais Royeaux, the regiment for which de Guise fought,’ Calumn explained. ‘He was executed some months ago now, but they don’t have the right to send his wife the same way. She’ll be worth talking to.’

‘You can’t expect me to take her there, Calumn, it’s a terrible place.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ Madeleine declared determinedly, ‘and I would be very, very grateful if you would help me. Will you, please?’

Jeannie pursed her lips disapprovingly. ‘We’ll have to do something about those clothes of yours, they’re far too fine for a laundry maid. I’ll give you an apron to put over them, and you can wear a cap, but you’ll need to keep your hands out of sight. Anybody with a wheen of sense can see those have never done a day’s washing.’

‘Thank you!’ Madeleine leapt to her feet and impulsively pressed a kiss on Jeannie’s cheek. ‘You have no idea how much this means to me.’

‘Don’t be daft, I just hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for. Away with you just now. Meet me at the bottom of Castlehill at two.’

‘She’s nice, I like her,’ Madeleine said to Calumn as she once again found herself executing a little running step to keep up with his pace. ‘She’s your chère-amie, isn’t she?’

Calumn laughed. ‘Lord, no, Jeannie’s a grand lass, but she’s a friend, that’s all.’

‘And what does it mean, to be a grand lass?’ Madeleine asked, articulating the strange phrase carefully. ‘Am I one?’

They had reached the close which was the entranceway to Calumn’s rooms. Smiling at her lisping attempt at the Scots tongue, he pushed the gate open and ushered her through into the courtyard. As she moved past him, the swell of her hip brushed his leg, and he remembered last night again. Her body had been so soft and pliant, on top of his own. He thought of the way her hand felt so at home in his after breakfast this morning too, and before he could stop himself he wondered if her lips would fit his in the same way.

She had stopped to wait on him as he shut the gate. As she made to walk to the stairs he caught her arm and pulled her towards him, startling himself almost as much as her. ‘You are far too pretty to be called a grand lass,’ he said. ‘You, Madeleine Lafayette, are a captivating wee witch.’

‘I am not a witch,’ Madeleine said, flustered and indignant. She could feel the heat of his body, though they were hardly touching.

‘No? Maybe a fairy then,’ Calumn said, wondering fancifully if she had indeed cast a spell on him. Mere foolishness, but he hadn’t come across her like before, and he didn’t seem to be able to make himself stop what he knew he shouldn’t be doing, for he wanted, suddenly, urgently, to kiss her. He leaned closer, and caught a trace of her scent, remembered that too, from last night, like the wisps of a dream.

‘What are you doing? Let me go.’ Madeleine’s lungs seemed to have stopped working. Her heart was pumping too hard. Calumn’s eyes sparkled blue like the summer sea. He looked as if he was going to kiss her. Surely he would not dare? Surely she would not …

Calumn kissed her. It was the softest of kisses, just a touch of his lips on hers. A warmth, a taste, a curl of pleasure inside her, and it was over. ‘Oh! You should not—’

A hooting noise interrupted her. It was Jamie, standing on the bottom step, a dog comprised mostly of terrier wriggling in his arms. ‘Me ma says to remind you that this is a respectable close.’

‘As if she would ever let me forget,’ Calumn muttered, straightening up. ‘Here, go and put your washerwoman’s apron on. I’ve a bit of business to attend to. I’ll be back in time to escort you up to the castle.’

He handed Madeleine the key to his lodgings. Madeleine took it, trying not to imagine what kind of woman Jamie’s mother must be imagining her, to be caught kissing in public, even though he had kissed her without the slightest bit of encouragement! They would think her the same type of woman that Calumn obviously imagined her to be! For the first time since she had arrived, she was glad to have the North Sea between herself and her home. If her father had—but he had not seen, and would never know, and she would make sure it didn’t happen again, so it was pointless to worry. ‘There’s no need to come back for me,’ she said to Calumn, thinking that perhaps the less she was in his company the better, ‘I know the way now.’

His lips thinned. ‘You’ll do as I say,’ he said implacably.

It would be a waste of breath to argue; besides, she had much more important things to do right now. Madeleine nodded her agreement and made her retreat.

An hour later, her transformation to laundry maid was complete. She had tucked her petticoat and shift up at the waist, exposing her ankles in the way she noticed all the women did here, for the very practical reason of keeping their clothes from trailing in the stinking gutters. The closed robe she wore, the only one she had with her, was of cerulean blue with a darker stripe, and though the material, a blend of wool and silk, was of excellent quality, the long starched cotton apron Jeannie had given her covered much of it. She’d taken off her saque-backed jacket, and made sure that the frills of her shift showed at the neckline of her dress and at the hems of her tight sleeves, which she had pushed up to the elbows.

‘Well, do I look the part?’ Giving a little twirl before curtsying low in front of Calumn, she unwittingly granted him a delicious view of her cleavage.

He had thought her slender, but her curves were now clearly revealed. She had a delightful body. The slim arms emerging from the fall of lace at her elbow were white, the fragile bones at her wrists and ankles, and the elegance of her long, tapering fingers, her neck, all were somehow emphasised by the changes she had made to her clothing. The soft mounds of her breasts had the lustre of pearls against the white of her shift. Her mouth, with its full lower lip, was pink and luscious.

‘You look more like a princess playing at dressing up. Here, let me.’ He carefully tucked her hair back under the cap, giving her a marginally less just-got-out-of-bed look. Up close she smelled as sweet as she looked. Lavender and sunshine. ‘I’m not so sure it’s such a good idea after all, letting you go to the castle like this. Can you not pull the neckline of that dress a bit higher? You’ll have half the garrison lusting after you.’

‘I’ll be with Jeannie.’

‘Exactly. I should never have introduced you to her. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

Madeleine giggled. ‘You weren’t thinking very much at all. You had the headache from all that wine—no, I forgot, whisky—last night. You shouldn’t drink so much.’

‘If you had to live in my head, you’d know I can’t drink enough,’ Calumn flashed angrily.

Taken aback at the acrimony in his voice, she flinched. ‘And does it work?’

‘What do you mean?’

Resolutely, she held his gaze. ‘Mostly, people drink to forget something.’ ‘I am not most people.’

No, he most certainly was not. But he was trying to forget, none the less. Madeleine decided it was probably best not to say so, however.

They arrived at the bottom of Castlehill to find Jeannie waiting with two large baskets of laundry. She surveyed Madeleine and shook her head doubtfully. ‘They’ll have you for breakfast if we’re not careful.’

‘That’s what I’ve been telling her,’ Calumn agreed, picking up both the baskets, carefully stacking one on top of the other.

‘Don’t speak to anyone unless I tell you to,’ Jeannie said, setting off up the hill towards the castle at a pace which rivalled Calumn’s. ‘And don’t catch anybody’s eye, especially not Willie MacLeish, the head gaoler, he’s a lecherous old devil.’

Madeleine struggled to keep up in more ways than one, for Jeannie spoke as quickly as she walked, in a broad lowland dialect that she found difficult to follow. She was reduced to nodding and smiling as Jeannie continued to rap out instructions and advice, concentrating all her efforts on keeping abreast of her two companions. By the time they reached the entrance way to the castle she was out of breath and panicky.

‘I’ll wait for you here,’ Calumn told her. ‘Just do what Jeannie says, she’ll keep you right. Bonne chance. ‘

Madeleine smiled bravely, wishing desperately that he was coming with her. He had an air of authority which she was horribly conscious she lacked. Without him she felt strangely bereft and extremely nervous.

‘Stick close and you’ll be all right,’ Jeannie said reassuringly and set off apace. The guards at the portcullis nodded them through, casting a curious glance at Madeleine, but making no attempt to stop her. They hurried on up the spiralling incline to another gate and finally entered the heart of the castle. A company of soldiers were being drilled in the courtyard. The distinctive clang of metal on metal came from the armoury in the far corner. A group of Redcoats lazed idly in the afternoon sunshine. To Madeleine’s relief there was no sign of her attackers from last night. Already it seemed like a lifetime ago.

The familiar scent of horse was strong. She wondered if Perdita, her own faithful white mare, was missing her daily outing. She wondered what Calumn was doing. He was a strange mixture, that one, as fiery as the whisky he consumed to escape his devils. As golden in appearance, too, and, she suspected, every bit as addictive. A pleasure to be paid for with a sore head—or a sore heart, maybe.

‘Auld Willie MacLeish.’ Jeannie’s warning voice intruded on her thoughts. A middle-aged man with wispy tufts of hair looking comically as if they had been glued on to his pate and a complexion like porridge awaited them at the entrance to the castle vaults. ‘Keep behind me,’ Jeannie hissed. She dumped her laundry basket in front of the man, neatly preventing him from coming any closer, and did the same with the basket Madeleine was carrying. ‘Here you are, Willie, I hope your hands are clean.’

Willie’s toothless grin was like a dank cave. He proceeded to rake through the neatly folded linen, causing Jeannie’s displeasure when he shook out a shirt and threw it back in carelessly. ‘Aye, that all seems to be right,’ he said eventually. ‘I see you’ve help with you the day, Jeannie—who’s this wee thing?’

‘She’s just a friend lending a hand.’

‘And what’s your name, girlie?’

Madeleine shrank back as the full impact of Willie’s body odour hit her.

‘Do you think we’ve got all day?’ Jeannie said sharply, poking the man in the ribs. ‘I’ve plenty other customers to see to after this, you know.’

Willie cackled. ‘I bet you have, Jeannie Marshall,’ he said with a leer, but to Madeleine’s relief he led the way towards a heavily studded door and began to apply his keys.

Though she had been warned, Madeleine was appalled by the conditions, unprepared for the human suffering which confronted her. Her admiration for Jeannie grew as she watched her call out cheery greetings before producing an astonishing assortment of goods from the capacious pockets of her petticoats, including tobacco and some flasks of whisky. Many of the prisoners were Jacobites, but some were common felons awaiting the gallows. With Jeannie’s help Madeleine spoke to any who would listen to her, but none had anything to say about either the Royal Scots or Guillaume, the Comte de Guise.

Deeper down the cells were much smaller, the prisoners manacled and the requirement for laundry sparse. It was with relief that Madeleine followed Jeannie back to the main door. ‘Have you known Calumn long?’ she asked as they waited for the gaoler to return and let them out.

Jeannie drew her a knowing look. ‘I met him when he came back to Edinburgh after he left the army. He’d been a Redcoat, even been stationed here at the castle once, so he told me. My brother Iain has ambitions to join the army too, so I asked Calumn if he could give the boy a bit of a head start. That’s when he offered the sabre lessons. Calumn’s good company, we have a bit of a laugh and a joke together, but that’s all there is between us.’

‘He was a soldier?’

‘A captain, no less. He doesn’t talk about it, mind, I’m not sure why. It’s a touchy subject with him.’

‘Did he fight in the Rebellion?’

‘I don’t ken. I told you, he doesn’t talk about it, and if I were you I wouldn’t go prying. Calumn Munro’s not someone who would take kindly to your poking your nose into his business.’

‘What about his family?’

Jeannie shrugged. ‘They’ve lands somewhere in the Highlands. He doesn’t talk about them either. Calumn has been a good friend to me and my brother, but you’d be wise not to get any ideas about him. He’s what we call a charmer.’ She picked up her basket at the sound of the key grating in the lock. ‘That’ll be Willie. He’ll take us to Lady Drummond.’

The Black Hole was above the portcullis, so that the prisoners held there were under almost constant surveillance by the sergeants of the guard. The conditions in the other vaults were unhealthy, but the Black Hole was positively inhumane. Lady Drummond, a tall, thin woman with a Roman nose and piercing grey eyes, shared the small space with her two daughters. She greeted Jeannie in a friendly manner, but, seeing Madeleine, immediately looked suspicious. ‘And who are you?’ she asked in a cultured voice with the lilt of the Gael.

Madeleine dropped a curtsy. ‘Madeleine Lafayette, madame. I’ve come in search of news of someone who fought under your husband.’

‘A Frenchman? They’ve all been deported, so I’m told.’

‘Yes, but Guillaume has not come home.’

‘Guillaume?’

‘Guillaume de Guise, the man I am searching for. Do you know of him?’

‘The Comte? I remember him, certainly,’ Lady Drummond conceded. ‘May I ask what he is to you?’

Quickly, Madeleine told her. ‘Please, if you know what became of him, I beg of you to tell me.’

Lady Drummond’s face softened marginally. ‘You must understand, mademoiselle, that the little I do hear I cannot be certain of. Rumours reach me, it is true, and I have my own means of communicating with the outside world, but—knowledge can be a very dangerous thing, in times like these. If I am discovered …’

The door at the foot of the stairs was opened and Willie MacLeish’s voice bid them hurry before they got him into trouble. Despairingly, Madeleine picked up her basket. ‘You’ve lost everything because your husband chose the Prince. I’m trying to prevent the same thing happening to Guillaume.’

Lady Drummond pursed her lips. ‘There is something. It surprised me, for it did not sound like the de Guise I knew, but—there is no saying what war will do to a man, and there cannot be two men with such a distinctive name. I can’t promise anything, mademoiselle, but if you’ll give me a little time I think I can find out his whereabouts. I’ll send a message through Jeannie, one way or another. Tomorrow, the next day at the latest.’

‘Thank you, madame, thank you so much,’ Madeleine said fervently, kissing Lady Drummond’s hand and dropping a deep curtsy before she hurried down the steep stairs. The temptation to look up as she passed under the portcullis was strong, but she resisted.

Calumn was waiting near the top of Castlehill. Madeleine and Jeannie made a pretty picture as they approached, striking enough for most men on the busy thoroughfare to take a second glance. Jeannie sashayed confidently through the crowds, casting flirtatious sidelong glances to the left and right, the deep red of her hair glinting in the sunshine like a summons. Beside her, Madeleine’s fey looks and flaxen hair were ethereal, her step as graceful as a dancer’s. ‘I take it your visit was a success then,’ he said when they came into earshot.