Apart from the cook, MacGillivray was alone in the kitchen, sitting by the table, not eating now, but gazing at her, that long, red hair knotted in the nape of his neck, shoulders tense. It was the first time she cared he was a man. She went to the falls later, knowing he would follow. Up at the pool, cool water swirling round her thighs, all she could think of was the heat rising in her, the way he had looked at her earlier, the same look she’d see in his eyes when she turned round.
He’d be waiting inside the house now, waiting for her. At sunset, her brother’s piper would pick up the new lament from Shaw’s, and they would be in mourning. Before then, she had some persuading to do. That would be why she remembered the wolf.
The day after the Farquharsons departed for the funeral was a fine one, bright and dry with a mild west wind that promised warmth. As good as her word, Anne remained behind with Elizabeth until dawn spurred her into action. Cajoling her perplexed sister, she led the way over the mountain pass to Rothiemurchus. When night fell, they took shelter with a cottar’s family. The law of hospitality meant doors were open to any traveller. It was a life-preserving law in wild terrain, where weather could turn rapidly from benign to deadly.
Next day, with the Cairngorms behind them, they walked on across heather moor dotted with the ever-present turf cotts towards the Caledonian forest that edged Loch Moy. Even at seventeen, Elizabeth had still not given up on childish whining.
‘
Tha mi sgìth
. If we’d gone with the others, we could have shared the horses.’
‘Except we’re not going,’ Anne said.
Trailing a bit, Elizabeth made a face at her older sister’s back.
‘Is that why we’re walking miles in that direction, so as not to get there?’
Anne sighed and stopped. She was fond of Elizabeth but often wished her half-sister had more of their shared father in her and less of her mother.
‘The man’s a rogue, Elizabeth. I wouldn’t honour him by being at his adoption as M
c
Intosh. But he might not lead Clan Chattan. James and Francis will vote against him, I asked them to, and MacGillivray. The Macphersons will vote for themselves, they always do. So maybe he’ll not be elected. I want to see that happen. I want to see that man’s face when it happens. Come on.’ She took her sister’s hand. ‘It’s not much further.’
∗
At Moy Hall, thousands of Clan Chattan had gathered. Each clan had its own chief, usually chosen from the senior family, though no adoption was automatic. The person most fitted to the post, man or woman, was selected, and removed if they proved unfit. Distinguishable in the crowd by the twin feathers in their bonnets, the chiefs congregated around the doorway of the two-storey building, along with their husbands, wives, sons and daughters. By chieftain standards, Moy Hall was imposing – many of them still lived in turf cotts like their kinsfolk – but it was mortgaged to the hilt. New taxes levied since the Union had impoverished the clan. Aeneas would need his wits about him to keep the land for his tribe.
Lady Farquharson stood with Anne’s brother, James. Until her stepson married, she had equal rights over clan decisions. One or two of the widowers and bachelors among the assembled chiefs had mulled over the possibility of an alliance with her. She might still bear more children and was a good-looking woman, if a bit sharp. Yet, despite her obvious relish for male company, she turned down all offers of remarriage. It was said she favoured Aeneas but wouldn’t marry below the rank of chief. Today might see that settled too.
Throughout the crowd, deliberately positioned to encourage a positive vote in their favour, were dozens from Clan M
c
Intosh. The door of Moy Hall opened and Lady Anne Duff, the Lady M
c
Intosh, emerged. For the moment, she was the most powerful member of the federation, wife of their late chief, buried only the day before. In her hand she held his chief ’s bonnet with its two eagle feathers. Behind her, Aeneas was bareheaded, clearly uncomfortable with ceremony. MacGillivray took his place beside him, holding the third eagle feather that would mark one of the waiting chieftains as head of the federation. The widow spread her arms.
‘Fàilte oirbh,’
she welcomed them all. ‘It is my duty,’ her voice rose to reach the whole crowd, ‘to pass on the chief’s feathers.’
A roar for Aeneas went up from the M
c
Intoshes, startling some ducks from the loch behind so that they rose in a flapping flutter that seemed like applause.
‘But there is a third feather my husband wore,’ Lady M
c
Intosh continued. ‘Only the tribes of Clan Chattan can decide who will wear it now.’
Far behind the crowd, over the edge of the lake, Elizabeth hissed at Anne.
‘This is stupid!’
They were up in a tree, next to each other, standing on one branch, holding on to a higher one, and spattered with water from the rising ducks.
‘If you’d move out a bit, we’d see better,’ Anne whispered, edging her sister along the branch and further out over the loch, as she craned to see what was happening over on the steps of Moy.
At the front of the crowd, Lady Farquharson caught Aeneas’s eye. He nodded to acknowledge her and she dropped her gaze, a pleased smile flitting over her mouth. First husbands were about common sense. Second husbands could be for the pleasure of it. She’d always appreciated the way Aeneas looked, his skill and astuteness. Now he also had status, and she had worked on James to improve even that. The only person who might gainsay her, Anne, wasn’t there.
Beside Aeneas, Lady M
c
Intosh looked out across the throng.
‘Which chief will lead Clan Chattan?’ she asked.
In the tree, the branch dipped alarmingly as Anne stretched to see and hear.
‘I’m going to fall!’ Elizabeth squeaked.
‘Isd!’
Anne snapped. ‘Be quiet!’ She saw the Macphersons raise their fists into the air. Under the ancient law of tanistry, every voice was equal but, in federation business, each clan was equal, with only one vote, regardless of size. Any members might dissent. A count then determined their tribe’s vote for chieftainship of Clan Chattan.
‘Macpherson!’ they called in unison.
Ecstatic, Anne struck the branch in front with her own clenched fist.
‘Yes!’ she breathed. Now she had a clear view of Aeneas. It was the first time she’d seen him in daylight. His hair was raven-black,
brows dark over darker eyes. It was silky, that hair, she remembered, at thirteen, astride those shoulders. In height he matched MacGillivray’s six feet but, while Alexander stood relaxed, Aeneas was taut, poised. Like a storm about to break, he seemed to be brooding, discomfited by the call. There was jostling, and angry mutters from his clan. Good, she thought.
The MacBeans raised their fists and called their choice.
‘M
c
Intosh!’
Anne watched Aeneas. There was a dangerous energy about him but, strangely, a mature authority, uneasy at the waiting, but easy in his own skin.
‘M
c
Intosh!’ The M
c
Thomases called.
Was it his age? He didn’t seem such an old man now as she’d thought at thirteen. What would he be, thirty-six, seven? The same as her stepmother.
‘M
c
Intosh!’ The MacQueens, apart from Lady MacQueen who called for Macpherson and in doing so cancelled out her husband’s vote. But no one expected different from her. Cluny’s brother had been keeping her content for several years, whisky and age having cooled her own husband’s ardour long ago.
Elizabeth frowned at Anne. Her sister seemed to have forgotten why they were there, perched in a tree over the loch. The shouts went on, turn by turn.
‘M
c
Intosh!’ From the Shaws.
Anne was engrossed in appraising the man she’d resented for so long. He was eminently watchable, a deepening image like a still loch with a racing sky reflected in it. An unexpected thrill rippled across her abdomen. If he’d been any other man, it would have pleased and excited her. But with this man, it was surely alarm.
‘M
c
Intosh!’ The Davidsons.
‘Anne!’ Elizabeth nudged her. It was their family next.
‘Oh, no,’ Anne gasped. James would speak as she’d suggested. Where was Francis? ‘Do you see Francis?’ What had she heard, four or five votes for M
c
Intosh? Her family would look foolish. She remembered that infuriating amusement Aeneas could demonstrate. He might know it was her influence, if he recollected her
at all. Her brother and stepmother raised their fists with the rest of the Farquharsons.
‘M
c
Intosh!’ they shouted, not one voice at odds.
MacGillivray took a step forward, facing his people, fist raised. He, at least, would not let her down.
‘M
c
Intosh!’ he thundered as his clan echoed him. It was done. A great shout of affirmation went up. MacGillivray slid the third feather into the M
c
Intosh bonnet clasp beside the other two. Aeneas dropped to one knee so that his aunt could place the bonnet on his head.
‘Aeneas! Aeneas! Aeneas!’ chanted his ecstatic clan.
‘Did you see that?’ Shocked, Anne turned to Elizabeth, the spell broken. ‘They voted for him!’ The tree shook. ‘James voted for him, and MacGillivray!’ The branch under their feet dipped alarmingly.
‘Anne, keep still!’ Elizabeth shrieked. It was too late. Her grip was lost. Even as Anne tried to grab hold of her, she crashed out of the tree, yelling as she fell with a splash into the shallows of Loch Moy. Anne looked down, horrified, at her sister thrashing in the water. Then she remembered the gathering and looked over to the house, more horrified. Aeneas was on his feet. He and MacGillivray seemed to be staring right at her. Surely the leaves screened her? Both of them started to run towards the water. The last thing Anne wanted was to be caught, here, hiding in a tree like some misbegotten child. She stepped back along the quivering branch and slid behind the main trunk, pulling her dress tight round her so as not to be seen.
MacGillivray and Aeneas arrived, together, at the lochside. In the shallows, Elizabeth, dress ballooning, struggled to get upright. Aeneas had seen her once when she was barely ten years old and didn’t recognize her, but MacGillivray knew who it was immediately.
‘Elizabeth?’ He was mystified, knowing she’d stayed behind at Invercauld with Anne, but he waded in to help her out.
Behind Aeneas, others hurried down to join them, curious about the interruption and concerned that it might be some breach by a
rival clan. In minutes, Anne would be discovered, hiding like a thief from justice. There was only one thing she could do in the circumstances, brazen it out. Carefully, balancing herself so she would not collapse backwards into the water, she dropped out of the tree, landing lightly on her feet no more than a yard from a startled Aeneas. Three dirks around him were half-drawn in response. He simply stared at her, then waved away the protection.
‘It seems we have a pair of nestlings,’ he said, and there it was, that infuriating half-smile.
Behind her, Anne could hear Elizabeth’s undignified spluttering and MacGillivray’s shocked ‘Both of you?’ She kept her eyes coolly on Aeneas and strove to appear off-hand.
‘We were just passing,’ she said.
They were deep in M
c
Intosh territory. Aeneas waved a disbelieving hand that took in loch, forest and the distant Cairngorms. A shout of laughter escaped him. Anne shot him a look that would have shrivelled most recipients and, in that second, saw the first flash of recognition in his eyes. A long moment passed before he got her name to his dumbstruck tongue.
‘Well, Miss Farquharson.
Fàilte
,’ he said, as he doffed his new chief’s bonnet and nodded. Mocking her, she knew. Let him utter one word about how she’d grown and those dirks would be needed to protect him. He didn’t. Lady Farquharson, pushing through the crowding guests, got there first. She was mightily embarrassed and even more annoyed.
‘Elizabeth? Well!’ she screeched. ‘Anne? I don’t believe the pair of you!’
‘It was Anne’s idea,’ Elizabeth protested.
Any thought Anne had that Elizabeth would not betray her evaporated like spit off a hot stone.
‘How could you ruin such a special moment?’ Lady Farquharson snapped at her before turning to Aeneas, touching his arm in apology. ‘
Tha mi uamhasach duilich
. I’m so sorry, Aeneas.’ Then she called furiously for James. MacGillivray moved to Anne’s side.
‘You didn’t want to come,’ he said. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Being stabbed in the heart,’ she said, glaring at Elizabeth.
With the excitement over, the crowd dispersed towards the food and drink. Anne’s brother appeared from among them.
‘James,’ Lady Farquharson commanded. ‘Get the horses and wagon ready. We’re leaving.’
James took in the surprising sight of his sister and stepsister but decided questions could wait.
‘Francis took our wagon on to Inverness,’ he said, glancing at Anne, ‘for linen.’
‘Then ready our horses. The others can walk or wait for him.’
James hurried off towards the stable.
‘Will you not stay?’ Aeneas finally found his tongue. ‘Your daughter will need dry clothes.’
‘That’s very accommodating of you, considering.’ Lady Farquharson was not about to let her embarrassment lengthen. ‘But she can dry out as she walks home.’
‘
Och
, Mother!’ Elizabeth wailed.
‘Then at least let me lend you more horses,’ Aeneas offered.
Reminded that he could now afford horses to lend, Lady Farquharson set her humiliation aside.
‘Why, Aeneas,’ she flirted. ‘You’re so kind. It really isn’t easy schooling young people in responsibility without a husband’s strength and wisdom.’
Anne glowered. Sometimes she wished she could vomit on demand. MacGillivray, knowing she would not want to be beholden to Aeneas, spoke into her ear.
‘You can borrow my horse.’
Anne looked up at him, appreciating the offer, but her desire to preserve her dignity was stronger than any need for comfort.