Flames of Desire Read online

  It was beginning to sound quite serious to Selena. Treasonable activity, even treasonable intent, were punishable by death. Everybody knew that.

  “But what has this all to do with you, Father? And with Brian?”

  She looked from one to the other. Brian’s eyes widened. Lord Seamus smiled in rueful amusement.

  “Because I’m the leader of the Rob Roys,” he said quietly. “Brian is a captain.”

  The implications flocked to her mind like threatening blackbirds, and took up watchful perches along the outposts of her brain. McGrover. The mysterious visitors at Coldstream. The arrogant officer at the roadblock. Treason. The biggest and the blackest bird of all.

  “But how…? What could you…plan to do? I don’t understand!”

  Time and space parted, turned back upon themselves, and she was on Coldstream tower again, early this morning, while upon her heart descended that mysterious and disquieting premonition. It had been powerful then; now it seemed inordinately menacing.

  They were entering Lauder now: the huts, the livery, the mead shop and inn. A fresh team of horses in full harness waited outside the livery; villagers and a few people from the inn came out into the street to see Lord MacPherson pass.

  “I can’t speak now,” he said. “I’ll explain as soon as we leave town. There might be a chance to save us—ourselves and the Rob Roys, I mean. But it will require a great effort from all of us.”

  “I’m ready,” Selena said immediately. “I’ll do anything that you say. Anything,” she repeated.

  Brian smiled.

  “I wonder,” her father said.

  She had no time to be angry about their obvious doubt. As soon as the carriage halted, the proprietor of the inn rushed up, bowing and begging Lord Seamus to do him the honor of a “short visit.”

  “Anythin’ ye wish, m’ lord. Anythin’ a’ tall. Whiskey. Tea ’n’ rum. Hot mead, hot wine. Sausage and bread.”

  Selena watched him. She did not like him. A coarse and brutal man, with little pig’s eyes, hard and glittering. And something false and insinuating in his bow, his voice, as if he were acting a part that would not be required of him for long.

  Lord Seamus declined, and went to see to the hitching of the new team.

  “I’ll take you up on that whiskey, man,” said Brian. “’Tis damn cold in that coach. Come on, Selena.”

  Was it her imagination, or did the innkeeper’s eyes follow her with a strange, anticipatory fascination? They entered the place, a low, dingy tavern, much like any other provincial public house, and the man, with excessive ceremony, seated them at a rickety table across from the fireplace.

  “Woman!” he yowled. “Make haste, will ye?” And from behind the curtained doorway his wife appeared, in a rough one-piece garment of brown wool, across which she had tied an incongruously cheerful yellow apron. Her body was heavy now, but might once have been very alluring, and it was still sensual in a rude peasant way. But her face was another matter. One eye was blackened, and a bruise on her left cheekbone was as deep and livid as a birthmark. She held one of her arms oddly, as if it might have been twisted, or broken and badly healed, and as she came toward the table, her shawl shifted a little, and Selena noticed the welts of whiplash along her shoulder and upper arm.

  “You poor thing!” Selena cried. “What’s happened to you?”

  The woman glanced around quickly at the innkeeper, who glowered impersonally.

  “Nothin’, nothin’, m’ lass, an’ nivir y’ mind.” Her voice was blank and in her eyes was a sullen knowledge that Selena could not decipher.

  “But you’ve been beaten—” Selena started to say.

  “Hush,” Brian interrupted. “Barmaid, a whiskey for me, and a mug of hot tea. You have sugar? All right, sugar, too. Selena?”

  Selena wanted hot wine and bread.

  The woman fairly raced to get it for them.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” Brian admonished.

  “Done what?”

  “Asked after her like that.”

  “Why not? Can’t you see she’s been woefully thrashed?”

  “It’s not our affair. These peasants don’t share our standards anyway. We’re too different. They live like animals. If her husband gave her a good beating, she probably had it coming.”

  “Brian!” she cried, shocked. “People hurt in the same way, whatever their class.”

  “Look, we’ve got other things to worry about besides the well-being of serving wenches,” he replied, with some heat. “You’re just a young girl. What do you know?”

  “More than you think,” she retorted, flushing with anger. Just because he was her older brother…

  He grinned teasingly.

  “I trust you’re expecting to fashion some tryst with Royce Campbell during the holiday, are you not?”

  She looked at him quickly, looked away, then met his eyes again.

  “I may see Sir Royce, if it’s convenient, yes.”

  “I may see Sir Royce, if it’s convenient,” he mocked, still grinning. “He took liberties with you on that balcony last year, isn’t that so?”

  “He took no liberties,” she said evenly. Which was true. He’d taken nothing that was not freely proffered, and only a little of that which was.

  Brian allowed himself an exaggerated, disbelieving sigh. “Ah, little girl, a man like Campbell would take any woman that walks, with no scruple nor thought of tomorrow.”

  That’s not true, she thought, remembering the time in the alcove, when he’d put her off so gently. He’s not what they say. Instantly, she felt mortified. If Sir Royce took every woman who came along, then what was the matter with her? No, he really cares for me, and that’s why he was tender. Even on the balcony, he had mentioned her reputation. It was because I was too young last year. That’s what it was.

  “An’ what d’ ye think’ll be Sean Bloodwell’s state of heart, when ’e finds ’e’s gettin’ damaged goods, eh?” Brian leaned forward, prodding her.

  “Don’t you bother me with Sean Bloodwell, you blackguard.”

  Brian was grinning. “An’ I suppose I’ll ’ave t’ duel Campbell f’ violatin’ yer ’onor, too.”

  “Ye’d best not think on that,” she replied. “Sir Royce would slap your bottom like a baby’s and send you back home weein’.”

  That wounded him. “You…you liar. No man’s alive I canna’ be takin’. No man a’tall. I’ll—”

  “Aye. And one day, my little lord hothead, you and your trusty dagger shall not suffice, and it’ll be myself puttin’ the lilies in your ’ands.”

  Brian threw back his head and gave a good counterfeit of a hearty laugh.

  “You silly little dreamer. You’d best enjoy this ball, an’ flirt your silly little head off, because the time’s comin’ fer you to be a MacPherson.”

  “I am a MacPherson. What do you mean?”

  “You do your part as a MacPherson by doing your part,” he said enigmatically. But his sardonic smile said more clearly than words: I know something you don’t know.

  Then the servingwoman brought over their drinks and bread. Tea and spiced wine steamed in pewter mugs. Brian tossed back his whiskey. The woman was looking at Selena, but not with the gratitude she might have shown at Selena’s compassion for her beating; instead Selena read pity and warning in the woman’s eyes. Outside, their father called to them, and Brian gulped his tea, rose, and went out. Selena wrapped up her piece of hot buttered bread, finished the wine, and stood up. The barmaid came forward hastily to help her with the chair.

  “That’s kind of you.”

  The woman’s face was wary, fearful, yet determined. Another quick glance showed her that the innkeeper, her husband was still outside.

  “Ye be of heed,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “I say ye watch out fer yourself, milady.”

  “Wh…?”

  For a moment. Selena thought the woman was daft.

  “Nay. Keep yer tongue
an’ ’ear me. Ye be watchin’ out fer a man called McGrover. ’E ’as ’im the evil eye, an’ ’tis restin’ on ye.”

  Then she rushed away and disappeared behind the curtain, carrying the empty mugs. Selena stood there for a moment, stunned. The circumstances were ludicrous. The woman must be mad! Yet she had mentioned McGrover, and so had Father and Brian in the carriage, and now…

  “Let’s go, Selena,” her father said, putting his head inside the heavy oak-and-nail door. “We’ve got the Lammermuir Hills ahead of us.”

  Selena went out to the carriage and climbed in, puzzled and a little frightened. She herself did not feel threatened yet. That came when her father took out his pipe, lit it, settled back, and began to explain to her the gravity of the present situation.

  And what that situation required of her.

  It was then that she recalled the meaning of his profoundly concerned expression: there was a call for family duty, MacPherson responsibility, and she would be required to do her part. There must be no reservations, no excuses, and no questions.

  She saw all her life, her dreams, fall away into nothingness as he spoke.

  “Now, Selena,” Lord Seamus said gently, “you’re young and there are things you don’t know.”

  “I’m eighteen,” she said, “and a MacPherson.”

  “Aye.” He smiled gently, his eyes distant, remembering her as a little girl. “Aye, that ye be. And it’s your future of which I’m thinking, so you can get much older and give pride to the MacPherson name. Which you will.

  “Now,” he went on, spreading his hands in a manner she’d seen him use, setting out a situation or a problem with his political friends. “Now, I know you’ve been seeing Sean Bloodwell for almost two years. He is a good man, don’t you agree?”

  Selena knew what was coming, but she nodded. Yes, Sean was a good man, one of the best, but…

  “You could use a man like that, if you’ll forgive my saying so. He’d keep a rein on you—”

  “Oh!” Selena flared. “You’re—”

  “Wait! Hear me out. I’m your father, and I’m not blind. Now, I know, too, that you, like almost every wild young girl in Scotland, has turned an eye when Royce Campbell’s walked by. But, Selena, forget him. He’ll only waste the time you spend thinking of him, and anything else you invest would be an even greater loss. The man has no beliefs, no values—”

  “He has so!” she retorted.

  Her father’s eyebrows went up. “Oh? You know him that well, do you? Name one, then. Something he believes in.”

  Lord Seamus waited and Brian smirked. Selena tried to think. “Scotland,” she said finally. “He believes in Scotland.”

  Her father’s laugh was rueful. “You’ve got a lot to learn, I’m afraid,” he said sadly, “and I hope you’ll never have to learn all of it.”

  What was he talking about? Of course, Royce Campbell was an adventurer. And maybe, as some said, a pirate, too. But he plundered against the enemies of the Empire, and that was splendid, that was even patriotic. Certainly, he had a reckless, rebellious nature, but she was certain there was something else, certain there was more to him. And now Father was suggesting a sinister possibility. No, it couldn’t be, and she would ask him this very week…

  “It may take some getting used to,” her father was saying briskly, the way he did when he believed a problem had been solved, a knot unraveled, “but, Selena, I know you’ll do your duty, and you’ll come to know, when you’re a little older, that it was the right thing.”

  Duty. She had done it before. Both of them had, she and Brian. Ten years ago, when Brian had been fourteen, Father was away on business in London. It was winter then, a deep, bitter winter, with snow drifting to the eaves of the peasants’ huts, and blizzard after blizzard screaming out of the Highlands, down on Berwick Province. Food, was always scarce during this time of year, and to make matters worse, the previous summer’s harvest had been one of the poorest in sixty years. Granaries were bare, root cellars, too, and the dried fruit was gone. The peasants were beginning to starve. Then, one cold, clear day, stirred by need and a confusion as to how to proceed, and under the influence of a sullen, clever, snaggle-toothed stablehand named Bob McEdgar, who had often been flogged for insolence and incompetence, the peasants marched en masse to Coldstream Castle, bent upon seizing the contents of its granaries, which they claimed belonged to them, since they were required by law to turn over half of their crop for the privilege of using the land. McEdgar had convinced them such a split was unjust, and, goaded by hunger, they agreed to the possible truth of his assertion.

  The day was bleak and windy, in spite of the sun. Selena and Brian watched from a second-story window as the ragged crowd fought its way across the drifted snow, brandishing pitchforks, cudgels, clubs, and axes. The overseer, who stopped them at the main entrance, was not able to dissuade them. McEdgar shoved him aside, spouting gibberish about hunger making need and need making right. Nor was Lord Seamus’s secretary able to appease the crowd, and when McEdgar and the mob learned that his lordship was absent, their mood turned even uglier. They wanted justice. They wanted to see someone who would give it to them. And only a MacPherson would do. If Lord Seamus was away, well, that was too bad. They would appropriate the granaries and raze Coldstream to the ground, and all the tyranny it represented.

  “This will not be,” Brian had said. Selena remembered it distinctly. Brian’s voice had been changing then, one note high, one low. But he had gone out into the courtyard, looked up fearlessly into McEdgar’s angry, bloodshot eyes, seen the gaunt face, the bitter, twisted mouth, the head bound in rags against the wind, the knife in his hand.

  “So. The MacPherson puppy,” the man laughed, reaching out a scornful hand to pat Brian’s head. Selena watched. Brian did not move. She saw his fists clenched tightly at his sides, his legs trembling, although possibly from the cold, his slim boy’s body a rod of pure intensity.

  “God damn yer greedy soul,” the mob’s leader shouted into Brian’s face, his gap-toothed mouth black and hollow and full of hate. He turned to his followers waiting behind him.

  “Let’s take what’s ours, mates,” he yelled, “on to the gran…”

  He meant to say granaries, but he never did. With a speed born of necessity and decision, Brian leaped forward, seized the man’s knife-wielding hand, and with the forward momentum of his own body drove the weapon between McEdgar’s ribs, deeply into the chest of the peasant rebel.

  Selena still saw him in her mind, the image as vivid as any in her life. Yanking the knife from the crumpled body, his boots in the bloody pool that flowed upon the snow, Brian raised it above his head. Blood dripped from the sullied blade; some of it dripped down upon his fiery head.

  “Here be the food of rebel bastards!” he shouted at the mob, his voice strong now, no longer wavering. “Here be your milk and your soup!”

  The tattered, freezing crowd, fueled until now by red passion, by a raw but ill-considered courage, quieted, full of hatred still, but leaderless.

  Then Brian acted. “To each man among ye who drops his weapon in the snow, half a bushel of rye and safe passage home, an’ we’ll say no more o’ this.”

  There were a few seconds’ delayed reaction, as the knowledge penetrated the roiling mind of the mob, then, with a single shout, they obeyed, and the uprising was over. Selena still thrilled to the memory, but there was another aspect of it, too, that lingered: Brian had tasted blood, tasted it too young, too dramatically. She thought it had made him reckless, but that conclusion she kept to herself.

  Her own challenge had been much different, but no less harrowing. She’d been only nine, on vacation that summer at the MacPherson lodge on Mount Foinaven, deep in the Highlands of north Scotland. Grandma was alive then, a burly, cantankerous, indomitable woman, and when it came time to return to Coldstream, Grandma had refused to go. “I shall remain until October,” she declared, “and Selena will remain with me.” Grandma was Grandma, and she did what
ever she desired, right up until the time of her death, which occurred three days after the rest of the family had gone south. Three servants had remained with them at the lodge, all of them local Highlanders hired for the summer: a dotty cook, a shy, lisping maid, and a drooling, half-witted coachman who had no more to recommend him than his talent with horses; he was nearly as big and as strong as they were.

  Selena, who slept in the room next to her grandmother’s, was awakened that morning by the maid’s febrile shrieking. Half-conscious, she raced toward the sound. The maid crouched, gibbering now, in a corner of Lady MacPherson’s room. And Selena’s grandmother, her eyes open, lay dead upon the canopied bed.

  Neither maid nor cook lasted more than an hour. Simple and superstitious, and not bound to the MacPhersons as Coldstream peasants were, they fled the lodge, returning to the shelter of their kinfolk in the lost Highlands hamlets. Only the coachman stayed with her, and it occurred to Selena later that he might have done so only because he did not grasp the fact that Lady MacPherson was actually dead. Selena had sent a message south immediately, but it was over a day later before the reply arrived.