ALL WEEK THERE HAD been visitors.
They came on horseback, singly, from the shadowed lands that lay toward the north and the northwest. Sophia knew from their appearance and their bearing they were men of some importance, and although they were presented to her when they first arrived, as though they’d come for no more reason that to bid her welcome to the region, she knew well that this was simply a convenience, for each visitor was then conveyed to Colonel Hooke, in private, and remained with him some time.
The first to come had been announced as Lord John Drummond, which had stopped Sophia’s heart an awful moment, till she’d calmed herself with the assurance that her Uncle John could not have left his grave and come to Slains in cruel pursuit of her. And then, the countess, too, had understood, and had been quick to say, ‘Sophia, here is John, my nephew,’ and the man who entered was a younger man, and pleasant in his manner. He was, Sophia learned, the second son to that same Duke of Perth—the brother of the countess—who was spoken of so famously as living in such closeness with the exiled king, and young Lord Drummond did not hide the fact that he, too, was a Jacobite.
Sophia had suspected, these past days, beginning with the warning of the countess that she might hear things and see things that would play upon her conscience, that the coming of the colonel and of Mr Moray might, as its design, involve some plot among those nobles who would bring King James to Scotland and restore him to his throne.
Such things were never spoken of before her, but she’d noticed that, although the countess and the two men did not drink the king’s health at the dinner table, they did pass their goblets casually above the water jug, and from her uncle’s house Sophia knew this meant they drank the health of him ‘over the water’, meaning of the king in exile just across the English Channel.
She knew this, yet she held her tongue, because she did not wish to vex the countess by revealing what she understood of everything now happening at Slains. The countess was so occupied and busy with her guests and with the messengers who came and went at all hours from the castle that Sophia felt her own place was to keep herself well out of things and keep the countess happy by pretending to be ignorant.
She knew that Colonel Hooke did think her so, though she was not convinced of Mr Moray. His grey eyes were wont to watch her with a quiet concentration that did not appear to waver from its purpose, although what that purpose might have been, Sophia could not say. She only guessed that he saw much, and was not easily deceived. But in that instance, and if he was as intelligent a man as she believed, he also would have seen her feelings were in sympathy with theirs, and that they need have no worry that she would betray them. Whatever Mr Moray’s knowledge, he did nothing, for his part, to raise the question of her being trusted in their company.
And so the first days passed, and brought the visitors, with names belonging to the greater families of the north—the Laird of Boyne, and later, Lord Saltoun, the chief of one branch of the house of Fraser. And behind them all came the Lord High Constable himself, the Earl of Erroll.
Sophia thought him more impressive than his portrait; young, but careful with his actions and his words, and with his mother’s independent mind. There was around the man a certain energy, as of a banked-up fire that might, at any moment, flare to life.
He made a vital contrast to poor Colonel Hooke, whose health, since his arrival at the castle, had continued to be troublesome.
The Earl of Erroll, noticing, remarked upon this, and the colonel answered him, ‘I fear that I am still much out of order with my voyage. Indeed, I have been indisposed since we did leave Versailles.’
Which was the first time that the French king’s court had been so openly referred to, and Colonel Hooke, as though just realizing his carelessness, glanced quickly at Sophia, as did everybody else. Except the Earl of Erroll. He simply carried on to ask, ‘And I do trust that you left both their majesties, the King of France, and our King James, in all good health and spirits?’
There was silence for an instant, then the countess warned him, ‘Charles…’
‘What, Mother?’ Shrugging off his cloak, he turned his gaze toward Sophia, as the others had, his own expression showing no concern. ‘She is a member of our family, is she not?’
The countess said, ‘Of course, but—’
‘Well, then I would warrant she has wit enough to know the way things are with us. She does not look a fool. Are you a fool?’ he asked Sophia.
She did not know how to answer with so many eyes upon her, but she raised her chin a little and quite bravely shook her head.
‘And have you formed your own opinion as to why these gentlemen have come to Slains?’
Although she faced the Earl of Erroll, it was not the earl’s regard she felt just then, but that of Mr Moray, whose unyielding gaze would brook no falsehood, so she said, ‘It is my understanding that they have come here from France to treat among the Jacobites, my Lord.’
The young earl smiled, as though her honesty had pleased him. ‘There, you see?’ he told the others. Then, returning to Sophia, asked, ‘And would you then discover us to agents of Queen Anne?’
He was but baiting her, in jest. He knew the answer, but she told him very clearly, ‘I would not.’
‘I did not think so.’ And the matter, from his tone, was settled. ‘I do therefore feel at ease to speak my mind in this young lady’s presence. As should all of you.’
If Colonel Hooke looked doubting, it was balanced, thought Sophia, by the faint smile of approval on the face of Mr Moray. Why it mattered to her so, that he approved, she did not seek to know, but turned her eyes and ears instead to Colonel Hooke, who had at last relented and was answering the earl as to the health of those whom he had last seen at the exiled Stewart court of Saint-Germain, in France.
‘I am encouraged,’ was the earl’s reply, ‘to hear that young King James is well. This country sorely needs him.’
Hooke nodded. ‘So he is aware. He is now more convinced than ever that the time has come for Scotland to arise.’
‘He was convinced of that, as I recall, two years ago, when we first started this adventure.’ With a patient look, the earl went on, ‘But it may be as well that he did hesitate, for he will find that there are many more who are now full prepared to stand for him, convinced that, at the worst, they will gain more with sword in hand than they are offered by this union with the English.’
‘Is it true that the Presbyterians in the west might seek to join our cause?’
‘I have heard whisperings to that effect. The Presbyterians were angered by the Union, and indeed, being among the best armed and the least divided forces in this country, they did intend to make their anger plain by marching upon Edinburgh, there to disperse the parliament.’
Mr Moray, who’d kept to the background until now, could not contain himself on hearing this. ‘But surely, had they done so, that would then have stopped the Union taking place?’
‘Aye, almost certainly. Especially,’ the earl said, ‘since no fewer than four nobles from the shires of Angus and of Perth proposed to do the same.’
‘Christ’s blood,’ swore Mr Moray. ‘Why then did they not?’
A quick glance passed between the young earl and his mother before he replied, ‘They were dissuaded, by a man they did esteem.’
‘What man?’
‘His Grace the Duke of Hamilton.’
There was a swift response from Colonel Hooke. ‘I’ll not believe it.’
‘Know it to be true,’ the earl assured him. ‘And know too that your friend the duke, who for these two months past has testified to such impatience that you should arrive, has changed his tone now that you are on Scottish ground. He says to all who care to listen that you come too late, and that the king no longer thinks about this nation, and we cannot hope for his return.’
‘You lie.’
The earl’s hand lightly touched his sword hilt in an answer to the insult, but the countess stepped between the two men.
Calmingly, she said, ‘I told you, Colonel, much has changed since you were last at Slains.’
‘So it appears.’ He turned away, his face more drawn and troubled than could have been solely blamed upon his illness.
The earl said, ‘I am mindful, Colonel, of your long acquaintance with the duke, but his discourse has given great offence to many, and his secret intrigues with Queen Anne’s commissioner in Scotland do increase our noble friends’ distrust. It was the Duke of Athol, whom you know to be an honest man, who did first discover that intrigue, with which he did reproach the Duke of Hamilton. He, at the first, denied it, but the Duke of Athol having proved it plainly, he was forced then to confess, though he entreated Athol to believe he sought no more than to mislead the English. This excuse, as you can well imagine, gave to no one satisfaction. The result is that most of his former friends have broken openly with him, and there are few of us who will still bear his visits.
‘His credit with the people now comes mainly from your court of Saint-Germain. King James has made it plain that none in Scotland should declare themselves until the Duke of Hamilton declares himself, and that we all should follow his direction, as he has our king’s good favor.’
‘I believe,’ said Hooke, ‘those orders were repeated in a letter which was sent to you and others, to inform you of my voyage.’
‘Aye, they were. And I stand ready to obey my king, as always. But I would have him know that what he wrote to us in confidence has already been passed, by a betrayer, to our enemies, for I have seen another letter, written by the secretary to Queen Anne’s commissioner in Scotland, that does also speak about your voyage, and your purpose here. And names the man who travels with you.’
Hooke was speechless. ‘But—’
‘I do not seek to judge the conduct of the Duke of Hamilton, nor would I have you neglect him in your negotiations. I tell you only that the man is impenetrable, and that you would do well to make use of these things I have told you, and be upon your guard, and keep concealed from him all that you may transact with other lords.’
The interval between the time he said that and the time Hooke nodded and replied was little longer than the time it took to swallow, and Sophia could not see Hooke’s face directly, yet she felt in that small moment he had weighed things in his mind, the way her Uncle John had craftily weighed any new development and turned it to his benefit. Hooke’s voice, too, when he spoke, was like her uncle’s in its tone, and for that fault it left Sophia unconvinced.
Hooke said, ‘My Lord High Constable, your counsel is most useful. I do thank you for it, and will take the measures you suggest.’
Sophia had no proof that he was lying, nor was it her place to speak in such a gathering, but had she been a man, she might have warned the Earl of Erroll that His Grace the Duke of Hamilton was not the only person who should not be fully trusted.
‘You look troubled,’ said the countess.
When Sophia glanced up to reply, her embroidery needle slipped under the knot she was working and pricked at the edge of her fingernail, painfully. Clenching her jaw, she succeeded in holding her silence until the sensation had fled, then she said, ‘I am not troubled, I assure you. It is only that this pattern is beyond me, and I cannot make my stitches come out evenly.’
The countess paused, and when she finally spoke her voice was fond. ‘My son did right to trust you. You can tell no lie, my dear, without it showing plainly on your face.’ Returning to her own needlework, she said decidedly, ‘We ask too much of you, to keep our secrets. That is Colonel Hooke’s opinion, and I do believe it true.’
Sophia took a cautious step into that opening. ‘The colonel is a good friend of your family, so I understand.’
‘A good friend of my brother James, the Duke of Perth. They have worked very much in step these past few years, toward a common end. It has been two years since my brother first sent Colonel Hooke across from France to visit us at Slains, and to begin to seek support among the nobles of this nation for our venture. Times were different, then. The Union was a subject only talked about, and none would have believed that it would happen, that the guardians of this country would sell Scotland’s independence for the lining of their pockets. There was then no sense of urgency, as there is now among us. For when Queen Anne dies—and, from her health, that end will come upon her soon—the Stewart line upon the British throne will die, as well. The English mean to give a foreign prince of Hanover the crown, unless we bring King James back safe from France, to take his rightful place. We might have tolerated Mary’s reign, and Anne’s, for they were sisters of the true king, born of Stewart blood, but the throne is rightly James’s, and not Anne’s. It must be his when Anne is gone, for all of Scotland will oppose a Hanoverian succession.’ She finished off a knot with force, and bit the thread to cut it. ‘Colonel Hooke no doubt will have more luck this time in treating with our nobles, and persuading them to come to an arrangement with our friend the King of France, who waits to lend us his assistance should we move to rise in arms.’
Sophia did not question Colonel Hooke’s intent. It was her intuition only that made her suspect his aims might not be as the others thought they were, and intuition, while it served her well, was not enough to justify the accusation of a man she did not know. Besides, ‘He will be leaving soon, he says.’
‘Aye. He starts tomorrow for Lord Stormont’s house at Scone, to see the Duke of Athol. My son was asked to go, as well, but he thinks it unwise that he should undertake that journey, as he has but just come home after a session of more than six months. If he did return towards Edinburgh so soon, and to such an assembly of known Jacobites, it would give the government room for a suspicion that some plot was carrying on. It is enough of a risk that, with the parliament now finished, and the chief men of the nation dispersed over the different counties, Colonel Hooke must hazard himself in traveling through a great part of the kingdom to meet with our nobles. He has a design, I believe, to divide the country into two circuits—to visit one himself, and to desire Mr Moray to go through the other, but my son does view that plan with apprehension, also.’
‘Why?’ Sophia asked.
The countess was threading her needle with deep, blood-red silk. ‘Mr Moray is a wanted man.’ She said it as though none could deem it shameful; as though, greatly to the contrary, it were a thing of pride. ‘The English for these three years past have put a price upon his head. They have offered, by proclamation, the sum of five hundred pounds sterling to any person who should seize him.’
Sophia’s needle slipped again and speared her finger as she let her hands drop to her lap. ‘Five hundred pounds!’ She’d never heard of such a sum. A tenth of that would be a fortune to most men.
The names of those who’d wronged the Crown were often published, so she knew, with five pounds offered for their capture, and that commoner amount did often stir an honest person to betray a friend. What friends could Mr Moray hope to have, she wondered, with five hundred pounds upon his head?
‘He is well-known,’ the countess said, ‘south of the Tay, in his own country, but the colonel feels that Mr Moray could with safety make a progress through the northern provinces, and settle an agreement with the Highlanders.’
Sophia frowned. ‘But why…?’ She caught herself mid-sentence.
‘Yes?’ the countess asked.
‘I do apologize. ’Tis none of my affair. But I was wondering…there surely would be other men who might have come with Colonel Hooke. Why would King James send Mr Moray here to Scotland, and so set him in the path of danger?’
‘Some men choose the path of danger on their own.’
Sophia knew this to be truth. She knew that her own father had been such a man. ‘But if he should be captured…’ she began, and then broke off again, because she did not want to think of what might happen to him if he should be recognized, and taken.
The countess, with no personal attachment, said, ‘If he should be captured, then our plans may be discovered.’ She had finished with the flower she was working, and she bit the blood-red thread through with precision. Her eyes upon Sophia’s face held something of a tutor’s satisfaction in a favored pupil who showed ease in following a course of study.
‘That,’ she said, ‘is why my son does feel uneasy.’
Sophia was uneasy in her own mind, still, when she awoke next morning. She’d been dreaming there were horses stamping restless on the ground outside the castle, with their warm breaths making mist each time they snorted, and men’s voices calling out to one another with impatience. She woke to semi-darkness. From her window she could see a slash of palest pink across the water-grey horizon, and she knew that it would be another hour or more before the family and their guests began to stir and start the day’s routine of morning draughts and breakfast. But her restlessness was strong, and within minutes she had up and dressed and left her chamber, seeking human company.
The kitchen was deserted. Mrs Grant had set a pot to boil, but she herself was nowhere to be found, nor were the other servants of the kitchen. Nor was Kirsty. Thinking Kirsty might have gone to visit Rory in his stables, Sophia crossed the yard to look, but all she found was Hugo lying listless in his bed of wool and straw. There were no horses left for him to guard, except the one mare that had brought Sophia up to Slains from Edinburgh, and from whose back she’d tumbled when she’d ridden with the countess. That mare now dozed upon her feet, as though depressed to find the stalls to either side of her were empty. When Sophia touched the velvet nose, the mare’s eyes scarcely flickered to acknowledge the caress.
‘They’ve gone, then,’ said Sophia. So it had not been a dream. Not altogether. In some half-awakened state, she truly had heard horses stamping, and the voices of the men, as Colonel Hooke and Mr Moray had struck out before the dawn on their respective missions—Hooke towards the south, and Mr Moray to the north.
She felt a sudden twist of loss, inside, although there was no cause for it. Unless it was because she’d had no chance to say goodbye. No chance to wish him well, and bid him keep his back well-guarded in that land of wild men, to whom five hundred pounds would seem the riches of a king.
She leaned her head against the mare’s soft muzzle, stroking still, and said, ‘God keep him safe.’
The male voice seemed to speak out of the air behind her. ‘Tell me, lass, what man does so deserve your prayers?’
She wheeled. It was no ghost. Within the stable doorway, Mr Moray leaned one shoulder on the heavy post, arms folded and at rest across the leather of his buffcoat. Hugo hadn’t stirred or barked, as he was wont to do when there were strangers in the stable, and the mare’s soft head stayed steady in Sophia’s startled hands.
‘I thought that you had gone,’ she blurted out, and then because as speeches went, she knew that sounded foolish, and because it might to certain ears reveal more than she cared to show, she gathered her composure and responded to his question with another of her own. ‘Did Colonel Hooke take both the geldings, then?’
‘He took the black. The young groom took the other, on an errand for the earl. And I, as you can see, am left behind.’ He seemed to mock himself with that last statement, but Sophia had a sense that he was none too pleased about it. His features were more grim and unforgiving than she’d seen them, but they softened as he looked at her, and though he had not moved within the doorway, he still seemed a full step closer when he tipped his head and asked her, ‘Is this some strange and curious custom of the Western Shires, to talk to God and horses when the sun is barely up?’
She turned her face away, and kept her focus on the mare. ‘I could not sleep. I heard the horses.’
‘Aye, there was a fair bit of confusion when they left. I do confess I might have raised my own voice, once or twice. ’Twas likely me that woke ye.’ He was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘That mare seems fond of ye.’
Sophia smiled. ‘We have an understanding. She has thrown me once, though I admit the fault was mostly mine.’
‘I am surprised. She does appear too gentle to so use a rider, and I cannot think ye capable of handling her too roughly.’
‘No, I only fell because I could not hold her when she ran. She has a wildness that she keeps well hid behind this gentle face.’
‘Aye, so it is with many women.’ Moray did move, then. She heard the rustle of his boots upon the dampened straw, and when she dared to take a sideways glance his leather-covered chest was at her shoulder. He reached to stroke the mare’s arched neck. ‘It is as well for her I do not leave this morning, for however wild she thinks herself, she would not have a liking for the hard road through the highlands, and she’d like it even less to carry such a load as me.’
So that, Sophia thought, was why he had not gone. There was no mount for him. ‘Then you must wait, and leave when Rory brings the other gelding back?’
‘No, lass. I do not leave.’ He dropped his hand and turned to lean with both his elbows on the cross-rail of the stall so that a fold of his black cloak swung round to rest upon Sophia’s sleeve. ‘The others felt it best that I remain at Slains.’
She was relieved to know that reason had at least prevailed. The earl must have persuaded Moray that to stay here would decrease the chance he might be captured, and although he did appear to be ill-pleased with the decision, from what she had observed of Moray these past days she knew his honor would compel him to abide with that which might best serve the purpose of the exiled king.
Not sure if she was meant to know he had a price upon his head, she only said, ‘You’ll doubtless find it safer.’
‘Aye.’ He seemed to find amusement in the word. ‘Which minds me, ye’ve not told me yet whose safety ye were praying for.’
He was but teasing her, she thought. It mattered not at all to him who she’d been saying prayers for in the silence of the stable. But she could not school her voice to match his lightness, any more than she could keep her chin from lifting till her wide eyes met his quiet grey ones. And she saw he was not laughing. He was truly curious.
She could not tell a lie to him. But neither could she talk—her heart had risen to her throat, and beat so strongly there that speech was quite impossible.
Which was as well, for she could not have told him, ‘It was you.’ Not in this stable, with the warmth of his own cloak upon her arm, and his broad shoulders almost touching her, and his face but inches from her own. Time seemed suspended, and it felt to her that moment might have stretched until forever; but the mare, forgotten, nudged a softly questing nose between them, and Sophia found her wayward voice.
‘The countess will be wanting me,’ she said.
And taking one quick step back from the stall—so sharp a step that Hugo, drowsy in his bed of straw, came instantly alert—she turned and fled the stables, and the watchful mastiff, and the mare, and most of all, the man whose gaze she still could feel like warming fire upon her back.