Traitor or Temptress - Helen Dickson

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Iain Monroe. At twenty years old, with his towering build and well-muscled chest, his hair and beard as black as jet, his brilliant silver eyes blazing with hellfire and damnation, some might say he had the face of Satan himself. Yet Lorne refused to lower her eyes or step away. It was important to her that this man should know she had meant his brother no harm and that she had tried to help him.

      ‘Please—wait,’ she begged him, unconsciously speaking in English and moving to the side of his horse. Her emerald eyes were awash with tears, her gaze riveted on the glittering violence in his own.

      Looking down, Iain saw a child. His eyes raked her stricken face. Without taking his eyes off her he listened as one of his companions—John Ferguson, who had met him on the road and directed him to the village—leaned towards him and said something in his ear. But recalling John’s description of the girl who had revealed his brother’s hiding place to Ewan Galbraith, the gold of her hair had already told Iain who she was. Lorne watched in agony as his eyes, refusing to relinquish their hold on her own, registered his hatred, a hatred so intense that all the muscles in his face tightened in a mask.

      To Iain Monroe, these Highlanders were a different species from his own, whose force of nature threatened the law-abiding civilisation of Scotland. In their tribal ignorance they conformed to no patterns of behaviour but their own. Their disdain of the rest of the world, their habits and manners, prejudices and superstitions, made them peculiar, and Iain cursed the whole lot of them to eternal damnation. But he would not be beaten by the likes of Edgar McBryde and Ewan Galbraith, Highlanders who would stick their murderous knives in your back as soon as look at you, men he vowed to see hanging from a rope’s end before he was done.

      ‘Stay where you are,’ he ordered, speaking with a cultured English accent, his words halting Lorne’s steps, his teeth, when he spoke, showing white and even in the midst of his black beard. He inspected her as if she were some repulsive creature crawling in the dirt.

      ‘I curse you, Lorne McBryde—I curse you all,’ he shouted, letting his cold eyes sweep the frozen faces of the onlookers, dwelling at length on Edgar McBryde, probing deep into his eyes, as if seeking something to weigh and to judge. His voice was awful and piercing deep, clutching the heart of every man, woman and child. Even the mighty Edgar McBryde and his sons bristled and stepped back before his icy wrath. ‘I shall make you pay for this day’s work, McBryde. You—and yours—will pay dearly. You slew my brother out of hand, unarmed as he was. Waging war on a defenceless lad is the work of mindless savages.’

      Iain was right. Edgar McBryde and the men gathered around him did resemble savages. Some had thrown off their plaids and stood half-naked, bristling with arms, a wildness in their eyes, their hands and bodies bloodied from the affray up on the moor.

      ‘We were not to know he was not one of the raiders. He should have had more sense than to ride down the glen at such an hour. It was impossible for the men of Kinlochalen to distinguish between them in the dark.’

      Omnipotent and contemptuous of his unworthy enemy, Ian’s voice was scornful. ‘Those men were under your control, McBryde—yours and Galbraith’s. Not even the plaid you disgrace can hide the fact that murder is your true vocation. You resemble a tribe of uncivilised, marauding barbarians, enmeshed in your blood-feuds and indiscriminate murder and content to remain there. The world is changing—Scotland is changing—and it will not be long before the lot of you are broken men and humbled. I—for one—am impatient to see that day.’

      The square was filled with tension and a dangerous hostility in the face of Iain Monroe’s contempt and bitter condemnation for the Highlanders’ way of life. Every fibre of Lorne’s body was vibrating with her need to have him know the truth about how she had tried to save his brother. In desperation she moved to go after him when he turned his horse about, but James’s hands grabbed her, jerking her back.

      ‘No—stay, Lorne. It’s over. Let him go.’

      She struggled in James’s grip, freeing herself and running after Iain Monroe, reaching up and grasping his bridle, her short legs moving quickly in an attempt to match the horse’s stride. ‘Please wait,’ she cried, almost choking on her sobs, so distraught was she. Halting his horse, he glared down at her and the expression in his eyes made her want to die. ‘You must listen to me. Please—I didn’t hurt him—’

      ‘Remove your hands from my horse,’ he seethed.

      When she refused to do as he ordered, he grasped her hand and forcibly uncurled each of her small fingers, one by one, from the bridle and thrust her from him. Like a broken doll she fell to the ground, where she lay and watched him ride away, the feeling of wretchedness and defeat lying on her young heart surpassing anything she’d ever felt before.

      Not until they were gone did James approach her and gently lift her up, his warrior’s heart strangely touched by her silent weeping. His sister had a tender heart moulded by every impression, a natural curiosity and a memory so retentive that whatever took place or affected or interested her was engraved on her mind for all time. He knew the impression made on her by this unhappy occurrence would remain with her for ever.

      

      Iain Monroe remained true to his word. When the Privy Council in Edinburgh heard what had occurred in Kinlochalen they ordered the arrest of Edgar McBryde and Ewan Galbraith, intent on ridding the Highlands of these two rebellious men. Edgar escaped to Ireland and then to France, but Ewan Galbraith took to the hills and it was two years before anyone could put a rope round his neck. He was caught and taken to Inveraray, the seat of the Crown’s authority in the Western Highlands. Shackled and thrown into the Tollbooth, he was eventually hanged on Gallows Hill from the great tree.

      Chapter One

      1698

      Astley Priory was situated in one of the most delightful settings that could be found north of York. Once a priory of the Augustinian order until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, it was now the home of Lady Sarah Barton, Lorne McBryde’s maternal grandmother. Her father had sent her to live with her grandmother following the affray in Kinlochalen, and Lorne now considered Astley Priory to be her home where, in the care of her grandmother, she enjoyed a free and protected life.

      One bright but cold morning, Lorne left the house with her cousin Agnes to take some exercise in the gardens. Since her father had been killed fighting for King William at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland in 1690, Agnes and her mother, Lorne’s Aunt Pauline—her mother’s sister—had lived at Astley Priory. To ward off the chill, long cloaks covered their pretty dresses. With arms linked and spirits soaring, smiling broadly, they were in frivolous mood as they excitedly discussed their forthcoming visit to London. Ever since their grandmother had told them she was to take them to the capital for their nineteenth birthdays, after weeks of waiting, the time for them to leave had finally arrived.

      Devoted to each other, Agnes had been just what Lorne had needed to shake her out of the sullens when she had come south, where everything was so very different from her life in Scotland. Despite her father’s and brothers’ constant blusterings and their barbarous way of life, she had missed them terribly at first. For a long time, what had occurred in Kinlochalen had been a private nightmare, painful memories that came to her in the dark like unloved friends with hostile faces and ugly smiles.

      ‘Perhaps we can persuade Grandmother to take a London residence,’ Lorne said gaily, feeling absurdly happy and an odd burst of pleasure at the thought of going to London, ‘then we could go there more often.’

      ‘She won’t. You know how she detests crowds and that awful smog, which she says makes her wheeze and her head ache. She much prefers the country.’

      ‘But we cannot remain in the country for ever. Perhaps if Lord and Lady Billington didn’t make us so welcome whenever we go to London, she might be persuaded. Oh, Agnes—London is going to be so exciting,’ Lorne enthused. ‘People only wake up after midnight—so I’m told. It’s a shame that when we were there before we were considered too young to be allowed out after dark.’

      ‘Fifteen, as I recall.’

      ‘I

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