Page 25 of Highland Fire

Caitlin acquired a chaperone. The lady was Jamie MacGregor’s widowed mother. Though Mrs. MacGregor had made her home with her sister in Aberdeen, her heart was in the Highlands. She was looking for lodgings until she could find something more permanent.

“It’s only temporary,” MacGregor assured Caitlin. “She’s no happy livin’ wi’ her sister, ye see. A’ her life, she has lived on Deeside. She canna abide the lowlands.”

It was after church services, and people were milling about on the steps of the church. Caitlin’s eyes searched the crush for Lord Randal. He was in conversation with her uncle, or rather, her uncle was talking the Randal’s ear off. She wondered if it had something to do with MacGregor’s request.

“I’m used to living alone,” demurred Caitlin, trying to sound gracious, feeling horribly churlish.

MacGregor’s face fell. “Och, I shouldna hae asked ye. Dinna gie it another thought. Mayhap I’ll find lodgings for her in Ballater. It’s only that I wanted her near me, ye ken, and her so lonely an a’.”

What could she say? Mrs. MacGregor could not lodge with her son in the bachelor quarters above Strathcairn’s stables.

Moreover, it was only for a week or two until more permanent arrangements could be made.

Caitlin gave way gracefully. “I’d be delighted to have your mother stay with me, MacGregor.

She was always kind to me when I was a girl. ”

Hardly were the words out of her mouth than MacGregor bounded away and returned almost immediately with his mother on his arm.

No introductions were necessary. In her day, the Widow MacGregor had run the draper’s shop in Ballater.

She was as plump as a broody hen and, as Caitlin remembered, had a disposition to match, sometimes tyrannical, sometimes warm and motherly.

Caitlin had always regarded the lady with the deepest respect.

When Mrs. MacGregor raised her voice, even the village lads walked a little more softly.

Mrs. MacGregor’s speech was a touch more refined than her son’s. “I hardly like to ask so great a favor.”

“It’s no trouble,” said Caitlin warmly. “Really, I shall be glad of the company.”

Mrs. MacGregor’s faintly anxious look gave way to a smile. “I know how to make myself useful. I’m good with a needle, and I’ll help with the chores.”

“Oh that won’t be necessary,” Caitlin began, then reconsidered when the anxious look returned to the older woman’s face.

There was no greater pride than that of a Highlander down on his or her luck.

Anything that smacked of charity would cut to the quick.

“To be perfectly frank,” she said with a disarming smile, “I’ve been thinking it’s time I did something about my wardrobe, but I scarcely know where to begin. ”

Now where had that thought come from? Frowning, she darted a quick look at Rand.

Her frown deepened as she trailed him with her eyes.

He had one hand on her grandfather’s shoulder and was directing him to his waiting carriage, all the while smiling affably.

Rand helped Glenshiel to ascend the steps, then lightly jumped in after him, and the door was promptly closed upon them.

At dinner that evening, Glenshiel revealed the gist of the conversation that had taken place in his coach.

The Randal, it appeared, was determined to demonstrate to the watching world that the breach between their two families was finally healed.

As a beginning, Glenshiel and every member of his household were commanded to attend a ball to be held at Strathcairn House.

The chief had spoken, and his word had the force of law.

Charlotte was in her element. As soon as the covers were removed and the whiskey brought out, she sent Fiona to her room to fetch back copies of Ackerman’s Repository .

Soon, in the downstairs front parlor, the ladies were engrossed in the glossy fashion plates, some of which were truly shocking to Caitlin’s untutored eye.

The necklines were too low. The waists were too high.

There was an excess of bows and ruffles at the sleeves and hem.

Most shocking of all were the flimsy swatches of gauze her aunt produced for their inspection.

When she held them up to the candle she could see her hand through them.

Caitlin’s consternation was a source of mirth to her aunt.

These gowns were all the rage, she told her.

In Edinburgh and London, no one gave them a second stare.

And even in the Highlands, the ladies they were bound to encounter at the Randal’s grand ball would be no provincial misses, but women of fashion.

“Who, for instance?” Caitlin wanted to know.

The names her aunt reeled off were not unknown to Caitlin.

These formed the upper crust of the Scottish nobility, most of whom had estates between Perth and Deeside.

For the greater part of the year, they resided in their magnificent townhouses in Edinburgh or London.

Like the Randal, they were more English than Scots.

Before long, Caitlin wandered off. She felt as though she had swallowed a great granite boulder.

Snatching her plaid from a hook in the vestibule, she pushed through to the kitchens and out the back door.

As she veered to the left, making for the stables, her deerhound detached itself from the shadows and trotted after her.

The familiar sounds and scents of leather and horses had an oddly calming effect.

She found an empty stall and sat down on the fresh hay with her back against the wooden slats.

Bocain sank down beside her and pressed one huge paw in her lap as though sensing that her mistress required a little coddling.

Sighing, Caitlin angled her head back and closed her eyes.

This was how her uncle found her some time later. For a moment or two, he regarded her silently with a soft look in his eyes. At length he said, “So this is where ye are hiding yourself?”

Caitlin’s eyes flew open. “Uncle Donald!” She pushed Bocain off her and scrambled to her feet. “I’m not hiding. I just wanted a quiet place to do some thinking.”

“Aye. I thought as much. But no amount o’ thinking is going to make a jot o’ difference. Make up your mind to it, graidh , we must obey our chief.”

“And if I don’t, what can the Randal do to me?” Her tone was flippant.

His was serious. “Plenty, if he has a mind to. No. I’ll no quarrel with ye.

Just remember, this is not the lowlands.

The chief has spoken and must be obeyed.

If ye won’t think o’ yourself, think o’ the rest o’ us.

The Randal will hold your grandfather to account if ye dare flaunt his wishes.

Lassie, is it the feud ye are thinking of? ”

It wasn’t the feud. It was the ball. It was meeting a class of people to whom bloodlines were everything. She would be an object of ridicule or scorn. It was the Randal and the way he had kissed her. She couldn’t think of him now without wanting to burst into tears.

Swallowing, she led the way out of the stall. “It’s not much of a feud if even Glenshiel kowtows to the Randal.”

“Och, the feud was over and done with when your grandfather accepted his title from the crown, and well he knows it.”

“He lost his chance to be chief. That must have rankled, especially when the new lairds were English bred.”

Behind the thick lenses, the old eyes grew misty. “Aye, Glenshiel would have made a braw chief. Even so, it would all have come to Lord Randal in the end. He is the nearest male relative. It’s time ye got used to the idea, Caitlin.”

They stopped at one of the stalls to pet a big chestnut gelding. “You are still a handsome devil, Prince,” Caitlin crooned, “in spite of your advanced years.” The horse blew softly into her palm.

“Is Grandfather used to the idea?”

He had lost the thread of their conversation. “What?”

“Grandfather? What does he think of the Randal?”

“He has said very little, but I’ll tell ye this. I know my brother. Chief or no chief, he would not cross the man’s threshold if he did not respect him.”

Caitlin looked skeptical, and he chuckled. “Glenshiel’s roar is worse than his bite,” he said with so fond an intonation that Caitlin smiled.

Donald Randal was devoted to his brother.

Caitlin had always known it, but it was only as she became her uncle’s assistant and transcribed his notes that she came to understand the depth and strength of that attachment.

It went back to the bloody aftermath of Culloden when her great grandfather, the chief of Clan Randal, had met with a traitor’s death.

A month was to pass before government troops swept into Deeside on their murderous campaign of revenge.

Glenshiel, though a mere boy, had been out on the hills distributing food to the stragglers of the prince’s defeated army, Randal men all, who dared not show their faces for fear of reprisal.

Donald was alone with his mother when the redcoats had burst down their doors.

When Glenshiel returned home, he found his mother brutally raped, his younger brother beaten senseless, and the three men who had perpetrated the crime in a drunken stupor in Strathcairn’s great hall.

He’d gone back to the hills to fetch help.

When Donald came to himself, it was to hear the screams of the redcoats as they were castrated and then summarily hanged.

After that, the family had hidden out in the hills until friends had spirited them away to Holland and safety.