Page 41 of Highland Fire

At length, he said, “I was prevented from coming here before my marriage by the storm that cut off my place from the rest of Deeside. Still, better late than never. I have a commission for you, Mr. Gordon. I should like you to compose an ode, or a ballad or whatever you want to call it, on the occasion of my marriage to Caitlin Randal. Will you accept the commission?”

“A ballad on the occasion o’ your marriage?” murmured Gordon. “Now what could be more fitting? The two warring branches o’ the great House o’ Randal finally united. Och, I dinna ken why I didna think o’ it myself.”

Rand drew a cautious breath. “It means, of course, that someone will have to fill you in on the histories of our two families. Donald Randal would be your man. He knows just about everything there is to know about the Randals of Glenshiel and the Randals of Strathcairn.”

“Pshaw, man, I’ll no be needing help from the likes o’ that young stripling. What does he know that I don’t know?”

“You tell me,” murmured Rand. He was thinking that perhaps he had not come on a wild-goose chase after all.

“Did he fight at Culloden? And afterward, was he there in the hills, hiding like a terrified rabbit when Cumberland’s redcoats aye, some o’ them members o’ my own clan, hunted us down?”

“I believe the family escaped to Holland,” said Rand diffidently.

“Aye, and so began the Randal feud. Och well, it wasna much o’ a feud, not like others I could name.”

Though the last thing Rand wanted was to regurgitate Scottish history, politeness compelled him to make some comment. “I hear tell, Mr. Gordon, that you were at outs with your own clan when the Prince raised his standard?”

“Aye, and proud o’ it. Ye’ll observe that to this day, I wear the Mackintosh tartan?”

Rand’s eyes made a sweep of the red and black plaid draped around Gordon’s shoulders. “Why is that?” he asked.

“Because I fought at Culloden under my mother’s colors, long afore the Gordon tartan was ever invented.”

“I assumed the Gordon tartan was as ancient as the Highlands of Scotland,” joked Rand.

Patrick Gordon clicked his tongue. “Laddie,” he said, “we Gordons were lowlanders. We were Normans. We arrived wi’ William the Conqueror. It’s only lately that we hae become Scottish, and even more recently that we hae spread out into the Highlands.”

“How lately?” asked Rand, smiling in anticipation of the answer.

Gordon’s eyes were twinkling. “I’d say about two or three hundred years. Ye might say that we are newcomers, just a cut above sassenachs . Och, it will be centuries yet afore we are truly accepted by the ancient clans.”

Rand was surprised to find that he was enjoying the conversation. “And the Randals. What about my own clan?”

“It pains me tae tell your lordship, ye are no better than a Gordon.”

Rand laughed at this. “After two or three centuries, who can tell the difference?”

“Och, well, some would say that Culloden separated the sheep from the goats.” Detecting the interest in Rand’s expression, he elaborated, “The ancient clans, such as the Mackintosh, for instance, came out for Prince Charlie, or if they didna they wanted to. The Randals, the Gordons, the Campbells—they fought as lowlanders. Aye, they were redcoats. Can you believe that?”

Rand did not pick up this bone of contention. The men of his own Scottish regiment were also known as redcoats. “What about my wife’s family?” he said. “Why did they come out for the prince?”

“Och, ye can well ken that they would do the opposite o’ whatever the Gordons o’ Daroch would do. They were ever at each other’s throats. And after Culloden, their hatred could not be contained. Aye, has anything changed?”

If there was one thing Rand was tired of hearing about, it was the senseless blood feuds that had caused so much dissension among his neighbors. He was debating how best to pursue the subject of Caitlin’s family tree when Gordon changed direction.

“I was sorry to hear about the death o’ your young cousin,” he said. “Such a fine young man, and a credit to the Randal clan.”

“David? You knew my cousin?” Rand could not keep his surprise from showing.

“I wouldna say I knew him,” corrected Gordon. “I met him once, afore he left Deeside, aye, never to return.”

“David came here? To see you? For what purpose?” Conscious that his tone was abrupt, almost suspicious, Rand shook his head and then continued more reasonably. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Gordon. David never mentioned to me that he was coming to see you.”

“Well now, I never said he came to see me. I met him, quite by chance, at Aboyne’s ball. He was taken with the ballad I was singing.”

Rand remembered the ball but not the ballad. “Oh?”

“I sang o’ the duel that took the life o’ the young laird o’ Daroch in the summer o’ ninety-two. Your young kinsman spoke to me afterward. The tale had caught his fancy.”

Rand felt as though an electric current had passed through him. The summer of ’92 was precisely what he was most interested in hearing about—the summer before Caitlin was born. “What did you tell him?”

“Very little. I only know what everyone else knows, that the duel was over an unknown lady and that Daroch died almost instantly from a bullet in his brain.”

Rand had very little sympathy for Robert Gordon of Daroch, and it showed. “From what I hear, his fate was probably well deserved.” He was thinking of what Glenshiel had told him, that in all probability, the young laird o’ Daroch had forced himself on Morag Randal and then abandoned her.

For a moment, no one spoke. From the room next door, the rattle of pots and pans indicated that Gordon’s daughter was preparing the midday meal.

The eyes of the two gentlemen brushed and held, and a silent, humorous communication passed between them.

It was very evident that the mistress of the house was not happy in her work.

Breaking the silence, Gordon said, “Your young cousin thought my ballad betrayed too much sympathy for Daroch.”

Rand made a small sound of derision. “I don’t doubt it. David despised men of that ilk. He was something of an idealist.”

The twinkle had faded from the old man’s eyes, and he was regarding Rand with a look that was oddly inquisitive, as though something in Rand’s manner or expression puzzled him. Before Rand could answer that look, Gordon said, “Ye hae been listening tae Glenshiel.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Daroch was not as black as he was made out tae be, but ye’ll never hear a Randal o’ Glenshiel admit as much.”

Rand could feel his frustration growing. He still was no nearer to learning what he wanted to know. “Tell me about my cousin,” he said. “What else did you talk about?”

“I told him about the man who killed Daroch in the duel, Ewan Grant.”

“The name means nothing to me.”

“Maybe not, but your father would have known o’ him. He rented your place—Strathcairn is it?—for the hunting season. That would be the year your father didna come into Scotland.”

“Not come into Scotland?” said Rand.

“Your family was in mourning.”

It came to Rand like a flash of lightning bursting across a darkened sky.

He was eight years old. His sister, a babe of only a few months, had died within hours of contracting a fever.

His mother could not be consoled. Fearing for his wife’s health, his father had rented a house in Brighton for the season.

The sea air had worked such an improvement on his mother that they had lingered in Brighton well into October.

After that, the children had gone to visit their grandparents in Wiltshire while his parents had opened up the house in London.

“Of course,” said Rand. “My sister, Clara. I had all but forgotten that sad episode in my family’s life.” He didn’t look sad. He looked pleased in a subdued way. “Is that what my cousin wanted to know?”

“No,” Mr. Gordon replied cryptically, obviously puzzled if not a little fascinated by Rand’s interrogation.

“Forgive me, Mr. Gordon, for putting you through this inquisition. When you mentioned my cousin, naturally I was interested. He saved my life at Waterloo, you see, at the cost of his own. I’ve wished a hundred times since that I had got to know him better when I had the chance. Please, finish what you were saying.”

Though Gordon nodded sympathetically, the quizzical gleam in his eye had not lessened one whit. “Your cousin asked me about his father.”

“His father,” repeated Rand.

“Aye. Young Mr. Randal wanted tae know if his father had come into Deeside with Grant that year, but I couldna remember whether he had or no.”

Behind Rand’s blank stare, his mind was busily at work sifting through fragments, fitting the pieces together to make a comprehensible whole. “What happened to Grant after the duel?”

“He became a fugitive from the law. Some say he fled to America. Others say the Gordons or the lady’s kinsmen caught up wi’ him and exacted their own form o’ retribution. No one ever saw him again. It’s all in the ballad I sang at Aboyne’s ball.”

There was an imperceptible narrowing of Rand’s eyes. After a pause, he shook his head, “That’s not what my wife told me,” he said, casting his line without much hope of landing anything.

“Oh well, when Miss Randal came tae see me, you might say she was not quite herself.”

To his credit, Rand masked his astonishment well. “Of course,” he said, “that would be when…” He trailed to a halt, gazing off into space as though he were lost in private reflection. His ploy worked.

“Aye, right after the death o’ her dear mother.” Gordon sighed regretfully. “I couldna tell her any more than I’ve told ye, aye, and your cousin afore ye. After the duel, Ewan Grant seemed to disappear off the face o’ the earth.”

Rand looked into those intelligent gray eyes and realized that he was fooling no one. With most brutal frankness he said, “And my wife thinks this Grant may be her father?”

“Aye, or so it seemed to me. A thing like that haunts a body, ye ken,” observed Gordon reflectively. “It’s a great pity that her mother went tae her Maker without taking the lass into her confidence. She’ll never stop wondering, don’t ye think?”

Rand had no ready reply to make to this.

He wasn’t feeling sorry for Caitlin. Instead he was livid.

She suspected that Ewan Grant was her father, and even suspecting it, she had called his father’s honor into question.

Damnation, she must have known his father had not come into Scotland for a good twelve months before she was born.

From the sound of it, she had pulled the same trick on David.

He wondered how many other gentlemen’s attentions had been deflected by that devious ruse.

But dammit all, he was her husband. He deserved better than this.

Having discovered what he wished to know, Rand did not linger.

He quickly brought the conversation round to the ballad he had commissioned, and left on the understanding that it would be performed at the first gala event to take place at Strathcairn, possibly when his family came into Deeside to meet his bride.

The outside door had hardly closed upon him, when Gordon was joined by his daughter.

“What did Lord Randal want?”

Gordon studied his daughter as though she were a stranger to him.

He noted the sullen line of her mouth, the hair scraped back tightly in a bun, the almost hostile glare in her sharp blue eyes.

There were occasions when he wondered who could possibly have fathered this dour-faced, killjoy of a woman.

It wasn’t a serious thought. He knew his dear departed wife too well ever to suspect her of infidelity.

“Father?”

“Whatever it was, I’m thinking that the Randal got more than he bargained for.”