I was beginning to make a rather odd wheezing noise, as the first wisps of oxygen found their way painfully into my throat. I rolled onto my hands and knees and groped feebly for the edge of the table. The corporal, after a nervous glance at the captain, reached down to help me up.
Waves of blackness seemed to ripple over the room. I sank onto the stool and closed my eyes.
"Look at me." The voice was as light and calm as though he were about to offer me tea. I opened my eyes and looked up at him through a slight fog. His hands were braced on his exquisitely tailored hips.
"Have you anything to say to me now, Madam?" he demanded.
"Your wig is crooked," I said, and closed my eyes again.
* * *
13
A Marriage Is Announced
I sat at a table in the taproom below, gazing into a cup of milk and fighting off waves of nausea.
Dougal had taken one look at my face as I came downstairs, supported by the beefy young corporal, and strode purposefully past me, up the stairs to Randall's room. The floors and doors of the inn were stout and well constructed, but I could still hear the sound of raised voices upstairs.
I raised the cup of milk, but my hands were still shaking too badly to drink it.
I was gradually recovering from the physical effects of the blow, but not from the shock of it. I knew the man was not my husband, but the resemblance was so strong and my habits so ingrained, that I had been half-inclined to trust him, and had spoken to him as I would have to Frank, expecting civility, if not active sympathy. To have those feelings abruptly turned inside out by his vicious attack was what was making me ill now.
Ill, and frightened as well. I had seen his eyes as he crouched next to me on the floor. Something had moved in their depths, just for a moment. It was gone in a flash, but I did not want ever to see it again.
The sound of a door opening above brought me out of my reverie. The thud of heavy footsteps was succeeded by the rapid appearance of Dougal, followed closely by Captain Randall. So closely indeed, that the Captain appeared to be in pursuit of the Scot, and was brought up short when Dougal, catching sight of me, halted suddenly at the foot of the stairs.
With a glare over his shoulder at Captain Randall, Dougal came swiftly over to where I was seated, tossed a small coin on the table in payment, and jerked me to my feet without a word. He was hustling me out the door before I had time to do more than register the extraordinary look of speculative acquisitiveness on the face of the redcoat officer.
We were mounted and moving before I had even tucked the voluminous skirts around my legs, and the material billowed around me like a settling parachute. Dougal was silent, but the horses seemed to pick up his sense of urgency; we were all but galloping by the time we hit the main road.
Near a crossroads marked with a Pictish cross, Dougal abruptly reined to a halt. Dismounting, he seized the bridles of both horses and tied them loosely to a sapling. He helped me down, then abruptly disappeared into the bushes, beckoning me to follow.
I followed the swing of his kilt up the hillside, ducking as the branches he pushed out of the way snapped back across the path over my head. The hillside was overgrown with oak and scrubby pine. I could hear titmice in the copse to the left, and a flock of jays calling out to each other as they fed, further on. The grass was the fresh green of early summer, clumps of sturdy growth shooting out of the rocks and furring the ground under the oaks. Nothing grew under the pines, of course; the needles lay inches thick, affording protection for the small crawling things that hid there from sunlight and predators.
The sharp scents made my throat ache. I had been up such hillsides before, and smelled these same spring scents. But then the pine and grass scent had been diluted with the smell of petrol fumes from the road below and the voices of day trippers replaced those of the jays. Last time I walked such a path, the ground was littered with sandwich wrappers and cigarette butts instead of mallow blossoms and violets. Sandwich wrappers seemed a reasonable enough price to pay, I supposed, for such blessings of civilization as antibiotics and telephones, but just for the moment, I was willing to settle for the violets. I badly needed a little peace, and I felt it here.
Dougal turned suddenly aside just below the crest of the hill and disappeared into a thick growth of broom. Shoving my way in after him with some difficulty, I found him seated on the flat stone edging of a small pool. A weathered block of stone stood askew behind him, with a dim and vaguely human figure etched in the stained surface. It must be a saint's pool, I realized. These small shrines to one saint or another dotted the Highlands, and were often to be found in such secluded spots, though even up here, tattered remnants of fabric flapped from the branches of a rowan tree that overhung the water; pledges from visitors who petitioned the saint, for health or a safe journey, perhaps.