A Cold Highland Wind

Book 17: Lady Emily Mysteries

by Tasha Alexander

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Historical Mysteries

Synopsis

"The entwined stories and Amato's passionate narration will remain in listeners' minds long after the mysteries are solved." —AudioFile on In the Shadow of Vesuvius

In this new installment of Tasha Alexander’s acclaimed Lady Emily series set in the wild Scottish highlands, an ancient story of witchcraft may hold the key to solving a murder centuries later.

Lady Emily, husband Colin Hargreaves, and their three sons eagerly embark on a family vacation at Cairnfarn Castle, the Scottish estate of their dear friend Jeremy, Duke of Bainbridge. But a high-spirited celebration at the beginning of their stay comes to a grisly end when the duke’s gamekeeper is found murdered on the banks of the loch. Handsome Angus Sinclair had a host of enemies: the fiancée he abandoned in Edinburgh, the young woman who had fallen hopelessly in love with him, and the rough farmer who saw him as a rival for her affections. But what is the meaning of the curious runic stone left on Sinclair’s forehead?

Clues may be found in the story of Lady MacAllister, wife of the Laird of Cairnfarn Castle, who in 1676 suddenly found herself widowed and thrown out of her home. Her sole companion was a Moorish slave girl who helped her secretly spirit her most prized possessions—a collection of strange books—out of the castle. When her neighbors, wary of a woman living on her own, found a poppet—a doll used to cast spells—and a daisy wheel in her isolated cottage, Lady MacAllister was accused of witchcraft, a crime punishable by death.

Hundreds of years later, Lady Emily searches for the link between Lady MacAllister’s harrowing witchcraft trial and the brutal death of Sinclair. She must follow a trail of hidden motives, an illicit affair, and a mysterious stranger to reveal the dark side of a seemingly idyllic Highland village.

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books.

Release date: October 3, 2023

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 304

Sample

1

Emily

Cairnfarn, Scotland

1905

At first glance, blood doesn’t stand out on tartan. At least not on the tartan worn by the dead man sprawled next to a loch on the Highland estate of my dear friend Jeremy Sheffield, Duke of Bainbridge. It blended into the red wool of his fly plaid, hardly visible until I looked closely. Looking closely wasn’t pleasant. The man’s face, bloody and bruised, offered a chilling vision of his final moments, which must have been brutal and painful. I would’ve given anything to have kept my sons from seeing him, too. This was not the way we’d expected our holiday to start.

The pastiche of Scottish culture popularized by Queen Victoria never appealed to me. I don’t object to a riot of brightly colored tartan or the skirl of the bagpipe, but rather to the idea that English royalty should be Scotland’s cultural ambassadors. The region, rugged and sublime, deserves better. It’s full of contrasts and complication, its beauty simultaneously harsh and soft, a place better understood by its native population than imported aristocracy.

I grew up on my parents’ sprawling estate in Kent, next to Farringdon, the seat of the Duke of Bainbridge. The duke’s elder son, Jeremy, and I were inseparable as children. We raced horses. We climbed trees. We caused no end of trouble. Although I primarily spent time with Jeremy at Farringdon, it was not the family’s only domicile. Among their other possessions were Bainbridge House in London; Woodsford, a cozy two-hundred-room hunting lodge in Yorkshire; and Cairnfarn Castle deep in the Scottish Highlands.

I’d always loved the castle. The idea of it, anyway. I hadn’t seen it because Jeremy’s father despised the place, for reasons that were never articulated in my presence. It had something to do with the thirteenth duke, Jeremy’s uncle, who’d refused to marry and, hence, never provided an heir. When he died, his brother inherited the title and, after installing his aunts there to live, the fourteenth duke never went back. Jeremy and I hatched periodic schemes to flee north and use Cairnfarn as a base to fight unruly Highlanders (we were convinced there were still bands of them hiding in caves, ready for battle), but they fell apart for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was a lack of train fare. We rarely argued, but when I read Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley and became less sympathetic to the English response to the Jacobite uprisings, Jeremy showered unexpectedly harsh words on me. For two weeks we avoided each other. Then he read the book. Shortly thereafter, accompanied by his nanny, he went to a tailor for a complete set of Highland dress fashioned from the Bainbridge tartan his uncle had designed. His father, offering no explanation beyond muttering something about troublesome children, forbade him from wearing it.

When at last I found myself at Cairnfarn, it was because of some equally troublesome children. My own.

My husband, Colin Hargreaves, and I have three boys. Most people assumed Richard and Tom were twins; their dark curls and eyes mirrored Colin’s own, but it was Henry, with fair hair and blue eyes, who was Richard’s twin. Tom, short for Tomaso, was our ward, and we loved him as dearly as we did the twins, who were only a few months younger. While his brothers were well behaved, Henry did his best to entangle those around him in one outrageous scheme after another and often succeeded. He was catastrophically persuasive.

Which was why we were all now in Scotland. Last year, Colin and I had been investigating a case in Egypt. Henry was desperate to come, but we wouldn’t allow it. The wretched boy convinced Jeremy to bring him and his brothers to meet us there. In the course of making the arrangements, Jeremy mentioned that he owned a Nile crocodile, who lived in the menagerie at Cairnfarn. Henry dubbed the creature Cedric and insisted it must come to Egypt as well. During the journey, the child became concerned about the conditions in which its animals lived. Upon our return home, he penned a sixteen-page document—all of it very badly spelled—on the subject. Jeremy, utterly charmed by it, insisted that we all come to the Highlands so that Henry could see for himself that the creatures were well cared for. And so we did.

Cairnfarn Castle, a towering stone building whose construction began in the fourteenth century and was completed in the eighteenth, perched overlooking a loch in a verdant glen surrounded by towering mountains. Silver fog danced through patches of deep purple heather, and when it rained—which it often did—it felt mystical, like something sent by the fairies. It was a place of splendid isolation, so far north and so distant from any towns of reasonable size as to make it quite difficult to reach without ordering a special train.

On our second day in Cairnfarn, the village was hosting a ceilidh to celebrate the arrival of a new doctor, hired to replace their long-standing physician, William Cameron, so that he might retire and focus on writing. A consummate storyteller, he’d published several novels, all of them well-received, and was lauded both as a stylist and as having a talent for unforgettable plots.

I knew little about ceilidhs beyond that they included dancing, but was always game to immerse myself in the culture of a new place. I’d donned a tartan gown and dressed the boys in kilts, but failed to convince Colin to wear one. Jeremy, kitted out from head to toe in Bainbridge tartan—a flamboyant concoction of bright turquoise, scarlet, and yellow—moaned when he saw my husband in ordinary evening wear.

“You’ve never been fun, Hargreaves, but this is distressing, even for you,” he said. “Get in the spirit of things, man! You can’t dance a Highland reel in that.”

“I’ve danced more Highland reels than I can count in similar dress,” Colin said. “Our late queen’s affection for Scotland made it one of the most popular dances in London for years.”

“I suppose I’ve done the same, although I can’t recall the details,” Jeremy said as we approached the village hall. He turned to the boys. “One must be very careful when it comes to consuming spirits while attending balls. Too much and you’ll remember nothing, too little and you’ll remember everything.”

Henry’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “You’re the only grown-up who ever bothers to give us useful information. Would you provide more details?”

Fortunately we arrived at the village hall before Jeremy could respond. Almost as soon as we’d stepped through the door, a comely young woman with dark auburn hair pressed a glass into my hand.

“Welcome,” she said, her bright blue eyes flashing as a broad smile split her face. “I’m Maisie Drummond and I work for His Grace.” She bobbed a curtsy in Jeremy’s general direction, winking at him as she did it. “This is Mrs. Pringle’s famous punch. Go easy with it or you’ll regret it tomorrow. Dinnae say I didnae warn you.”

Another woman approached. Maisie muttered something under her breath, stepped back behind the table with the punch bowl on it, and started filling more glasses. The newcomer looked to be in her early thirties, but she was still handsome, still aglow. Her hair, so fair it was almost silver, was piled on her head in a fashionable Gibson girl–style pompadour. Her eyes, pale grayish blue, lit up when she smiled. Her complexion was perfect pearl, with just a subtle hint of rose on her cheeks. Her dress, made from a fine lilac fabric, was simple and elegant. Delicate lace fell from the cuffs and embellished the bodice.

“Maisie, dear, that’s not the way one ought to speak to a lady.” She turned to me. “I’m Caroline Pringle, the vicar’s wife, and can assure you my punch is not nearly so lethal as you’ve been told. Maisie thinks rather a lot of her opinions but would be better served keeping many of them to herself.” Her amiable tone softened the words, but Maisie—still in earshot at the table—rolled her eyes and shook her head. Then, with no attempt at subtlety, she turned to Colin, looked him up and down, and smiled, apparently pleased with what she saw. Mrs. Pringle sighed. “I promise you she’s harmless, only so distressingly spirited. At times I wish I could tame her, but at others, I envy her youthful lack of concern for the niceties.”

Jeremy leaned toward me conspiratorially. “If anyone could tame her, it would be Caroline. She’s the glue that holds us all together. We’d be lost without her. She organizes everything—including myself—and is an extraordinary seamstress. Keeps all the young ladies in the village dressed to the nines. And listen to how cultured she sounds. You’d never guess she grew up here, would you?”

“Don’t embarrass me, Your Grace,” Mrs. Pringle said, blushing. “Cairnfarn could do perfectly well without me. Mr. Pringle is far more essential, and Mr. Sinclair is proving an asset as well, his influence stretching far beyond the castle park. I’ve never seen a man so dedicated to setting a good example. He’s taught the boys in the village everything they could ever hope to know about the local wildlife, made them see that poaching is an affront to all decent people, and has them so thoroughly convinced of the necessity of performing good deeds they’re in a constant contest to outdo one another. I can’t think when I’ve last carried a parcel home from the grocer or the post office. There’s always a youngster ready to lend a hand.”

“Sinclair’s my gamekeeper—ghillie, I suppose I should say, but I rarely remember. He’s an absolute treasure,” Jeremy said. “Thank goodness he decided to return to Cairnfarn. He’d been living in Edinburgh.”

“You hired a gamekeeper from Edinburgh?” Colin asked. “Sounds very like you, Bainbridge.”

Jeremy huffed and the ostrich feather on his cap fluttered. “It’s not what it sounds like. He grew up in Cairnfarn. His father ran a prosperous croft, but Sinclair never had much interest in farming. When his parents died of influenza, he took the opportunity to flee. Left not three hours after their burial and went in search of a better life in Edinburgh. Not that anyone was aware of it then. He explained when he returned. At the time, it caused quite a scandal.”

“Primarily because he was only eleven years old,” Mrs. Pringle said. “We all thought he’d joined the Royal Navy and never expected to see him again. Ties here run deep, though, and he returned a year or so ago, two decades later. He’d become a solicitor, but grew tired of city life and wanted to return home.”

“Which is not to suggest he was any more interested in farming than he’d been when he left. His father’s croft had long since been taken over by someone else, so I offered him the position of gamekeeper,” Jeremy said. “He’s cracking good at it.”

Someone tugged at my arm. I looked down and saw Richard. “Mama, please do come at once. The first part of the evening is meant to be dedicated to storytelling and Dr. Cameron is about to regale us with a tale about kelpies, the shape-shifting water horses that inhabit nearly every loch and river in Scotland. It’s much more interesting than what I’m told he shared at the last ceilidh, something about a princess tricking a man into falling in love with her by feeding him some sort of magic cake.”

“That sounds perfectly dreadful,” Jeremy said. “I far prefer kelpies.”

“The doctor’s seen several, one only yesterday,” Richard said. “He’s going to take me out in the morning to find another. Mr. Fletcher, who lives in the village told me there’s nothing more dangerous than kelpies. They lure their victims to the shore and then drown them. He’s a bit terrifying, Mr. Fletcher.”

I let my son lead me to a circle of chairs in the center of the room, where we sat and listened to Dr. Cameron detail the trickery of the kelpies, the gravelly burr of his voice at once thrilling and soothing. He certainly knew how to keep an audience spellbound.

When he finished, cheers and applause filled the hall. He waved his hands to silence them. “Enough, enough, or you’ll make me just the sort of arrogant fool we all despise. You’re kind to have indulged me telling my little tale, and now I must beg your attention for a little longer. Some of you have already had the pleasure of meeting my new colleague, Dr. Genevieve Harris. She trained in Edinburgh, and I’ve never seen a more competent physician. Aye, she’s a lady, but we in the Highlands know it’s skill that matters above everything, and she’s got that in spades. I wouldn’t feel comfortable turning over my practice to anyone else and I know you’ll trust her just as much as I do.”

An undercurrent of discontent rumbled through the crowd, but no one voiced a discernible objection. A tall, whip-thin woman in her late twenties who’d been sitting near him rose to her feet. Her countenance was serious, but there was warmth in her otherwise nondescript eyes. She looked utterly capable as she gave a little smile and waved. Before I could make her acquaintance, a young man moved to the center of the circle, made a perfunctory-sounding statement welcoming the new doctor, and began to recite a poem. Another followed, and then an elderly woman recounted a lengthy story about a ghost said to inhabit a cave not far from Cairnfarn’s loch. Almost the instant she finished, people stood up and started lining the chairs along the walls in order to make room for dancing. I lost sight of Dr. Harris in the ensuing commotion.

“Lady Emily, I’m glad to see you.” A well-built man with broad shoulders, flaming red hair, and chocolate brown eyes stepped in front of me. He was dressed in Highland kit, sporting a bright red kilt with a green interval and blue and white stripes. His doublet and tam were fashioned from dark green wool that matched the shade of his knee-high argyle hose. A fly plaid draped over his shoulder and a long rabbit fur sporran hung from his hips. “Forgive me for being so bold as to introduce myself. I’m Angus Sinclair, the duke’s gamekeeper. Master Thomas has expressed a strong interest in shooting, and I’d like to take him out tomorrow if that’s amenable to you.”

“Of course,” I said. “I can’t say I expected him to have a passion for ptarmigan and grouse, but I’m happy for him to learn the sport.”

“He’s a little gentleman, your son,” Mr. Sinclair said, “and shooting’s a proper activity for a gentleman. I’ll collect him after breakfast. If either of the other peerie lads want to join, I’ll be ready for them as well.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sinclair.”

“You’re most welcome. Now, might I be cheeky and ask for a dance?”

His smile was so engaging, so affable, I could hardly refuse. Many of the dances were new to me, but Mr. Sinclair proved a talented partner, teaching me the steps as we went. It proved to be rollicking good fun. Colin and I stood up together for the Highland reel. The joyful music, the enthusiastic company, and the punch that was as potent as Maisie had warned made for a raucous evening.

The hall, crammed tight with people, grew warm, so when the reel finished, Colin took my hand and pulled me outside, where the crisp Highland air cooled us in an instant. Clouds hung heavy in the sky but parted just enough to reveal the glowing full moon. Mist was settling in the valley. An owl hooted and some other night creature sounded like it was calling back.

“I’ve always liked seeing you bathed in moonlight,” Colin said. “It makes me wish we had more privacy. Perhaps tomorrow we should take a nocturnal stroll to the loch so that—” We heard heated voices and he stopped. Looking around, we saw no one visible in our immediate vicinity, so we followed the noise until we saw Mr. Sinclair and Dr. Harris standing near a patch of towering trees, arguing. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the tone and the sharpness of their gestures made it clear this was no friendly conversation.

“Perhaps he objects to the presence of a female doctor,” I said.

“I’d put money on the argument being about something entirely unrelated.” Colin tilted his head. “This looks to me a squabble far more personal. We should leave them to it.”

We went back to the hall, where all thoughts of what we’d seen rushed from my mind as soon as we started dancing again. Little did I know our holiday was about to take a dark turn.



2Tansy

Cairnfarn, Scotland

1676

Rossalyn was crying again. Crying and wouldn’t stop. Not that it mattered. I’d grown used to the sound. It was something I was all too familiar with, having heard it coming from my own mouth—and deeper, from my chest, from my heart, from my soul—throughout the journey that brought me from North Africa to the cold, rainy island I now inhabited. I wasn’t raised to be a servant. My father was a man of education and culture. He insisted we learn to speak English and French. We were Moors. Muslims. The kind of people who could be sold as slaves to Christians. Although I wasn’t a slave anymore. Not literally. Not technically. In the end, though, I found the semantics didn’t matter.

Nevertheless, I displayed appropriate gratitude (as expected) when Rossalyn freed me. She wasn’t Rossalyn to me then, just Lady MacAllister, mistress of Castle Cairnfarn. A privateer from Glasgow—pirate, more like—kidnapped me when I was on my way home from the market in Tunis. I thought my religion would protect me from such a fate. It would have if my abductor had followed Islam, but he was a Christian and he liked what he saw when he laid eyes on me, so he took me. Kept me for his own private amusement. When he was tired of the novelty, he sold me. My new owner, who changed my name from Tasnim to Tansy because it was too hard to pronounce, gave me to his friend’s wife as a wedding gift.

Gave me as a wedding gift. Like I was a silver salver or fine linen.

The wife—the aforementioned Rossalyn—displayed appropriate horror at this (as was not expected) and immediately set about the business of granting me my freedom. Everyone around her lauded her while she basked in what she viewed as appreciation for her virtue, but without the means to return to my home, it didn’t make all that much difference to me. I was still a servant, unable to live a life I’d chosen. As the ensuing months passed, I became accustomed to living at the castle. Growing more comfortable with my mistress, I asked her to post letters I’d written to my family, explaining what had happened and begging them to send for me. She agreed, and after that, we became friends of a sort. The sort you can be when one of you once owned the other and remains in charge of her. I became her companion. I read to her. Embroidered with her. Said witty things when her friends came to visit. I was a novelty. Apparently having Moorish attendants was fashionable, or at least it had been ages ago. James IV’s daughter Margaret had two, but that was more than a hundred and fifty years ago. This far north in the Highlands, fashion ran more than a little behind. All of which is to say that instead of scrubbing floors or working in the kitchen, my job was to be entertaining. I considered my role to be something like that of a pet.


Copyright © 2023 by Tasha Alexander