The Fields of Fortune

by Jessica Stirling

Genres: Historical Romance

Synopsis

The streets of eighteenth-century Edinburgh, where disease and squalor jostle with high culture and grand ambitions, are the setting for Jessica Stirling's powerful new novel. On the brink of a disastrous marriage Nicola Templeton finally rebels, and flees to Edinburgh to seek refuge with her sister. Charlotte's own runaway marriage has already turned their father into an implacable foe and it seems that Nicola too may be cut off from her share of the Craigiehall estate if she does not bow to his will. The bustling Georgian city, a hotbed of intrigue and corruption, draws Nicola swiftly into its web. She is courted by Grant's dashing young brother, Gillon, fresh home from fighting in the American wars. Innocent country girl or not, she is not dazzled by Gillon's wit or deceived by his promises, for Gillon is penniless, if no less ambitious than his brother. Meanwhile, though, incensed by his daughters' ingratitude, Lord Craigiehall has plans of his own for the future of the Ayrshire estates. Plans that involve him with the notorious society hostess, Lady Valerie Oliphant, and a pretty little actress from London whose wiles are more than equal to his own.

Release date: April 3, 2008

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 464

Sample

Chapter 1

It had long been a tradition in the Templeton family that marriages were arranged beneath the oak that shaded the front lawn of the house. Under its leafy boughs grandfather had asked grandmother to become his wife. Thirty years later, after grandmother had passed away, grandfather had bent the knee again with, Nicola assumed, a good deal of grunting and cracking, and had proposed to a starchy widow, who, in lieu of youthful passion, had brought to the union the best part of fifteen hundred acres of prime grazing land and an income in rents of almost six hundred pounds a year.

     In that same year, 1752, Nicola’s father, John James Templeton, had invited young Miss Morrison to join with him in holy matrimony and to seal the bond of love by persuading her father to sign over to Craigiehall seven farms and eight hundred acres of uncultivated ground, to which terms Daddy Morrison reluctantly agreed. And that, as far as Nicola could make out, was all that marriage had ever meant to the Templetons – a means of acquiring land.

     She was not, however, prepared for what was to come when on a fine spring morning Sir Charles de Morville’s carriage rolled up the driveway and Papa, dressed in a new striped waistcoat and his very best coat, hurried out to greet the gentleman and escort him to the ground floor drawing-room where they remained closeted for the best part of an hour.

     The taking of a one o’clock dinner and, with the meat hardly settled in her stomach, an early tea, did not increase Nicola’s apprehension, for Sir Charles and her father, Lord Craigiehall, chatted about farming and politics without once mentioning matrimony. Only when Papa, with a curiously arch little smile, suggested that she show Sir Charles the ancient oak where so many bargains had been struck did it dawn on her that she had been put upon the marriage block.

     Hiding her dismay, she set off with Sir Charles, trailed by her maid Molly, Sir Charles’s manservant Lassiter, and, creeping along the drive at a funereal pace, de Morville’s carriage, brought up, Nicola assumed, in case an excess of emotion rendered the elderly Sir Charles incapable of walking the short distance back to the house.

     In spite of his exalted position as a judge in the highest court in Scotland and one of Ayrshire’s principal landowners, her father was not partial to entertaining. He hosted occasional small supper parties during court session in Edinburgh and enjoyed the hospitality of the well-to-do when he made his Circuit journeys but, as a rule, chose not to sup with his neighbours.

     Sir Charles had not been a frequent visitor to Craigiehall. There had been no regular courtship, no exchange of billets doux and emphatically no hint of indiscretion on Sir Charles’s part. He was a gentleman of the old school – the very old school – who firmly believed that billing and cooing were much less important than settling terms.

     Nicola reckoned that words of love did not come easily to the lips of a man who had buried two wives, fathered three sons and had grandchildren almost as old as she was. Sir Charles’s conversation was vague and halting, unlike the almost brutal directness of Grant Peters, her sister Charlotte’s husband, who had thwarted all Papa’s attempts to end his whirlwind courtship of Charlotte by invoking the word ‘love’ with a vehemence usually reserved for advocates pleading capital charges.

     If she had been in Charlotte’s shoes Nicola too might have surrendered everything to Grant Peters for he was handsome in a burly sort of way, with coal black eyes that sized you up in an instant and a shock of dark curly hair that could not properly be contained by a wig. He had rushed Charlotte to the matrimonial oak under cover of darkness and had framed the vital question with such rhetorical vigour that Charlotte did not quite know whether she was saying yes or no, and had merely managed to nod which, it seemed, had been agreement enough for the impatient young lawyer.

     Three weeks later they had been married with a minimum of fuss in the crumbling little church at Kirkton and had returned at once to Edinburgh. Papa had stubbornly refused to attend the wedding and for almost a year now had spoken not a single word to Charlotte and addressed Grant Peters only when the business of the court demanded it.

     ‘Nicola – may I call you Nicola?’ Sir Charles enquired.

     ‘Why, of course,’ Nicola answered politely.

     ‘I do not wish to appear too – ah – pressing but time is not on my side.’ She had already noticed that Sir Charles rarely quoted Latin authors and never dropped French phrases into the conversation like her father’s Edinburgh friends. ‘Miss Templeton – Nicola – it behoves me to declare that you – you look particularly ravishing this evening.’

     ‘Ravishing?’ Nicola said. ‘Really?’

     ‘Filled with – with spring sap.’

     ‘Sap? I see,’ said Nicola. ‘Why, thank you, Sir Charles.’

     ‘Charles – Charles will do. In the light of what’s between us you are not obliged to address me by my title.’

     ‘What’s between us?’ said Nicola. ‘What is between us, sir?’

     ‘Oh, nothing indelicate, I assure you. Have I presumed too much?’

     Sir Charles de Morville might be the wealthiest man in North Ayrshire but his kidskin breeches did not quite cover his bony knees and no amount of tailoring could hide his wobbling little paunch.

     Nicola would have liked him better if he had been a bluff artisan in search of a young wife to warm his bed or even a wizened Edinburgh rake scheming for a wealthy bride to pay off his debts. As it was, Sir Charles appeared to have no interest in her virtues and the prospect of cohabiting with the diffident old gentleman, whose mental competence was, or soon would be, less than intact, filled her with revulsion.

     She stopped in her tracks and glanced back at Molly who raised both hands helplessly. Lassiter, the manservant, stopped too, and the carriage ground to a halt.

     ‘What is it, my dear?’ Sir Charles asked. ‘I trust I have not said something to offend you?’

     ‘No,’ Nicola said, ‘but I fear that you are about to.’

     ‘What do you mean?’

     ‘I mean I’ve no intention of marrying you, no matter what sort of accommodation you may have reached with my father.’

     ‘I haven’t asked you to marry me.’

     ‘Are you not primed to propose as soon as we reach the oak?’

     ‘Well – well, yes. I mean, I am.’

     ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘No, no, no.’

     ‘Lord Craigiehall, your father, assured me—’

     ‘He may assure you all he likes, sir; I will not marry you,’ Nicola said, ‘not even to appease my father.’

     Her mother had died soon after Nicola was born and some years later her brother Jamie had been brought down by a wasting of the lungs that had reduced him to a long-necked, high-shouldered splinter of a boy who, out of exhaustion more than anything, had quit the world with a sigh of relief at the age of twelve. Then, last summer, Charlotte had all but eloped with Grant Peters and had left Nicola to fulfil Papa’s hopes for the future of Craigiehall which, apparently, included marriage to his antique neighbour.

     ‘Ah, yes,’ Sir Charles said, nodding. ‘I told your father it would be better to allow you time to ripen.’

     ‘Ripen? I’m not an apple for the picking,’ Nicola said. ‘I’m quite old enough to know my own mind, sir. Whatever my father may have led you to believe, I am not going to marry you just to furnish Craigiehall with an heir.’

     ‘An heir?’ Sir Charles pressed a hand to his chest, his nails, close shorn, pink in the evening light. ‘Nothing was said about an heir. The provision of an heir might not – I mean – I am not a young man, Nicola, and nature . . .’ He made to touch her sleeve but she drew away. ‘I will not be – um – a demanding husband, I assure you.’

     ‘Do you not love me?’

     ‘No doubt I will learn to do so,’ he said. ‘The fact of the matter is that I have but few years left on this earth and I require a wife to protect me.’

     ‘Protect you?’

     ‘From my sons’ interminable squabbling.’

     ‘Is mediation to be my only role, sir?’

     ‘You will be well provided for.’

     ‘I am well enough provided for as it is,’ Nicola said. ‘What has my father promised you? And what will he receive in return?’

     ‘That, my dear,’ Sir Charles said, ‘is none of your concern.’

     ‘I see,’ Nicola said. ‘I am to become your wife to protect you from your sons but will receive nothing of value in return?’

     ‘Coal working rights,’ Sir Charles admitted, grudgingly.

     ‘I don’t doubt that my father will be delighted to work coal from your land but he also requires a suitable heir for Craigiehall,’ Nicola said, ‘and he will insist that you provide him with one.’

     ‘That may not, in practice, be possible.’

     ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ Nicola had no experience of love or of courtship but she had been reared in farming country and was well enough versed in the facts of life. ‘It will be possible, Sir Charles. I will make sure it’s possible.’

     ‘That is a very unseemly thing for a young woman to say, Miss Templeton. I am beginning to think that you are not the innocent flower your father believes you to be and, indeed, may not be a suitable companion after all.’

     ‘Companion, Sir Charles?’

     ‘Wife: I mean, wife.’

     ‘I regret that I must decline to be either your companion or your wife.’

     ‘Are you rejecting my offer, Miss Templeton?’

     ‘I am, sir. Indeed, I am,’ said Nicola.

     ‘Will you not give the matter more consideration? Talk it over with—’

     ‘With my father?’ Nicola said. ‘No, Sir Charles, as far as I’m concerned my father may jump in the loch and, if he wishes, take you with him.’

     Shocked, he staggered back, plucked a handkerchief from the pocket of his coat and held it to his lips. His eyes darkened and his cheeks took on a curious flush as if her forcefulness had finally stirred his ardour.

     ‘Is that your last word on the matter, Miss Templeton?’

     ‘It is, Sir Charles, it is.’

     ‘Lassiter,’ he called out, ‘fetch the coach.’

 

It must have cost her father a mighty effort of will, Nicola thought, not to rush out of doors when Sir Charles’s carriage clattered off towards the Ayr turnpike. He remained within the drawing-room, seated, rock-like, in a gilt-wood armchair, his long legs crossed, his lean, clean-shaven chin tipped up, his features carved with an expression of such severity that, not for the first time, she realised why he terrified not only felons but agents and advocates too.

     ‘Well, girl,’ he said, ‘where has he gone to?’

     ‘Home, I imagine,’ Nicola said.

     Hugh Littlejohn, her father’s overseer, and Robertson, his manservant, lurked in the shadows of the hall and on the master’s signal hastily closed the drawing-room doors.

     Nicola’s lips were dry, her throat sticky but, smothering her anger, she smoothed her skirts, seated herself on a black-and-gilt chaise and lay back against the cushion as if the events of the afternoon had merely bored her.

     ‘What passed between you?’ her father said.

     ‘I think you know what passed between us. He asked me to become his wife and I turned him down.’

     ‘You turned him down?’ her father said. ‘May I ask why?’

     ‘I’ve no desire to become the wife of a man who has one foot in the grave,’ Nicola answered. ‘I’ll not be traded away simply to advance your interests.’

     ‘I trust you do not intend to follow your sister’s example by marrying a penniless upstart.’

     ‘Grant Peters is no upstart, nor is he penniless.’

     ‘Peters is naught but a self-seeking lawyer with no rank or bottom. He will amount to nothing,’ her father said. ‘What’s more, he’ll have not one acre from me when I’m gone.’ He leaned forward and thrust out his chin, as if pronouncing sentence. ‘He’s sharp enough when it comes to the practice of law, I confess, and I don’t doubt that he has mastered all the prescriptions and obscure feudal acts that will enable him to lay claim to Craigiehall.’

     ‘I want no part of your schemes to expand Craigiehall,’ Nicola said.

     ‘If you choose to marry with my approval, Nicola, you’ll have Craigiehall to pass on to your children; then, perhaps, you’ll thank me for protecting you from the clamour that will hover over the inheritance.’

     ‘I’m in no mood to be lectured on the laws of inheritance,’ said Nicola.

     ‘Perhaps not,’ her father said. ‘However, it’s not given to mortal man to set a limit to his term on earth; that is a matter for God to decide upon. If I die without warning, believe me, Peters will have the skin off your back.’

     Quite how Grant Peters had infiltrated Papa’s stuffy clique was still something of a mystery. He had simply appeared one chill winter afternoon after service in St Giles, tagging along behind Mr Arbuthnot, the bookseller. He had been dressed in well-worn black gabardine, like an almsman, and had presented no obvious threat, save that he was young and more opinionated than he should have been given his rank and circumstances. He had courted Charlotte by letter and, later, at Craigiehall when Papa had been off on his Circuit journeys. He had proposed to her before Papa could return to prevent it.

     ‘Why do you hate Grant Peters so much?’

     ‘Because he’s an upstart who took advantage of my hospitality to ingratiate himself into your sister’s good graces. I had hoped that Charlotte would marry Arthur or possibly William de Morville but they were too impatient to wait for her to grow up. Tomorrow,’ her father said, ‘we’ll ride over to de Morville’s house and repair the damage. I’m sure that when you apologise for your impetuosity Sir Charles will look more favourably upon you. He thinks very highly of you, you know.’

     ‘He thinks of me hardly at all,’ Nicola said. ‘He thinks very highly of you, Papa. He is just as much in thrall to you as everyone else. Why don’t you offer to lease the coal workings if you want them so badly? The bald fact of the matter is that you’re so set against Grant Peters that you’ll do anything to prevent him laying hands on Craigiehall.’

     ‘Have I not just said as much?’

     ‘Anything – including marrying me off to a decrepit old man. Well, Papa, I will not grovel to that horrid old fellow, not tomorrow nor any other day.’

     ‘You will do as I say, Nicola.’

     ‘No, I will not. I’m eighteen years old and quite able to take charge of my own life and my own destiny.’

     ‘How will you support yourself?’ her father said. ‘Daughters of gentlemen are not equipped to provide for themselves. They are expected to make sensible marriages.’

     ‘Surely you would not see me starve?’

     ‘The letter of the law obligates me to attend to your welfare until you take a husband,’ her father said. ‘Starving is not an issue.’

     He rose suddenly, looming up against the light. He had never struck her, or Charlotte, though once, many years ago, he had taken a cane to Jamie to teach him a lesson, the moral of which was long forgotten.

     At sixty, he did not seem old. He was not stiff in movement and in spite of a thousand hours spent on the bench his spine remained straight. He closed his hands behind his back and tucked them beneath his coat tail.

     ‘The truth is that I am not so well off as you might imagine,’ he said. ‘Balancing the running of my estate with a career in law has taken its toll. I may be a judge of the double robe and have an honorary title but my finances are not as sound as they ought to be.’

     ‘Are we poor, father?’ Nicola asked, with a hint of mockery.

     ‘Poor? Nay, hardly that; not gruel poor, at least. However, now that Jamie’s gone and Charlotte has put herself beyond reach it falls to you to secure Craigiehall’s future by making a proper marriage.’

     ‘Find me a husband then, a better, younger husband than de Morville.’

     ‘Easier to say than to do. The world is full of selfish young rogues, Nicola, without a penny to their names or prospects worth the mention. I’ve gone to considerable lengths to encourage Sir Charles de Morville’s interest. Whatever you may think to the contrary, he is, in most respects, an ideal husband for you.’

     When he leaned towards her she saw the underside of his jaw, his thin lips and that formidable brow all foreshortened, just as she had done when she was small and he had slipped into the nursery to bid Charlotte and her goodnight. He had seemed quite fearsome then in the slanting light from the candle and she had often wished that he was more ordinary, like Mr Trench, the tenant of Kirkton farm, for instance, who was red-cheeked and jolly and who, risking Nanny Aird’s wrath, would lift her up and twirl her about just for the fun of it; or like Mr Feldspar, the soutar from Kilmarnock who travelled about the shire with a cartful of boots and shoes and who always had a kind word and a square of brown candy for Charlotte and her, even though he took few orders at her Craigiehall’s kitchen door.

     ‘In most respects?’ Nicola said. ‘What respects, for instance?’

     ‘By any calculation,’ her father said, ‘Charles de Morville will soon be called upon to pay his debt to nature.’

     ‘His debt to nature?’ Nicola said. ‘What do you mean?’

     ‘I mean,’ her father said, ‘that he will die within a year or two.’

     ‘Is that what this is all about?’ Nicola cried. ‘You wish me to marry de Morville so that I may become his widow? Papa, that’s a scurrilous suggestion.’

     ‘It’s not in the least scurrilous. If you marry Sir Charles you’ll have your share of his lands to manage as you will. You’ll be entitled to appoint your own factor, draw your own rents and be quite independent of de Morville’s sons. In a word, what has been given you, you’ll keep. Then you may marry anyone you choose, for a wealthy young widow never lacks suitors of quality.’

     ‘And Craigiehall?’

     ‘Craigiehall will be saved and increased.’

     ‘Increased by my sacrifice, you mean?’

     ‘Come now, whatever his faults, de Morville is hardly a Hottentot. He’ll treat you with respect and obey your every whim.’

     ‘But will he do the decent thing and die?’ Nicola cried. ‘Have you fixed a date in the nuptial agreement when he will politely give up the ghost?’ She thrust her hands against her father’s chest and pushed him away. ‘What if de Morville does not die? What if he falls into a dribbling sickness that does not prove fatal? Am I to nurse him? Am I to lie with him every night and keep him alive with the heat of my body as the Shunammite did to King David?’

     ‘You have too much imagination, Nicola.’

     ‘I have too much conscience, you mean,’ Nicola snapped.

     ‘He is seventy-two years old, you know.’

     ‘And I’m eighteen. Great heavens, Papa, don’t you care for me at all?’ Nicola said and then, before she could burst into tears, added, ‘I am going to my room now.’

     ‘We’ll sup at half past seven and talk of this matter at greater length.’

     ‘I’m not hungry. I am going to bed.’

     ‘Nicola!’

     ‘Goodnight to you, sir.’

     ‘Nicola!’ he said once more.

     But Nicola had already gone.

 

Waning sunlight was reflected in the bevel of the pier-glass, a sad little rainbow trapped in the darkened room. The four-poster that she had once shared with Charlotte seemed vast and with all Charlotte’s boxes gone the room itself was depressingly empty. She loosened her ribbons, kicked off her shoes, threw herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillow.

     Until now, her dreams of bridal nights had centred not on submission to a husband’s physical demands but to a love that owed more to the fairytale than the barnyard. She was afraid that Papa might somehow manipulate her into a position where she would have to marry Charles de Morville if only to save Craigiehall for children who had not been conceived and who, if Sir Charles was to be believed, might never be conceived at all.

     Molly slipped into the room. She was six years older than Nicola and had served first in the scullery then as a housemaid and after Nanny Aird had passed away had been put to care for Charlotte and Nicola. She was a plump, red-haired woman whose bumpkin appearance disguised sharp wits.

     She padded to the bed, seated herself on the counterpane and wiped away Nicola’s tears with a none-too-clean handkerchief.

     ‘What shall I do, Molly? What can I do?’ Nicola sobbed. ‘Tomorrow, or the next day, Papa will insist that we call upon Sir Charles, I will be forced to apologise and – and – it will begin all over again.’

     ‘Aye,’ Molly said, ‘but this time you’ll be ready for it.’

     ‘Are the servants talking? Do they think me a fool?’

     ‘It matters not a jot what the servants think,’ Molly assured her. ‘All that matters now is what you want to do.’

     ‘What Papa wants me to do, you mean.’

     ‘You refused the mannie once, you can refuse him again.’

     ‘I cannot go on refusing him if Papa won’t take no for an answer.’

     ‘Sir Charles’ll weary of it soon enough,’ Molly said. ‘He was none too eager in the first place. He thinks you’re o’er young for him an’ he’s frightened you’ll wear him to a frazzle.’

     Nicola sat up. ‘Did Mr Lassiter say as much?’

     ‘Mr Lassiter’s far too grand to gossip wi’ the likes o’ me,’ Molly said. ‘If I know your father, though, he’ll not let the matter rest. He’ll want it settled before he goes up to Edinburgh for the summer term.’

     ‘Perhaps he’ll find another suitor, someone younger and more appealing than Charles de Morville. I’m not unattractive, Molly, am I?’

     ‘You’re far from that, Miss,’ Molly said. ‘It’s my guess, though, his lordship’ll leave you in Craigiehall. He’s worried you’ll have your head turned an’ run off wi’ an upstart like Mr Peters.’

     ‘Mr Peters isn’t an upstart; he’s a well respected lawyer.’

     ‘Maybe so,’ Molly said, ‘but he’s not Sir Charles de Morville.’

     ‘Why is my father so concerned with the de Morvilles? Sir Charles may be wealthy even by our standards but he’s just a fusty old farmer with more land than he knows what to do with,’ Nicola said. ‘I’ve heard all the tales about the de Morville boys and their silly squabbles. Why Sir Charles imagines that having me for a wife will unite his family is quite beyond me. My father persuaded him, I suppose, bamboozled him with legal jargon. I’m sick of Papa’s plots, sick of being shut away in Craigiehall like a prisoner in the Tolbooth.’

     ‘Then go to Edinburgh,’ Molly said. ‘Now you’ve turned eighteen your father can’t send the soldiers to fetch you back. Mr Peters’ll take you in till this spot o’ bother blows over. It would be a grand bit of revenge for the way your father treated Mr Peters if he sheltered you for a week or two.’

     ‘I cannot leave without Papa’s permission.’

     ‘If Charlotte had waited for his lordship’s permission she’d still be sittin’ here in Craigiehall or – worse – be wedded to old Sir Charles. When your Papa realises he has made a mistake he’ll offer the olive branch, you’ll see.’

     Nicola thought about it for a moment. ‘I’ll write to Charlotte tomorrow.’

     ‘If I was you, Miss Nicola, I wouldn’t bother wi’ a letter.’

     ‘If you were me, Molly,’ Nicola said, ‘what would you do?’

     ‘Pack an’ leave for Edinburgh before his lordship can stop you.’

     ‘But I’ve no money, not a penny to my name.’

     ‘I’ve enough saved for two seats on the Flyer,’ Molly said.

     ‘I couldn’t possibly take money from you, Molly.’

     ‘Pay me back when we get there.’

     ‘Where will I get the money to pay you?’

     ‘Mr Peters’ll take care o’ it,’ Molly said. ‘Now what’s it to be, Miss Nicola? Edinburgh – or another encounter wi’ Sir Charles?’

     ‘Edinburgh,’ Nicola said. ‘Even if it does turn out to be the lesser of two evils, yes, Edinburgh, first thing tomorrow morning.’

 

Charlotte was surprised and not entirely pleased, to find Nicola and Molly huddled on the landing at half past four o’clock on a rainy Thursday afternoon.

     She had just entertained two ladies from the St Andrew’s Charitable Foundation and had been reduced to a state of near torpor by their tedious harangue. In addition, the taking of tea at such an unfashionable hour had rubbed home the drabness of her life in the upper reaches of the massive tenement that towered over the Lawnmarket. Graddan’s Court had originally been designed to provide the burgesses of Edinburgh with a little extra breathing space but having lost its wealthier citizens to the New Town across the North Loch, it had become a repository for those who had slipped from the upper rungs of society as well as those who, like young Grant Peters, were intent on moving up in the world.

     Charlotte had a maid and a cook and her lot in life was not hard, though now and then she found it lonely, for Grant worked long hours to keep fees rolling in and he did not have a large circle of friends. Papa kept a spacious town house in Crowell’s Close at the top of the Customhouse Steps, just a stone’s throw away, but since the day of her marriage he had refused to communicate with Charlotte, let alone call upon her.

     ‘My dearest girl,’ Charlotte said, ‘what a wonderful surprise. Look at you, though, you’re quite soaked through. Did you travel on the post-chaise?’

     ‘On the Flyer,’ said Nicola. ‘It took barely eight hours.’

     Charlotte ushered them into the hall. ‘Is Papa with you?’

     ‘No,’ said Nicola. ‘Papa and I had a dreadful row and I ran off. May I lodge with you for a little while – if it isn’t inconvenient?’

     ‘Of course it isn’t inconvenient,’ Charlotte said. ‘I take it Papa knows where you are?’

     ‘I left a letter with Mr Littlejohn.’

     ‘Didn’t Mr Littlejohn try to stop you?’ Charlotte said.

     ‘On the contrary. He had our boxes conveyed to the road-end.’

     ‘Where are your boxes now?’

     ‘At Mannering’s Hotel in the New Town where the Flyer terminates,’ Nicola said. ‘We walked across the bridge from there.’

     ‘Did you not think to hire a caddy?’

     ‘I did not have money enough to hire a caddy,’ Nicola said. ‘I had to borrow the coach fare from Molly.’

     ‘Oh!’ said Charlotte. ‘You really have run away, haven’t you? Never fear. Grant will take care of everything. Now, why are we standing in the hall? Come into the parlour and take off your bonnet and cape. I’ll have Jeannie make us fresh tea and some bread and butter. We sup, as a rule, at eight or half past, depending on when Grant elects to come home.’

     ‘How is Grant?’ Nicola said.

     ‘He’s well,’ Charlotte said. ‘Very well.’ Then, throwing open the door, she ushered her sister into the parlour.

 

It was after seven o’clock before Grant Peters returned. He greeted Nicola warmly, listened to her story, nodded, and went off to find a reliable boy to retrieve her trunk from Mannering’s yard while Charlotte arranged with Cook to add more dumplings to the stew and Jeannie, the maid, lighted the lamps and set the table.

     Nicola knew little about Grant Peters’ pedigree. His family had elected not to add fuel to the flames by attending the Ayrshire wedding. Two brothers and a widowed mother were settled on one of four small farms that the Peters owned outside of Stirling. The oldest brother, Roderick, factored the holdings. The youngest brother, Gillon, had fought with the Highland Regiment in the American war but, having no cash with which to purchase himself a decent commission, had recently resigned from the King’s service.

     Grant had studied Latin, Greek and moral philosophy at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow and had been mentored thereafter by Writer to the Signet Hercules Mackenzie, whose instruction had enabled him to pass his trials Civil Law and whose influence had gained him admission to the Faculty of Advocates, though Grant was still too young to have