The Highlander's Redemption

‘To see a friend of mine.’ He led the way through a wynd, which rose sharply between the two streets it connected, then turned left into a small courtyard where more rows of laundry took up most of the cramped space, flapping on lines stretched between poles across its width. ‘Mind these stairs. See what I mean about treacherous?’

The staircase wound up the outside of the building, almost like a wooden scaffold attached rather precariously to the stone tenement. Madeleine lifted her petticoat and climbed nervously, relieved when they stopped at the first floor.

‘Jeannie,’ Calumn called, rapping briskly on the door.

A young woman answered, her pretty face lighting up with pleasure when she saw the identity of her visitor. ‘Calumn, what a surprise.’

Her vibrant red hair was caught up in a careless knot on top of her head. Her figure was lush, with rather too much of her white bosom on display through her carelessly fastened shift, Madeleine decided prudishly.

‘I brought Mademoiselle Lafayette to meet you. Madeleine, this is Jeannie.’

‘Good day to you, mademoiselle,’ Jeannie said, bobbing a curtsy. ‘Come away in, the pair of you, before we have the rest of the close wanting to know our business.’

Despite the fact that she was obviously not a respectable female, Madeleine warmed to her. Jeannie ushered them into a room which seemed to serve for living, sleeping and eating all at once. A huge black pot simmered over the fire, suspended on a hook which hung from a complicated pulley-and-chain device inside the chimney breast. A large table and an assortment of chairs took up most of the space, all covered with piles of neatly folded clothing. In the far corner a recess in the wall, like a cupboard without a door, was made up as a bed. Jeannie bustled about clearing some chairs and bade them sit down. ‘I’m sorry about the clutter,’ she said to Madeleine.

‘Jeannie takes in laundry,’ Calumn said, leaning comfortably back on a rickety wooden chair, clearly quite at home in the crowded room. ‘She washes my shirts and I give her young brother fencing lessons in return. She also does the washing for some of the prisoners up at the castle.’

‘Those that can afford it, any roads. I’m up there most days. It’s a sorry sight, I can tell you. Some of those poor souls have been locked up there for years.’

Realisation finally began to dawn on Madeleine. ‘You mean you can talk to the prisoners,’ she exclaimed.

‘Aye, of course.’

‘Mademoiselle Lafayette is looking for someone who may be held there,’ Calumn said, responding to Jeannie’s enquiring look. ‘A Frenchman called Guillaume de Guise.’

‘What does he look like?’

If only she possessed a miniature! Madeleine screwed up her eyes in an effort to picture Guillaume’s face, but after so long without seeing him it was as if his image had blurred. She could remember things about him—his smile, the way he strode across the fields, the sound of his voice calling to his dogs—but she couldn’t see his face clearly. Instead, she described his portrait, taken for his twenty-first birthday and a good likeness. ‘Tall, though not as tall as Monsieur Munro. Slimmer too, with dark hair, though he usually has it cut short, for he wears a wig. Blue eyes, though not like Monsieur’s either, paler. And he is younger, he will be twenty-three now.’ She looked at Calumn, lounging with careless grace on the chair next to her. He had such presence, an aura of power, of—of maleness—that she could not imagine ever forgetting what he looked like. In contrast, the memory of Guillaume appeared boyish, disappointingly ephemeral.

Jeannie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t recall having seen anyone like that.’

‘Wait a bit though, did you not say that Lady Drummond’s being held in the Black Hole?’ Calumn asked.

‘Aye, she’s there with her two daughters, and a damn shame it is too, to see such a proud woman brought so low. I have some of their shifts to take back today. Beautiful stitching on them.’

‘Lord Drummond was the commander of the Écossais Royeaux, the regiment for which de Guise fought,’ Calumn explained. ‘He was executed some months ago now, but they don’t have the right to send his wife the same way. She’ll be worth talking to.’

‘You can’t expect me to take her there, Calumn, it’s a terrible place.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ Madeleine declared determinedly, ‘and I would be very, very grateful if you would help me. Will you, please?’

Jeannie pursed her lips disapprovingly. ‘We’ll have to do something about those clothes of yours, they’re far too fine for a laundry maid. I’ll give you an apron to put over them, and you can wear a cap, but you’ll need to keep your hands out of sight. Anybody with a wheen of sense can see those have never done a day’s washing.’

‘Thank you!’ Madeleine leapt to her feet and impulsively pressed a kiss on Jeannie’s cheek. ‘You have no idea how much this means to me.’

‘Don’t be daft, I just hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for. Away with you just now. Meet me at the bottom of Castlehill at two.’

‘She’s nice, I like her,’ Madeleine said to Calumn as she once again found herself executing a little running step to keep up with his pace. ‘She’s your chère-amie, isn’t she?’

Calumn laughed. ‘Lord, no, Jeannie’s a grand lass, but she’s a friend, that’s all.’

‘And what does it mean, to be a grand lass?’ Madeleine asked, articulating the strange phrase carefully. ‘Am I one?’

They had reached the close which was the entranceway to Calumn’s rooms. Smiling at her lisping attempt at the Scots tongue, he pushed the gate open and ushered her through into the courtyard. As she moved past him, the swell of her hip brushed his leg, and he remembered last night again. Her body had been so soft and pliant, on top of his own. He thought of the way her hand felt so at home in his after breakfast this morning too, and before he could stop himself he wondered if her lips would fit his in the same way.

She had stopped to wait on him as he shut the gate. As she made to walk to the stairs he caught her arm and pulled her towards him, startling himself almost as much as her. ‘You are far too pretty to be called a grand lass,’ he said. ‘You, Madeleine Lafayette, are a captivating wee witch.’

‘I am not a witch,’ Madeleine said, flustered and indignant. She could feel the heat of his body, though they were hardly touching.

‘No? Maybe a fairy then,’ Calumn said, wondering fancifully if she had indeed cast a spell on him. Mere foolishness, but he hadn’t come across her like before, and he didn’t seem to be able to make himself stop what he knew he shouldn’t be doing, for he wanted, suddenly, urgently, to kiss her. He leaned closer, and caught a trace of her scent, remembered that too, from last night, like the wisps of a dream.

‘What are you doing? Let me go.’ Madeleine’s lungs seemed to have stopped working. Her heart was pumping too hard. Calumn’s eyes sparkled blue like the summer sea. He looked as if he was going to kiss her. Surely he would not dare? Surely she would not …

Calumn kissed her. It was the softest of kisses, just a touch of his lips on hers. A warmth, a taste, a curl of pleasure inside her, and it was over. ‘Oh! You should not—’

A hooting noise interrupted her. It was Jamie, standing on the bottom step, a dog comprised mostly of terrier wriggling in his arms. ‘Me ma says to remind you that this is a respectable close.’

‘As if she would ever let me forget,’ Calumn muttered, straightening up. ‘Here, go and put your washerwoman’s apron on. I’ve a bit of business to attend to. I’ll be back in time to escort you up to the castle.’

He handed Madeleine the key to his lodgings. Madeleine took it, trying not to imagine what kind of woman Jamie’s mother must be imagining her, to be caught kissing in public, even though he had kissed her without the slightest bit of encouragement! They would think her the same type of woman that Calumn obviously imagined her to be! For the first time since she had arrived, she was glad to have the North Sea between herself and her home. If her father had—but he had not seen, and would never know, and she would make sure it didn’t happen again, so it was pointless to worry. ‘There’s no need to come back for me,’ she said to Calumn, thinking that perhaps the less she was in his company the better, ‘I know the way now.’

His lips thinned. ‘You’ll do as I say,’ he said implacably.

It would be a waste of breath to argue; besides, she had much more important things to do right now. Madeleine nodded her agreement and made her retreat.

An hour later, her transformation to laundry maid was complete. She had tucked her petticoat and shift up at the waist, exposing her ankles in the way she noticed all the women did here, for the very practical reason of keeping their clothes from trailing in the stinking gutters. The closed robe she wore, the only one she had with her, was of cerulean blue with a darker stripe, and though the material, a blend of wool and silk, was of excellent quality, the long starched cotton apron Jeannie had given her covered much of it. She’d taken off her saque-backed jacket, and made sure that the frills of her shift showed at the neckline of her dress and at the hems of her tight sleeves, which she had pushed up to the elbows.

‘Well, do I look the part?’ Giving a little twirl before curtsying low in front of Calumn, she unwittingly granted him a delicious view of her cleavage.

He had thought her slender, but her curves were now clearly revealed. She had a delightful body. The slim arms emerging from the fall of lace at her elbow were white, the fragile bones at her wrists and ankles, and the elegance of her long, tapering fingers, her neck, all were somehow emphasised by the changes she had made to her clothing. The soft mounds of her breasts had the lustre of pearls against the white of her shift. Her mouth, with its full lower lip, was pink and luscious.

‘You look more like a princess playing at dressing up. Here, let me.’ He carefully tucked her hair back under the cap, giving her a marginally less just-got-out-of-bed look. Up close she smelled as sweet as she looked. Lavender and sunshine. ‘I’m not so sure it’s such a good idea after all, letting you go to the castle like this. Can you not pull the neckline of that dress a bit higher? You’ll have half the garrison lusting after you.’

‘I’ll be with Jeannie.’

‘Exactly. I should never have introduced you to her. I don’t know what I was thinking.’

Madeleine giggled. ‘You weren’t thinking very much at all. You had the headache from all that wine—no, I forgot, whisky—last night. You shouldn’t drink so much.’

‘If you had to live in my head, you’d know I can’t drink enough,’ Calumn flashed angrily.

Taken aback at the acrimony in his voice, she flinched. ‘And does it work?’

‘What do you mean?’

Resolutely, she held his gaze. ‘Mostly, people drink to forget something.’ ‘I am not most people.’

No, he most certainly was not. But he was trying to forget, none the less. Madeleine decided it was probably best not to say so, however.