“And that,” Ramsay Macdonald said. “That is why the French and the English keep fighting, and the French keep losing!”
A round of polite laughter went around the table. Everyone around them busied themselves scraping their knives and the tines of their forks around the fine china that Laird Macdonald insisted upon using even though Orrick told him it was too gauche to use such fine dishes with cheap silverware. If anyone noticed, they didn’t speak up.
For what seemed like eternity, the nobles of all sorts sat in a very obvious hierarchy with Macdonald at the head of the table. Minor peers, four generations removed from any real wealth sat alongside new money made when the Crown took the Jacobite land. The men and ladies who were of a station to command respect were given a bit of room at the elbows, while those Macdonald thought less important, or at least less likely to assist him in some way, were crowded into the center of the table, so that their elbows struck one another when they cut their roast pork.
Even Sheriff Alan was there, though almost unrecognizable without his black plug of chew, and without the brown streaks in his wig.
Kenna poked at a thin slice of meat, ate two pieces of turnip boiled so long they were almost liquid. She once lifted a piece of pork from the plate, but her hand shook so badly that she just put it down and returned her hands to her lap. No matter how she tried to attend to one or another of the droll conversations all around her, Kenna’s thoughts simply wouldn’t leave the dark-haired teenager who gave her the ornament round her neck. She couldn’t push what Orrick said from her mind, about his goodness.
More than once, Macdonald elbowed her in the ribs and prompted her to laugh at a joke or gasp at some terrible news that invariably was about some filthy peasant thinking himself above his station.
She drew a face in the gravy that pooled on either side of the pork slice, and that was the only time she smiled.
Suddenly, at the other end of the massive oaken table, a waistcoat indistinguishable from the other waistcoats stood up and adjusted a wig indistinguishable from the other wigs.
Kenna wished that the pork had been poisoned.
A fat pair of fingers held aloft a glass and gently clanged a fork against the crystal. Everyone silenced themselves.
This whole thing is so rehearsed, Kenna thought, how are these people not driving themselves insane? Or maybe they already have...
“Hullo! Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention?”
Kenna looked at him, bemusedly, as he gesticulated and opened his mouth overly wide to speak.
“As we all know, the reason we’ve been invited to Laird Macdonald’s beautiful estate, given him by His Majesty King George I, God rest his soul,” he took a breath and everyone bowed their heads, “is to celebrate the joining of our gracious host, Ramsay Macdonald, Seventh Earl of Kilroyston, to the lovely...ah, the lovely...”
A woman tugged the speaker’s hand and whispered in his ear.
“Of course, the lovely Kenna Moore of Fort Mary, a town in the highlands which I hear is quite quaint. Aren’t those highlanders a wonderful bunch?”
Even as she smiled, Kenna’s blood boiled. A hand on the shoulder from her husband-to-be forced her to swallow the rage as a round of laughs and soft clapping went around the table. Alan ran his tongue along his teeth, picked something from between his molars with a grotesque suck, and stared at Kenna as he applauded.
“What a wonderful toast,” Macdonald said with only a slight grimace. “Now, shall we adjourn to the ballroom? The rest of the guests should be there already. Our fife and pipe band will continue to entertain, and you’re welcome to dance as long as you like, though I must warn you that at my age, one retires early.”
As the patriarch stood, so did the children. He smiled and waved and bowed and shook gloved hands with those who dared to approach him. A few moments later, the dining hall was empty save for Ramsay, Kenna, and a couple of the kitchen staff busily taking away plates and sneaking morsels.
“Remember what I told you,” he said. “You’re to have a good time. It looks best for me if you’re smiling. Do you understand?”
“Yes, of course, sir.” Kenna said.
She was tired of the game, tired of playing along with the charade. Just a little longer, she told herself, a couple of hours and this will all be over.
Again, she looked at the soup, then the pork.
Why couldn’t it be poisoned?
––––––––
Noise of music and stomping feet and laughter greeted Kenna as she turned down the hallway to the ballroom. Her Earl of Kilroyston remained behind, he said, to meet with someone in his antechamber, but would be down afterward.
As she rounded the final turn and the swell of some barely recognizable folk song or another one met her ears, Kenna remembered that she was supposed to wear a mask. There was no time though, for her to go back, so she just walked into the massive room and drank in the scene.
Far more people than were at the stuffy dinner were packed into Macdonald’s great hall. All sorts of different tartans were present, all very neatly bundled and tied. Most of the colors stayed in tightly packed groups, but it wasn’t long, as Kenna sat back and watched, until many of the men began to drink enough that the colors mixed and subdued dancing turned into something much more furious.
She searched the crowd for Orrick, or for anyone she recognized, but that was foolhardy at best. Behind masks she watched men with long hair, men with short hair, men with beards and those clean shaven drinking and dancing. She watched ladies in the finest gowns she’d ever seen swirling around the floor as though they weren’t being crushed half to death by their corsets.
Two men caught her eye. They were obviously as out of place as she was, but they were laughing between themselves. They’re wearing Macdonald tartan, but they’re just wandering around. I wonder...
“Milady?”
Kenna jumped.
“Sorry to have surprised you, milady, but I couldn’t help notice that you were looking rather lost. Might I have a dance?”
Without really taking her eyes off the three men across the room, Kenna said of course, and bowed deeply, sucking wind right before bending, as Olga showed her.
The gentleman was kind enough, his dainty touch on her back barely there. Kenna twirled when he urged, dipped when he leaned. She even ended up leading half the time when the gentle-faced man seemed unsure. As they moved across the floor, she noticed that a third man joined the two she was watching, and parted from an elegant looking lady with a kiss that was a bit too long to be proper.
He parted from her with a smile and a bow, which she returned.
When he moved away, she once again glimpsed the three out of place men, though there were only two now – one very big and one very slender. The one with the longer haired tied back in a sensible ponytail had gone somewhere. Kenna caught up with him as he leaned lazily on one of the tables ringing the dance floor, got a cracker with some sort of meat folded on top of it, and slipped one of the forks into his sporran. Judging by the size of it, that wasn’t the first thing to disappear into the man’s pouch, though a moment later after he rejoined his fellows, the pocket had somehow emptied, for it was flat again.
The big man, with a huge red beard and darker mustache, nudged the tall, thick-shouldered one and tipped his head in Kenna’s direction. She immediately flushed and turned her back, pretending to select a drink from the table.
“Milady?” Another masked gentleman, this one wearing English-style dress, approached her.
“Yes of course,” she said before he asked her anything, and took his hands.
Slowly, they spun round and round to the swaying, lilting music. When Kenna had a chance to steal a glance, she did, but the Scotsman with the brown hair was vanished again. This time, the only one of his friends she found was the slender one with the gloves and what looked like some kind of injury to his hand.
Where did you go? And why can’t I take my eyes off you? Who are you?
The man’s face flashed in her mind. His soft blue eyes, deep as the waters of Loch Katrine, tickled the back of her neck.
“Is something the matter, milady?”
“Oh no, it’s nothing, I just thought I-”
Finally, Orrick wandered into the room holding a tray of sausages.
“Orrick,” she said. “Have you seen the three men, one of them rather fat with a big red beard, the other two more slender, and one of those has long brown hair tied into a pony’s tail, and the third is wearing black leather gloves?”
“Ma’am, that describes a number of guests,” he said with a smile. “Can you be more specific?”
She pulled away from the confused gentleman with whom she was half-dancing, and looked around the room.
“There!” she said.
“Now isn’t that curious,” Orrick said. “That’s Red Ben. He worked as part of master Macdonald’s household until very recently.”
“Are you sure? I mean with the mask and all.”
“He’s a hard man to mistake.”
The pipes began a rousing rendition of something that Kenna didn’t recognize, but from the reaction the men in the room gave, it was popular.
“I don’t mean to cause any trouble,” she said.
“No, it isn’t any trouble. But I don’t know why he’s here. I wonder if I should say something to...”
“Don’t,” Kenna said. “Please? For some reason I have a feeling this is...I don’t know why, but it seems like they are supposed to be here. Please? For me?”
“As long as they don’t cause any trouble, I see no reason to alert the guards.”
“Thank you Orrick.”
No sooner had he bowed and offered her a sausage than Kenna felt a hand on her shoulder.
Soft, curling fingers rasped against her gown.
A hot palm warmed her skin.
“My lady Kenna,” said the main behind the mask. “Might we dance?”
His voice was nothing like the rest of the speech she’d heard. It was plain, and it was from the north. She recognized the way he pulled at the end of the words. Without turning, she said, “who are you?”
“Now, now, isn’t it poor manners for a lady to ask who a man is? I’m wearing a mask for a reason.”
Even though he was behind her, Kenna felt the man’s breath on her neck and couldn’t help but smile.
“Aren’t you wearing a mask because it’s a masquerade ball?”
“Too smart for your own good, aye?”
She tried to turn but he held her in place and slid his hands around her hips. They burned through her gown and through the awful corset that felt like it was breaking her ribs.
“Tell me sir; is this what I’ve been hoping would happen? If it is, how is it possible?”
“Well lady Kenna, I can’t say for sure what you’ve been hoping for, but I know I’ve wanted this for three years. Probably more.”
From across the room, someone grabbed the gloved hand of the man with the ruined fingers.
“Hey! This foul creature is trying to steal something from my sporran! I caught his hand in it, jingling about with a mind to take my money!”
A roar quickly spread through the hall and Orrick rushed back in, past Kenna and to the man who screamed.
In the space a few breaths, a dirk came out of a boot, it was slashed and the gloved man recoiled with a cut across his cheek. He lifted his hand to the wound, looked at his bloody glove and yanked out a pistol he had secreted under his billowing shirt.
“John! No!”
Kenna’s heart stopped.
A flash erupted from the muzzle of the gun, but whizzed wide, shattered four glasses and buried in the wall behind them.
“Sheriff! Sheriff! He tried to shoot me!”
The melee that erupted in the middle of the banquet hall took everyone by surprise as a number of people attempted to wrestle the spent pistol from the man who fired it, and others tried to get the still-useful knife from the man who slashed at the thief.
“Kenna, look on me. It’s been too long.”
Her eyes shot wide open when she heard the completely unaffected voice. Her eyes traced the lines of the face behind the red and green mask. She examined him for any familiar sign and then when she had almost lost herself to doubt, she locked on his eyes. Those deep, stormy, ocean-blue eyes.
“Gavin?”
“I thought I’d never see you again. I’ve worried about it since the day I left, and I don’t know why. We’ve never talked, we’ve never so much as touched hands, but as ridiculous as it may sound, the first time I saw you I knew you were for me.”
She sucked a deep breath. The chaos erupting around them seemed a world away.
“I can’t believe-”
He pulled her close and lifted his mask.
“Believe it,” he said. “Red Ben said you’d be here. I wasn’t going to miss this for the world. And I do like a good dance party. From watching you dine, I’d say you weren’t here on your own accord?”
That got a laugh from Kenna. The first one she’d had in days.
“My father, he-”
“Not now.” He put his finger to her lips. “I’ve got to stop my friend from shooting anyone, and get out of here before that half-wit sheriff makes any arrests.”
She looked at him, refusing to let the man she’d wanted for her whole life leave without memorizing every single line of his face, every curl of his hair. As his hands went to either side of his face, another gunshot sounded, but no one screamed so it was probably fine, Kenna thought.
“I’ll be back for you. It might take a day or it might take a year, but I will be back for you. Your room is on the east side of the mansion, yes?”
“I don’t...I suppose so, how did you know?”
“I know things. Two mornings from now, look into the sun as it sinks below the horizon.”
“Why? What will I see?”
“Your hair, oh my Kenna, I’ve wanted to do this since I was eight.” He slid his hands behind her head, fingers scratching her neck softly as they tangled in the hair at the base of her neck.
He held her there for a moment. Nothing in the world existed, not the brawl, not the screaming sheriff or the panicked nobles, or the two rogues dancing around and playfully dodging clumsy blows. Nothing matter, except for her, and for him.
“Gavin,” she said. “I kept it. I never lost it.”
Gavin arched one of his eyebrows. His deep, ocean-blue eyes sparkled.
“The thistle,” she patted her chest. “I never take it off.”
A corner of his full lips curled into a smile, Gavin drank her in for another instant, and then pulled her to him, pressing his lips against hers. She shuddered as he parted her lips and slipped his tongue between them such that her very core tensed and released.
He tasted her deep, breathed her air, and inhaled her scent as though he was trying to never forget. Another moment passed as he looked at her, then Gavin kissed her again, pulled away and squeezed her hand.
“Don’t forget,” he said. “Two days from now at dusk. Straight out your window.”
Tears welled up in Kenna’s eyes as emotions she didn’t know she had flooded her heart. Gavin darted between wide-swinging sabers and drunken nobles who were waving around un-cocked pistols, and reached his friends.
He pointed back at her, John and Red both looked. Red touched his forehead and bowed slightly. The man called John flashed a roguish grin and Gavin pressed two fingers to his lips.
They ran, scrambling up the side of the hall onto a table. The two slender men snaked up a pillar, tossed a rope down to Red Ben, who wrapped it round his wrist, and managed to climb high enough that the other two could grab him under the arms, and then out the window they went, Red first, in a sparkling shower of exploding stained glass.
“Lady Kenna!” Orrick shouted as he neared her side. “Are you alright? That knave, he-”
“Remember the man I told you about, Orrick?” Kenna said through tears that washed her flushed cheeks.
“Yes, but-”
“He’s real,” she said. “And he’s most certainly not dead.”