Chapter 9

 

‘Father?’

Patrick Rankeillor turned his head away from his prolonged contemplation of the fire burning in the library grate and gave his daughter an unconvincing attempt at a reassuring smile. ‘I’m all right, lass.’

They both knew he was very far from being all right. How could he be after what she had just told him? The hardest part had been telling him about Jamie Buchan of Balnamoon, Patrick’s surgical apprentice and the nearest he’d ever had to a son. There had been no way of softening that blow. The blood had drained from her father’s face as Christian had recounted how Jamie had murdered a young woman in cold blood.

He’d got Jeannie Carmichael drunk and then smothered her, dumping her body round the side of the Royal Infirmary so he could pretend to find the corpse the following morning, with Christian at his side. Knowing he must have waited for her to arrive at the hospital to be a witness to this supposedly unexpected and shocking discovery was a bitter pill to swallow.

Jamie had silenced the young prostitute so she could not carry out her threat to tell Robert Catto what she knew. The girl had seen Jamie and Patrick Rankeillor bundling John Roy Stuart into the Royal Infirmary. She could have had no idea who or what he was, only that something illicit was going on. Already a wanted man for his support of the Stuart Cause, John Roy had lain low in the hospital for nigh on a week, incapacitated by a badly sprained ankle. He’d sustained the injury during the pell-mell escape from Surgeons’ Hall, when word had reached them the Town Guard was on its way to mount a raid.

Christian had taken the fugitive food and given him medical attention where he was concealed in one of the row of cells at the back of the Infirmary. Those were designed to safely contain patients whose wounds were not physical or visible, specifically those who might pose a danger to themselves or others. Some called those patients lunatics. Kinder people used the word Robert Catto had used of himself and her. Moonstruck.

‘But our visitor got away safely?’ Patrick asked now. Our visitor. Names of Jacobite agents were said out loud as seldom as possible. Jamie had given John Roy Stuart one nomde-guerre: Mr Fox, taking that description from his red hair. The son who refused to acknowledge him as his father had inherited that colouring as chestnut.

‘Aye,’ Christian replied and then, swallowing the lump in her throat, ‘and Jamie with him.’

‘What a price to pay. A young lass dead and Jamie...’ His face working painfully, Patrick left the sentence unfinished.

Jamie turning himself into a murderer. Those were the words her father had been unable to say. Jamie, a man who had dedicated his life to healing the sick, had ended a life. It went against every tenet of the medical creed. First, do no harm. Those words came right at the beginning of the Hippocratic oath doctors swore to obey.

Yet Jamie had done the worst harm one person can do to another. Robbed Jeannie Carmichael of her life. All for the sake of the Cause. All to help the Stuarts regain the throne. One life sacrificed. How many more sacrifices might be to come?

Robert Catto had quoted Machiavelli to Christian on that subject, asking her if she believed the end justified the means. Where and under what circumstances the question had been posed was one of several strands she had left out of her story. For she had not told her father everything, not by a Highland mile.

Patrick Rankeillor did not need to know Jamie had been prepared to take another life, handing her a pistol and telling her to shoot Robert Catto. Nor had she told him Robert Catto was the long-estranged son of John Roy Stuart. The two men had come face-to-face at the Assembly Rooms on the night of the Daft Friday ball.

She didn’t know if she believed the end justified the means. Especially after the death of Jeannie Carmichael and the near-death of Robert Catto. All her life she had been a passionate supporter of the Jacobite Cause, believing the restoration had to happen. She believed too it would not only give Scotland her lost independence back but bring about all manner of improvements in the lives of Scotland’s citizens, be they highborn or humble.

She still believed that. Heart and soul, she still believed it! But she could not deny the question which had crept into her head as to whether the longed-for restoration was worth war and bloodshed.

Since Jamie had done what he had done. Since Robert Catto had marched into her life, carrying the smoke and carnage of the battlefield of Europe with him, forcing her to face reality. He had all but called her a fool for believing there could be a peaceful transition, a coup d’état with no blood spilled. Those who hold the reins of power do not easily relinquish them.

Her father lifted the brandy glass at his elbow, took a sip and set it down again. ‘Are you all right, lass?’

‘I’m fine,’ she assured him. ‘I’ve had plenty to occupy me. It’s been a wee bit busy here this past week or so.’

‘So it would seem. The young man who has just left the house,’ he went on, ‘this Captain Robert Catto.’

‘What about him?’ she asked, shifting on the smooth brocade of the green and gold armchair.

‘It strikes me as somewhat incongruous that he has placed baith you and me under arrest. Yet has also rescued these two laddies and brought them here for safety. Asking you tae hide them frae the Liddells. No’ tae mention the lassie, wha you tell me was here already. Alice, is it?’

Christian nodded. ‘This was the obvious place for them to come. Especially Geordie, who needed medical attention. Which I was able to give.’

Patrick’s face darkened. ‘Aye. Whit barbarous folk the Liddells are, tae order the flogging o’ a boy who’s little mair than a bairn. As for what Cosmo Liddell and his friends did to young Alice...’ He raised his hands in frustration, unable to find the words to express his disgust.

‘Barbarous,’ Christian echoed. ‘Nor does Alice have any hope of redress in law.’ Her mouth settled into a tight line. ‘The same law that allowed Geordie to be flogged. Because he took his courage in both hands and ran away from Eastfield.’

’Aye,’ Patrick agreed, equally grim. ‘The perpetual servitude endured by the colliers and the brutal punishments meted out to those who try to escape is a grave injustice. The enslavement of folk like the young African boy is an affront to our common humanity.’ He sighed. ‘Although we know there are those among us who profit from this vile trade.’

‘Joshua,’ she supplied. ‘That is his name.’

Patrick nodded, taking in the information. ‘But both Joshua and Geordie are subject to the law. Which means young Captain Catto is running a gey big risk by breaking that law. Something which might well damage his military career.’

‘He’s running a huge risk,’ Christian agreed, a few more sentences running silently through her head. Because he is a good man. There’s a very kind heart beating under that arrogant exterior. Now, to our mutual astonishment, he and I have discovered we love each other and I’ve promised to give myself to him. Without marriage, without any guarantees, without any hope we might have a future together.

She knew only too well why she hadn’t passed on the information that Robert Catto was John Roy Stuart’s son: because it would be a betrayal of her lover. The word leapt into her head. Despite everything, despite the near impossibility they could ever truly become lovers, it sent a thrill fizzing and tumbling through her veins.

Pulling off his tie-wig and setting it aside, Patrick Rankeillor tugged at his neckcloth. Aside from allowing Betty to help him out of his riding coat, he was still dressed for the road.

‘Shall I run upstairs and fetch your banyan and slippers?’ Christian asked as he eased his feet out of his riding boots. ‘Then you could relax a little.’ She pulled a face. ‘As much as you can after having been arrested. Was it a hard ride back from Glasgow?’

‘Nothing to speak of.’

Waiting until he raised his head again, she looked him in the eye. ‘So you have proved to yourself you can withstand the rigour of long rides.’

‘Christian,’ Patrick said, a warning note in his voice. ‘Not now.’

She had guessed that was why he had chosen to travel to and from Glasgow on horseback rather than take the mail coach as he normally did. Before he had left Edinburgh she had expressed her shock that he would consider joining any Jacobite army not only as a surgeon but also as a soldier, sword and pistols at the ready. He had told her he could not ask other men to do what he would not.

Which was something she did not want to think about now. Or ever. Another deeply troubling thought.

He smiled at her, softening the rebuke, before glancing over at the brocade bell-pull which hung to one side of the fireplace. It was fashioned out of the same green and gold material which covered the armchairs. ‘I’ll ring for one o’ the lassies in a moment and ask her to fetch my dishabilly.’ He set his riding boots neatly together beside the armchair before loosening his neckcloth, sliding it off and putting it with his wig. ‘I understand from Betty young Mr Catto has been a regular caller here at Infirmary Street since he arrested you on Daft Friday.’

‘Yes,’ Christian said, sending up a silent prayer Betty had told him no more than that. Certainly nothing about how she had invited Robert Catto and Geordie to eat their Yule Day Dinner here in Infirmary Street. How could she explain that away?

‘I trust the young man has behaved with propriety at all times. That at no point has he threatened you. In any way.’

‘He has not.’ Which was not exactly true. He had threatened her with the terrible consequences armed uprising might bring. Not a subject she was going to raise now. And if Robert Catto had not behaved with propriety at all times, neither had she.

‘That is not how he goes about things. From what I have seen of him,’ she added hastily. More honest words tripped off her tongue. ‘Yet I fear I have told him too much, Father. I did not mean to but he has a way of getting answers out of you.’ She clasped her hands together on her lap. ‘It is more that he deduced the answers from what I said or did not say. Or how I looked when he posed certain questions.’

Patrick sighed. ‘Aye. I found the same thing when he questioned me at the West Port. Although it likely wasna too difficult for him tae deduce the answers, Kirsty. There are only so mony possibilities efter all.’

‘That’s what he said.’ She regretted those words as soon as they had left her mouth. They gave too much away. Normally the shrewdest of men, her father did not seem to notice. Nor had he asked how Alice had come to be at Infirmary Street. Both omissions had be a sign of how distressed he was about Jamie.

‘This has been a gey difficult time for you, lass. I’m sorry you’ve had tae deal wi’ it all on your own.’

‘But now you are home, Father. And I am very glad of it.’ Which she was, despite knowing his return was going to make any assignation with Robert Catto so much more difficult to accomplish.

‘I fear what may be going to happen next,’ she said, thinking she was speaking nothing but the truth. About several things.

‘We shall cross our bridges when we come tae them, my dear. Now, before Betty comes back in tae fuss over me again, tell me more about the three new members o’ our household.’

‘Betty can help us with that,’ Christian said, feeling a rush of relief as the conversation moved onto safer ground. ‘She has taken them all to her bosom. Being the mother hen. As she also is with Mary and Tibby.’

‘Yourself too, lass. She’s aye been that to you.’

Christian nodded. ‘Indeed, Father. Shall we go through and allow her to fuss over you again and you can hear her version of the story? Although,’ she added, ‘we should leave Alice’s ordeal to one side while she is present.’ A pang of compassion seized her. ‘I fear she relives it over and over again as it is.’

Patrick rose to his feet, meeting Christian in the middle of the brightly-coloured hearthrug as she too stood up. He laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. ‘The human mind, like the human body, is capable o’ healing its wounds. Far more than we give it credit for. Time and gentle treatment will help.’

Christian followed him through to the kitchen, watching and listening as he smiled at Tibby and asked her to fetch his banyan and slippers from upstairs. He would keep his feelings well hidden, she knew. Privately, he would struggle to come to terms with what Jamie had done. How could he not? A little voice in her head told her how much distress she too could cause him if she and Robert Catto did somehow manage to become lovers in more than name.

Despite her discomfort and unease, one emotion held sway inside her head and inside her heart. Over this most turbulent Yuletide, Robert Catto had escaped all the harm which might have befallen him, emerged unscathed from every threat. He was safe and sound – and he was hers, as she was his. Whatever might lie before them, they had found each other, in this place and this time.

God help them both.