White Rose Rebel by Janet Paisley Read Free Book Online Page B

a night spent tumbling the blankets with him would have cured her, she would have done that. But this went deeper than between her thighs, though she couldn’t understand or explain.
    ‘We can’t know why we do things,’ she said. ‘I only know I must do this.’
    Around Moy Hall, many hundreds of Highlanders had gathered. The white rose of June bloomed at the great front door and under windows, planted there so its perfume would fill the house. There was a buzz of activity. Men and women set food and drink on long tables: a roast pig, venison, game birds, rabbits, fish, oatcakes, barrels of ale. Hearing the distant skirl of pipes, they hurried to finish.
    Inside the main hall, with its twin fireplaces on opposite walls and wide, sweeping staircase, an adolescent girl set out fish and meat delicacies beside brimming stoups of claret. From the open doors in the dining room, Aeneas frowned out at the frantic lastminute preparations. Then he, too, heard the faint skirl and his brow cleared. He was dressed in a fine kilted philabeg, woven specially for this day and made by the clan’s best kiltmaker, plaid pinned over his shoulder with a silver brooch. His favourite silver-handled broadsword and dirk gleamed at his sides. Beside him, Forbes of Culloden, Scotland’s elderly Law Lord, sounded off.
    ‘The burial costs are not met. Fifteen hundred guests and your clan’s mortgage debt for this hall not cleared. Now this! Hens and oats are not currency, Aeneas. The tax bill alone…’
    ‘We deal in what the land provides,’ Aeneas cut in. ‘These taxes are your government’s invention.’
    ‘And fine words might well remove them,’ Forbes agreed. ‘But in parliament, not here, and not today.’
    The girl had come in from the hall to set a tray on the already crowded table. Aeneas reached out as she passed and snatched up an oyster. The girl, every bit as quick, smacked his hand. Aeneas pointed across the room, indicating her attention was required. When she turned to look, he slid the oyster into his mouth and swallowed. As he slipped the empty shell back on to her tray, the girl realized the trick and glared at him. He grinned and winked.
    ‘Too slow, Jessie,’ he said, lifting a glass of wine.
    ‘A wife will soon have you sorted,’ she told him sternly. Thenher excitement broke as a wide smile. ‘I’m near gone with it all.’ And she hurried off again.
    ‘A wife might sort many things,’ Forbes said, as he heard the approaching pipes. ‘I hear she brings a healthy tocher. And in coin not corn.’
    Aeneas threw back his head and laughed.
    ‘I’m neither wedded nor bedded yet, Forbes,’ he said. ‘But I daresay the banks would have you feeling my pockets even if I were a corpse.’
    ‘Which you could be if I report that weapon you’re wearing,’ Forbes nodded at the sword sheathed at Aeneas’s side. ‘In the current climate it would be judged as sedition.’
    Aeneas smiled at him, unperturbed. In Europe, England warred with France. Last month, the British army had been defeated. Now there was talk that a French force led by the Jacobite Prince would soon invade England. Several clans had sworn to rise in support and secure Scotland. Forbes suspected M c Intosh might be one of them.
    ‘My clan land is not public,’ Aeneas corrected, giving nothing away. ‘And I’ll not be half-dressed at my wedding.’ He raised his wine glass. ‘Slàinte,’ he said, and downed it.
    Lady M c Intosh hurried in through the glass doors. This would be the last day she’d regard Moy Hall as her home, but she, too, was eager for this wedding.
    ‘Aeneas,’ she urged, unnecessarily. ‘They’re here!’
    ‘We’ll settle our business after I’m married,’ Aeneas told Forbes before following his aunt outside.
    ‘Not with promises, you won’t,’ Forbes retorted. ‘Not this time.’
    But promises were the order of the day. So that all could see, a low platform decked with heather, Jacobite roses and white ribbon