A Heart In The Highlands

2-3

Iona crossed the room and saw with amusement that he was still fully dressed save that he had pulled his nightshirt over his coat and breeches and his nightcap was perched precariously on the side of his wig. She touched his shoulder.

“Hector,” she whispered, not daring to raise her voice. “Hector!”

He grunted and tried to turn over on his side, but Iona shook him again, this time roughly so that he opened his eyes. He looked at her in a glazed way.

“Wake up, Hector! For Heaven’s sake wake up!”

The alertness, which comes instinctively to a man who has once been hunted cleared his brain and almost immediately he sat up.

“What is it?” he asked, and though his voice was thick the words were clear.

“The miniature! My letter!” Iona said urgently. “You forgot to give them to me and I have to go now.”

Hector pushed his wig and his nightcap a little further back on his head.

“Fool that I am!” he said.

He got to his feet a little unsteadily, walked across the room then stared around him.

“My coat,” he said at last. “Where is it?”

Despite the urgency of the situation Iona wanted to laugh. A little chuckle escaped her lips.

“You have got it on under your nightshirt.”

“I must have been more tipsy than I thought last night,” Hector said ruefully, and thrust his hand through the opening of his nightshirt and into the breast pocket of his coat.

“They’re here safely,” he said in a tone of relief, drawing out both the letter and the small sealed packet which contained the miniature and the bracelet.

Iona almost snatched them from him.

“Goodbye, Hector,” she said. “I must go – the coach leaves at seven.”

“I’m sorry I forgot them, Iona. I’m a dolt and you have every reason to be angry with me.”

He looked so contrite that once again Iona had to laugh.

“It’s all right,” she replied. “There’s no harm done if no one sees me leave this room.”

She went to the door and opened it cautiously. There was no one in the passage. She turned to smile at Hector who still stood in the centre of the room watching her go.

As she did so, the latch of the door caught in her cloak.

Iona had not been able to afford a new one and the material of the one she had worn for some years, which had never been expensive was wearing thin. She tried to free herself and the stuff tore. Ruefully she surveyed the triangular tear where it was most noticeable on her shoulder, and as she did so a door opened on the opposite side of the passage.

It was too late to do anything. A man came out of the room and stood within a few feet of Iona, having her in full view, her wide skirts filling the doorway while behind her was Hector in his nightshirt, his wig askew.

Without thinking Iona glanced up. She saw a young man with a – strange dark, secretive face. He wore a cloak trimmed with sable, his velvet coat was richly embroidered and ornamented with jewelled buttons.

She met his eyes, saw the faint smirk of amusement twisting his lips as he looked beyond her, and the blood flooded into her cheeks as she realised her position and his suspicion.

She turned her head aside and the fur edging her hood fell forward to shadow her face. But she knew that it was too late, too late to do anything but watch the man who had taken her at such a disadvantage walk slowly and with an innate dignity away down the passage.

It was only when he was out of sight that Iona collected herself. Without a backward glance at Hector she shut the door and ran to her own room.

She was alarmed and panic stricken at what had occurred, but there was no time for retrospection or trepidation. She gathered up her belongings and sped down the stairs. The clock in the hall told her it was five minutes to seven and she sent a servant hurrying for her trunk. She passed through the hotel and into the yard. The stagecoach was waiting and already a number of passengers had taken their places.

There were also two private coaches in the yard. One drove away just as Iona came out from the hotel. She noticed that four finely matched thoroughbreds drew it and that the servants’ livery was resplendent with gold braid. She had no time to notice more, for the stagecoach was filling up and she must be certain of a seat.

She found one, but it was none too comfortable, for she was squeezed between a fat woman with a basket of baby chicks and an elderly man who smelt unpleasantly of raw spirits. Iona’s trunk was stowed away with the other baggage, and then the coachman appeared from the side door of the hotel, wiping his lips. He climbed up on the box and took the reins. With much jostling and creaking the coach moved slowly from the yard of the hotel out into the street. Only as the horses quickened their gait did Iona feel herself relax and begin to lose the tension which had made it difficult for her to breathe.

She was not even sure what she had been afraid of – being denounced perhaps? Or being prevented from going further, or of being taken prisoner? Those were but a few of the misgivings that had invaded her mind since she had been discovered in the doorway of Hector’s room.

Fool that she had been to linger for even one moment! Better to have torn herself free regardless of the damage to her cloak and rushed headlong down the passage.

But after all, she reassured herself, Scotland was a big place. Why should she ever again meet the man who had come from the opposite bedchamber? Besides, he might not even be Scottish – he might be just an English visitor going south. Firmly she tried to reassure herself and gradually the frightened thumping of her heart subsided and she felt the burning flush die away from her cheeks.

This should be a warning both to herself and to Hector. They had been careless, both of them, in not remembering the precious package. More especially she was to blame, for Hector was not so directly concerned with it. How could she have been so stupid?

Bitterly Iona blamed herself, and then with a sudden burst of common sense tried to put the whole incident from her mind. It had happened, what was done could not be undone and it would only make things worse if she allowed it to make her timorous and weak hearted.

Unpleasant things should be forgotten but insistently the last unpleasant thing that had happened to her came to her mind. That encounter with the ancient libertine a week or so ago when she had been on her way to that most momentous meeting with the Prince’s advisers.

How frightened she had been when she realised the strength of the Frenchman’s arms and the nearness of his face! But she had been rescued. Once again she thought of the tall stranger who had come like a knight of old to her rescue, but who, having vanquished the dragon, had appeared cold and disinterested.

He had been English, and she thought that though she hated the whole race for what they had done to her Prince, she had reason to be personally grateful to one of them.

Yet, she queried, how could she be certain that he was an Englishman? His voice had been aristocratic and distinguished, but might he not have been Scottish? She hoped he was, and as the coach jolted and swayed through the town and out into the open countryside Iona smiled to herself. Here in Scotland she was carrying partisanship to its logical conclusion in believing that nothing good could come out of England and nothing decent be expected of the English.

Yes, she was convinced now that her rescuer must have been a Scot!