The Loveless Marriage

Chapter One ~ 1822-1

Chapter One ~ 1822Fyna was walking along the bank of the river just as the sun was sinking over the high towering hills that it flowed from.

As usual she was moved by the beauty of the Strath that she had known from childhood.

The river was now low and the larger stones could be seen above the surface as the water rushed past them towards the sea.

There was the buzz of bees in the air and the sound of the grouse on the moors as they swung over the heather.

It was all so familiar, but to Fyna it always had a magic touch that made her feel that she walked in dreamland.

She was very slim.

Anyone seeing her might have thought that she was part of the trees that bordered the river.

Her hair had a small touch of the Scottish red in it and it was not too sharp a red to be unattractive, rather it was the deep red of the cedar trees.

As she looked down into the moving water, their colour seemed to be reflected in her eyes and the evening sun revealed the transparency of her white skin.

It never occurred to her that she was beautiful.

This was because she was not the usual hearty, strongly-built, sturdy young woman that the Scots admired so much.

There was something elfin in the grace of Fyna’s movements that belonged to an ancient age and it was written in the poems of men who were long since dead.

She wandered on, seeing a salmon jump high in the air.

She knew that it was running up the river from the sea to spawn and just for a moment its body shone silver in the sunshine.

She hoped, although she knew it was unsporting of her, that none of the fishermen would catch it before it reached the Loch at the far end of the river.

She was deep in her thoughts, when unexpectedly there was a voice beside her.

“I thought I would find you here,” a man said.

She looked up and was not surprised to see that it was Hamish MacSteel.

He was a distant cousin who had made himself notorious in her father’s Clan.

Fyna looked at him and thought that he looked much more aggressive and in a way more overpowering than usual.

He was a large, heavily built young man with dark hair and dagger-like eyes.

And they seemed to be seeking out trouble wherever he went.

“Papa has been looking for you, Hamish,” Fyna said. “You will find him at The Castle.”

“I want to see you and not your father,” Hamish replied.

“And I want to be alone,” Fyna retorted. “As you know, this is the only time of day that I have to myself and I have so much to think about.”

“Then you should be thinking about me,” Hamish MacSteel said, “and giving me the answer I want to hear.”

Fyna turned away to look at the river and he went on insistently,

“Marry me and let’s get on with it. What are we waiting for? I love you and I will make you love me.”

“I have told you a hundred times before,” Fyna replied in a quiet voice, “that I will not marry anyone I do not love.”

“Love will come with marriage,” Hamish asserted firmly.

There was something almost unpleasant in the way he spoke and Fyna felt herself shiver.

Her cousin proposed to her almost every day and each and every time she gave him the same answer.

She had no wish to marry and, if she did, it would be to a man she really loved.

It was difficult to explain to this hard-thinking, hard-speaking young man that to her love would be something very wonderful, very romantic and very spiritual.

Fyna was extremely well-read. She had found many stories of those who had loved and suffered for it, a theme that had inspired many authors all over the world since the beginning of time.

She had known then that this was the love she herself wanted.

She would never be content with anything that was not just as beautiful and inspiring.

It must be different from the majority of marriages that she saw taking place around her and she knew instinctively that the love that Hamish was offering her was something entirely physical.

It would be impossible for him to understand just what she required.

She moved a few paces further on along the mossy path.

She herself had worn it down because she came here every evening to contemplate.

“I am waiting for an answer,” Hamish insisted sharply.

“But I have already given it,” Fyna replied.

“You expect me to be satisfied with that? For Heaven’s sake, Fyna, what are you waiting for? What do you want? I can give you everything you require within reason.”

“Unfortunately what I do require,” Fyna replied, “you do not possess. Therefore it is no use for us to go on talking about it.”

“What do you mean, ‘I do not possess’?” Hamish asked her angrily. “I have money of my own, as you are well aware. I have a fine house, which, now that my mother is dead, is waiting for a mistress. As I have already said, I will give you everything you want.”

Fyna shook her head.

“Unfortunately that is impossible for you.”

“But why? Why?” Hamish asked. “Oh! For God’s sake, Fyna, stop behaving in this ridiculous manner! We will be married in a month’s time and the whole Clan will celebrate our Wedding with delight.”

Fyna thought that this was very much wishful thinking.

She was aware that Hamish was not popular with the Elders or with her father.

There were stories about him that were most unpleasant.

His persistent feuding with the neighbouring Clans, especially that of the McBraras, had become increasingly notorious.

There would be no point in her remonstrating with him as her father had already done.

As she moved a little further along the path, she said,

“I have no wish to discuss it now. In fact I wish to be alone.”

“That is what you always say when I want to talk to you,” Hamish complained. “Why can you not behave like any other woman and listen to me when I tell you that I love you?”

“It is something that I don’t want to hear,” Fyna responded.

As if her last words annoyed him, he reached out his arms and pulled her round to face him.

“Now listen to me,” he said angrily. “I am sick to death of being put off by your talking nonsense. I love you and so I intend to make you my wife. If you do not agree reasonably to this, I shall force you to marry me in a way that you will find very unpleasant.”

As he finished speaking, he would have pulled her closer in his arms and kissed her.

But with a swiftness that he did not expect, Fyna moved away from him.

She gave him one scornful glance.

Then, when he expected her to reply to what he had said, she moved with the swiftness of a young deer amongst the trees.

She wound her way in and out and through them and was now almost out of sight before Hamish realised what had happened.

For a moment he contemplated running after her.

But he knew that he had tried this before and had been defeated.

He was too heavy on his legs and he knew of old that Fyna could run as swiftly as any man in the Clan.

Because she was so slim, she could slip through trees and bushes that would have proven a heavy obstacle to anyone following her.

Scowling, Hamish could see the way she had gone only by the movement of the leaves and an occasional glimpse of her head above them.

Then there was only the sound of the river moving beside him and the call of the birds.

‘Damn the girl!’ he said to himself. ‘I have a good mind to forget her and find someone else to take her place in my life.’

He knew as he spoke that this would be impossible.

There was no girl in the whole Clan who could be compared in any way to Fyna.

The MacSteels were one of the oldest of the Highland Clans and had been living on the River Steel since the twelfth Century.

As the daughter of the Laird, the Chieftain of the MacSteels, Fyna had a unique position.

Hamish was aware that if she was his wife, she would raise his standing considerably.

He was a cousin, although somewhat distant, of the Laird.

At the same time, he knew, because of the way he behaved, that he was not particularly acceptable to the family who he belonged to by birth.

He was determined that one day, although Fyna had a brother, he himself would be the Laird and Chieftain of the MacSteels.

He was, however, not quite certain at the moment how it would be possible.

He was aggressive and he was dangerous. And quite a number of the members of the Clan were afraid of him.

But Fyna defied him and refused to listen to his continual insistence that they should be married.

In his own way Hamish did love her.

But what it really amounted to was that he wanted her not only as a woman but also for her position.

She would greatly enhance his standing with the MacSteels.

As there was no longer any sign of her or any movement in the bushes, Hamish sat down by the river and he was still scowling.

He was wondering whether it would be in any way possible to abduct Fyna and force her into marriage before her father or anyone else could prevent him.

If he took her away to some place from where she could not escape and made her his, then what could the Chieftain or anyone else do about it if she was having a child?

It all passed through his mind.

At the same time it was not the Chieftain who he was afraid of but Fyna herself.

Despite the fact that she was so small and feminine and sylph-like, he knew that she had a character and brain that he could not compete with.

Yet he wanted her.

Up to now he had always managed to get what he wanted, however difficult it appeared.

‘I will make her mine,’ he told himself. ‘And the sooner the better.’

Out of his reach, Fyna was moving speedily back towards her father’s Castle.

She was thinking that Hamish was rapidly becoming an intolerable nuisance.

She was wondering if she should get her father to speak to him, but then told herself that he had enough troubles to cope with already.

There were stories of Hamish and the young men who followed him stealing or killing the sheep belonging to other Clans.

They also indulged in fights that ended in those they attacked being badly injured.

Fyna that knew her father was really furious when such stories reached him and, as he was extremely busy, she did not want to upset him more than he was already.

Ever since he had become the Chieftain, he had tried to improve their reputation in the Highlands.

He had succeeded in making them a more prosperous and respected Clan and many of the younger men had distinguished themselves in Service in the Highland Regiments.

Some had lost their lives, but those who had returned after the War was over had been treated as heroes.

It was unfortunate, Fyna thought, that Hamish had been too young to become a soldier before the War ended with the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte and the French.

Her father had said over and over again that the discipline would have done him good.

She was very sure that he was right.

But Hamish had remained in Scotland and his escapades were becoming more notorious and unpleasant month by month.

‘How could I possibly marry a man like that?’ Fyna asked herself.

She knew that somewhere at the back of her mind there was a dream man who would fulfil all that she longed for in love.

As she walked on, she was thinking not of Hamish and his rough voice asking her to marry him but of love – the love that Henry II of France had for Diane de Poitiers.

Because she had been so clever as well as so beautiful, she had helped him make France more prosperous than it had ever been before.

King Henry had loved her passionately and completely from the moment that he had first known her when he was a small boy.