The Chieftain Without a Heart

CHAPTER ONE 1822-2

Even the King had remonstrated with him over what the women he left broken-hearted called his ‘callousness and cruelty’.

“What is the matter with you, Taran?” His Majesty asked. “You have more love affairs in a year than I have horses in my stable.”

“Like you, Sire, I am looking for a winner!” the Duke had replied.

The King had chuckled, admitting that he himself was invariably beguiled by a new and pretty face.

“At the same time, Taran,” he went on, “you must remember that these frail creatures have feelings and in my opinion you leave too many of them weeping.”

“A woman only weeps when she cannot get what she wants,” the Duke replied cynically. “They must learn to accept the inevitable, Sire, that I am unobtainable.”

The King had laughed, but nevertheless the Duke was scowling when he related the story to his friend William.

“What does he expect me to do?” he asked, “marry every woman I make love to?”

“No, of course not,” Lord Hinchley replied, “but you are savage with them, Taran. Surely one of them must touch your heart?”

“I have no heart,” the Duke said positively.

Lord Hinchley smiled.

“That is a challenge to Fate. One day you will fall in love, then you will understand how agonizing it can be to see someone you adore looking over your shoulder to find someone better than yourself.”

The Duke smiled sardonically and his friend exclaimed,

“Dammit, Taran, you are too conceited. You are thinking that is an impossibility because you are the best. All right, go on until retribution catches up with you!”

“And if it does, which is very unlikely,” the Duke replied, “I shall still have had a good run for my money!”

Lord Hinchley broke in on the Duke’s thoughts now by asking,

“What happens when we arrive?”

“I have not the slightest idea. I sent word to my Comptroller telling him the name of the ship on which we are sailing and the approximate date we should dock in Perth. I presume he will make arrangements to convey us to The Castle. If not, you may have to walk!”

Lord Hinchley gave a groan of anguish and the Duke said,

“It is no more than twenty miles! But the mountains are very steep for those who are not used to them.”

“I know you are roasting me. At the same time in this benighted land fiction might become an unpleasant fact. For God’s sake, Taran, let’s hope for the best even if we have to expect the worst.”

The Duke, however, was pleasantly surprised when, after the ship had docked, Robert Dunblane came on board. A tall, good-looking man of over fifty, he certainly looked impressive in a kilt, his bonnet on the side of his greying head and a plaid clasped with a huge Cairngorm brooch over his shoulder.

The Duke held out his hand.

“I should have known you anywhere, Dunblane!”

“Unfortunately, Your Grace, I cannot return the compliment,” Robert Dunblane replied.

There was, however, a smile on his lips which told the Duke that he was delighted by his appearance.

It must certainly have been hard for him to recognise the thin boy with wild defiant eyes, whom he had last seen fighting back his tears, in the tall, incredibly handsome man of the world who now stood in front of him.

The tight-fitting hosepipe pantaloons, the cut-away coat with its long tails, the crisp whiteness of an intricately tied cravat did nothing to detract from the Duke’s broad shoulders and his athletic figure, tapering down to narrow hips.

Robert Dunblane also noted the McNarn characteristics – the straight aristocratic nose and the firm authoritative mouth which could set in a sharp line.

“I suppose,” the Duke said after the first courteous pleasantries had been exchanged, “that you have some way of conveying Lord Hinchley and me to The Castle?”

Robert Dunblane smiled.

“There are horses, Your Grace, waiting for you or, if you prefer, a carriage. But may I suggest, in case you have forgotten, that the roads are very dusty at this time of the year and far the quickest way is as the crow flies across the moors.”

“Then we will ride,” the Duke determined. “If that suits you, William?”

“I am prepared to accept any mode of travel,” Lord Hinchley replied, “except that which involved me in going by sea!”

“You have had a rough journey, my Lord?” Robert Dunblane asked solicitously.

“Damnably rough!” Lord Hinchley replied. “If I had not been able to drown my sorrows in the traditional manner, I should have undoubtedly ended up in a watery grave!”

The Duke laughed.

“His Lordship exaggerates!” he said. “It was rather choppy at times, but fortunately the wind was behind us otherwise it might have been far worse!”

“Impossible!” Lord Hinchley exclaimed and they all laughed.

*

It was a sunny day with enough wind to sweep the midges away as they set off on the horses that Mr. Dunblane had provided for them.

Leaving the ‘Fair City’ of Perth they travelled North passing the Royal Palace of Scone where the Duke remembered many Coronations had taken place.

He wondered if Lord Hinchley would be interested in knowing that Parliaments and General Councils had been convened at Scone between the accession of Alexander I, who had been born in 1106, and the death of Robert III in 1406.

But he told himself with a wry smile that the English were not impressed by Scottish history and had done their best to stamp out anything that appertained to the prestige or repute of what was to all intents and purposes a conquered colony.

Then he realised with a start that he was thinking of himself as Scottish and resenting perhaps for the first time in years the English habit of disparaging the Scots and looking on them as uncouth savages.

He believed that a great deal of their hostility and indifference as well as their cruelty was due to fear. There was some reason for this when it was only thirty years ago that the troops at Register House in Edinburgh, inflamed by seditious propaganda, had shouted, “Damn the King!”.

He remembered too that throughout the country when the news arrived of the victories of the French under Napoleon, the Scots had planted green firs as symbolic trees of liberty.

But this was over now. George IV was coming to Scotland and everyone was told it was a gesture of friendship.

“I don’t know whether His Grace has told you,” Lord Hinchley was saying to Robert Dunblane as they rode along, “but I have to leave for Edinburgh in a day or so to prepare for His Majesty’s visit.”

“I imagine, my Lord, you would prefer to go by road,” Mr. Dunblane replied.

“Most certainly!” Lord Hinchley answered. “I shall not be able to look at the sea for a long time without a shudder.”

“I hope one of His Grace’s carriages will prove more comfortable,” Mr. Dunblane said courteously.

The Duke was thinking that if his friend had any sense he would ride.

It was very pleasant to feel a horse between his knees as they climbed above the City with its wide silver river to see the moors purple with heather and above them far in the distance the great heights of the Grampian mountains.

Silhouetted against the sky with small pockets of snow still dazzlingly white against their peaks, they were very beautiful.

A covey of grouse rose at the Duke’s feet, the old c**k with its warning caw-caw swinging them away to safety in the valley.

They were climbing all the time until finally at the top of the moor Mr. Dunblane drew his horse to a standstill and they knew that he wanted them to look back at the magnificent vista that lay behind them.

The Firth was a brilliant blue in the sunshine, the spires and roofs of Perth sprawled beside the river and there was, in the wildness of the heather, a feeling of freedom.

Surveying it, the Duke felt as if he had escaped from the confines of what had been almost like prison and it was a sensation for which he could not find an explanation.

He was remembering the expression on the servants’ faces, who had been waiting for them when they left the ship.

Mr. Dunblane had introduced to him the man who was in charge, a huge rough Scot whose eyes when they met the Duke’s had an expression of devotion that was inescapable.

‘After all these years can I still mean something to those who bear the same name as myself?’ the Duke wondered.

He would have liked to question Robert Dunblane about it, but told himself he would feel embarrassed because Lord Hinchley would undoubtedly laugh at his curiosity.

He recalled how vehemently he had complained about coming on the journey in the first place and how often he had reiterated how much he hated Scotland.

“If you hate it so much, why are you going back?” William Hinchley had asked one evening at dinner.

“Family reasons,” the Duke replied briefly.

Because he knew it would be intruding on his privacy, Lord Hinchley had not questioned his friend further. He had, however, thought to himself that Taran was a strangely unpredictable creature.

He had a warm affection for him and it was impossible not to admire him as a sportsman, but at the same time he thought there were deep reserves in the Scot which he had found in no other man of his acquaintance.

He had thought, as they were close friends, that there would be nothing they could not discuss, nothing which would be a taboo subject.

And yet he found that where the McNarns were concerned the Duke was not prepared to talk.

Mr. Dunblane left them and now, riding across the top of the moors, they could move more swiftly and found as they descended a hill that the horses achieved quite a considerable pace.

Both the Duke and Lord Hinchley were used to spending long hours in the saddle. They also drove to Newmarket races without finding it fatiguing and had raced against each other and the King’s horses often enough to Brighton.

Yet Lord Hinchley was in fact relieved when two hours later Mr. Dunblane announced,

“We have only a short distance to go now and we shall see The Castle in five minutes.”

The Duke had seen it often enough in his boyhood and yet, when they rounded a crag and saw it ahead, it was impossible not to feel that it was larger, more impressive and more overpowering even than he remembered.

A great grey stone edifice of towers and turrets, with ancient arrow slits and seventeenth century additions, Narn Castle was one of the most outstanding and certainly the most magnificent in the whole of the Highlands.

Lord Hinchley gasped and stared at it with undisguised admiration.

“Good God, Taran!” he exclaimed. “You never told me that you owned anything as fine as, if not finer than, Windsor Castle!”

“I am glad it impresses you,” the Duke said dryly.

He could not, however, help a faint stirring of pride within himself.

He had hated The Castle.

It had stood like a dark shadow across his childhood to become so menacing, so oppressive, that when he had fled from it in the middle of the night he never thought that he would go back.

Yet, with the sunshine on its windows, with its flag flying in the breeze above the highest tower, with its command over the surrounding countryside he knew that it was a fitting background for the Chief of the McNarns.

He glanced back to see if the grooms who had been following them were still in sight.

The luggage was to travel by road, but they had also been escorted by six men on horseback and now the Duke realised they were drawing closer and not keeping their distance as they had during the long ride.

He turned his head to go forward again and Robert Dunblane said quietly,

“They will be waiting outside the castle to greet Your Grace.”

“They?” the Duke questioned. “Who?”

“The Clansmen. Only those, of course, who live in the immediate neighbourhood. The others will be coming in from the hills tomorrow or the day after.”

The Duke was silent for a moment and then he asked,

“What for?”

It was a sharp question and he knew himself that there was a touch of apprehension in it.

Mr. Dunblane glanced at him swiftly from under his dark eyebrows.

“To welcome a new Chieftain there is always a traditional ceremonial and they have been waiting eagerly for your return.”