‘No.’ Jasper gave a laugh, deep and rich like his son’s. ‘Not unless you get up to some villainy or other, lass.’
Maren smiled back at him, but her stomach was churning with dread. Did he know something? Had he already sniffed out the lie?
‘Bryce tells me your family is deceased and you were left alone to fend for yourself.’
‘Aye, Laird. A carriage accident took my parents a few years ago. It was…I have to say that…it was a very hard time for me. The shock of it, you see, the suddenness. I had no time to prepare.’
Maren forced tears into her eyes, and Jasper frowned. ‘It was ungallant of me to bring it up. I beg forgiveness, lass. But I would know more about them if you have a mind to talk about them someday. I find remembering loved ones who have passed can help ease grief and be a salve to loneliness too. I am sure they were excellent folk to have raised such a fine daughter.’
‘I thank you for your kindness, Laird.’
‘Think nothing of it. You are family now, and we stick together. There is nothing we cannot say to each other amongst family.’
Jasper searched her face, and Maren made it the picture of sadness to deflect further questioning.
It seemed Jasper was satisfied with his probing, for he clucked his tongue and eased his mount to a gallop, and before long, they were clattering across a stone bridge spanning the frigid grey waters of the river Ness. Before Maren, lay the sprawling merchant town. Its thatched cottages, housing the poor, squatted downwind from the docks from whence a brisk wind carried the odour of briny sea mingled with fish and rot. But the squalor of poverty soon gave way to stone buildings as they neared the town square - grand structures soaring skywards, heralding wealth, privilege and power.
Jasper halted before a grey stone edifice of three storeys and declared them at Mr Stuart’s rooms. Once they had dismounted, he came over and took her arm.
‘I must attend to business but see yonder, a Mistress Gibbons’ establishment, full of apparel, bows, buttons, and all manner of things that ladies delight in. I will endeavour to return as soon as may be, but if you get bored, take a turn about the square. It is busy but quite safe enough for an unaccompanied young lady. I would advise you stay away from the tavern, though, as it is full of ne’er do wells and oafs.’
‘I am sure I can shift for myself well enough,’ said Maren.
Her heart sank a little. So Jasper Cullan welcomed her into the family and would spend coin on her, but he did not trust her to learn his business by partaking in his meeting with Mr Stuart.
Jasper hurried away, and Maren glanced across the cobbled square at the tavern. Several drunks were lounging about outside, unsteady on their feet. She smiled inside. She was far more at home in the tavern than in Mistress Gibbons’ establishment. But she had to play her part. So with a ladylike smile pasted onto her face, Maren pushed open the door and was greeted with the tinkle of a little bell, heralding her arrival.
***
The sun was well up, and Maren was bored. She had escaped to the town square in less than an hour, after exhausting the delights of the dressmakers with its stale perfume and twittering ladies. She sat on a low wall watching pigeons bob at each other like lords and ladies at a formal dance and washerwomen banging linens against a big stone tub nearby. They had broad hands, red like haunches of beef from swilling them in the lye soap and cold water, but they chatted loudly and laughed together and cursed fit to shame sailors. Maren was suddenly assailed by loneliness. Oh, to have other women to share her burdens with.
A ragged boy ran up and held out a hand to her. At first, she thought he was a beggar until she noticed a piece of paper clutched between his dirty fingers.
‘What is this?’
‘Don’t know. Can’t read,’ came a rather insolent reply.
He poked the paper closer, and, without thinking, she took it. The boy stood silently as Maren unfolded the paper and read it.
‘Find your way to Swain Alley off the main square. Follow it down to the bottom. I will be waiting. Tell no one. The boy will lead the way. Come at once if you don’t want to be exposed for the lying, traitorous bitch that you are. Your secret depends on it.’
Who would send such a note? Maren’s eyes darted about the square, searching for a familiar face. Fear was a frantic thumping in her chest, a dry mouth and nausea in her belly. Had Lawson betrayed her? But he did not know of Penhallion or Bryce’s name. Who knew her in Inverness? She had scarcely been a handful of times, and when she was much younger, in the company of her father. Surely she would not be recognised, for she had changed beyond recognition since then. For the longest time, Maren stared down at the parchment held in her shaking fingers. She glanced at the grey stone building.
Oh, God. Jasper. He would return for her soon. Going to meet the note’s author was dangerous, but not going might be worse, so, with a catch in her breath, she said, ‘Lead the way, lad,’ and set off for Swain Alley.
The boy was quick on his feet and slipped through the crowded streets like an eel, and Maren was pushed this way and that by folk hurrying about their business. She was breathless by the time they had negotiated a seemingly endless series of cramped and smelly alleyways, each increasingly dark and menacing. The buildings grew closer together the further they got from the grandeur of the main square, and Maren soon found herself in the pauper’s end of Inverness. Here, the faces were guarded and glowering, or ashen and hopeless, and the cobbles gave way to dirt, leaving a tidemark of mud and filth slapping against her boots from her skirt as she walked.
They emerged into a tiny square overhung with thatched-roofed houses, so close, they seemed to be fighting each other for air, and barely a scrap of the sky could be seen. The smell of dampness, manure and stale cooking hung in the air adding to nausea in Maren’s throat. Finally, the boy stopped and turned with a grin and sprinted off, and she was left alone in the shadows of the deserted square. It was as silent as the grave as she waited for the messenger to appear.
No one came, and Maren’s panic grew to the point where she almost turned and ran. But she didn’t get a chance to, for a hand suddenly clamped about her mouth, and an arm circled her upper body with such force it took her breath away.
With her arms pinned in a vice-like grip, she could not reach the pistol in her pocket as she was dragged into an alleyway. It was scarcely wide enough for two people to stand together - a rat run between two houses. His grip tightened to the point of pain. It must be a man, for he loomed over her, at least a head and shoulders taller, and his arm was coarse with black hair. His breath was hot in her ear, and when he pressed his face into the back of her head and took a long breath in, it made her think of a hunting dog. Maren struggled to get air into her lungs, but squirming only made her assailant squeeze harder.
‘Remember me?’ he said.
It could not be. It was impossible. An old terror uncoiled in her belly, and Maren screamed against the hand clamped over her mouth.
‘Ah, I see that you do,’ he said gleefully.
