Bride of Alaine

  BRIDE OF ALAINE

  Rose Burghley

  When Amanda Wells, stranded on the Island of Ure, stumbled for shelter to Urquhart Tower, the home of Alaine Urquhart, the manservant took her for the Bride of Alaine, the heiress whom legend foretold would restore the family fortunes.

  But it was Amanda’s glamorous friend, Judy Macrae, who had the money, and Judy in whom Alaine seemed to be interested...

  CHAPTER I

  THE mist that had hung over the island for the greater part of the day seemed to be slowly thinning with the going down of the sun, and in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the Tower of Urquhart. Judy Macrae parted the bushes eagerly and ignored the voice of the boatman marshalling his passengers on the shingly beach behind her.

  “If we’re no’ to miss the tide will ye climb aboard, please,” shouted the ferryman. “Ladies and gentlemen, I canna’ come back if ye’re left behind! Ye’ll spend the night i’ the open—”

  Amanda, panting along behind Judy, warned her breathlessly.

  “We’ll have to go back, Judy! There’s no more time ... It doesn’t matter if we miss the Tower.”

  “Of course it does,” Judy’s muffled voice came back. “You don’t seriously imagine I’ve come all this way to be defrauded in the end by that silly old man back there? He can come back and fetch us if we miss the boat.”

  “He won’t!”

  “Then we’ll camp out beneath the stars.”

  “There probably won’t be any,” feeling the clammy mist closing in again. “It’s much more likely to be mizzling with rain.”

  “There!” Judy pointed triumphantly. “There it is!” She was holding aside the bushes, and her voice was shaking with excitement. “Just as Aunt Laura painted it, and my grandmother described it. The Tower of Urquhart ... the tall Tower of Ure!” There was an angry red light in the sky behind the fairy-tale Tower, and a flood of late afternoon sunshine had forced its way through the mist and was creating an illusion of a picture viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. The beech woods that crowded close to the Tower had young green leaves that were brilliant in the sunshine, and they formed a lace-like pattern against the hoary walls that had drawn Judith Macrae many thousands of miles to gaze at them.

  “It’s fifteenth-century, and you can see the French influence in the pepper-box roof,” Judy exclaimed breathlessly, as if she was a guide who had memorised her subject well. “The rest of the house crumbled away long ago because it was built much earlier, but the Urquharts were always perfectly content with their Tower. It contains several suites of rooms, and is much larger than you’d suspect looking at it like this...”

  “Yes, yes,” Amanda interrupted her. “And now let’s go!”

  “I wish we could see the inside. I wish we could get just a little bit closer—”

  “I tell you we shall miss the boat!”

  “Oh, bother the boat!”

  Amanda tried to seize hold of her arm and prevent her diving farther into the wilderness of green that separated them from the Tower, but with a laugh that echoed mockingly in the stillness of the woods and joined forces with the imploring echo of the boatman’s voice as he exhorted all those who wished to return to the mainland to join him at once, Judy freed herself and was swallowed up at once.

  Amanda could hear her crashing her way through the silence, and a branch sprang back in her face and practically blinded her for a moment; and then not even a leaf stirred as Judy seemed to have vanished.

  Amanda called hopelessly, “Judy!” But her own voice came back to her as if it, too, was amused, and the concern that she felt was transmuted by the strange, eerie stillness into a hollow, tinkling noise like water bubbling over stones.

  Not far away there undoubtedly was some sort of lively stream bounding along in a stony bed, and as she pressed forward she could feel the spray from it wetting her face, and a hollow, booming noise echoed in her ears, which could indicate a waterfall. The ground yielded beneath her feet as if it was composed of layer after layer of long-dead leaves that had piled up into a thick carpet, and it was only when she reached the burbling river that she found she had to cross some slippery wet boulders if she was to reach the other side and continue her search for Judith.

  She had given up hoping that the ferryman would wait for them. He was a short-tempered individual who had given them plenty of warning, and amongst his collection of passengers—all those people who had poured over to the island with them—he probably wouldn’t miss a couple of girls in raincoats with plastic hoods on their heads. But for the hoods he would have certainly remembered Judith’s gorgeous Titian-red hair; and he might even have remembered that her companion had light or golden hair that curled prettily at the ends, although it was completely smooth above her brow.

  Oh, why was Judith always so headstrong, and why did she always ignore the kind of things ordinary, everyday people couldn’t afford to ignore? Because she was rich, and the possession of riches gave one a natural feeling of superiority over other people? Because money could bribe, and she might even have bribed the boatman if she had thought of it?

  But the boatman had made it quite clear from the outset that the ferry service between the island of Ure and the mainland was not a regular ferry service, and that it was only occasionally he conducted parties of tourists across the bright strip of water to the domain of the Lord of Urquhart Tower. The Lord of Urquhart was nearly always in residence, and he disliked tourists trespassing close to his walls. He had even been known to protest violently on occasion, or the man he employed to run his affairs for him was capable of violence.

  A big, raw-boned man called Duncan Macrae.

  And, as the island was so little visited, and so few people dwelt on it, it had acquired a reputation. Not an entirely savoury reputation. It had become a kind of bird sanctuary, and at night the lonely cries of winged creatures carried across the water; and small boys in the villages on the mainland, who visited it occasionally in response to the dares of other small boys, declared that strange animals roamed amongst the trees that were never seen on the mainland. And if you were unlucky enough to be marooned there by mist you might see less pleasant things than animals threading their way amongst the trees.

  So it was not really surprising that the man who hired out boats and fancied himself as a guide for the area disliked the thought of being marooned on Ure by mist. He was no doubt, like most Highlanders, extremely superstitious, and the half-hour ashore he allowed his clients was a literal half-hour, and not intended to be exceeded.

  Unfortunately, that half-hour had not been enough for Judy. To begin with she had wanted to explore the perimeter of the island before penetrating to its interior, and thus a lot of time had been lost. And now she was somewhere in the heart of that Sleeping-Beauty-like jungle that enclosed the tall Tower of Urquhart, and unless Amanda found her quickly they might both be separated for the rest of | the night.

  With panic in her voice Amanda called to her again, and exactly as had happened before her own voice answered her and mocked at her stupidity for imagining Judy would be captured so easily. Her own people had dwelt here years before, and she had come home to them.

  Amanda felt like Mary Rose wandering in a lost world of dense foliage and dripping water, and the last thing she expected to do was stumble over Judy, who had strained her ankle and was sitting on the bank of the stream.

  Judy looked up at her and grimaced comically— and quite unrepentantly—in the gloom.

  “You’ll have to get help,” she said. “I can’t walk.” Amanda stood looking down at her, feeling her temper rising and getting out of hand despite the enormity of her relief.

  “But you’ll have to walk,” she protested. “There’s simply nothing I can do...
I mean, I can’t fight my way through all that jungle and get to the house. It’s positively dense, all the growth around here.”

  “I know. But there must be a way through it ... a proper track, I mean. You’ll just have to try to find it, and no doubt you’ll stumble upon it quite by accident—as you stumbled upon me just now!”

  Amanda bent down and gently touched the swollen ankle.

  “Does it hurt very much?”

  “It’s bearable. Have you got some cigarettes or chocolate on you? I’d rather have a cigarette.”

  Amanda went on delicately probing the ankle. “It’s not very swollen,” she said hesitantly. Then she looked at her friend suspiciously. “This isn’t something you—arranged, is it?” she asked.

  Judy shook her head. She had removed her plastic head-scarf, and the last of the light discovered the richness of her hair. Her enormous, pansy-dark eyes looked upwards mockingly at Amanda.

  “I give you my word I wouldn’t be sitting here like this if I could walk. I’d go up to the house myself.”

  Amanda nodded. She removed her own head-square and shook out her hair. In a few minutes it was glistening with the moisture from the trees, and the pale, anxious mask of her face was glistening too. Her eyes were not as dark as Judith’s, but they were large and set well apart ... in daylight they were a warm and tender brown, like a young horse-chestnut. She had brightly tipped eyelashes that fluttered uneasily every time she looked either to the right or the left, and her mouth was an extraordinarily ardent mouth, just now bereft of lipstick.

  She bit her lower lip hard, as if temporarily distracted, and then handed over a packet of chocolate from her handbag and a small enamelled cigarette-case and a packet of book matches.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll do my best.”

  Ten minutes or a quarter of an hour later she found a path, and the path led up to an enormous front door. It was by now quite dark, but she had grown accustomed to groping her way through blackness, and although well aware that she was becoming more and more dishevelled with every moment that passed she was in no mood to be concerned with trifles of this sort. Even a scratch across one cheek, which she felt certain was bleeding a little, was a small matter compared with the absolute necessity for finding someone who could help her to help Judith, and at the same time provide them both with shelter for the night.

  For to get back to the mainland, and their cosy little hotel, they certainly would not achieve this night ... unless the ferryman discovered a large amount of courage and came back to look for them!

  She was standing at the foot of the flight of steps leading up to the great door—which struck her as one of the most imposing barriers to warmth and comfort she had ever come upon—when it opened, and a man stood framed against a background of lamplight that flickered with the draught from the open door.

  He was a tremendously tall man, although he stooped a little, and he was bending to peer at her as if by no means certain that she was entirely human.

  Afterwards, when Amanda saw herself in a mirror, she was able to feel sympathy with him, for if a spirit of the woods existed she had most certainly discovered an affinity with it. Her hair was hanging wildly about her shoulders, her eyes were enormous in a pale face running with moisture, and about her head the mist that was rising from the ground as well as clamping down upon the tree tops was wreathing itself and forming trailing shapes like chiffon scarves. And, apart from anything else, there was that blood on her face, which was the final straw, apparently so far as the stooping figure was concerned.

  He backed into the lighted space as if about to turn and dart back into it. And then some remnant of his courage took over, and he addressed her in a slightly quavering voice which nevertheless had a strong Highland accent.

  “Whau’d ye be? Ye canna’ come in here!” And then: “Who in the devil’s name are ye?”

  Amanda tried to explain, but he refused to give her time.

  “Go away,” he ordered, his teeth plainly chattering. “Go away and leave us sinful folk in peace! There’s no place for you here ... I tell ye ye’re not wanted!” And then, on a faint moan: “But perhaps ye’d better come in after all. I’ll tell the master the Bride o’ Alaine is here!”

  CHAPTER II

  AMANDA stood staring up at him as if his words were utter gibberish. She gathered he was inviting her in, but he looked so distraught she hesitated to accept the invitation. Besides, there was Judy to be thought of.

  “I’m sorry,” she said huskily, “but I think you’ve made a mistake.” She put up a hand and brushed one of the trailing scarves back from her hair. “It’s simply that I need help. A friend of mine—”

  “Don’t tell me there’s more than one o’ ye,” the big man groaned.

  “We came over on the ferry, and we got left behind. My friend has hurt her ankle. She’s back there,” jerking her head over her shoulder, “sitting on a tree-trunk.”

  “Aye, aye,” the man said, and then he fetched a tremendous sigh from the depths of his being. “All the same, ye’d better come in. I’ll go and tell the master.”

  Amanda followed him into the smoky light that lay beyond the vast open door. At first she had the feeling that she had wandered into a stage set planned for a film or stage production of The Ghost Goes West, or possibly Rob Roy, for the vast open-timber roof above her head seemed to be receding into illimitable distance, and as well as an echoing stone-flagged floor the enormous hall that was criss-crossed by whistling draughts had a great open fireplace in which half a tree-trunk seemed to be smouldering and giving off vague spluttering and hissing noises.

  The smoky light came from a lantern that was attached by chains to one of the roof beams, and it, too, was being affected by the draughts, which caused it to swing in constant half circles.

  “The master’s this way.” Glancing sideways at her suspiciously under beetling brows, and giving her as wide a berth as possible as they crossed the hall, the tall man led her into a side passage. He thumped heavily on a door. “It’s a visitor to see you, Urquhart,” he called.

  Amanda could hear a chair being scraped back, and then a voice answered in astonishment.

  “What! At this time of night?”

  “It’s a lady who came over on the ferry. So she says!”

  The door was pulled inwards, and Amanda—who had been gathering together all the shreds of her fortitude to meet this new demand on them—became more than ever convinced that this was not reality, but a stage set. The man who looked out at her wore a kilt—but a kilt was not really surprising in the Highlands of Scotland. But in addition to a kilt he wore a velvet doublet, and there were falls of Mechlin lace at his neck and wrists. He was dark—so dark that she instantly received the impression of someone alien to this bleak northern hemisphere. His eyes were so dark she felt mesmerised by them, as if they were Highland tarns into which she had blundered by accident, and at the same time a quality like velvet , engulfed her as she gazed at him.

  Sleek black beautifully brushed hair, a well-shaven chin, a strongly cut mouth, shapely, non-aggressive type of nose, slender black eyebrows and thick black eyelashes ... all these were the attributes of an exceptionally good-looking man, and the Lord of Ure was exceptionally good-looking. He was not as tall as his henchman, but he made Amanda feel quite small as she stood looking up at him, and he made her blink her eyes, for despite the comfortlessness of the room in which he had been seated he was plainly dressed for the evening, no doubt awaiting his dinner, and ... he had been smoking a pipe.

  The pipe, in his slim brown hand, looked incongruous, particularly as the little finger was adorned by an unusual type of signet ring. A cairngorm flashed in his cravat, and another cairngorm flashed in the hilt of the dirk tucked into the top of his stocking.

  “Good evening,” he said blankly, and stared at Amanda.

  His servant was watching him and plainly expecting results.

  “ ’Tis the Bride o’ Alaine,” he breathed throat
ily, and his great shoulders and hands moved nervously. “The shock well-nigh stunned me! What will we do with her, Urquhart? ’Tis more than we dare do to turn her from the door!”

  His master merely glanced at him with an air of mild surprise, and then dismissed him curtly.

  “Stop talking rubbish, Duncan,” he said. “And bring the young lady a drink. She looks as if she needs it.”

  Amanda impulsively laid her hand on his arm.

  “Oh, but it’s not me who needs anything,” she said. “It’s my friend ... she’s outside in the dark and she’s hurt herself. If she sits there much longer amongst those dripping trees she’ll get pneumonia or something. She’s not very strong, although she thinks she is.”

  “Go and get her, Duncan,” Urquhart ordered. “Take a storm lantern to avoid wasting any time.”

  “Oh, but I’ll go with him—” Amanda began, and then found herself placed firmly in a chair. The Lord of Ure stared down at her frowningly.

  “You’ll do nothing of the kind. Duncan will have her back here in no time at all, and in the meantime you need a little attention yourself. I’ll get you a glass of wine ... or would you prefer brandy?”

  Amanda shook her head.

  “No, thank you.”

  Duncan’s eye were rolling uneasily in his face.

  “I tell’t you, Master Alaine, I don’t like this. If t’other one is like this one...”

  “Go and get her,” was all his master said.

  Amanda was glad of the brandy when it arrived. She found that all her limbs were shivering uncontrollably, and now that she was inside in the warm —and there was a tremendous fire leaping on the stone health—she realised how horribly wet and cold it had been out there in the mist, with the endless noise of running water and the closing down of the night. ,

  It might be June, but it was June in the Highlands of Scotland, and she had come all the way from Australia, where summer had only just ended in a blaze of splendour. Her teeth knocked against the rim of the glass as she held it to her lips, and although she disliked brandy she gulped it down greedily.