Read White Rose Rebel for Free Online Page A

asked.
    ‘Somewhere quiet. Out of the way.’
    ‘What!’ Elizabeth couldn’t believe her ears. ‘When Mother’s about to receive a proposal?’
    ‘She’s not my mother,’ Anne said, and slipped out.
    Lady Farquharson stared at the shut door.
    ‘Well, really!’ Then, remembering. ‘Oh, my goodness, my hair!’
    Outside, Anne walked a well-trodden path through secluded trees. Behind them, a horse, cattle and people passed by, going the opposite way, towards her home. She caught glimpses through the dark trunksand low branches: Aeneas, the blue bonnet with its three feathers, long black hair to his shoulders, plaid sweeping down his back, his people, a fat pink pig, an unusually sombre MacGillivray.
    Inside Invercauld, Lady Farquharson, in a hastily donned silk gown, silver jewellery flashing, hurriedly fastened herself up. Elizabeth set a tray with a crystal decanter and wine glasses on the table and arranged herself beside it. Food might often be reduced to oats and rabbit, but they could still put on a show when required.
    James came in from the front door, about to announce their visitors, but Lady Farquharson, irritated by him spoiling Aeneas’s view of her in all her finery, waved him aside. And there was Aeneas, silver basket-handled broadsword belted at his left side, a black-and-silver-handled dirk on his right.
    ‘ Fàilte , M c Intosh,’ Lady Farquharson embraced him. ‘It’s good to see you, Aeneas.’
    He seemed nervous too, giving only a cursory nod while his eyes flitted about the room. Behind him, MacGillivray stopped just inside the doorway. He, too, wore his full chief’s regalia. Elizabeth rearranged herself by the decanter and flashed him a flirtatious smile. After he’d fished her out the loch at Moy, she’d imagined a great deal more between them. That he was Anne’s lover was neither here nor there. Her sister was obviously not wrapped up in him. She’d walked away from his company more than once recently. And, as far as Elizabeth was concerned, if she could seduce his attention away from Anne, that would make having him even more exciting.
    Since neither man spoke, Lady Farquharson rushed into the gap.
    ‘It’s a few weeks longer than we expected.’ She could hardly believe her tongue would make such a faux pas . ‘I mean, before you came to collect your horses.’
    ‘I had other things on my mind,’ Aeneas said. He seemed somewhat clipped for a suitor.
    ‘A new chief ’s duties, of course,’ she excused him. ‘A glass of wine?’
    Elizabeth picked up the decanter. Aeneas could stand on ceremony no longer.
    ‘Lady Farquharson,’ he said. ‘I’m here to propose marriage.’
    The lady gasped at his directness, fluttering a lace handkerchief to fan her face.
    In a clearing among the trees, Anne knelt by a headstone, brushing dust and moss off the words with her fingers. The writing on the stone read: ‘John Farquharson of Invercauld. Died 1738.’ Below was written ‘Beloved wife, Margaret Murray, died in childbirth 1725’.
    When she was very small, her father gave her a pony from Shetland. It was half the size of his horse but big for her. Once she could ride it, he said, she could do the estate round with him. Impatient to start, she tried to mount. Tried and failed, repeatedly, till furious with frustration, she threw herself on the ground, beating and kicking the dirt with her fists and feet. He’d lifted her in the air, at arm’s length.
    ‘You can’t fight your own shadow,’ he said. ‘Learn to live with it.’ When she stopped struggling, he dropped her into the saddle. After that, she rode with him every time. Her stepmother thought the pony a waste.
    ‘She could have sat with you,’ she complained. ‘The size of her.’
    ‘And what would she learn,’ her father asked. ‘How to be a passenger? She’ll be out from under your feet.’
    It was common enough for children to lose one, or even both, blood parents. To be raised by first, and sometimes