To Hunt A Husband

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To Hunt A Husband - book excerpt

Chapter One - Midlothian, Scotland, September 1842

There is little more delightful than to rise in the early morning and watch the sun wake the world. It was my habit to do so, lifting the hem of my skirt clear of the dew-damp grass as I strode up Roman Camp Hill, or the Camp as we called it, with the laverocks sweetening the air with their calls. I loved the freedom of movement, the sense of being alone with nature, and the feel of autumn air against my face.

That morning started no differently. I rose, dressed hastily and left the house by the side door, breathing deeply of the crisp air. Winter Lodge stood on the flanks of the hill, with our grounds spread around us and the slope rising in a succession of small fields and patches of woodland. High above, stars faded in the abyss of the sky, little eyes of God watching over us. I wondered at the vastness of the cosmos and what may lie up there, stumbled over a tuft of grass and berated myself for not paying attention.

As I jammed my hat hard on my head, I heard voices floating towards me, looked up, saw two figures approaching, recognised the taller, and continued.

“Good morning, Miss Moffat,” William Flockhart greeted me, while the man at his side gave a shy smile.

“Good morning, Will,” I replied. We knew him as Wild Will, for he spent all of his life out of doors, either living rough on the local hills or on the tramp to see the world beyond the confines of Midlothian. Brown of face and rough of clothes, he was a local character who, rumour claimed, had never entered a building for 20 years.

“Good morning, Miss Moffat.” The second man doffed his low-crowned hat as he spoke.

“Good morning,” I replied. I did not know the fellow, although I had seen him in the streets of Dalkeith and among the colliers of Winterhill. He was an open-faced coal worker with steady eyes, one of my father’s tenants.

As Will and his companion strode downhill, I continued my ascent of the Camp, enjoying the stretch and pull of my muscles until I reached my tree. My father had planted that horse-chestnut on the day of my birth, two-and-twenty years ago. Father had chosen the most splendid of situations, with a panoramic view that stretched from the eastern pyramid of North Berwick Law to the fertile fields of Fife across the Firth of Forth to the north and westward over the Midlothian plain to the Pentland Range. On a clear day, I could even see the distant triangle of Schiehallion, the sacred mountain of the Caledonians in far-off Perthshire. However, the day that my life altered was not clear in any way, with the sun struggling to dissipate the thin haar easing from the Forth.

The first sign that my life’s ordinarily serene pattern was about to change sat astride his horse underneath my tree.

“Well met, my lady.” The gentleman doffed his hat most gallantly. “I did not expect to meet anybody up here at this hour, particularly not such a handsome young lady as yourself.”

“I come here most mornings, sir,” I said, bobbing in a curtsey as I examined the stranger. He was handsome enough, in a rough-hewn way, with a weather-beaten face under his tall hat. His eyes held my attention as they laughed at me.

“Do you, indeed, ma’am?” he said. “You must be a local lady to make such an arduous climb.”

“I don’t find it arduous, sir,” I said. “It is more of a pleasure than an imposition.”

The man’s nod was strangely unsatisfactory as he continued to survey me.

“And you, sir,” I said. “You are not a local man, yet you also make the climb.”

“Chetak made the climb,” the man patted his horse’s neck. “I merely sat astride her.”

“I see.” I was growing tired of this glib stranger’s presence at my tree. “Did you come here merely to admire the view?”

“No, ma’am,” the stranger said. “I came here to learn the lie of the land.”

Well, that was honest. “You could not have come to a better viewpoint,” I admitted grudgingly.

We stood in silence for a moment, watching dawn spread across Midlothian, or Edinburghshire, to give its other name. Some of the towns were already awake, with lights in Bonnyrigg, Lasswade and Penicuik, while the tiny collier communities seemed never to sleep as the men and women toiled long hours underground.

“This is a mining area,” my handsome stranger said.

“Mining and farming,” I found this man increasingly wearying. “With some manufacturing. Do you have business here, Sir?”

“I have business here. You must know a great deal about the place.”

“I know a little,” I replied, hoping he would leave soon so that I could enjoy my tree in peace. “Do you have a name, sir?” I was uncomfortable in his presence.

“I do,” the man replied with a smile and a small bow from the saddle.

“In this part of the world,” I said severely, “it is the custom for a gentleman to introduce himself to a lady.”

“Indeed, ma’am?” My handsome man’s eyebrows rose in pretended surprise.

“Indeed, sir,” I countered.

“In that case, ma’am, I am Adam Carmichael.” He bowed from the saddle again, with his eyes gently mocking.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, sir,” I curtseyed in reply.

“In this part of the world, is it also the custom for ladies to respond with their name?” Adam Carmichael asked.

“It is,” I said. “I am Robyn Moffat of Winter Lodge.” I indicated our house, the roof of which could be seen as the light slowly strengthened.

“A pleasure to meet you, Miss Moffat. Or is that Mrs Moffat?”

“It is Miss Moffat,” I told him.

Mr Carmichael bowed again, bending from the waist, so his face came momentarily closer to mine. “You will be Mr Thomas Moffat’s daughter, I think?”

“I am,” I said, slightly surprised that a stranger should know Father’s name.

“Pray tell me,” Mr Carmichael continued, all questions now, “as a local lady, have you noticed any unusual disturbances in the area of late?” Although the humour remained in Mr Carmichael’s voice, his eyes were suddenly sharp.

“Disturbances?” I wondered at the question. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Even with the colliers?”

I thought before I replied. “The colliers have withdrawn their labour, but there have been no disturbances worthy of the name.”

“The colliers have indeed withdrawn their labour.” All the humour had vanished from Mr Carmichael’s face. “Will that affect you?”

“I can’t see why it should,” I replied, slightly tartly. “I am not a collier.”

“Do you know any such men?” Mr Carmichael was challenging in his questioning.

I decided I no longer wished to converse with Mr Carmichael. “My circle of acquaintances is hardly your concern, sir,” I told him.

Mr Carmichael straightened in the saddle. “You are quite right, Miss Moffat.” The humour was back, if a little less pronounced than before. “I should not have asked. And now I must leave you,” he said. Only then did I see the long pistol he carried at his saddle, and I wondered what sort of man this Mr Carmichael was that he needed a gun to ride on Roman Camp Hill.

Erect in the saddle, he rode away, skirting the edges of the fields that led downhill, past Winter Lodge and onward in the direction of Stobhill and Gowkpen. I watched him for a while, wondering who he might be, then I leaned against the trunk of my tree, as was my practice. Nevertheless, my brief meeting with Adam Carmichael left me slightly unsettled, so it was with a bad grace that I returned downhill, following the trail I had made through the fields. For some reason, I could not get Mr Carmichael out of my head until I startled a lone hare that jinked across the ground at my side. I watched him for a long minute, which quite restored my good humour so I could return the gardener’s greeting with a cheerful wave.

Winter Lodge was awake when I returned, with the servants all a-bustle and the aroma of breakfast greeting me when I opened the front door.

“Good morning, Robyn.” Father looked up from the newspaper to greet me. “Did you enjoy your walk?”

“Not as much as usual this morning.” I slid into my place at the table, helping myself to a slice of toast. “There was a strange man at my tree.”

“Oh?” Father lowered his paper at once. “What sort of strange man?”

“A gentleman named Adam Carmichael who asked me about the colliers. He knew your name.”

Father laid his paper aside. “Many men know my name. Perhaps you should refrain from taking your morning walk for a while, Robyn. These are troubled times, and I don’t like the idea of strange men talking to you. What was he saying?”

“He asked about the colliers.”

“What did he ask?”

I had seldom seen Father look so serious. “He asked me if there had been any disturbances and if I knew any colliers.”

“I see.” Father returned to his newspaper. “You’d do well to avoid gentlemen such as Mr Carmichael, Robyn.” He spoke from behind the shelter of the printed pages. “If you insist on walking up Camp Hill, let me know, and I shall accompany you. Or one of the servants. Or perhaps Andrew Dewar or even Hugh Beaton.” Lowering his paper again, Father fixed me with a steady look. “Andrew Dewar would be more respectable although I think Mr Beaton is the better man. He plays golf, and no man who plays golf can be all bad.”

“Yes, Father,” I agreed meekly, although I had no intention of giving up my solitary morning walks to accompany a hacking golfer. Although father had a set of clubs somewhere, I had never known him ever take them for a visit to a golf course.

“I am betrothed to Andrew Dewar,” I reminded him, “not Hugh Beaton.”

“Then walk with him, if the sedentary Mr Dewar decides to rise from his bed at that hour of the morning,” Father replied from behind his paper.

I agreed. Andrew was notoriously lazy, so much so that I was not sure if he still liked me, or if he merely could not muster the effort to find somebody more to his taste.

“Someday Andrew Dewar will make his attachment to you official, Robyn,” Father said, “so unless you find a better man before then, you can reconcile yourself with a lifetime with his peculiar practices.”

I smiled, for Andrew and I had agreed to marry when we were still very young. “I told him once that I would only marry when he brought me a special ring from Paris,” I said. “Although Edinburgh would do.”

Father shook his head and returned to his newspaper. “There is little chance of that scoundrel venturing as far as Edinburgh unless somebody prods him with a pitchfork. You will have to settle for Dalkeith.”

“I’d accept Dalkeith.” I looked up as the door opened.

Mother walked into the room, half-dressed and with strands of hair hanging loose from her turban. “There you are Robyn!” She greeted me as if I had been exploring darkest Africa rather than merely walking on the hill behind Winter Lodge. “Are you seeing your young man today?”

“I rather thought I would accompany you to Dalkeith,” I said. “I intended to help out at the ragged school, unless you had other plans, Mother.”

“No,” Father said at once. “You won’t go to Dalkeith today.”

“No? Why ever not?” Mother asked, vigorously towelling her hair with her turban. Lifting a knife, she looked at her reflection in the blade, sighed, and continued with her assault on her hair. “I look as if somebody’s dragged me through a hedge backwards. Why shouldn’t we go into Dalkeith today, Moffat?”

“There might be a disturbance,” Father said.

“A disturbance?” Mother had a habit of repeating Father’s words. “How strange that you should think that. What sort of disturbance?”

“Colliers,” Father said.

Mother and I looked at each other in wonder. “Colliers,” Mother repeated as if that answered all the questions that crowded into my head.

I nodded sagely. “Ah. That Carmichael fellow mentioned colliers.”

“That is not surprising.” Father did not lower his newspaper. “There is nothing wrong with your appearance, my dear, but I forbid you to go into Dalkeith today.”

When Mother raised her eyebrows, I knew what she meant. I smiled in response and finished my breakfast, suddenly eager to join my mother in Dalkeith. A disturbance might break the monotony of rural life.

***

“Miss Moffat!” I had not expected to see Andrew that morning so looked up with a smile when he crunched across our gravel path towards me. As always, he looked supremely smart, with his low hat at a rakish angle and a look of curious disbelief on his face. “I had hoped to see you here.”

“This is my home, Mr Dewar,” I said, gently humorous. “I am often to be found here.”

Andrew gave an uncertain smile. “I know, Miss Moffat. I meant you might be away.”

I did not pursue that topic. “It is good to see you again, Mr Dewar.”

“Thank you.” Andrew hesitated, as if nervous, although we had known each other since childhood. “I am going to Dalkeith today.”

“Oh?” When Andrew gave me no more information, I asked gently: “Why is that, pray?”

“I have something rather special to do there.”

“Indeed?” I raised my eyebrows. “What sort of special is that, Mr Dewar?”

“You may learn by-and-by,” Andrew told me, with what I think he hoped was a mysterious smile.

“I think I can guess,” I said as my heart began to speed up, thinking of the ring I had mentioned to Father.

“You two!” Mother bustled out of the door, all orders and warmth. “How long have you known each other now?” She stood on the third top step, from where she could look down on us both.

“A long time,” I said, trying not to smile at the expression on Andrew’s face.

“A long time,” Mother repeated, “yet you are still so formal! Call the poor boy by his Christian name at least, and you, Mr Dewar, my daughter’s name is Robyn, as you know full well.”

“Good morning, Andrew,” I said, smiling as I dutifully obeyed Mother.

“Good morning,” Andrew replied with a little bow, added “Robyn,” turned away and marched down the path, kicking up so much gravel on to the lawn that our gardener would not be pleased.

“He is a strange fellow,” Mother said, with a shake of her head.

I could not disagree. Andrew Dewar was a strange fellow with a unique way of doing things. I still liked him, however, although I could no longer find that extra spark that transformed liking into love.

“Come, Robyn,” Mother said. “We have things to do.”