Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

E VENTUALLY THEY HAD to proceed on horseback, lest the carriage break an axle on the rough pathways the Scots termed roads . It took them over a week to reach the village of Gairmore, tucked away deep in the Scottish Highlands. Even on a summer day, washed in sunshine, the community was not a prepossessing sight. A few rutted narrow roads and squat dark cottages made up most of the place, with a very plain kirk at one end and the banks of a loch at the other.

Nathan and Verity looked at each other, pulling their horses to a halt. "This is where Margaret Douglas chose to have her lying in?"

"Perhaps Mr. Douglas was telling the truth, and they just got caught here." Nathan looked around doubtfully.

A woman stood in the doorway of her house, staring at them, and within moments, two other women and a man emerged from the houses around, clustering in the lane. Verity glanced at Nathan, handed him her reins and dismounted, then walked over to the group.

Verity launched into her Scottish act, and within moments, the others were chatting away with her in accents even more difficult to understand than Verity's. Nathan decided not to bother with dismounting; there was little chance he'd understand a fraction of the conversation.

There was much nodding, and now and then, the Scots glanced over at Nathan, and at one point, all of them laughed. Nathan had the distinct feeling that Verity had made him the butt of some jest, but he just smiled pleasantly. Verity had clearly won them over.

Soon followed pointing in several different directions, along with more chatter, and Verity went into a long round of thanks and farewells. She strode back to him, and Nathan swung down to join her. Verity took his arm, pulling him with her as she started down the street.

"How do you do that?" Nathan asked. "It's not only that you can sound like them. You were immediately their friends. They didn't so much as nod in my direction."

"Och, weel, now, you're a Sassenach, aren't you?" Verity said lightly.

"How did they know that? I never opened my mouth," Nathan protested.

Verity sent him an amused glance and changed to her usual voice. "Nathan, anyone could tell that just by looking at you. I didn't sound just like them, it seems. They were sure I was from Glasgow."

He grimaced. "Still, they were willing to talk to you. They wanted to talk to you. Somehow you manage to be one of them."

"You can go into a gentlemen's club or a gambling den and talk with ease to anyone there, which I cannot."

"Yes, well, that's because I am one of them."

"And you grew up watching them, imitating them. You learned how to be like them. All one has to do is study one's subjects and blend in. Make their gestures and expressions. I didn't do it overnight. I had trouble not acting and talking like a gentleman's daughter when we were living on the streets, but I watched everyone else and imitated them, and I discovered I had a talent for it. It's become second nature to me now, I suppose. I adopt other people's gestures and expressions. Though you have to be careful there, or they might assume you're mocking them." She shrugged. "It helps to give them something they want, as well. They were clearly dying of curiosity about us. There aren't many visitors in Gairmore, apparently."

"Imagine that."

"So few, in fact that the older man recalled everyone who's stopped here in the last forty years."

"The Douglas women?" Nathan asked.

"He thought so. But he went to ask his sister, who was older than he and might recall it better. One of them went to talk to Mrs. McCready, who owns a ‘fine house' beside the loch, where she lets out rooms to visitors."

"That sounds promising."

"I thought so. I would venture to guess it's the only house that does. Unfortunately, the woman who had been midwife here for many years passed. Her daughter is carrying on her work, but she was probably too young at the time to remember. So we are going to visit the Reverend Mr. Gordon at the kirk to look at the records of births."

"What did you tell them we are doing?"

"I told them you were actually a Scotsman, but your poor mother had died when you were young and you had been given to a couple in England. You grew up thinking they were your parents, but you've heard that you are not, and now you want to find your true Scottish parents. All you know is that you were born here."

He raised his brows. "Why not tell them the truth?"

"What would be the fun in that?" Verity tossed back.

"Of course." He grinned. "How silly of me."

They continued to the plain church, but found no one inside. The parsonage beside it, however, opened to their knock, revealing a stern-looking man wearing a dark suit and a white collar with preaching bands.

Verity sent Nathan a sideways glance and nodded slightly. He took it to mean she had decided the man in front of them would react better to a gentleman's questions, so Nathan said pleasantly, "Reverend Gordon?"

"Aye. And who are ye?" The man frowned, which did not seem promising.

But Nathan took heart in the fact that at least Gordon's accent was not as thick as the earlier villagers. Nathan went on to politely explain that they were looking for the records of births in the village thirty to thirty-five years ago.

"Thirty-five years! To what purpose?"

Nathan launched into Verity's story of his own supposed birth, which only made the man scowl more.

"There's no English born in Gairmore," the cleric said.

"That is my point," Nathan said, struggling to keep the sharpness from his tone. "I believe it was a Scotswoman who was my mother."

"Humph. No outsiders of any kind in Gairmore."

Nathan drew himself up, assuming a haughty face, and there was an expectation of obedience in his voice as he said, "Still, I would like to examine them. I believe these are public records."

The other man sent him a resentful look, but said only, "Aye, well, follow me."

He led them back to the church. Verity squeezed Nathan's arm. "Good work. You were terrifyingly lordlike."

Mr. Gordon pulled out a leather-bound journal that looked as if it had been there for a century and began to thumb through the yellowed pages. "What is the name you're searching for?"

"Douglas." Nathan itched to grab the book from the man's hands. One would have thought it contained vast secrets the way Gordon shielded it. "It would have been 1787 or 1788, probably."

"Hmm." The reverend gave him a suspicious look and returned to his slow perusal of the pages. "I don't know of any Douglases. Ah." His finger stopped its journey down the page. "Ah. Well. Here it is. ‘February twentieth in the year of our Lord 1787. Malcolm Andrew Ramsay Douglas.' How peculiar."

Nathan and Verity exchanged a glance. "That's before—"

The rest of Verity's sentence was cut short by the other man reading on, "‘Mother Flora Ramsay Douglas, father John James Douglas.'"

"What?" Nathan's gaze snapped back, and he yanked the book from the cleric's hands.

"Sir! That is church property."

Nathan paid him no attention, just ran his eyes down the page to the name in question. Beside him, Verity leaned against him to peer at the book. "Well. That's a bit of a twist."

"What in the—I don't understand." Nathan recovered from his astonishment enough to hand back the book and gave the minister a coin for the church in thanks, then took Verity's arm and swept her out the door.

"What is going on? Margaret's mother had the baby? Margaret is Malcolm's sister?"

"I have trouble believing that. Why would Malcolm pretend that he was your father's son with Margaret? The truth would have been bound to come out at some point. He would have had to prove his birth in a court of law."

"Perhaps he was just looking for a bit of blackmail and didn't intend to go to court," Nathan mused. "He knew my father had married Margaret, and he made up the rest of it just to get me to pay him off."

"Or perhaps Malcolm didn't lie about his parentage." Verity stopped and turned to Nathan. "Maybe it is the record that's false."

"You think Reverend Gordon falsified the information?" Nathan's brows soared. "Why would he do that?"

"Money," Verity replied succinctly.

Nathan sighed. "I suppose you will think I'm terribly naive to be shocked at the idea of a clergyman lying."

"I think most people would assume a clergyman would tell the truth. But there are churchmen who love money. And it might not necessarily have been for personal gain. New pews for the church or a bell tower repaired could have been the lure."

"He was suspiciously reluctant to let us see the record of the birth."

"Yes, but I'm afraid he's not old enough to have been here at that time."

"So you think his predecessor accepted the bribe?"

"Perhaps. Or the clergyman could have been the one lied to. Did you notice the names of the witnesses?"

"No," Nathan admitted.

"One was a Dr. Joseph MacPherson. The other was Mrs. Donald McCready."

Nathan looked at her blankly, then remembered. "You mean the woman who lets out her home to visitors?"

"Seems likely, doesn't it? She takes paying guests. Flora and Margaret had to have a place to stay. Her house may not be as fine as the villagers said, but obviously it must be nicer than any other house in Gairmore."

"So she paid her landlady and the physician to lie?"

"Do you think this village has a doctor?" Verity asked skeptically, and Nathan shook his head. "Neither do I. I think they brought a physician with them. One whom they knew would say whatever they wanted."

"If Flora Douglas brought a doctor along with her, she clearly planned to have the baby here instead of at the family estate—which makes no sense. The family had no connection here, and it's difficult to get to. And who in her right mind would choose to give birth in the Highlands in the winter?" Nathan said.

"Exactly. There had to be something questionable going on."

"It seems to be a common occurrence in this family."

"If Malcolm was your father and Margaret's son, he was not legitimate because he was born in February, months before Margaret married your father. So...let's say you are Margaret's mother and you wished to hide that your daughter had an illegitimate child, but you didn't want to give the child to a foundling home. And let's say you are young enough that it isn't entirely unbelievable that you yourself could have a child at your age."

"Then you might whisk your daughter away before anyone knows," Nathan completed the thought. "Go to a remote place for the final months and the birth, and then pretend that the baby is yours."

"Such things do happen," Verity said. "A relative taking an illegitimate child and raising it as their own to protect the unwed mother."

"But we know that my father married Margaret."

"Several months later. The Douglases might not have known that he would marry her."

"But after that, surely he and Margaret would raise the boy, not his grandmother."

Verity shrugged. "I don't know. Perhaps they felt they couldn't reveal that the original story was untrue."

"I suppose." He sighed. "Well, we've no idea who or where this doctor is, but..."

"We can find Mrs. McCready," Verity finished for him.

As it turned out, finding Mrs. McCready was easy, for Verity's newfound friends had talked to the woman in question and revealed that she did, in fact, have rooms to let. Getting information out of her was another matter.

Mrs. McCready was a soft, plump woman with a sweet smile. Her white hair peeped out around the edges of her ruffled mobcap. Nathan was reminded of the cotton cap that Verity had worn when he first met her as she pretended to be a maid in Lady Lockwood's house, and he smiled a little to himself. Verity's cap had been almost comically large in order to cover her hair and partially conceal her face. He remembered, too, the golden eyes beneath its edge.

At the time she had thoroughly irritated him in almost every way. And now...well, he had to admit that she still had the ability to irritate him, but somehow he didn't mind. Indeed, he almost enjoyed it, which he suspected meant there was something seriously wrong with him.

Mrs. McCready greeted them with pleasure, assuring them that she had rooms for both of them. "Mr. Dunbridge on the floor above your room, of course. We're always verra careful with the proprieties. It wouldnae do to..." She leaned in a little, lowering her voice. "Appear at all questionable, if you know what I mean."

Nathan wished Verity had set them up with a different story instead of using the one she'd already told the townsfolk of her being employed to help Nathan find his true parents. The role of a married couple would have been much more agreeable.

"I do," Verity said, sending Nathan a twinkling glance that told him she knew precisely what he was thinking. She went on to inquire into their supposed mission. Nathan noted that the warm brogue Verity had been using with the townspeople had become a fainter gloss of a Scottish accent, her tone crisp and authoritative as she spoke to the landlady.

The other woman looked flustered. "Och, nae, lass, I cannae remember that far back."

"They were a bit unusual," Verity said in an apparent attempt to jog her memory. "Flora and Margaret Douglas. Two refined ladies from Edinburgh, accompanied by a doctor."

"I dinnae remember." Mrs. McCready shook her head vigorously, sending the several bows of her cap fluttering, and gave them an apologetic smile. "My memory's not what it was."

Nathan reflected that he had grown cynical enough the past few weeks that he was sure the sweet old lady was lying.

"I'm sorry I cannae help you," Mrs. McCready went on. "Janet can see you to your rooms. Janet!" She raised her voice.

"Yes, missus, I'm here." A middle-aged woman moved out of the shadows of the staircase. In contrast to her employer, she was a dour-looking woman with iron gray hair wrapped up in a tight knot at the crown of her head. She nodded at Nathan. "This way, sir, miss."

Janet clomped up the stairs, leaving them little choice but to follow her. She moved down the hallway and opened a door. "Here ye are, miss. Ye have a view of the loch." She waved toward the windows along the opposite wall.

"Thank you." Verity drew a breath, and Nathan knew she was going to question the maid about the Douglases.

But before Verity could speak, Janet said, "I remember them."

"The Douglases?"

"I dinnae remember their names. But I was here when they came—like ye said, two high-and-mighty ladies from Edinburgh and Dr. MacPherson. They brought their maid, as well, and they didnae like the food. The bread was too coarse, the mother said, and the haggis too dry. I remember 'cause I was an undermaid working in the kitchen, and Mrs. Fleming, the housekeeper, was in a snit about it."

"Well, I suppose since the mother was carrying a child, her taste might have—"

The maid let out a snort. "Carrying? Not her. It was the lass that had the babe. Poor lass—she was quiet. A weepy little thing. 'Course, who wouldn't be? Her mam was stiff as a poker and never had a smile to offer. Weel, it was a bastard, poor wee babe, so her mam was angry at her. That's the way it is, isn't it, the lass always gets blamed, and the man's off enjoying himself."

"Yes, unfortunately, that's often the way it is," Verity said sympathetically. "Did the daughter ever say anything about the baby's father?"

"Nae. They didnae talk to the likes of us, ye ken." She paused, tilting her head a bit. "Though—now that I think about it, there was that once the lass stood up to her, and I ken it was about a man."

"Do you remember what they said?" Verity asked.

Janet shook her head but continued to look thoughtful. "It was—the mam said—" She shot a quick glance at Nathan, then went on, "Sassenach."

"An Englishman?" Verity could not fully suppress the excitement in her voice. "They were arguing about an Englishman?"

The other woman nodded slowly. "I think so. I cannae be sure—I just remember because it surprised us all." She shrugged. "I'm sorry. That's all I know." She gave Nathan a little bob of a curtsey. "Now, sir, your room is up the stairs."

"Yes, of course." Nathan pulled out a gold coin and pressed it into her hand. "Thank you. You've been a great help."

Janet smiled broadly and quickly pocketed the coin. "Thank ye, sir."

"One other thing..." Nathan said. "You didn't remember the two women, but you knew the doctor's name. Was he local?"

Janet's eyebrows went up. "Oh, nae, sir, he was from Inverness. I knew him because he's the missus's brother."

"Mrs. McCready's brother?" Nathan's eyebrows shot up.

"Aye. The missus's name was MacPherson before she married Donald McCready."

Verity gave Janet a thin-lipped smile and said, "While you show Mr. Dunbridge to his chamber, I believe I'll give Mrs. McCready another visit."

"Oh, nae, miss." Janet's eyes opened in alarm. "Dinnae tell her—"

"Don't worry, I won't tell her you told us," Verity assured her.

"I'll go with you," Nathan said quickly.

"No, dear." Verity patted his arm. "This is something I'll do better without you."

Nathan sighed as he watched Verity trot down the stairs.

"Oh, sir...the missus is bound to know." Janet turned her worried gaze on him.

"Don't worry, she'll make up an entirely different story," Nathan told Janet. "She's quite good at that."