Marriage by Capture Page 2

  His wife turned an animated face towards him. 'I sure have! You know I always like to keep tabs on that young man.'

  'Ramsey…?' Claire's father looked interested. 'A local name, surely…?'

  Claire felt the jolt that stiffened Jonathan's frame. She looked up, and was surprised to see that his face was ashen, with tiny beads of sweat lining his upper lip.

  'Surely, Jonathan,' her father continued, 'your firm has a long-standing client of that name? I remember your father commenting about his eccentricities and the fact that his forebears once farmed at the south end of the island.'

  'Rolf Ramsey, you said…?' Jonathan tugged at his collar as if he felt it too tight, then nervously cleared his throat. 'We do have a client of that name. As for his being eccentric—my father was probably referring to the fact that some years ago the farm that had once belonged to his family came on to the market. How Mr Ramsey became aware of this fact we never did discover, but we were instructed to bid for it on his behalf and to buy it whatever the price. This we did, but then,' his voice hoarsened, 'after writing to inform him that the deal had been concluded we were amazed by his further instructions. The farm buildings, which were in a state of disrepair, were to be restored to their original condition, walls repaired, roof re-thatched, all outhouses re-equipped with implements relevant to the tasks for which they'd been used. The interior of the farmhouse itself was to be left untouched, not an ornament displaced, not so much as an item of bedlinen removed.'

  Claire found that she was clenching her fists as she sensed his struggle to appear calm while still labouring against the effects of sudden shock. He ran the tip of his tongue around lips that were paper-dry before continuing to satisfy his listeners' avid curiosity.

  'Thousands of pounds were spent purchasing equipment which by now had reached the status of antiques. At the beginning we wrote quoting the price of each article and asking if it was satisfactory, but so much correspondence was involved that finally we received a terse note from our client instructing us to buy any relevant article, whatever the price, and that he would settle up with us at the end of each year.'

  'What an extraordinarily trusting fellow!' Garff Foxdale interrupted. 'But then,' he quirked dryly, 'he must obviously have known that he was dealing with a firm of integrity.'

  'But if the farm has remained empty since Mr Ramsey purchased it, it must surely be once again falling into disrepair,' Aunt Effie queried indignantly.

  'A caretaker has been employed to look after the handful of animals, to light the occasional fire so that the house is kept aired,' Jonathan explained.

  'But for what reason?' Aunt Effie wailed.

  Jonathan shrugged. 'That I can't tell you. Unless…' Once more Claire detected a resentful tinge to his tone. 'Unless it's simply a case of a rich man indulging a whim.'

  'Well,' Duncan MacLeod drawled, 'if your Mr Ramsey is the Rolf Ramsey we know, he can certainly afford to indulge in any whim that takes his fancy. The first Ramsey who emigrated from your shores—probably the original owner of the farm you mentioned—made his pile in the fur trade and successive generations have built upon it, with the result that today Rolf Ramsey is reckoned to be one of the richest men in Canada. And what's more,' he beamed around the astonished assembly, 'you're all gonna have the privilege of meeting him! The Ramsey's have always been noted for the code they live by—Never forgive a slight, never forget a favour —Rolf owes me a favour, which is why I know that if I ask him to, he'll hop over to this island on the first available flight!'

  CHAPTER TWO

  Charity was in a furore of excitement. Tonight they were to attend the ball that was to be the highlight of the island's Scottish Festival, planned to celebrate the traditional and historical links between the Scottish and Manx people. All week the clans had been gathering, and hundreds were expected to attend the ball that was being held to acknowledge the MacLeods as descendants of the last Kings of Mann.

  Claire stood up to greet her when she erupted into the sitting-room of her home where they had arranged to meet before going on to the ball as a party. Charity was wearing the MacLeod tartan for the very first time—and it showed.

  'Claire dear, do I look all right? This will be such a proud evening for Duncan, I'd hate to let him down!'

  'You look perfect,' Claire lied, determined to allow nothing to spoil the event the MacLeods would probably talk about for years to come.

  'You're sure…?' Anxiously Charity peered into a wall mirror, adjusted her sash, then, seemingly satisfied, turned round to assure Claire, 'I've never seen my Duncan looking more distinguished, he wears the kilt as if to the manner born. But then,' she heaved an ecstatic sigh, 'that's just as it should be, considering his background.'

  The image of a portly Duncan rigged out in kilt, sporran and velvet jacket was almost more than Claire's composure could withstand, but somehow she managed to keep at bay the smile twitching at the corner of her mouth.

  'You're looking extremely elegant, as usual, my dear,' Charity complimented, beaming approval on an organdie ball gown flouncing fully from Claire's tiny waist, with a strapless bodice that left creamy shoulders bare except for the intrusion of a silken strip of Manx tartan held in place by a brooch of twisted silver. Feeling the strain of her intense excitement, Charity collapsed into a chair and surveyed Claire through half-lowered lids. 'Don't you ever feel excited?' she censured in a tone of exasperation.

  'No, I don't believe I do,' Claire replied, sounding slightly surprised.

  'You will tonight,' Charity promised. 'I've just received some marvellous news—Rolf Ramsey arrived on the island an hour ago and he'll be joining us later this evening!'

  'Oh, really…?' Claire did not mean to sound bored, but the prospect of having added to their party yet another overawed Colonial eager to discuss, branch by branch, his particular family tree, was far from invigorating.

  Correctly interpreting the blankness of her expression, Charity grinned. 'I know what you're thinking,' she accused, 'just another Canadian! Believe me, my dear, Rolf Ramsey is so much of an individual he could never be classed as typical of any race or creed. Though he's extremely wealthy, he devotes most of his time to the study and preservation of wilderness and consequently has become such an expert that he was approached by our National Parks Service to act as a consultant. His mother, a charming woman of French-Canadian extraction, has often confided her worries about his long sojourn in the north woods during which he lives rough, eats out of tins, and is at the mercy of ferocious elements. Often she's declared,' Charity smiled, 'that he has a deeper affinity with grizzlies and Indians than he has with civilised society. But she's really very proud of him, but then everyone back home is proud of the Ramseys.' She shot upright, as if only at that moment recognising a truth. 'I suppose it was Rolf's ancestor and men like him who created what little history we Canadians possess —you have your kings, your lords, your chieftains, but we have Angus Ramsey and his fellow voyageurs!'

  It was still early, they were not due to leave for half an hour yet, so Claire sat down next to Charity and resigned herself to being bored.

  'Voyageurs?' she queried politely. 'The term is unfamiliar to me.'

  Nothing loath, Charity supplied promptly and with obvious pride, 'Legendary heroes of the north-Woods of Canada, freelance trappers and traders who worked their traps alone. Most of them had no interest in the fur trade as such, nor had they any ambitions to be rich or successful in anything other than meeting the endless challenge of the wilder-ness, hacking their way through dark, austere woods abounding with wild animals, risking their lives in boiling rapids, paddling their canoes for fifteen to eighteen hours a day, barely eating, stopping for mere seconds at the end of each hour for a quick smoke before paddling on in either pouring rain, fierce winds or cruel, blistering sun!

  'Usually they had to scout and hack a trail out of the wilderness by themselves, but Angus Ramsey was cleverer than most. He made friends with the Indians and in exchange for tre
ating them as brothers he was allowed to benefit from the experience of generations of hunters who long before had developed their own canoe routes and their own paths through the forests. Most of the trails followed by canoeists today are paths trampled smooth by moccasined Indian feet centuries before the first white man arrived.'

  'How very grim!' Claire shuddered. 'Hours of work, very little food, no vestige of comfort—they must surely have been martyrs to misery!'

  Charity laughed aloud. 'That's one thing they most certainly were not,' she chuckled. 'It's been recorded that even as the voyageurs set forth in the pre-dawn dark they launched into a rousing chorus that resounded through the pitch-black woods, and they continued singing hour after hour throughout the day and into the evening—sad songs, gay songs, moral songs, and many that were distinctly bawdy.'

  Claire suppressed a fastidious shudder. Usually she kept away from the island's capital at the height of the tourist season, nevertheless, on one or two occasions she had witnessed drunken young men thronging the streets late at night singing vulgar songs at the tops of their voices, displaying a lack of decorum she had found disgusting.

  'And what of this Angus Ramsey you mentioned —the relative of the friend you're expecting this evening—presumably he made his fortune, then settled in Montreal?'

  Charity looked suddenly uncomfortable. 'Not he,' she hedged. 'That course of action has been credited to his son.'

  Sensing that there was something Charity did not wish her to know, Claire abandoned good manners to insist, 'But the father, what happened to him?'

  Though there was not the slightest possibility of being overheard, Charity cast an anxious look over her shoulder before confessing in a whisper, 'Rumour has it that he made his home with the Indians and married one of their women, who bore him a son…!'

  Dancing was already in progress when they entered the huge ballroom, its walls festooned with tartans of every known Scottish clan, its floor packed with white-gowned, tartan-sashed women and their proudly-kilted partners. A fiddler was leading the band in a spirited reel, and judging from peals of happy laughter novices who had dared to venture on to the dance floor were having as much fun as the experts who were setting an example.

  As her father played host, introducing the MacLeods to all the notables present, Claire quietly detached herself from the party, hoping she would not be missed until supper was being served, which would not be for another hour at least. Jonathan, who had been caught up in the organisation of the ball, had disappeared behind the scenes to check that all was going well, so, feeling in need of solitude, she made her escape through an opening in heavy velvet curtains screening a deserted balcony.

  Unaccountably, she was feeling very much on edge. It was as if every nerve of her body had tensed to combat some unknown challenge. A combination of Jonathan's tension and Charity's silly prattle had unsettled her; she liked life to run on calm, uneventful lines, she liked to mix with ordinary people because they knew what was acceptable and what was not. Unpredictable people upset carefully-laid plans, created disorder, disarray—the sort of conditions her father had never allowed to exist in his household. Up until now there had not been the least hint of upset to the even tenor of her life, so why was she feeling so nervy, jumping at the slightest sound?

  She walked to the edge of the balcony and leant her arms on the stone balustrade to gaze dreamily through the deepening dusk at the bay below with its arc outlined by a fringe of coloured lights, at the shadowy bulk of a steamer berthed in the harbour and, just discernible, the tall, swaying masts of fishing boats bobbing gently on the waves. A far cry from the Canadian northwoods! She frowned, wondering why such a thought should have popped into her mind. Charity's fanciful talk was the cause of her unsettled mood, she decided crossly—that, and the prospect of having shortly to cope with an ignorant backwoodsman who she was half expecting to arrive wearing buckskins or a feathered headdress!

  'Your island holds a wealth of unsuspected beauty!'

  The words stroked across her shoulder in a soft, hypnotic drawl.

  Startled, she twirled on her heel, then stood stock-still, a slim core of tension wrapped in an agitated flutter of organdie.

  'Who… who are you?' she gasped—unnecessarily, for somehow she already knew. The jet-black hair, sloe-dark eyes narrowed slightly whilst, arrow-swift, they raked her face; skin tanned as leather stretched across a profile so sharply defined it could have been hewn by a hatchet, were all alien, not of her world. Not even a conventional evening suit draped superbly on a wide-shouldered, lean-tapering frame could subdue her fear of the man towering over her, relaxed, half-smiling, yet exuding animal virility from a power-packed body. Only years of discipline, allied to an unsuspected hint of her father's hauteur, enabled her to project indifference into her tone.

  'Mr Ramsey, I presume…?' She extended a surprisingly steady hand to greet him. 'I've been expecting you.'

  When a brown sinewed hand enclosed hers she was unprepared for the jerk that jolted her hard against his lean, muscled body. Arms whipped her waist, lashing her tight, then a hungry mouth descended, crushing to extinction the gasp of breathless astonishment on her parted lips. During the terrifying duration of the kiss she felt paralysed by an electrifying current that scorched her mind of thought, her limbs of movement, yet sparked a tingling furore of excitement along every nerve. To her eternal shame she did not struggle, did not cry out, not even when, satiated as a bear after a surfeit of honey, he raised his head to allow her to gasp in great gulps of life-saving oxygen.

  'And I've been expecting you.' The quietly-spoken words did not make sense. Neither did the look in eyes that were devouring her face, drinking in every nuance of expression, lingering upon the brush of gold-tipped lashes against flushed cheeks, upon the soft golden crown of hair, upon the trembling mouth that would not be still, then delving finally into the depth of eyes that were grey clouds of bewilderment and fear.

  'Don't look so violated, Nordic nymph,' he murmured. 'Why not be honest, and acknowledge that the body has a language all of its own, a signalling system that says: "You excite me!" Our eyes met, I read your message and so naturally I responded.'

  She jerked out of his reach, scandalised by the allegation. 'Are you daring to imply that I invited your brutal assault?' she stormed, wiping a shaking hand across bruised lips.

  His calm smile infuriated her. 'I suppose, you being a product of an over-sophisticated society, your reaction is understandable. It's an established fact that though animals can't speak they have no difficulty in communicating mutual attraction. Humans also possess this faculty, but for some uncomprehensible reason they prefer to pretend ignorance and become indignant if accused of hypocrisy. We felt instant attraction, you and I,' he drawled with easy conviction, 'yet I suspect you're a stickler for protocol, therefore, true to form, you'll insist upon all the proprieties being observed before our urge to mate is allowed to reach the stage of consummation.'

  He waited, then, mistaking her look of stunned disbelief for shyness, he shrugged, looked her over carefully, then startled her with the sudden exclamation.

  'God, but you're lovely—too lovely to bargain your body for a few meaningless vows and a modest wedding ring. But if that's all it will take to bed you then consider the bargain struck!' When he extended his hand, palm uppermost, as if expecting her to participate in some barbaric ritual of commitment, she decided that she had had enough.

  'You're mad, quite mad!' she gasped, then turned on her heel and fled.

  She sped indoors in search of Jonathan whose faults had suddenly paled into insignificance compared with the devilish impudence of the man descended from ruthless voyageurs, and found him scanning the dance floor in search of her.

  'Where on earth have you been?' His voice had an irritated edge. 'We've waited ages to go into supper.'

  Hoping she could trust her voice not to quaver, she told him truthfully, 'I've been talking to Mr Ramsey—the friend of the MacLeods who's just
arrived—I believe arrangements have been made for him to join our party.' Then impulsively she appealed in a breathless rush, 'Let's slip away by ourselves for just this once, Jonathan, it's ages since we've had any time to ourselves!'

  But he seemed not to have heard her last jumbled words. He grabbed her arm. 'You mean Ramsey has actually arrived on the island?'

  'Yes,' she stammered, wondering at the look of shock that had darkened his eyes. 'Why? What's wrong, Jonathan, are you in some kind of trouble?'

  The question seemed to jerk him to his senses. With a tight, humourless smile he prevaricated, 'What was that you said about us slipping away? Good idea—let's get out of here!'

  They both turned to flee like quarry from a hunter, but found Garff Foxdale barring the only exit. 'So you've managed to find her at last!' Casting a dark frown in Claire's direction, he ushered them both through the doorway of a room in which a buffet supper was being served. 'It was most ill-mannered of you to keep everyone waiting,' he told Claire severely. 'Be quick, both of you, choose what you want to eat, then join us at the table reserved for our party.'

  In depressed silence they did as he had bidden them, letting the skirl of pipes, the almost hysterical laughter of nearby dancers attempting to master the intricacies of the Highland fling, wash over them as they picked their way along the length of trestle tables laden with dishes to satisfy every palate— glazed Scotch salmon; smoked mackerel; scampi cocktail; huge sides of roast beef; legs of pork with stuffing and crispy crackling; turkey with prunes; duckling with mandarins; sugar-glazed ham with pineapple, and a bewildering selection of salads and mayonnaises.

  Claire refused all but a thin slice of ham, a lettuce leaf, and a small helping of tomato salad. She was just about to turn away from the buffet when a suave voice chastised:

  'A good hostess must pretend an appetite if she's not to make her guests appear greedy!' Plucking the plate from her nerveless fingers, Rolf Ramsey spun her round until she was once more facing the buffet. 'Let's try again, shall we?' He slanted her a wicked look. 'Together we'll satisfy our hunger.'