Nov 1

Nov 1 The Handfasters

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“Helen Susan Swift does well to make this historical romance a fun, easy read.”

— Amazon Review

“A wonderful trip into the past”

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“I would highly suggest this book to anyone looking for a sweet love story set in historical times.”

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The Handfasters - book excerpt

Chapter One

I was a stranger to the wynds and closes of old Edinburgh, where the mists swirl around the tall stone tenements and the rain washes clean the cobbles in the morning. I did not know, then, that the ancient city claims a thousand secrets, and nobody is ever what they seem at first. Call me naïve, if you will, but we are what life makes us and small blame to ourselves until we learn from bitter experience.

You may know Edinburgh, but nevertheless, I will remind you about our Scottish capital. It is like nowhere else in the world, in my world at least, for it is a divided city, with Princes Street Gardens, the Nor' Loch that was, an oxymoron between two opposites. On one side sits the graceful squares and classical lines of the Georgian New Town, that most elegant of creations, where modern houses sit in grandly refined rows and people talk in quiet undertones. However, cross to the south side of the gardens and you enter the mediaeval hotchpotch of original Edinburgh, the Old Town of romance where queens once rubbed shoulders with commoners, devout ministers preached at unremitting blackguards and grand ladies exchanged bawdy wit with unlettered gutterbloods.

“This must be the most romantic city in the world,” I said that December day in 1811 as I stared at the serrated skyline of the Old Town.

Louise laughed out loud, rather rudely, I thought, but I immediately forgave her when she favoured me with her smile. Everybody always forgave Louise, for she had such a winning way about her.

“Romance is what romance does,” she said cryptically and tapped her ivory fan against my leg. “But what do you understand of romance, Alison Lamont?” Her eyes mocked me, their brilliant blue as beautiful as an angel's kiss and as innocent as the devil's tail.

I said nothing, for she had touched a sore spot in my life. I knew nothing of romance, or of much else, really, although I could speak fluent French, sew perfectly, and paint as well as any young woman of eighteen. Only two years older than I, my cousin Louise, the beautiful, sophisticated Miss Ballantyne, had more experience in her little finger than I had in my whole body, and did she not know it?

Louise smiled again, displaying the perfect teeth that were her pride. “Don't you worry, Alison,” she advised. “I'll soon introduce you to the ways of romance. A few weeks with me and you will be flirting with the best of them and teasing the most amiable men to the point of distraction.” Opening her fan, she half hid her face behind it and peeped lopsidedly at me. “We'll take this city by its clacking heels,” she said, “and shake loose the gaiety it tries to deny.”

We were sitting side by side in Aunt Elspeth's coach at that time, jolting along Princes Street with the fine new houses rising to our left and the castle standing a grim sentinel over the murky waters of the Nor' Loch on our right.

“Now there's a sight to take the edge from a bright day.” Louise was stretching across me, balancing with one hand on my knee as she peered outside.

I looked over, first at the castle, then at the loch, which had what I took to be a burning boat on it. “That boat's on fire,” I said, and Louise gave a disparaging little laugh and tapped me again with her fan.

“Indeed, it is,” she told me, “for there is a strange creature down there that sends boats out to the water and then burns them.”

I understood strange creatures, for I had been reared on stories of water kelpies and uruisgs and fairy dogs, but I had never heard of anything that burns boats before. I stared out of the window, expecting to see a horned monster at the side of the loch, but instead, there was only a tall and rather dishevelled man.

“There's no creature there.” I was vaguely disappointed at the sight.

“That's Willie Kemp,” Louise said, hiding her giggle behind her fan. “He's the strangest creature that ever was. They say that he does not talk to women, or to anybody else, but spends all his time making strange machines that don't work.”

“Oh!” I looked away again, for I had no interest in a man who made strange machines. And why should I have had, when there were the delights of Edinburgh before me, and Lady Catriona's ball that very evening?

“Does he not amuse you?” Louise was still staring out of the window, obviously amused at the antics of this Willie Kemp. “He is such a strange creature.” Lowering her voice, as if we were in a crowded room rather than alone in Lady Elspeth's carriage, she bent close to my ear. “Do you know what some people say about him?”

I shook my head, “No,” I said, for I was indeed very naïve in those days. “What do they say?”

Louise told me, in deliberate and terrible detail, stories that would scandalise me even now, yet alone then, and I am sure I was as red as any summer apple by the time she was finished.

“Oh,” I said, as Louise widened her eyes at the expression on my face.

“Oh, my dear Alison,” she said, placing a reassuring hand on my arm. “I hope that I have not shocked you.”

“Not at all,” I lied, wishing desperately for a corner in which to hide. I was an innocent in most matters, apart from the most basic.

“That's all serene then.” Louise sank back in her seat, her eyes still amused. “But it's best to know these things, don't you see? And better for you to hear from me, who loves you as if you were the dearest of sisters, rather than from some stranger who does not have your best interests in her heart.”

“Of course, Louise.” I forgave her at once, for she was always thinking about others, was Louise. “Will it be long before we arrive at the ball?”

“It will be no time at all. We just have to ascend the Earthen Mound and we'll be nearly there. The Forres Residence is about halfway up the Castlehill.”

I had heard of the Earthen Mound, that great accumulation of dirt and rubble from the building of the New Town that the thrifty burghers of Edinburgh had utilised as a bridge-cum-road to take them to the Old, but I had never seen it before. The coachman made the most of the incline, whistling and yelling to the poor horses in the coarsest possible manner as he drove up the ugly curve.

“Oh, I do hate this part.” Louise held on to her hat as if the angle of the coach would remove it from her undeniably pretty head.

I sighed and tried to look as composed as I knew how; I had not so quickly forgotten her scandalous stories. Opening my fan, I stirred the air in what I hoped was a languid fashion. “It is a trifle tiresome,” I agreed, “but can hardly be compared to the mountains we have in Badenoch.” I let her think of that for a while as I watched the view alter. The New Town looked even more impressive from here, with the grey squares so regular against the drab green of the winter countryside.

The Old Town, however, was less pleasant and much less romantic at close quarters than it had seemed from a distance. I do not know what I had expected, knights in armour, perhaps, and gay cavaliers on prancing horses, but instead we entered a long, sloping street that seemed like a ditch stuck between high cliff-like tenements, or lands as the gutterbloods of Edinburgh term them. Where I had expected romantic heroes, instead the streets were populated with ragamuffins in various attires, from Highland plaid that made me quite homesick to ragged breeches and torn shirts that would have disgraced a scarecrow on any Speyside field and were often quite short of decency.

“Welcome to the High Street.” Louise seemed not to mind the pell-mell of people. “We'll be leaving the coach soon.” Her eyes were as bright as I had ever seen them, shining with anticipation as she readied herself for the ball.

The coachman stopped at the entrance to what appeared to be a back alley, but which I was assured was the entrance to a wynd, one of the side streets that delved at right angles from the main road to the unseen heart of the old city. Rather than walk, Louise sent the man ahead, and he returned a minute later with two burly fellows carrying a sedan chair. I had never seen the like before, but Louise assured me their use was normal amongst civilised people, and she slipped herself in with a great rustle of satin and a hint of exposed ankle that captured the porter's attention but must surely have been a mistake.

Now, I am aware that such vehicles are not common in this modern age, and so for the benefit of those of you who have never seen one, I shall describe a sedan. They were not large, being little more than a box big enough to hold a seated lady, with curtained windows at the sides and two long poles protruding at either end. One man lifted the poles at the front, another took the poles at the rear, they lifted the weight and walked away, carrying their passenger with a degree of comfort and as much privacy as drawn curtains would allow.

Unfortunately, there was but the one sedan, and two of us, which meant I had to walk a few steps behind, just like a common servant. So, my introduction to Edinburgh saw me following the chairmen as they slithered down the greasy cobbles of the wynd; a fine welcome to the Capital city, you will agree, but worse was to come, by and by.

I had no idea how malodorous an Edinburgh wynd could be, but that short walk was a revelation. I seemed to be walking into the very bowels of the earth, with the buildings looming so tall on either side that they blocked out what light December allowed, while the ground was an abode of every kind of filth imaginable. Well, I admit I was young, but even so, I was disgusted by the stench, and I envied Louise her carriage, vowing never to walk abroad in the older part of Edinburgh again.

Then we stopped at what could only be described as a gap in the cliff-like wall of the building. I had expected the entrance to Her Ladyship's dwelling to be something grand, with great sweeping stairs and liveried footmen on hand, but instead, it was a poky little hole in a projecting circular tower. The only saving grace was the carved coat armorial above the massive and studded door. That was indeed impressive, being of solid stone and was obviously ancient, with Her Ladyship's coat of arms as permanent as Scotland herself.

“Take me right inside,” Louise ordered, as the chairmen halted outside the door, and the poor fellows, huffing with exertion, had to lift the whole contraption again and manoeuvre it through the doorway.

Once inside, all my preconceptions were removed. That short walk down the stinking wynd had prepared me for a vile, wretched abode of dark rooms, but the reality could not have been more different. As Louise extricated herself from the chair in a great flurry of satin, silks, skirts, and artfully revealed petticoats, I stepped from the stone lobby past a spiral staircase and right into the most amazing room I had ever seen. Sir Walter Scott himself could not have conceived of anything so delightful, with a massive oaken wainscot, a portrait, by Norrie, I fancied, although it might have been Raeburn, glowering moodily down, and a fireplace so large that half a herd of cattle could have been roasted there. There was a long oval table so heavily polished it could have reflected my face and a whole regiment of padded chairs standing at attention round about. It was like something from the court of King Arthur, except lit by a slowly swaying chandelier and presided over by two of the most delightful figures it had ever been my pleasure to behold.

One was simply the most elegant of elderly ladies imaginable. She must have been eighty if she was a day, and she wore the wide skirt and low neckline of fashionable France in her youth. She could have stepped straight from a picture of the court of King George, except for the great green turban on her head and the ivory fan she languidly wafted in front of a face that was white with powder and enhanced by dark beauty spots. I dropped in a fine curtsey, for only a truly great lady could dress with so much style, and she acknowledged me with a gracious nod of her head.

“Young lady.”

Her companion was tall, with a long green travelling cloak and a shiny tall hat of black beaver that he doffed as soon as I stepped inside the room. He made an elegant leg, but the effect was somewhat spoiled as he had to grab for his hat, which toppled dangerously from his head and nearly landed on the floor at my feet.

“Miss Ballantyne?” he said when he straightened up, speaking in a soft accent with a strange drawl the like of which I had never heard before.

“No, sir,” I corrected gently. “Miss Ballantyne is my cousin. I am Alison Lamont.”

“Ah.” The gentleman belatedly doffed his so-lately-clutched-at hat, which sent his wig askew and allowed a quiff of auburn hair to flop forward over a face that was too tanned to be fashionable but still appeared most agreeable.

I stared at that face, wondering what sort of man could possess it. Although it had the features of a stranger, it possessed such amiability I could not help but smile. His eyes were as green as a mountain lochan, and his nose as Highland as peat, long and straight and imposing.

“Alexander Forres,” he introduced himself. “And this is my mother, Lady Catriona Forres, of Forres House and the Forres Residence.”

I curtseyed again, to which he made a much more successful bow.

Louise entered then, hurrying in with one hand holding up her skirts and the other clutching her fan as if it were a weapon of war rather than a folding sliver of carved ivory.

“Then you are Miss Louise Ballantyne.” Alexander Forres made the correct deduction, bowing once again.

Louise dropped in her most elegant curtsey, deliberately displaying her far-too-impressive cleavage to the eyes of Forres, who looked away as a true gentleman should. I liked him immediately and vowed that if I should ever be fortunate enough to find a suitor, he should be of the same calibre and possess the same fine manners as the honourable Alexander, although he would have to be considerably younger.

“Well now,” Lady Catriona spoke for the first time, and everybody in that room paused to listen. “Now that we all know each other, perhaps we can repair upstairs, for I am sure that there will be no dancing in this room.”

We followed her, of course, and you never saw so many butterflies and beaus before, for others had followed Louise and me so that great room was already overflowing with fluttering women and preening men. Ignoring any pretence at delicacy, Lady Catriona floated up a turnpike stair, with her wide skirt rubbing on both sides at once and her yellow high heeled shoes clicking and clacking on the bare stone beneath. Where Lady Catriona led, we must of necessity follow, and as she made no complaints about the starkness of her surroundings, why, then neither could we. All the same, I was surprised at the lack of decoration in that turnpike and the old-fashioned torches that illuminated our passage. There was nothing modish at all, to be sure.

We hesitated outside a varnished door on which some long-gone master craftsman had carved the Forres crest, and through which floated the sounds of revelry and music. I took an audibly deep breath.

“Whatever are you doing?” Louise enquired, and I informed her it was most fashionable to have colour on one's face before entering a ball.

“But not like that,” Louise said and pinched her cheeks so the flush arose.

I copied her, but with more timidity so my face retained its creamy complexion.

“Oh, my,” Louise said with a disapproving shake of her head. Removing her right glove, she gave me a resounding slap on my left cheek. “There now,” she said with satisfaction and repeated the procedure with great energy on the other side. “That's much better.”