Despite his grief at Davy’s loss, Michael could hardly contain his glee.
‘We, yes, my lady and uh, Sir MacTaggart, sir, why yes, we absolutely do!’
The other boys buzzed excitedly in agreement.
‘Excellent,’ she said, smiling. ‘You will travel with him this very afternoon then.’
William stepped forward, and with his bottom lip trembling and his cheeks flushed with red, he spoke to the lady.
‘Thank you so much for your kindness, m’ lady. You remind me of me’ dear mummy who went to live with the angels in heaven when I was four years old.’
Tears glistened in the lady’s eyes, and she ruffled William’s now-clean hair.
‘It was the least I could do, young man. I hope that you boys enjoy working for Gordon; he is an honest and honourable man. Now, however, I must take my leave of you. Perhaps I will see you again when I come to visit Gordon in the Highlands.’
‘Please do, me lady!’ William blurted out, unable to contain his enthusiasm.
She laughed, the bell-like sound filling the room with its effervescent joy.
‘I certainly will, my boy. Farewell and good luck.’
Half an hour later the boys were in a carriage, another first-time experience for all of them, heading out of the madness and mayhem of London towards a new life in the Scottish Highlands.
10
WILLIAM
August 1852. A forest in Aberdeenshire, Scotland
It was as William’s mare dipped her head to drink from the stream that he saw her. He had just dismounted and was on his knees, cupping his hands, when he glanced up and noticed the girl and her horse. His fingers froze in mid-movement the instant his eyes took in the breathtaking sight before him, so unexpectedly captivating was she; the late afternoon sun blazed through the trees to anoint her with a golden aura; an epiphanous vision of an angelic being descended to this mortal realm. In a single gasp all of the air left his lungs; he decided there and then, with utter certainty, that she was the most exquisite creature he had ever laid eyes on.
She looked to be of an age with him; perhaps a year or two younger. The sartorial finery of her riding dress – a rich hue of scarlet, with velvet hems and a velvet collar, and bright white buttons and piping – along with the spotless white of her gloves, and the elaborate cut of her ostentatious riding hat, marked her as a member of the aristocratic class. Her dark chestnut hair, though, was unbound, and tumbled loosely about her shoulders.
Far more striking than her garb, though, was her face, particularly her eyes. Deep-set and large and rimmed with dark eyelashes, they practically glowed in their sockets, their hazel, gold-flecked hue like a deeply burnished metal. Above them sat two bold eyebrows, almost straight in shape with only the most subtle hint of a curvature to them. Her cheeks were pleasantly full, but not to the point of chubbiness, and her small mouth seemed as if it were ever on the verge of breaking into a radiant smile. A nose that was both long and delicate was set in the centre of this astoundingly symmetrical set of features. Below her ears, there was a gentle curve to her jaw that seemed, to William’s awestruck eyes, to invite the lightest brush of trembling fingertips, and the milky white neck below it looked like a delectable surface onto which to plant many soft kisses.
Her beauty, and the elegant finery in which she was attired, made him feel rather self-conscious about his own garb, for he was clothed in simple workman’s gear: oft-patched mud-brown trousers, dirty black shoes, a grey waistcoat – also tatty – and a grimy white shirt, the sleeves of which were rolled up to his elbows. A cloth workman’s cap sat above his shaggy, unkempt hair, which was a dirty tone of blonde, a good few shades darker than the near-platinum hue it had been well over a decade prior. Only a few echoes of the child he had once been remained in the man’s body his soul now inhabited; the large grey eyes still shone with boyish mischief and a ferocious zest for life, but around them the once-soft facial features had hardened into more angular protuberances; his long, well-proportioned nose was perched below two dark, sharply angled eyebrows that gave the eyes beneath them a hawk-like cast, while his strong jaw was dusted liberally with five days’ worth of dark stubble. An almost tangible amicability was present in the arrangement of his features; he would have made a great salesman on the basis of his cheerfully attractive looks alone. His full lips, forming a smallish mouth, seemed ever on the edge of breaking into a smile.
While neither tall nor muscular in build, William’s shoulders had broadened with the onset of manhood, and he had about him the wiry look of one built for feats of athletic endurance. Still, for all his handsomeness it was plain that he was little more than a lowly labourer, and the jellyfish stings of self-conscious embarrassment wrapped their burning tentacles around his limbs as he stared at the beautiful woman before him.
The girl returned his gaze from atop her saddle, and burnished radiance blazed in her light amber eyes; it was a look that William had not once experienced in all of his nineteen years, a look that shone like molten metal glowing in a crucible. Breaking this gaze of intensity, she then smiled; half shyly, half coquettishly, and at the edges of her rosebud-lips two deep, pleasantly angled smile-creases appeared; sudden sinkholes in unblemished alabaster skin.
Entranced by her comeliness, William felt as if every drop of blood had instantaneously left his head. He saw in her the look of the lady who had rescued him and his friends from Mr Goode thirteen
