Page 3 of A Secret Scottish Christmas

“Nine?” Her eyebrows rose. “’Tis fortunate you added that wing to the house after you married Emily.” Will had already possessed a grand house on the hill overlooking the shipyard when he took his English bride. In the year that followed, it had become a sprawling estate, complete with an orangery for Emily, whose constitution favored a warmer clime.

Will grinned. “I had to enlarge the house. I did not change the company’s name to William Stephen and Sons to remain childless. Emily and I expect to have many bairns. Come spring, Lord willing, we shall have the first one. Perhaps a braw lad with my auburn hair and brown eyes.”

“Or a lass with Emily’s black hair and thistle-colored eyes,” Ailie teased.

Her brother paused, his face taking on a look of bliss that told her he was thinking about the children he expected to have. “Aye.”

Resisting the temptation to roll her eyes, Ailie said, “Whatever the good Lord gives you, Will, I’m just glad we have the additional bedchambers for our visitors. Has Emily warned our cook?”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I believe so. She mentioned something about talking to Martha about the cook Muriel is bringing, but you can ask her at dinner.”

“The countess is bringing her cook?” Ailie envisioned sparks flying in the kitchen as roast goose, boar’s head and turkey replaced salmon, venison and steak pie.

“Emily thought Martha might need help with the English dishes for the Christmas feast.”

“I just hope you ken what you’re about. The Kirk does not abide Yule celebrations.”

Will’s expression took on the look of a determined Scot. “I have loved Christmas since my days at Cambridge and ’tis worth the risk of a frown from the parish minister to make Emily happy.”

“As you wish. Are we still going to Grandfather Ramsay’s for Hogmanay?”

“If the weather allows, aye. A short sail up the coast to Stonehaven could be great fun. Our guests might like to take a sledge through the snow to see the old castle. I’ll ask Grandfather to book the Ship Inn. Now that I think of it, we’ll need all their rooms. Perhaps Father will come from Aberdeen. What do you think?”

“Grandfather might not be pleased with so many Sassenachs descending on him, but he will expect us for Hogmanay. Once Father hears of our plans, he and Mother will be staying put in Aberdeen. Aside from the fact he doesn’t like to travel at this time of year, he’s still riled about what happened in Manchester. The last time I visited him, our uncle had just returned from Glasgow where the mood of the weavers is angry.”

William frowned. “There’s talk in the Arbroath taverns, too.”

That night, after she retired to her bedchamber, Ailie took out her diary, drew her shawl around her and opened a new page. Replacing the candle that had burned to a stub, she dipped the quill in the ink and began.

15 December

I am preparing for a storm (not the current one that has brought so much snow, but one of a different kind). Will says we’re to have guests from London to celebrate Christmas—in secret, of course, else Mr. Gleig, the parish minister, will have something to say about our celebrating a holiday banned by the Kirk for centuries. Bother. Father will be ever so displeased. And, after we sail our guests to Stonehaven for Hogmanay, Grandfather Ramsay might never speak to us again. Oh, did I mention the Countess of Claremont is bringing her English cook? Batten down the hatches.

Adelphi Terrace, London, 16 December

Robbie set his coffee on the table in front of the parlor sofa and turned his attention to the Times article. The correspondent, who’d been on St Peter’s Field that sultry August afternoon when Robbie had nearly lost his brother to a drunken yeoman’s saber, recalled in shocking detail the events of that day. The newspapers had dubbed the debacle “the Peterloo Massacre” in a parody of Waterloo. They were not far off.

It had been months since that terrible day, yet London still spoke of little else.

The names of the four hundred injured were printed along with the nature of their wounds in the hope sympathizers would contribute to the charity set up to support them.

Over one hundred of the injured were females, the mothers, wives, sisters and children of those attending the meeting. The fifteen dead were also named, including one Sarah Jones, mother of seven, fatally injured by a blow to the head.

How the Prince Regent, after all that, could congratulate the hussars, who had entered the fray after the yeomanry, inflicting more bloody wounds, Robbie could not fathom. But there it was, signed by Sidmouth on behalf of the prince, clearing the hussars and magistrates of any wrongdoing.

No one in London believed a word of it.

Nash had recovered from his head wound, the scar buried under his thick brown hair, but Robbie shuddered each time he remembered the blood. He’d had to pull the drunken yeoman from his horse to keep him from taking another swing at Nash.

The newspapers had not exaggerated what followed that day. Sixty thousand people, peacefully gathered to hear about reform, attacked by saber-wielding yeomen and hussars. Like Nash, Robbie wondered if the result had been intended by Sidmouth all along.

Robbie took a drink of his coffee and read on, surprised to learn that a few days ago in the House of Lords, Sidmouth had openly spoken of a conspiracy and proposed coercive measures “to meet the evil”. The new laws, dubbed the “Six Acts”, would, among other egregious things, make any meeting to discuss radical reform an act of treason, the penalty death.

“Damn!” Robbie hissed under his breath. “Deuced stupid, if you ask me.”

His gaze shifted to the page containing a poem by satirist William Hone titled “The Political House That Jack Built”. Robbie thought it quite clever to sum up the reformers’ grievances using a nursery rhyme in an irreverent manner.

“By God,” he muttered. “He attacks lawyers, the Crown, the army, even the church. But he certainly has the massacre on St Peter’s Field right.”