Wild Island Read Online Free PDF

the glen full of coffins ? No, that was going too far, even in this fantastic world in which she found herself.
    'Mr Charles Beauregard's coffin.. ‘ she began cautiously.
    'The coffin of his late Majesty King Charles Edward of Scotland. Who you'll mebbe be knowing by the name of Charles Beauregard,' replied Captain Stuart, drawing himself up into a passable military pose.
    Heaven have mercy, thought Jemima. What on earth was he talking about? She wished she had a firmer grasp on Scottish history, to know what on earth Captain Stuart could be meaning, with his reference to majesties and kings. Scottish history was an absolutely closed book to Jemima apart from a few salient points like the '45. She had been busy studying Scottish topography for her holiday, and had brought with her the poems of Burns and a couple of Walter Scotts in paperback. The Burns-the love poems-had been a present from Guthrie Carlyle. He had inscribed it: 'Maybe you will invite me to your island ...' Jemima had accepted the book and made a mental resolution to do no such thing. The Scotts on the other hand, Old Mortality and The Heart of Midlothian, had been recommended to her as 'the good Scotts' - as though there could be bad Scotts like bad people-by Marigold Milton, her brilliant if didactic girlfriend from Cambridge days, now suitably teaching English to a widening circle of terrorized but fascinated students at London University. Neither Burns nor Scott, national heroes as they might be, struck her as likely to be particularly helpful in the present situation.
    It seemed that she should have been studying the ancestry of the Scottish royal family. There was some kind of Stuart pretender; she dimly recalled ceremonies in which, surely, a white rose rather than a red had been involved. But wasn't the fellow a Bavarian prince anyway?
    Of course it was up to her whether she chose to discover the answer to these questions. She imagined she was perfectly free to refuse Captain Lachlan's courteous invitation on behalf of the Red Rose. She would simply express her wish to reach her destination as soon as possible (true enough) and pass by on the otherside from the flag-waving self-styled ADC to the Chief-... Curiosity, at once her best and her worst quality, got the better of her. The funeral was hardly likely to last long, and she was keen to satisfy a certain low desire to find out more about this surprising Beauregard family in a painless manner.
    But with Lachlan installed in the front seat of the car, she discovered almost immediately that she was wrong on one count: the funeral was not intended to be brief.
    'We intend to see that the late monarch gets a full royal funeral,' explained Captain Stuart. 'As far as is possible in the present circumstances. And will ye be driving with more care, Mr Duncan. We don't want anything to happen to Miss Shore while she's under the protection of the Red Rose.'
    Well, thought Jemima, he may be a Royalist nut, but at least we agree about Duncan's hair-raising driving ...
    'So ypu got yourself a job, did you now ? An ADC, do you call it ?' countered Duncan sarcastically to the quip about his driving. 'After you were thrown off the Estate.' But he did slow down his driving, Jemima noticed.
    Lachlan Stuart gave Duncan an extremely dirty look. Jemima thought it wise to intervene. 'Look here, Captain Stuart—*
    'Captain Lachlan, if you please, Miss Shore. We have no surnames in the Army of the Red Rose. For security reasons, you understand.'
    Security with regard to surnames was surely an idle matter, with Duncan there to provide the necessary information, like a vindictive chorus. Nevertheless Jemima was not disposed to argue the point.
    'Captain Lachlan, what on earth is my part in all this? I'm simply on my way to Eilean Fas—'
    'Aye, we know that-. We had the information from the Castle.'
    'From whom?' He ignored the question.
    'And we're taking you along purely as an observer.'
    'But an observer of