The Blood of Roses (39 page)

Lauren stiffened, her eyes growing rounder and darker as they flicked across the room to the tall armoire. She broke past him and ran to the cabinet, flinging the doors wide and dropping onto her knees before it. Oaths were hurled over her shoulder in as colorful a profusion as the scarves, shawls, stockings, ribbons, and smallclothes that were cleared from the lower shelves. She found what she was searching for and stared at the empty red stocking aghast, her expression passing through shades of disbelief, anger, shock, and disgust.

Two months! Two months of having to endure the sweaty gropings of an impotent buffoon and an arrogant tyrant … gone!

“Where is ma money?” she demanded, barely able to hiss the words through clenched teeth.

“Safe.”

She rounded on him. “Safe
where
, ye liver-lipped, sour-bellied excuse f’ae a man? Ye had nae right tae touch it! It were mine; I earned it!”

“Many times over, I’m sure. And it
is
quite safe, you’ll get it all back—with interest, if you play your cards right.”

“Play ma cards? Ye want me tae play cards?” she shrieked.

He grimaced wryly. “Only a figure of speech, my dear—you Scots take everything so literally! It’s no wonder you’ve been feuding for generations. What I meant to say, in plainer terms, is that if you help me, I will be more than happy to restore your paltry little nest egg to its cozy hiding place and give you a good deal more besides.”

“How much more? An’ what dae I have tae dae?”

“How much depends entirely upon how greedy you are—enough to transform you into a queen, if you wish, drowning in furs, jewels, gowns … villas in Spain, chateaux in France … anything is possible when you’ve been introduced into the proper circle of friends.”

Lauren’s fist uncurled from around the crushed red stocking and she managed to temper some of the snapping fury in her eyes.
“Your
friends, I suppose?”

“I have … connections.”

“Aye, an’ mayhap I already have what I want,
Sassenach.”

“You’re content with being a whore? A plaything passed from bed to bed on the roll of a die?”

Something glimmered angrily in the depths of her eyes, but she controlled it and glared up at him. “Ye still havena told me what ye want me tae dae in exchange f’ae all this … generosity.”

“Nothing that would not bring you as much satisfaction as it would bring me—unless, of course, I have completely misinterpreted the cause for your trifling display of feminine outrage a short while ago. Something tells me, however, that we both want the same thing: to see your cousin Alexander Cameron cut down a peg or two—perhaps see him taught a lesson in humility?”

“Who’s gonny dae that—
you?
Ye’ve already fought him the once an’ had yer guts skewered; what makes ye think a second time will be any different?”

Hamilton flushed. “I told you: The first time he won by trickery. I was caught off guard. This time I will be prepared.”

“Aye.” She smirked. “An’ I told ye, ye’ll have tae stand in line ahind a few thousand Argyleshire Campbells an’ a few thousand more
Sassenach
sojers afore ye’d even get a turn at him.”

“Not if I have you to guide me to the front of the line.”

“An’ just how would I dae that?”

“Simple. You rejoin your kinsmen. You retreat to the Highlands with them, and when you judge the time to be right, you get word to me when and where to find the grand Dark Cameron.”

Lauren gaped as if she had not quite heard his words clearly.
“Rejoin
them?
Retreat
wi’ them? After eight long years O’ schemin’ tae find a way
out
o’ the bluidy Highlands … ye want me just tae walk back
in?”

“Actually”—he rubbed his smooth-shaven jaw thoughtfully—“you would require a cart and a fairly fast horse; there’s about a week’s hard ride ahead of you.”

“Ye’re mad.” She laughed. “Stark an’ starved mad! I wouldna dae that f’ae ye nor f’ae anyone else. No’ even if the heavens opened wide an’ poured solid gold raindrops on ma heid every step O’ the way.”

She pushed herself to her feet, shaking her head and scoffing under her breath at the very notion of going back with the rebel camp. Go back to the Highlands? Go back to Achnacarry?

“There is a reward of twenty thousand gold sovereigns for the capture of Alexander Cameron,” he reminded her mildly.

Lauren laughed again. “Aye, there’s been a reward f’ae fifteen years, an’ naebody’s come close enough tae sniff it.”

“Forty thousand might sharpen the scent somewhat.”

“Forty?”

“Twenty from Argyle, twenty from me. With an extra something besides, if your initiative provides me with both Alexander Cameron and his yellow-haired bride.”

Lauren’s gaze remained locked steadily on his, and Garner had to suppress the urge to smile as he contemplated the almond-shaped eyes, the mouth formed in a perpetual, sinfully suggestive pout, the body designed to inspire and provide unimaginable delights. He was not fooled for a moment by her pretended disdain; she enjoyed what they did in bed together and enjoyed it even more when she knew any extra efforts on her part would be rewarded with more coins. She was the ultimate whore, both in body and in spirit, and greed emanated from her as strongly as the musk of passion.

“An’ all I’d have tae dae is arrange a meeting atween you an’ Alasdair? That’s all? Ye dinna want the prince or his army thrown in, as well, so Cumberland can make ye general O’ the world?”

It was Hamilton’s turn to stare. He had been so absorbed with the idea of winning his revenge with Alexander Cameron, he had completely forgotten Lauren’s relationship to Donald Cameron of Lochiel—who, in turn, was one of Charles Stuart’s closest and most trusted advisors.

“Naturally,” he said slowly, “I would be most interested in hearing anything you might learn about the prince’s plans and movements in the upcoming weeks. If we were to have advance knowledge of where and when he plans to make a stand against us, it would certainly be to the government’s advantage.”

“Mine as well?”

Garner hesitated. “Actually, we already have a man working for us who has been successful in ingratiating himself with the rebels.”

Lauren’s eyes narrowed. “If ye already have a man planted in the camp, why dae ye have need O’ me at all?”

“Because you, my amoral vixen, being one of their kinsmen, will be privy to far more lucrative information. Our man, however he may have proven his loyalties to date, is still an outsider. Moreover, since he has appeared to have changed sides once already, he is bound to be held in suspicion by some. There is also the language barrier. You speak the Gaelic; he does not.”

“Who is he? How will I ken him?”

Garner studied the lushly seductive features for an additional moment before allowing a slight grin. “I think perhaps I should keep his identity my secret for the time being. I shall tell him all about you, however, and arrange a signal for later, when you have something to pass on. A ribbon, perhaps?” He lifted a handful of silky red hair and let it slither through his fingers. “A red ribbon. When he sees you wearing it, he’ll know you have information to pass on, and when he deems it safe, he’ll make contact.”

“Ye dinna trust me,
Sassenach?”

Garner edged closer, raising both hands to cradle her long, slender neck. “No,” he said softly. “I
dinna
trust you. But I am hoping you are clever enough to realize that if you betray me, or double-cross me in any way”—his thumbs stroked down the length of her throat and came to rest briefly over her windpipe—“I will find you, and kill you … very, very unpleasantly.”

“No’ more unpleasantly than Lochiel if he learns I’ve come tae betray the clan.”

“Gentle Lochiel?” he murmured cynically. “The diplomat and arbitrator who saved Glasgow from a sacking?”

“Gentle Lochiel,” she countered, “who threatened tae have the heids cut off the shoulders O’ any clansman who didna join ahind the Stuart standard.”

“In that case, you had better not get caught,” he suggested. “You had better not even give them a reason to be suspicious.”

“Scots are born suspicious,” she said, conscious of the rippling effect the motion of his thumbs was producing elsewhere in her body. “They’re born fools, as well, though, an’ will welcome me back intae the fold like as if I were a wee lamb gone astray an’ found ma way home again.”

“No questions? They will not wonder where you have been or what you have been doing for the past two months?”

“I was born in Edinburgh,” she said, leaning into the pressure of his fingers as they stroked lower. “It wisna any secret I wanted tae go back.”

“I see. And no one will question your change of heart?”

“A Highlander’s heart is his honor. Question his heart, ye question his honor, an’ that, a Highlander would never dae. Besides”—she inched closer and ran her hands up and around his shoulders—
“ye’re
gonny tell
me
some secrets,
Sassenach.
Enough tae convince them ma loyalties never swayed from true. Nothin’ they wouldna be able tae find out on their own, O’ course—I wouldna want ye thinkin’ I’m after betrayin’ ye already.”

“The notion would never have occurred to me,” he said dryly, fascinated by the way her entire body seemed to envelop his even though they were barely touching. His bold and immediate response elicited a brief but savage assault on his mouth, after which her lips, tongue, and cuttingly sharp teeth descended to the hairless expanse of his chest.

“A rare pity,” she mused, nipping and suckling the flesh over his breast. “Ye sendin’ me away just when we were comin’ tae understand each ither so well.”

Garner locked his jaws against an answer until he was reasonably certain his nipples had escaped a bloodletting. “I somehow do not think I will be forgetting you too soon, my dear, nor remaining too patient until your return.”

“I know ye willna,
Sassenach.
See how wee willie perks right up when he kens I’m comin’ his way? He’s gonny remember me f’ae a long, long time. Longer than he will any yellow-haired, purple-eyed bitch ye might find hidin’ in the glens.”

Sweat beaded across Hamilton’s brow as he watched her sink down onto her knees before him. His muscles tensed into slabs of marble and the blood thundered through his veins, pumped to a racing fever by a heart that beat against the walls of his chest like a hammer.

He acknowledged the thin, disbelieving grunts of air as having their origin somewhere deep in his own throat, but there was nothing he could do to control them; he could only stare and gasp and hope he retained some shred of a grip on his sanity. Not surprisingly, he did not retain the ability to remain standing. The tug and pull of her lips brought him quaking to his knees, then prone and splayed before the hearth like a sacrifice. With the voracious greed of a thief, she continued to plunder his flesh, robbing him, stripping him of all sense and sensibility.

When Hamilton Garner was able to rouse himself again, she was gone. A hint of light seeping through the velvet curtains let him surmise it was after dawn. He was still lying on the floor by the fireplace, although the last of the glowing embers had long since flaked to ash. Recalling only vague snatches of their final hours together, he swallowed tremulously and reached an unsteady hand down to his groin. Relieved yet awed there could be anything left to offer sensation, he let his hand slump back onto the floor and was instantly asleep again.

Inverness, February 1746
14

T
he eleventh day of February began innocently enough, with the sun shaking off its mantle of gray sodden clouds long enough to allow a vibrant display of pink and gold streamers to break over the mountains. Too cold for fog, the ground had been covered in a light crust of frozen dew, which glittered like a blanket of broken glass underfoot.

After leaving Falkirk and passing through Stirling, the Jacobite army had once again divided into two columns, the prince leading the majority of clan regiments by the Highland route north through Blair Atholl, Dalnacardoch, and Dalwhinnie. Lord George Murray had taken the slower moving column by the lowland route through Angus to Aberdeen, the master plan being to reunite the two forces near Inverness and rout the government troops garrisoned there.

Two days into the mountains, a blinding storm had struck the prince’s column, causing the easily excitable Count Giovanni Fanducci much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth as they were forced yet again to abandon the heavy artillery they had captured at Falkirk. The roads through the Grampians were not much better than cow tracks at the best of times, but with high winds, drifting snow, and sleet storms, it proved impossible to haul anything but essential equipment and supplies from one glen to the next. The men, happy to see the last of the bronze monsters hurl barrel-down over a steep precipice, tried to cheer the morose Italian gunmaker by drawing him into a stirring rendition of “My Highland Laddie,” but with a dramatic swirling of a multicaped greatcoat, the count stalked away into the curtain of snow and sought more tangible succour in the arms of Ringle-Eyed Rita.