The Blood of Roses (48 page)

“A week,” he promised. “I swear it. Even if we should come up against the whole of Cumberland’s army. I’ll be back for you in a week’s time.”

“I shall hold you to account, Sir Rogue,” she whispered valiantly. “You would not want to guess what your son and I have conspired to do in the event you are but a single hour overdrawn.”

Smiling, he kissed her one last time, then took up Shadow’s reins from the nervous lad who had led the stallion up from the stables. Watching her husband swing easily into the saddle, Catherine’s heart swelled with pride. With his wind-blown hair and bottomless blue-black eyes, Alexander was indeed the Dark Cameron. Mounted astride his gleaming, prancing jet-black stallion, whose mane and tail flowed like ebony silk on the wind, was it any wonder the pair of them had tongues wagging in awe as far away as London?

Damien stepped up beside her and slipped his arm around her waist, giving her a supportive, brotherly squeeze. “You have managed to find yourself quite a husband, Kitty dear.” He sighed, gauging Alex’s effect from a man’s point of view. “Quite a man, quite a soldier, quite a legend in his own time.”

“I will be happy just to have the man come home to me,” she said, dashing a hand across her cheeks to chase away her tears.

Shouts, huzzahs, and the skirling of the pipes started the massive flow of humanity along the basin of the glen, heading west toward the road to Inverness. They would steer well clear of the town itself, making use of Wade’s military roads—cut some thirty years before with an eye to controlling the Highlands and preventing any further threat of an uprising—to follow the rugged miles along the shore of Loch Ness. There were rumors of monsters lurking in the inky depths of the lake, serpents as thick around as a house and filled with the remains of curious victims.

Alex had recounted the story of the monster with the same degree of solemnity as he had the legend of Sir Ewen Cameron’s mystical sword, and, in the strong light of day, Catherine was inclined to give both equal credence. Charmed swords, druids, dark gods, and sea monsters— how could such a superstitious race of men also be the possessors of such pure logic and unquestionable honor?

“Hungry?” Damien asked, giving a final wave as the last of the marching men snaked out of sight behind the shoulder of the road.

“I confess, I am still not comfortable looking at food this early in the morning,” Catherine admitted. “But I do have a desperate craving for a cup of strong, hot tea— something the Scots appear to regard with the same appeal as arsenic.”

Damien laughed. “Your craving is my command. I shall see what I can do about scrounging some for you in Inverness.”

“Inverness?” She looked at him with undisguised shock. “You are going into Inverness?”

“Why not? I am as English as the River Thames, and if stopped, have papers identifying me as son and heir to Sir Alfred Ashbrooke, Honorable Member of the Hanover Parliament. God’s boots, who would dare question such references?”

Catherine did not like it, but before she could put forth any convincing arguments, he effectively cut them off at the knee.

“Besides, I have a younger sister wanted for questioning on charges of murder and treason, a brother-in-law who seems bent on defying the laws of survival—it’s high time I carved a little niche for myself in this rebellion before all the choice indictments are used up. We wouldn’t want the Derby gossips to run short of fuel, now would we?”

“I could care less if they ran short of air to breathe,” Catherine replied sincerely. “Just don’t do anything foolhardy, like getting yourself arrested for spying.”

“Believe me, Kitty dearest, I have no burning desire to inspect a scaffold up close,” he murmured, “and absolutely no intentions of being caught.”

“I should think we would want to avoid being caught in another fiasco like Falkirk or Prestonpans.”

The speaker was Colonel Blakeney, an officious bore of a man with a face as dull as a rainy day. He was newly arrived from Perth, an envoy from the Duke of Cumberland who brought news of the commanding general’s decision to weather out the winter in Edinburgh. Seated with him in the damp, cold stone barracks in Fort George were Duncan Forbes, Lord Loudoun, and a scowling representative of the Highland companies under Loudoun’s command, Norman MacLeod, Chief of Clan MacLeod.

When news of the approaching rebel army had reached Inverness, the Lord President, Forbes, had prudently moved his family from Culloden House to the fortified citadel at Fort George. Warehouses in the city were ordered emptied into ships and the vessels sent to anchor outside the blockade line of the Royal Navy where their valuable cargoes would be safe from confiscation by the Jacobites. The town itself had no real defenses against an army wishing to occupy it, and the fort’s armaments were laughable: only six rusting cannon facing out into the Moray Firth.

“I repeat, gentlemen,” Blakeney said, “if there is a chance to end it all here tonight, then I say we should take it.”

“How can we be certain your information is correct?” Lord Loudoun asked. “We have received ten different reports today alone that place the Pretender in ten different castles in ten different areas, north and south of the Grampians.”

“My source is above reproach, my lord,” Blakeney insisted. “He is a loyal subject of King George who has managed to infiltrate the highest levels of confidence and trust within the rebel army. He travels with Lochiel’s Camerons and, several times, has been no further from the Stuart prince than you are to me now. If he says the Pretender is in residence at Moy Hall, then by God, I would be willing to commit myself and my men to the task of removing him from there.”

“Moy Hall,” Lord Loudoun murmured. “Is that not the estate of Angus Moy, Chief of Clan Chattan?”

“Indeed it is,” Duncan Forbes said, turning from the window with a frown. “The same Angus Moy of Clan MacKintosh who has raised a regiment of his clansmen and holds the rank of captain in King George’s army.”

“He commands a company O’ MacKintosh men, aye,” The MacLeod sneered, stepping forward. “But his wife rides at the heid O’ anither company—mostly Farquharsons an’ MacGillivrays—an’ wears the white cockade O’ the Stuarts.”

“You must be joking, sir,” Forbes said, clearly astonished by the news. He was in his middle years, cutting a lean and debonair figure in his green-and-yellow tartan. The Lord President presented a dignified contrast to the Earl of Loudoun’s military precision, the colonel’s dusty indifference, and The MacLeod’s surly belligerence. Forbes had been appointed Lord President by King George’s government and held the position with pride and conviction; the Highlands were his home and Culloden his birthright, and he wanted peace at any cost—anything short of more senseless bloodshed.

“I have known Lady Anne since she was a child,” he continued softly. “My wife and I have been guests at Moy Hall, just as Angus and Lady Anne have been guests at Culloden.”

“Aye. But until she came tae live fine an’ fancy at Moy Hall,” The MacLeod reminded them all, “she were hangin’ off the kilt O’ her great gran’faither, Fearchar Farquharson O’ Invercauld.”

Forbes sighed and rubbed his temple wearily. “Surely you do not mean to tell me next that Fearchar of Invercauld is in arms and armor? The man is as old as history itself.”

“Aye. One hunnerd an’ ten years, if ye can believe the kirk records. One hunnerd an’ nine O’ them spent spewin’ treason an’ rebellion. I’m even told it were him wha’ put the notion intae Lady Anne’s heid tae ride against her husban’.”

“Regardless of the Lady Anne’s affiliations,” Colonel Blakeney interjected, “the question before us, gentlemen, is whether we can afford to turn a blind eye to this opportunity to remove the thorn from our side. Lord George Murray is still a day’s march from Nairn. Lord John Drummond is at Balmoral Castle requisitioning provisions, Brigadier Stapleton has removed himself with Lochiel and Keppoch to Lochaber with all of their men. The Pretender is virtually alone at Moy Hall. I can have fifteen hundred men mustered by nightfall, giving you gentlemen the pleasure and honor of offering the Stuart Pretender the hospitality of the barracks jail by midnight tonight.”

Forbes pursed his lips and studied the lowering afternoon sun outside the window. “And if this informant of yours is wrong? If the Camerons and MacDonalds have not left the vicinity but are, even as we speak, lining the roads in wait of an ambush? You know full well the rebels must take Inverness to maintain any control over the Highlands. Having our men simply march out and place themselves in rebel hands … well, the thought is devastating.”

“More devastating than if the prince escapes and manages to rouse support from the clans we have so far been unable to convert to our cause?” Loudoun asked. “More devastating than if he should find himself another ten thousand men to rally the tide and flood back across the border into England? We all saw what he was able to accomplish with but five thousand men. Imagine those numbers doubled, or trebled!”

Forbes seemed not to have heard; he was staring out across the clustered rooftops of Inverness. Soon enough the light would fade from the sky and the blues of sea and sky deepen to black; the taverns would be winding up for their usual nighttime revelry, the shopkeepers conducting their last-minute trades before rushing home for their evening meals. Farther out, a lone English merchantman could be glimpsed anchored against the sleek pewter sheen of the water, her sails reefed, her masts standing bare to the wind.

Somehow he had sensed, even six months ago, when word of the prince’s landing had first blazed across the Highlands, that it would all end here. He had felt a presence, like the hand of fate resting on his shoulder, forewarning him of some terrible event that would shatter, forever, the peace and tranquility of his beloved Caledonia.

“Very well,” he said slowly. “If there is the remotest possibility of taking the prince into custody, of ending the bloodshed here and now, then I give it my fullest support. Take your fifteen hundred men, Colonel Blakeney. Bring me back a healthy and unscratched Charles Edward Stuart, and you shall have earned the undying gratitude of the Scottish people.”

“There will be no casualties on either side,” Lord Loudoun said flatly, glancing pointedly at the colonel and MacLeod. “We are not looking to fight a battle, only to accept an offering from Lady Luck.”

Laughlan MacKintosh’s eyes bulged until they were round as saucers and twice as shiny. He was not exactly sure what his next move should be, he knew only that luck and perserverance had brought him farther than any other foray to date.

Licking his lips, he angled his head forward, the better to see Cheristine MacDonnell’s expression through the closing gloom. It was a shame the light had faded so quickly, but it had taken nearly a full hour just to convince her to allow the laces of her bodice to be unfastened and goodness only knew how much longer to let him slide her skirt and petticoat up her thigh. The trouble was, now it was getting too damned late. Her mam or one of her brothers surely would be sent out to fetch her soon, and Laughlan would have to begin all over again another day.

“Can I kiss ye, Cherry? Would ye mind?”

“Ye’ve already kissed me intae a rare state, Laughlan MacKintosh,” she murmured, adding in a shy whisper, “An’ no’ just on ma mouth.”

He looked down to where his hand still cupped the immature rise of her breast. They were in the stable, out back of her father’s tavern, and the hay had made a cozy nest for the fledgling lovers. At fifteen years of age, neither one of them was experienced in such things, but the stirrings in their bodies were genuine, and so far, just following their instincts had kept their hearts beating rapidly and their cheeks flushed with the fever of desire. Although her breasts were small and nearly flat as she lay back in the hay, there was no mistaking the hard little nub of her nipple where it thrust against his palm. As long as it stayed there, so would his hand.

“Are ye cold?” he asked casually, gaining another cautious inch of territory as he slid his thigh higher over hers.

“Nae,” she breathed. “Nae cold; a bit itchy, mind.”

“Itchy?” His eyes were all concern as he cast them down to the snowy whiteness of her limbs. “Where?”

“Where a proper lass shouldna mention,” she said, squirming guilelessly to part her thighs another innocent measure.

Laughlan swallowed hard, wondering if he should relinquish the victory over her breast and launch a skirmish farther afield. While he debated, he kissed her, encouraged by the willing way she opened her mouth and darted the tip of her tongue back and forth across his.

Feigning uncontrollable delight—not a difficult pretense to muster at this stage of the war—he shifted again, this time managing to hoist his kilt and her skirt together so that she could not help but become aware of the bold presence nudging her thigh.

“Laughlan.” She broke her mouth away. “Ye mustna!”

“Mustna what?” he asked, lowering his mouth quickly to her breast. He flicked his tongue over the ripe little bud, having discovered it to be the surest way to distract her. He gave the rose-tipped flesh his sincerest effort, and while she squirmed and wriggled with the pleasure, his hand stole past the remaining few inches of obstructing wool and slid into the warm thicket of tight curls guarding the final bastion.

Afraid to move too quickly, he probed with the merest fingertip, finding what he was looking for on the first pass. He had listened attentively to the boastings of the older boys and knew that to rub the taut button of flesh was to drive a lass wild with passion; to rub it with something other than a finger was to guarantee oblivion for both of them.

Testing the first half of the theory, he dragged his finger back and forth through the springing nest of curls, feeling Cherry’s body clench spasmodically against him on each stroke. She was breathing oddly, too, and the peak of her breast had swelled beyond his best ministrations and hardened like a fruit pit in his mouth. The faster he moved his fingers, the quicker and drier her gasps. The deeper and firmer he pressed into the slippery folds of flesh, the more urgently her hips moved with the rhythm; up and down, faster and faster until it was all he could do to control her thrashings long enough for him to attempt a test of the second half of the theory.