White Rose Rebel (28 page)

A shaft of light from Lord Louden’s quarters cut across the rain-washed cobbles, illuminating the driving rain as the door opened. A caped and hooded woman slipped out, hurriedly mounting the waiting horse. An assignation, in this weather? There was something faintly familiar about the figure, the way she moved, known but beyond recall. Aeneas slid the window up to peer out. Rain pelted into his face. Louden stood in the doorway of his offices. The woman jerked the reins, ready to ride off.

‘The reward is yours,’ she shouted. ‘MacGillivray’s mine.’ Her voice was half-heard over the blustering wind. Lightning flashed, thunder rolled, and she was gone, kicking the horse away, fast. Was it Anne, did he not know his own wife, or did he imagine what was said? Aeneas closed the window.

He was towelling his face dry when his door clattered open, letting in the squall and, with it, James Ray.

‘We’ve to muster at once,’ the lieutenant gasped. ‘Their Prince is unprotected, and we know where he is!’

In the master bedroom at Moy Hall, Anne sat in front of the glass fixing her hair, straightening the bodice of her white dress, fingers working fast. Lightning lit up the room, a flicker of brightness. Thunder cracked then grumbled, momentarily blotting out the
music in the background. She had been away long enough and would be missed. Standing up, she flounced her wide skirts, smoothed the blue sash at her waist and turned to go. The tidy, unslept-in double bed stopped her in her tracks, her marriage bed, the memory of it a sudden, painful loss. As fast as it cut her, she shook it off as foolishness. The past was done with. MacGillivray did not give her grief.

She left, closing the door, and crossed the lobby to the large reception room. It was alive with noise, music, chatter. MacGillivray waited just inside the door.

‘It’s going well,’ he said. ‘He’s almost cheered up.’

‘Mmm.’ Anne glanced around the room, checking. Jessie and Will, dressed up for the occasion, moved around with trays, serving titbits and drink. After the rigours of battle, the hard march home, everyone was enjoying the opportunity to relax, pleasurably. Silks, satin and lace swished around the room. Robert Nairn flirted with a musician. Margaret danced with Lord George, her husband with Greta. Sir John chatted with O’sullivan and the Prince. He did look happier. His regal face had lost its petulance.

‘Where’s Elizabeth?’ she asked.

‘She went to lie down after supper,’ MacGillivray said. ‘Headache.’

‘I thought she’d be in her element, dancing and flirting with all these young bloods. I should see if she’s all right.’

MacGillivray caught her arm as she turned, drawing her close.

‘Dance with me first.’

Across the room, the Prince waved and called. ‘Anne!’

‘Too late.’ She raised her eyebrows at MacGillivray, then swept over to the group.

The Highlander leant back against the panelling, foot tapping to the rhythm. Jessie passed, on her way out, the spanking white apron tight over her gently swelling belly.

‘Dance with me, Jessie,’ he winked.

‘Can’t,’ she blushed. ‘I have to get more food. You’d think they were never fed.’

MacGillivray swung the door open for her with a flourish, making her giggle.

Across the room, the Prince was all compliments.

‘You are the only bearable thing about our retreat,
ma chère
Anne,’ he said. ‘If you’d been with me at Derby, London would have opened its gates.’

‘Better to be champion of Scotland,’ Anne smiled, ‘than Lord in the Tower.’

‘Not while Cumberland takes back everything we gained.’ His sulk was in danger of returning.

‘
Au contraire
, it only seems that way. He can’t win now.’ Anne tried to mollify him. ‘The English people won’t fear our victory quite so much when it’s won here.’

‘They might even rejoice,’ he pondered.

‘Of course they will,
cela va sans dire
. Especially when you achieve it without French help. Their old enemy would have caused alarm. Resistance, even. Your tactics will be lauded.’ Anne was tired of humouring this arrogant and petty man. Surely he must see through her?

He didn’t. He nodded in appreciation of his own imagined talents.

‘When the storm is over,’ he mused, ‘I’ll bring the army out of Ruthven to capture Inverness.’

Anne raised her glass, toasting the idea.

‘Now, I like the sound of that,’ she said. Aeneas might sleep his last night in the enemy’s bed. Tomorrow, he could be forced to surrender.

Beside the door, MacGillivray watched, impressed. Even across the room he could tell Anne wound the Prince around her little finger. He wondered how she could be bothered. The man was a liability, not an asset, having to be cajoled instead of providing authoritative command. His youthful good looks and charm, when he applied them, brought money and support, but a leader needed more than that.

At his side, the door swung open. Elizabeth came in. MacGillivray peeled himself off the wall.

‘I thought you’d retired for the night,’ he said.

‘A wonder you even noticed,’ Elizabeth retorted. ‘Your eyes never leave my sister.’

‘Well, you have my undivided attention now,’ he grinned. ‘You’ve changed your dress.’ She wore a very low-cut hooped gown with a tight bodice that thrust her breasts up and out. ‘If my heart wasn’t taken, Elizabeth, you’d have it.’ Then he frowned and laid the back of his hand against her forehead. ‘You must have a fever. Your hair.’ He took hold of one damp curl, played it between his fingers.

‘I went out for some air,’ Elizabeth said, looking away from him.

MacGillivray glanced at the window. Rain battered against it, lit up by another flash of light.

‘In that?’

‘Why, Alexander –’ Elizabeth looked up, meeting his eyes ‘– are you afraid of a storm?’

Jessie rushed into the room, almost knocking Elizabeth down, her face alarmed.

‘Anne,’ she called. ‘Come quick!’

MacGillivray vanished out of the door. Anne hurried over to it, reassuring her guests as she did.

‘An accident in the kitchen, no doubt. Please, continue, enjoy yourselves.’ At the door, she saw Elizabeth. ‘Keep them happy,’ she said as she went past.

MacGillivray was already downstairs. Anne ran to join him. In the hall, Donald Fraser carried in a soaked, hooded rider. MacGillivray helped him get the storm-exhausted woman to a seat. Anne pushed the sodden hood off the rider’s face. It was the Dowager, grey-faced, gasping.

‘Louden’s coming,’ she got out. ‘He knows the Prince is here.’

Anne turned to MacGillivray, speechless. Then she whirled round and ran back half-way up the stairs.

‘George! Margaret!’ she shouted.

The two of them appeared, with Lord Ogilvie, at the top.

‘You have to get the Prince away,’ Anne yelled at their startled faces. ‘Now!’

All three vanished back into the room.

‘Jessie, get the room cleared. All of them, out!’ Anne turned and ran back to MacGillivray.

Before Jessie could move, the Prince bounded out of the door, O’sullivan beside him.

‘
Mon dieu!
Out of the way, girl.’ The Prince pushed Jessie aside, running on down as the others followed. The strains of music fell away and died.

‘Get them round the loch,’ Anne urged MacGillivray, ‘to the summerhouse. They can shelter there.’

‘I’m going nowhere,’ he said. ‘Better they take him than you!’

‘We need him,’ Anne snapped. ‘A body with no head soon dies. You’re the only one who knows the way. Get out of here, through the kitchens. Go, go!’

Musicians clattered their instruments down the stairs. MacGillivray ushered the alarmed guests through the dining room. Anne spun round to Fraser.

‘Muskets, Donald. Fetch what we have. Jessie, help him.’ They dashed to fetch them. ‘Elizabeth –’ Anne turned to her sister, standing alone at the top of the stairs ‘– fetch my pistols down.’

‘You can’t take on an army by yourself.’

‘Move, don’t talk!’ Anne shouted.

Will stood, bemused, at the foot of the stair. As Fraser and Jessie dropped muskets, pistols and bags of powder and shot on the hall table, Anne whipped up a gun and tossed it to him. He looked at it, bewildered, as if he’d no idea what it was for.

‘Can you load, Will?’

‘Load?’

‘Watch Donald, do what he does.’ Anne started to tip powder into the breach of another.

The Dowager coughed, leant forward.

‘I can load,’ she said, and began to do just that.

‘Is there anybody else, Donald?’ Anne asked.

‘Meg and that Duff were in the stables. They’re coming in. And I shouted my Lachlan out the forge.’

Elizabeth came down the stairs with Anne’s pistols.

‘Six, that’s good,’ Anne said, grabbing the pistols to load them.

‘Seven,’ Jessie corrected, loading a musket.

Anne hesitated, but the girl drew her a look that brooked no argument.

‘Seven’s better,’ Anne agreed.

‘You must be mad,’ Elizabeth worried. ‘Louden has two thousand men.’

‘Magic number, seven,’ Anne said, watching Will fumble with his musket. ‘Can you shoot, Will?’

‘At somebody?’ Will looked up, horrified. His musket pointed at Anne.

‘We want delay, not engagement,’ Anne said, pushing his gun barrel up. ‘Fire into the air.’

Will pressed the trigger. The shot exploded into the ceiling.

‘Not now, idiot!’ Jessie screamed at him.

‘Look after him, Jessie,’ Anne said, looping bags of powder and shot around their necks. ‘Right, let’s go. We’ll get the others outside.’

They all ran to the front door, the storm blustering in as they opened it.

‘Not you.’ The Dowager caught hold of Elizabeth’s wrist as she followed them.

Elizabeth looked down at her. The woman had a grip like iron.

‘I was only going to close the door behind them,’ she said. ‘I don’t suppose they’ll be back soon, do you?’

Outside, the group of seven ran, bent against rain and wind, towards the road from Inverness. Anne squinted around as she ran, the downpour soaking her hair and face. If they could make Louden pause or hesitate, vital minutes could be won. Lightning flared, lit up the scene. The peat stacks near the road loomed up, great rectangular shadows in the dark.

‘The peat stacks!’ she shouted. ‘Use the peat stacks!’

Donald and his son ran to one nearest the roadside. Anne took the next one up. The others placed themselves, peering round.

‘Keep behind them,’ Anne shouted. ‘Will, you hear?’

‘Aye,’ he shouted back, cowering near Jessie.

‘When they come after us,’ Anne yelled, pausing to let a roll of thunder die away, ‘drop the guns and get out of here. You know the ground, they don’t!’ Their wet tartan would help them vanish quickly in the grey-black night. She gritted her teeth. In a white dress, even rain-soaked, one spark of light would have her stand out like a beacon. As if to mock, a great bolt of lightning lit up the glowering clouds.

Back in Moy Hall, the Dowager had her breath back. Elizabeth watched the older woman peel off her sodden cloak and hang it to dry.

‘You shouldn’t be out on such a night, at your age.’

‘Why not?’ The Dowager looked round at her. ‘You were.’

‘Me?’

‘It was you who compelled me to come. No one else knows that road like I do. No one I might have sent would have the authority to deal with you.’ She lifted down a cloak already on the hook, but damp. ‘You told Louden the Prince was here,’ she accused, throwing it at Elizabeth.

‘No!’

‘At least show some honour.’ The Dowager spoke harshly, scornful. ‘Aeneas saw you.’

‘All right, yes!’ Elizabeth wailed. ‘And now you’ve ruined everything.’

‘You informed on the Prince! What kind of woman are you?’

‘He’s a
poseur
,’ she tried to explain. ‘As soon as he’s captured, this war is finished. Things will be normal again.’

‘So you betray your own sister.’

‘Look how she is with MacGillivray. She should be with Aeneas!’

‘And you think she should hang for that?’

Thunder cracked and boomed like cannon directly above the house.

‘No,
cha dèan iad sin!
’ Elizabeth protested. ‘They won’t do that!
Nobody would hurt Anne. Louden said they’d lock her up and let her go when it’s all over.’

‘You really are a foolish child.’ The Dowager was scathing. ‘These are not honourable people we fight. Your scheming might well have brought her death.’

Elizabeth bit her lip, her face crumpled. She had been terrified when it went wrong, when Anne called for guns and ran out into the night.

‘I didn’t know she’d do something this stupid, did I?’

Anne strained to hear above another peal of thunder. It rippled on, the rain drumming. No, it was pipes, and marching feet. Uncertainty was all she hoped to create. Louden might halt his advance, maybe even form up.

‘Wait, wait,’ she breathed, deep and fast. Timing would be everything. They had to be close enough to hear but not to be sure of what they could see.

‘Anne,’ Fraser hissed from behind the next stack. ‘Do you hear?’

Nothing was visible up the road, nothing except blackness. Lightning flashed. Way ahead, a patch of shadow moved, coming round the bend. Had she left it too late? She raised her arm.

‘Now!’ she yelled.

Donald Fraser fired first, the flash from his musket slicing the dark.

‘Loch Moy!’ he roared.

‘Lochiel! Lochiel!’ his son, Lachlan, bellowed, and fired.

Sporadic shots followed from the others, with random shouts and battle cries.

Riding behind the piper, Louden saw flashes of musket fire from down the road, and heard shouts.

‘Hold up, M
^c
Crimmon,’ he ordered and, as the pipes wailed to silence, shouted over his shoulder, ‘Aeneas, what can you see?’

Aeneas strained, peering forward in the teeming rain, seeing nothing except the scattered discharge of muskets in the dark, hearing shouts, commands. Beside him, James Ray strained too.

‘Is it the Jacobites?’ Ray asked.

Behind them, the nearest marchers caught the word. Jacobites. It ran back the ranks like wildfire.