Loch Arkaig, the Highlands, Scotland
July 1746
After stumbling through a hellish wilderness for months, Alexander Ewan MacIvor, Jacobite on the run and the last claimant to the attainted title, Baron Rannoch, felt his heart twitch with something akin to interest. Lying low in the cool green shadows of a Caledonian pine forest, a lichen-covered tree trunk and clump of bracken his only cover, he watched the group of braw Highlanders—Cameron men, by the look of their plaids—lug casket after heavy casket up the mossy slope below him. Seven wooden boxes in total.
He should be exercising extreme caution given the size of the party—a dozen men, all heavily armed with muskets, broad swords, dirks, and shovels—but burning curiosity urged him to inch closer and push a frond of bracken farther aside. Come hell or high water, he had to know what was in those chests.
Snatches of disjointed conversation and gruffly issued orders reached his ears. A mixture of Gaelic, French, and English thickened with a strong Scots burr not unlike his own. Greas ort! Hurry. No, dig here. The Lochiel. Louis d’or. Watch oot, ye daft prick. Mr Secretary ‘Traitor’ Murray, damn him to hell. Bloody Sassenachs. And then there was the sweet musical chink of coins when one man prised open a box and thrust his hand inside.
Alex’s heart kicked into a full gallop, hurtling against his ribs. Sweet Jesus. He’d stumbled across an absolute fortune. A king’s ransom. Or a prince’s…
Prince Charles Edward Stuart. The Young Pretender. What a foolish, selfish, trumped-up cock he’d turned out to be. A pathetic leader and a sorry excuse for a soldier. The memory of the slaughter that took place at Drummossie Moor at the hands of the Hanoverian troops and everything that happened afterwards at his home, Blackloch Castle, chilled Alexander to the marrow of his bones. Made him sick to the pit of his stomach. Even though almost three months had passed, nightmarish screams and the acrid smell of burning swirled through his mind. The raucous laughter and whoops of men—the Earl of Tay and his clansmen—rampaging and rutting.
His fingers curled into fists so tight his knuckles cracked.
It served the Young Pretender right if this was the lost Spanish gold that Alexander had once heard the Prince’s secretary, Murray of Broughton, complaining about because it hadn’t arrived when expected, along with other desperately needed supplies to sustain the Jacobite cause. A failed cause. The Prince didn’t deserve it, just as he no longer deserved Alex’s, or any Highlander’s loyalty.
But from whence the gold came or who it really belonged to, Alex didn’t much care right at this moment. The rays of the setting sun glinting off the waters of the loch suddenly penetrated the heavy gloom of the woods and glanced off the pile of coins in the Highlander’s hand, making them wink at him. Tempting him. Alex’s mouth almost watered. Long forgotten emotions—not happiness or hope but something darker and colder—stirred in his leaden heart. Determination perhaps. And the desire for vengeance.
Sweet, sweet vengeance.
At long last, fate had meted out a chance for him to reclaim a little of what he’d lost. He certainly didn’t think God was responsible. More likely the Devil.
Either way, he sure as hell wasn’t going to miss this precious opportunity to take charge of his destiny again. After all, he was only twenty-two. And when the time was right, that evil bastard, Malcolm Campbell, the Earl of Tay, would know his wrath.
Alex inched forward on his belly to get a better view and grimaced as his damaged thigh and shoulder protested. After Culloden, he hadn’t been able to dig out all of the shrapnel embedded within the muscles, but at least the wounds hadn’t turned purulent. He might be sufficiently able-bodied to best one, perhaps two men, but certainly not a dozen fighting-fit Highlanders armed to the teeth.
Logic dictated subterfuge and patience were his only real weapons.
When the men where fully engrossed in digging up the damp, dark earth and the gloaming had fully descended, Alexander silently retreated up the brae to the ridge and the isolated corrie beyond where he’d tethered his stoic horse.
It had been his custom for weeks to travel at night to avoid patrolling dragoons. But tonight he wasn’t going anywhere. When the moment came—perhaps tomorrow or the next night, when Cameron of Lochiel’s men were truly gone—he’d return to claim what he could.
***
In the end, Alex waited two nights before returning to the woods. With only a trowel, a tin mug and his hands, and barely any light save for the moonlight filtering through the pine canopy, it had taken him several hours to dig up one of the caskets. And then another few hours to transport the hefty bags of gold coin, thirty-five in total, to the upland cave he’d chosen as a hiding place. He’d made three trips to make it easier on his mount, so by the time he’d reburied the empty chest and covered it over with moss and spent bracken leaves, then returned to his mountain lair, the sun was beginning to rise.
After rinsing his filthy, torn hands in a tumbling burn, he took a long draft of the sweet Highland water. And for the first time in such a long time, he felt a small measure of satisfaction somewhere deep in his soul.
He was as rich as Solomon. But the gold he’d taken wasn’t just for him. He would use it to deliver justice to his clan and kin—all those who had been displaced, murdered and worse. His dead brothers-in-arms, the staff of Blackloch Castle, and all the Clan MacIvor tenants and families who’d lived upon the estate. His slaughtered parents, Lord and Lady Rannoch, his younger sister, and his sweetheart, Maggie Stewart. The first lass he’d kissed.
The lass he’d wanted to wed.
Oh God, what they’d done to the women he’d loved. Still loved… Hot tears scalded his eyes. He couldn’t bear it.
But bear it he must.
Gritting his teeth against the pain in both his aching heart and his wounded body, Alex rose from the rocky bank of the burn and gazed out over the beloved land he would soon be leaving: rugged mountain peaks, the dark still waters of Loch Arkaig, the rosy sky streaked with gold. With ready coin in his pockets for bribes, he was sure he could buy a passage to anywhere at all. Perhaps France. Or better still, the New World. The Americas or the Caribbean. It really didn’t matter.
As soon as he was able, and when the stars aligned, he would return, remade. His will would be like forged steel, honed to lethal sharpness. The Earl of Tay would be held to account for every foul act he’d committed. Indeed, he’d rue the day he was born.
Alex slid his hand into his pocket and retrieved the tattered blue ribbon holding together a tiny braid containing three locks of hair—one bright red, one black, and one brown—and he kissed it. He returned it to his coat then drew his dirk, relishing the hot sting as he made a shallow slice across his palm. The pain reminded him he was still alive even though he was all but dead inside. For a few moments he watched the blood drip into the stones and the icy water at his feet.
‘Nunquam obliviscar,’ he whispered. ‘I, Alexander Ewan MacIvor, will never forget what you did, Malcolm Campbell. And one day, you will pay.’