Chapter 17
“M’lady!”
Mary recognized the voice—it belonged to one of the Scottish lads who ran errands for them. “Is that you, Ewan?” she called. “Where on earth are you?”
“Here.”
She at last saw him in the shadows where the firelight didn’t reach. Ewan had removed one rectangle of paneling in the wainscoting and was crouched inside the hole.
Ewan couldn’t be more than twelve years old and was usually covered with dirt, but he was a quick thinker and remembered things. He could be trusted to send messages and fetch goods from shops without making mistakes.
Mary sank down to her hands and knees next to the opening. “How did you get in there?” she asked. The hole appeared to be Ewan-sized, no room for anyone else.
“It’s meant for servant boys,” Ewan said. “In the old days, they could crawl through and stir up the fires without disturbing anyone.”
“Very thoughtful,” Mary said, disapproving. For ladies and gentlemen who couldn’t be bothered about the comfort of those who waited on them, he meant. “Where do the passages lead?”
“All through the house,” Ewan said. “So when they needed to send someone, they thought of me.”
Mary was getting lost. “Who needed to send someone? Where?”
“Mr. Naughton did. He’s me gran’s brother-in-law. He said, Send someone to Lady Mary and tell her his lordship says he’ll be there soon after his errand, and she’s not to move. When Cook—me gran—heard that, she said, I’ll send Ewan up through the passages, and no one will be the wiser.”
Mary had a glimmer of understanding. “By his lordship, I take it you mean Lord Malcolm?”
“Aye, m’lady. You’re to stay and wait for him. He’s running off after the Scots army, but he’ll be done soon, he says.”
“The entire army?” Mary’s heart beat faster. “Is he going to fight against the Jacobites? Or with them?”
“Mr. Naughton says neither one. Lord Malcolm’s off to throw a net over his brother and drag him home.”
Blast the man. Mal’s intentions might be nothing more than Ewan said, but if Mal drew sword against the English army, he’d be labeled a traitor for the rest of his life, which might be short.
“He can’t go,” she said, clenching her hands. “He’ll be caught up in the mess, captured, or killed. You must tell him not to go.”
Ewan only stared at her. “He’s already gone, m’lady. Mr. Naughton says that when Lord Malcolm takes it into his head to do something, Jesus himself couldn’t change his mind. That’s what Gran and Mr. Naughton say anyway.”
Oh, dear heavens. Today, Mary had heard everything her father and Lord Halsey discussed below her in the study about how the English army was dealing with the uprising. She knew that men were even now being recalled from Flanders, that the king had returned from Hanover and was taking steps to crush this rebellion with firm determination.
Mary couldn’t banish the image of Malcolm, in his plaids, claymore in his hand, charging straight into artillery fire. Smoke would descend on the fields, and when it cleared, Mal would be lying on the grass, bloody and dead.
Her breath caught. “No.”
If Malcolm died, Mary would never be able to bear it. To Mary, Malcolm was life itself. He’d given her a glimpse of a world she had never known, one of intense emotion, boldness, hope.
That life couldn’t be extinguished. Not now, when it was young, strong, and full of endless possibilities.
When he’d told her the other day that he’d been called home, she’d mourned, feeling bittersweet sorrow at a path not trodden. She’d walked a good way down that path since then, and realized there was no turning back. Malcolm’s death would grieve her more than she was prepared for it to.
“Don’t worry, m’lady,” Ewan said confidently. “Lord Malcolm’s been in battles before and always walked away from them.”
Mary made herself climb to her feet. She couldn’t crumple and fall at the news—she must act instead.
“Thank you, Ewan,” Mary said. She could be very strong when she needed to be, and she’d have to be strong to weather anything to do with Malcolm Mackenzie. “Please discover all you can about what is happening and come back here to tell me.” She plunged her hand into her pocket and pulled out a few coins. “You’ll be my sergeant, and I your captain. You’re to report to me and only to me, and not get caught. Understood?”
“Aye.” Ewan snapped off a practiced salute, grabbed the coins from her palm, and made them disappear somewhere in his dirty clothes. “Right away, Captain, sir.”
Mary kept a straight face. “Off you go, then. And not a word to anyone.”
“Aye, sir.” Ewan gave her another salute, quickly replaced the panel in the wall, and was gone. Mary heard a few scrabbling noises behind the wainscoting, then nothing.
She was left alone with her troubled thoughts, her unfinished correspondence, and her fear for Malcolm.
In the small hours of the morning, Malcolm marched in silence next to his brother, the mercilessly stubborn Lord Duncan Mackenzie, toward the village of Preston, to meet Johnny Cope and teach him a lesson.
At least, that’s what Duncan intended. A local lad had told Lord George Murray about a solid path across the marshes, which the Jacobite army now used to circle Cope and his men. At dawn, they’d turn and attack the English from this new angle.
Malcolm and Duncan walked near the rear of the line. They were odd men out here, having no clansmen or retainers behind them.
Mal was there to make sure that Duncan made it back alive. Though Duncan and their father went at it with words and fists often enough, Malcolm knew his father would be devastated if Duncan died.
Malcolm had told Duncan as much when he’d arrived at the camp last night, but Duncan, of course, hadn’t believed him.
“The old bastard would be happy to be shot of me,” Duncan had said. “He’s hated me from the day I was old enough to tell him what I thought of him.”
“Ye don’t ken as much as ye think,” Mal had answered. “You’re as blindly stubborn as Da. If you die, I have t’ live with his grief, and that I do not want to do. Besides, Will refuses to be duke.”
Duncan snorted a laugh. “Will is a duplicitous snake. Ye’d do well to remember that, runt.”
Mal couldn’t argue. Nor could he convince Duncan to stay out of the battle and wait back in Edinburgh. His attempt to take Duncan by force hadn’t worked either. Malcolm was strong and fast, but Duncan had great power, especially in his fists, which had laid Mal out cold.
When Malcolm had come to, the Highlanders had been marching. Mal had rinsed the blood from his face, swept up his arms, and hurried to catch up.
He’d pull Duncan’s balls out of the fire, deliver the man home to their father, then go to Mary and take her away with him. A good plan, one Malcolm didn’t intend to let fail.
Mists clogged the air, clinging to Malcolm’s clothes, dampening his gunpowder as he loaded and primed his pistol. While he had no intention of joining the rebels, he’d be damned if he’d stand there and let Cope’s men shoot him.
The Highlanders charged before Mal was aware they’d started. He heard one volley of artillery fire, then the English guns went eerily silent. That silence was broken by musket fire, and then the screams of two thousand Highlanders rushing the lines of Johnny Cope’s troops.
Duncan sprinted forward, and Malcolm ran with him. Mal’s pistol would be useless at long range, but he kept it ready.
The mists began to burn away, the sun sharpening the landscape. Malcolm ran into the morass with the others, the battle cry of his ancestors leaving his throat before he could stop it.
After a moment or two, Mal dodged out of the way of the Jacobite Highlanders who swarmed past him, muskets discarded and swords out. Everywhere, English infantry in their scarlet coats were boiling apart, dragoons wheeling horses, hooves pounding, men running.
Mud churned as horses scrambled out of the way of the charging Highlanders. The English artillery, on the other hand, a small contingent of cannon shining in the morning light, lay empty and unmanned. Interesting. Mal swung around and made for the guns. Duncan, seeing him go, followed.
The two brothers approached the cannons, acrid smoke and powder hanging in the air. The guns had been fired once and then abandoned. Mortars and gunpowder lay in a heap next to them, the wagons and horses to move them all waiting patiently beyond.
“Well, look what we’ve found,” Stuart Cameron, Will’s friend, said as he and a few others joined Duncan and Mal. “Sitting here nice and sweet, like wallflowers wanting a dance partner.”
Mal laid a hand on a cannon’s cold barrel. “What will ye do with them, then?” he asked. “Steal them for Teàrlach?”
“A feather for Duncan,” Stuart said. “Capturing the entire line of artillery like that.”
“Falling over them, ye mean,” another Jacobite said, and laughed. “Good find, Duncan.”
Mal had found them, not Duncan, but he didn’t quibble. Mal had no interest in accolades from Prince Teàrlach.
He opened his mouth to explain this, but at that moment, a lone English dragoon rode out of the tatters of mist, sword drawn, face set in determination. The dragoon charged in deathly silence, his sword going right for Duncan’s neck.
Duncan tried to dive out of the way, but Malcolm saw that he wouldn’t be quick enough. Mal spun from the cannon and came up beside the horse, his claymore flashing as it rang against the dragoon’s sword.
Malcolm twisted his blade, running it down the dragoon’s, using the horse’s momentum to assist him. Mal’s sword tip contacted with the hilt of the dragoon’s sword, jerking the thing out of the man’s hand.
The dragoon let the sword go. He wheeled his horse, sending it at Malcolm, at the same time drawing his pistol and firing.
Malcolm leapt aside and grabbed the horse’s neck as the beast came past. The horse’s speed swept him up, and Mal hung on with a mad grip, hauling himself onto the horse’s withers in front of the dragoon. The Englishman glared in disbelief, and a growl of fury sounded as he reached gloved hands for Malcolm’s throat.
Malcolm knocked the man off the horse. The dragoon landed hard but rolled and gained his feet almost instantly. The next moment, Duncan and his men were on the dragoon, dragging him down to the grass.
Mal swung up and into the saddle, finding the stirrups and guiding the horse in a tight circle. The beast, knowing an expert rider when he felt one, calmed.
Duncan’s friends were beating the dragoon to a pulp.
“Leave off and take him prisoner,” Malcolm shouted at them. “He’s a brave man, attacking five of us by himself.”
Duncan abruptly pulled a soldier off the dragoon. “Stop.” He glared down at the Englishman. “Surrender to me, sir, and you’ll live.”
The Englishman gave him a sullen stare. “Do I have any other bloody choice?”
“Die like a man?” Stuart Cameron suggested.
“My men are cowards,” the dragoon snapped. “What honor is it to die for them? Fine—I surrender. I don’t care what you do to me, just keep my horse well.”
Malcolm patted the horse’s sweating neck. “Aye, he’s a fine beast.”
The dragoon folded his arms. “This will be a short war, in any case, if your only strategy is to throw aside your muskets and run at us screaming like banshees.”
“Worked, didn’t it?” Mal asked him cheerfully.
Around them, Cope’s troops were fleeing, or dropping guns and surrendering to the Highlanders. No one came for the artillery—its wagons and horses waited, empty, the drivers having fled.
Duncan said to Malcolm, “Your prisoner, runt. What do you want done with him?”
Mal started. “My prisoner? I’m not part of this. Yours, brother.”
Duncan’s face, streaked with sweat and dirt, split with his grin. “You unhorsed and disarmed him. Your capture. What should we do? Run him through? Tie him up and take him away?”
“Bloody hell.” Malcolm looked at the cluster of men around him, their stained plaids, crooked bonnets, and cocksure smiles. He growled. “Tie him up. Take him off. Prove to him we’re civilized. At least that I am.”
Duncan barked a laugh. A few of the others looked disappointed they couldn’t kill the dragoon then and there, but all were awash with joy at their easy victory.
The fight was already over. Charles’s army had won the day. Word came through by another Highlander on horseback that Duncan was to secure the cannon and ready them to be hauled back to camp.
It hadn’t been a battle, Malcolm reflected, so much as a clash and a rout. But the British army now knew what the Highlanders could do.
Malcolm Mackenzie left the field of the Battle of Prestonpans with a captured horse, the dragoon’s sword and pistol, and a prisoner all his own.
Mary knew the outcome of the battle before Ewan returned, first from the frenzy in the streets. Her windows overlooked the garden in the rear, but she could hear the running of men and horses beyond, the shouting, the cheering.
She raised one of her windows in time to hear her father’s voice floating from the open window of the study below.
“Cope’s only gone and run away,” Wilfort was saying in disgust. “He’s lost all his large guns, and, I hear, coin totaling near to three thousand pounds. Idiot. He couldn’t stand against two thousand barbarians in skirts?”
“He was unprepared,” Halsey said soothingly. “Wade won’t be. Or Cumberland, if he’s called.”
“It’s embarrassing,” Wilfort growled. “What about what we’re amassing in Glasgow? I assume you came today with word of that.”
“Yes, I . . .”
Halsey’s voice faded as they moved from the window, and renewed shouting on the streets drowned him out.
Whitman entered after that to tell Mary excitedly that the prince’s army had won the day, and he was heading back to Edinburgh, ready for a triumphal entry. Whitman had no love for Jacobites, but it was something to see, wasn’t it?
The rest of the day was full of noise and restlessness outside. Mary’s father closed his study window, so she had no more information from that quarter.
No news of Malcolm made Mary restless, worried, aching. If the Jacobites had prevailed, there was a good chance Mal had walked away unscathed, but men had died, she’d heard before her father had shut the window. Though the casualties had been few—negligible, Halsey had said—for those few and their families, the deaths were far more important than the matter of who’d been victorious.
Mary heard nothing until after Whitman readied her for bed that night and left her. Not long after Whitman had closed the door, Mary heard a soft tapping on the panel near the fireplace.
She quickly rose, snatched up her dressing gown, and hurried to kneel by the wainscoting. “Ewan?”
The panel moved, and Ewan’s dirty face looked out at her. “’Tis me, m’lady.” He saluted. “Captain.”
“I can see that.” Her heart was pounding, her mouth dry. “What news, Sergeant?”
“Lord Malcolm is well and the battle’s won. By the Scotsmen, I mean.”
For a moment or two, Mary couldn’t see, or hear, or speak. Tears clouded her eyes, and a tightness gripped her. “Mal wasn’t hurt?”
Ewan shook his head. “Not a scratch. But Lord Mal does have a new horse and an English prisoner.”
Mary rapidly wiped away her tears. “He has a what?”
“Captured a cavalryman. An officer. His lordship says he has to take care of things, but will come for ye soon.”
“Oh, will he?” Mary let out a breath, relief making her want to collapse into weeping. She balled her fists where they rested on the floorboards. “Newts and tadpoles, I wish I knew what the man was thinking. And that I could get out of here. How big is this blasted passage?” She stuck her head around the corner but couldn’t see much.
“’Tis a bit tight, Captain. Ye’d have to crawl, and ye’d get dirty, like me.”
Ewan was filthy, that was certain, and cobwebs clung to his squashed cap. “I couldn’t exactly wear skirts and panniers, could I?” she asked.
“Ye could do what Scottish lasses do,” Ewan said. “Wear leather breeches under and a plain skirt on top. Keeps ye covered, but lets ye move easier.”
“A brilliant idea, Sergeant, but I’m afraid I have no such clothes.”
“I’ll bring ye some,” Ewan declared, and he was setting the panel back in place even as he spoke.
Mary rose and dusted off her hands. A fanciful idea, dressing up in breeches to crawl out of the house and escape her captivity. Heroines did it all the time in plays and books, but how practical was such a thing, really? But she truly did want to speak to Malcolm.
See him, touch him, reassure herself he was alive and well. Scold him for rushing off to battle in a war he didn’t believe in.
Hold him, kiss him, have Malcolm look at her in that way when he’d said, in his chamber, Now, then, Mary.
Mary lay down on her bed, her heart beating in sweet relief, and was still wide awake in the small hours when the soldiers of Prince Charles’s army came pounding on her father’s front door.