Chapter 22
Malcolm’s fury could match his father’s, and rage bubbled high inside him. He told Duncan what he thought of orders from a prince he didn’t recognize, and Duncan, in better spirits than Mal had seen him in an age, only laughed again.
“Ye could leave Wilfort for the chop if ye want. Or ye can look out for him while they decide whether to ransom him or hang him,” Duncan said. “Your dragoon captain too. He’s proving dangerous, and they want him out of the way. A long way out of the way. Most wanted to kill him, but I saved him for ye, runt. He’s yours, and ye say what to do with him.”
Duncan loved the old ways of justice and war, where the fate of captured prisoners was up to the clan. He was enjoying dispensing this news, and also Mal’s irritation.
“And if I choose t’ send the pair of them back to England?” Mal asked. “Washing me hands of them?”
Duncan shrugged. “If they’re caught going, they’ll be killed. Better keep them at Kilmorgan, Mal, if you’re so keen to save the father of the woman whose skirts ye want to lift.”
“What about her poor old auntie?” Mal asked, restraining himself pummeling Duncan with his fists. “Is she in me custody too?”
Will answered before Duncan could. “No, she’ll be going back to England with Lady Bancroft. Best thing for her.”
At least the woman would be safe, which would relieve Mary. The situation wasn’t ideal, and Mal didn’t like the thought of Wilfort as a houseguest, but if he could save the man for Mary’s sake, he would.
“Wait,” Mal said, a thought striking him. “What about Halsey? Ye didn’t mention him.”
“Huh,” Duncan grunted. “That’s because he does nae want to go home. Halsey’s turned his coat inside out, is giving Charles and Murray every scrap of information he has about anyone against the Jacobites. He’s talking, talking, talking, spewing forth all his secrets. And he has many.”
“Crockery and cobwebs!” The furious exclamation exploded from within Mal’s chamber, followed by Mary in her water-splotched gown. “That absolutely traitorous, slimy, two-faced . . . Oh, I can’t think of a word bad enough to call him.”
Will’s eyes widened, and Duncan looked shocked. Duncan had always been a bit of a prude about the proper behavior of women—respectable women, that is, not the ladies in brothels he was happy to tumble.
“Duplicitous bastard?” Will suggested.
Mary gave him a nod. “Yes, I think that will do very nicely.”
Will burst out laughing, while Duncan continued to look stern.
Will, Mal could see, approved. “I like her, Mal,” Will said. “I see ye didn’t waste any time with her either. Good lad. I’m going to enjoy this.”
Mary wasn’t even able to say good-bye to Aunt Danae, but small Ewan was recruited so Mary could at least send a farewell message. So far, the Jacobite contingent remained unaware or uncaring of Mary’s existence, and Mal said he wanted to keep it that way. Mary understood, but it was a wrench to not take leave of the woman who’d been the same as a mother to her for many years.
But someday this would be over. Mary and her aunt would be reunited, and all would be well.
Mary firmly suppressed the fear she’d never see her aunt and sister again as she made ready to leave Edinburgh for parts unknown. She would have to take things as they came and not succumb to worry. That way lay madness.
Her father would not be brought to them until they were on their way out apparently. That night, while Charles Stuart hosted another grand ball in his ongoing celebration, Mary packed.
The Mackenzie house was in chaos. All of them were leaving for the Highlands, including the duke. The servants swarmed to answer the duke’s shouts, ignoring the irritated curses of Will, Mal, and Angus. Even Duncan was coming with them, though why, Mary was not sure. He was the only true Jacobite among them, and she wondered why he wasn’t remaining with the armies.
In the morning, very early, Mary climbed into a carriage pulled by four strong horses. Naughton had just shut the door for her when Ewan began to wail. He’d been told he had to stay behind and help the staff in the Edinburgh house.
His sobbed words were in the Scots language, but at one point he said in English, “I mu’ go w’ me captain. I can nae stay without me captain!”
“What the devil is he on about?” Duncan growled.
Mary lowered the coach’s window, shivering in the late fall air. “He means me. Let him come—he can ride with me.”
More snarling from Duncan, some of his sounds simply wordless mutters.
The carriage door was yanked open, and Mal boosted Ewan inside. The lad’s face was streaked with tears, but he adjusted his woolen cap and climbed onto the seat opposite Mary, sniffling. Mary took a handkerchief from her sleeve and leaned forward to wipe his face.
Malcolm swung up behind Ewan and dropped to the seat next to the lad. He let out a shrill whistle, and the door slammed and the carriage jerked forward.
“All right, Mary?” Mal asked her, the same wicked gleam in his eyes he’d had that first afternoon in the upstairs gallery at Lord Bancroft’s.
“I thought you’d go on horseback with your brothers,” Mary said. The other Mackenzies surrounded them, horses moving smoothly alongside the coach.
“Once it gets rough, we all will. But until then, I’d rather look after ye myself.”
Mary couldn’t argue, feeling better with Mal’s presence. Ewan seemed to think the arrangement was a perfect one and forgot about his tears, eager to go.
They rolled through the city’s gate, Mal’s brothers and father riding close to the coach. The duke rode well and looked as lively as his sons once on horseback, his plaids covering him to his well-worn boots.
At Holyrood, they went around the back while the prisoners were marched out and put into the carriage. Mal abandoned his place as Mary’s father took the seat opposite her.
Mary knew her father was not the sort of man who liked his daughters embracing him in joy, but Mary sat forward, took Wilfort’s bound hands, and squeezed them.
“I am pleased to see you well, sir.”
“I can say the same about you, Daughter.” Wilfort’s grip tightened briefly, which Mary knew expressed his relief. “You seem none the worse for wear.”
Mary gave him a nod. “Indeed, the duke and his family have looked after me well.”
The earl grunted. “Hmm. There are many things for us to discuss, but at a later time.”
The carriage door on the other side opened and another man was thrust in. The newcomer wore shackles on his wrists and ankles, and he fixed Mary with a piercing gaze. “No one told me I’d be riding with civilians.”
Mal climbed back in, sitting next to Mary this time, and pulling Ewan to the seat between them. “Lady Mary, may I introduce my prisoner, Captain Robert Ellis of the Thirteenth Dragoons. Captain, the Earl of Wilfort and his daughter, Lady Mary.”
Captain Ellis bowed the best he could. “I am pleased to meet you. Forgive me for not shaking hands.”
“Not at all,” Mary answered, giving him a gracious nod. “The circumstances are unusual.”
Wilfort only snorted, gave the captain a polite greeting, and turned his head to look out the window.
Duncan slammed the door, and they began moving.
The hundred and fifty–odd miles from Edinburgh to Kilmorgan Castle north of Inverness took a week and more of rough travel.
Mary looked about with interest as they went, her curiosity sharp in spite of the chill weather, the constant lurching of the carriage, and the knowledge that she was moving farther and farther from everything she knew.
Her father didn’t like it. Wilfort shuddered whenever he looked out at the rolling lands of the lower Highlands, and even more when the road began climbing sharp hills. “Bleak,” he’d say. “No idea why it’s worth fighting over.”
“A man’s homeland engenders his loyalty,” Captain Ellis offered as explanation. “I’ve seen it in the most primitive natives in the Caribbean islands and in the dreariest parts of Ireland and India. Scotland isn’t hot, at least. Makes a pleasant change.”
They followed the roads forged into the heart of Scotland in the last twenty years by Field Marshal Wade and his band of soldiers and engineers. Besides the carriage and Mal’s family, a cart carried baggage along with the few servants who’d accompanied them, including Jinty to look after Mary.
North of Perth they picked up one of the narrow Wade roads paved with tamped-down stones. Knifelike hills rose to heights of three thousand feet and more around them.
“Twenty years building roads so the British army could stamp out Highland insurrection,” Captain Ellis said to Mary one rainy morning as they slowly bumped along. “And now the Highlanders themselves have used them to sweep down from the hills and take over Edinburgh. A lesson in irony.”
Malcolm, who’d been apparently dozing in the corner, began murmuring in song:
Lord, grant that Marshal Wade,
May by thy mighty aid,
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush, and like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush,
God save the king.
Captain Ellis watched him without smiling. “Does it not worry you that your loyalties are so fluid, Lord Malcolm? You fought valiantly against us at Prestonpans, yet you save me and Lord Wilfort from hanging, and argue with your brother about his Jacobitism. Everywhere we stop, Lord Duncan is out trying to recruit for his side, and your father is arguing just as loudly that all the men in kilts should go back home.”
Malcolm shrugged. His look was sleepy, but Mary saw the alert gleam of his eyes. “That’s Highland clans for ye. No matter how loudly we argue or how fiercely we fight, in the end, it’s only the survival of our clan that matters. Duncan’s an idealist. Dad only wants to make sure his clansmen and families eat through the winter.”
“And you, Lord Malcolm?” Captain Ellis asked. “Where do you fit? Loyal to your clansmen? Or the Stuart kings?”
“Me family will always come first,” Mal said. “What I do with my time left after that . . . I’ll wait and see.”
Mary’s father made a skeptical sound but did not speak.
Sometimes when the roads grew too steep, those in the carriage had to descend and walk. Mary was always given a small but rugged horse to ride at these times, while the men tramped along beside or behind the carriage.
Lord Wilfort and Captain Ellis were at all times surrounded by Malcolm’s brothers, but that didn’t stop Captain Ellis from trying to escape. During the journey, he attempted it no less than fifteen times.
“Save your strength, sir,” Wilfort snapped at him after one incident. When they’d halted for a rest, Captain Ellis had run as fast as his bound hands and feet had let him down a hill toward a stream. Duncan, Will, and Malcolm, all on horseback, had loped almost leisurely after him, caught him, and brought him back. “If you keep on,” the earl added, “they’ll simply shoot you to be rid of the bother of you.”
Captain Ellis sat down in the middle of the road, breathing heavily. “It’s a soldier’s duty to escape the enemy.”
Malcolm dismounted and handed Ellis a water skin. “We’re the best friends ye have out here, man. Ye never know if the next knot of soldiers ye run into are for Charles or for George. And if ye keep covering yerself in grime, those for George won’t recognize ye as English.”
Captain Ellis shrugged as he sipped the offered water. “I do my duty as I see fit.”
Malcolm took the water skin back and tamped in its stopper. “Aye, well, I respect a man with strong principles.”
One night, when they rode late through a tiny village along a deserted stretch of the road, they found it full of soldiers, British ones. The duke led the way through them, telling the captain in charge clearly who he was and that he was no Jacobite. Angus and Will kept Duncan out of the way, and Duncan, who’d proved to be no fool, even if passionate about his beliefs, kept his mouth shut.
Mary held her breath as the English soldiers surrounded them. Now would be the perfect time for Captain Ellis to roll from the carriage, declare loudly that he’d been captured by the Mackenzies, and claim his freedom.
Captain Ellis volunteered nothing. He sat quietly, a rug hiding his manacled hands. When the soldiers looked inside the carriage, they saw a middle-aged English aristocrat, his respectable daughter, a captain in the British army, and a young lad who appeared to be a servant. None of them seemed fearful or the worse for wear.
The soldiers waved them through, even saluting Captain Ellis, who only nodded tiredly in return.
Once they were well away from the cluster of houses, the earl said, “Damn it, Ellis, there was your chance. Why did you not take it?”
Captain Ellis gave him a neutral look. “If I’d tried to escape into that mob with muskets, Lady Mary might have been hurt.”
The earl stared at him a moment, then gave him a nod. “Ah. Then I thank you, sir, for your discretion.”
Wilfort turned his gaze on Mary, with a look in his eyes she didn’t like.
But, of course—Captain Ellis was English, a gentleman, a cavalry officer, who were usually wealthier than their infantry compatriots, and he’d just showed that he valued Mary’s safety over his freedom.
Malcolm was Scots, by all evidence an idler, and too mercurial to pin down his loyalties. And again—he was Scots. Mary was certain her father would make that point twice.
Mary said nothing, only closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, but she remained uneasy.
When the terrain finally became too rough for wheeled vehicles, Malcolm and his brothers loaded the baggage onto stout Highland ponies they bought from a local man and sent the carriage, coachman, cart, and driver back to Edinburgh.
Mary had noted that Malcolm and Will always negotiated with the Scots they met along the way for food or lodging, while the remaining Mackenzies hung back and let them. Considering that Mary always had a soft place to sleep each night and at least one cooked meal each day, she came to believe that Mal and Will between them could charm the skin off a snake, and the rest of the family knew it.
A pony now carried Mary, who again wore the leather breeches and peasant skirt Ewan had given her. She’d worried that the small horse wouldn’t carry her weight, but the little mare proved surprisingly strong, comfortable, and tireless.
“Men fight battles on these ponies,” Malcolm said as he settled her. “They’re sturdy beasts, from the far north. A funny sight t’ see the men on them, but the beasts never miss a step.”
The pony carried Mary over the mountains, which in early October were filled with brisk, sharp winds and strong sunshine. Duncan led the pack, his father beside him. Though the two blustered at each other constantly during the light of day, once night fell, they became, by tacit agreement, quiet and careful.
One evening after sunset, Duncan came riding back to where Mary, her father, Ellis, and Malcolm rode alongside the baggage horses.
“Someone’s out there,” Duncan said. “A whole pack of them, we think—we heard several horses. They’ve stopped and are waiting, either for us to pass or to attack us, we don’t know. It’s too steep and dangerous here to get around.”
“Then Will and I need to go out and meet them,” Mal said. “And discover what they want.” Mal suited action to word, as he always did, already nudging his horse forward.
“No, I should,” Duncan said, hand on his pistol. “They might be soldiers.”
Malcolm didn’t wait. “Then it should be me. The situation needs diplomacy and discretion. You don’t have any.” He rode out of their little circle into the darkness before anyone could stop him.