Chapter 27
Malcolm slipped into the crack in the rock above the river and hauled Alec up beside him. The brothers braced their boots on the slippery gray stones, hands on the rock wall.
They hadn’t exchanged a word since Mal had crept in through the edge of the camp and knelt behind the stocks where Alec sat, his hands and feet locked into wooden clamps, one of Alec’s hands chained to a metal pole. Mal had picked open the locks, silently unscrewed the chain and manacle, and led the bruised and bloody Alec off into the night.
“Dad?” Was Alec’s first gasped question, nearly drowned out by the water rushing below them.
“He’ll do,” Mal answered in brief syllables. “Castle is burned.”
“Damn it t’ hell.”
“Mary?” Mal asked, voice tight. “I saw her—what are they going to do with her?”
Alec folded one arm across his chest, hurting and striving to hide it. “As much as I could hear, she and her dad are guests of the commander. Commander’s taking them to Inverness—from there they’ll be sent back to England. No one touched her. I made sure of that. So did Wilfort and Ellis.”
Mal nodded. He’d been curiously cold and precise ever since he’d gotten his father out of the burning castle and heard that Mary had been taken away. He’d felt the same cold precision as he’d crawled on his belly into camp, right past the sentries, to set his brother free. He and Alec had waited until the guards were distracted by the bullets Mal had set at the end of a slow fuse, and then they’d run together into the darkness.
“How many men in the camp?” Mal asked.
“Sixty, under one commander, a Colonel Wheeler. They’re roaming about, looking for those keen to follow Charles to England, trying to convince clans who might join the Jacobites to think again.”
Mal didn’t question Alec’s numbers. He’d have observed what he could and filed it away in his sharp brain. Alec thought in pictures—he could never memorize a column of figures or words in a book, but he’d remember every single object in a room, every placement of every person there, long after the event.
“How are they dispersed?” Mal asked him.
“Men from several companies, sort of a delegation. Mostly Foot, a few cavalry, and Highland guards. Like this.” Alec put his hand on Mal’s chest in the darkness and traced the outline of the camp. “Infantry patrolling here and here. One or two cavalry soldiers circle in and out here. Commander’s area here. That’s where Mary will be.”
Mal followed the lines his brother was impressing and merged them with what he’d observed himself. He knew he could fetch Mary away from these soldiers, but he’d have to do it before they reached Inverness. At Inverness, Mary would be taken to some house in the town, or worse, into one of the army forts along the loch to the south. Only a dozen or so English soldiers inside the fort at Ruthven had held off Charles’s advance, and Charles had had hundreds of angry Highlanders on his side.
Mal took Alec’s hand, squeezed it. He’d already given his injured brother his gloves, as Alec had been taken without any. The November wind was icy, slicing down this cut in the rock.
“Dad’s at the distillery,” Mal said. “Can ye get there?”
“Aye. But what about you? You’re not going to try to snatch her on your own, are ye?”
“I can get in and out quicker alone. You’re hurt, and ye have a wee one to think of now. You find Dad, and then head north and look for Gair.”
Alec did not want to leave Mal, that was apparent, but Alec was no fool. He’d understand that he’d slow Mal down at a time when speed and absolute stealth were necessary.
“So that’s your plan, is it?” Alec asked over the water’s noise.
“It’s one plan. I’ll have others. Go on, now, before they catch you again.”
“They won’t.” Alec clasped Mal’s forearm. “They only grabbed me because I was trying to fight them off Dad and Mary.”
Mal pulled his brother close, the two of them balancing while trying to hug each other. It might be a long, long time before they saw each other again.
“God go with ye, runt,” Alec said, releasing him.
“And you,” Mal said, his voice rough. “Godspeed.”
Alec squeezed his hands one last time, then climbed back up the cut, waited a few moments, watching at the top, and was gone.
Mal felt emptier when Alec was gone, but Mal had been right. He’d be able to do this much better alone. One day, though, this would be over. They’d all be together, his brothers, their families, his family. I swear this, he vowed silently.
Mal waited nearly two hours. He needed to give Alec time to disappear, to evade his hunters and find a trail north. Also Mal wanted the soldiers to have time to settle down and give up the search. The camp was going nowhere—they’d be there all night.
Finally Mal emerged, keeping to deep shadow in the cut of the stream. A small amount of mud from the stream’s bank blackened his face, and he hid his weapons well inside his plaid so they wouldn’t gleam. Then he left the relative shelter, becoming another shadow himself in the rising mists.
He headed south, toward the camp. Mary was there, and the pull to her overrode all else.
Mal’s mind became cool and precise once more, his thoughts filled with nothing except finding Mary and taking her from her captors. Nothing else existed; nothing else mattered.
Mal had a purpose, and he would pursue it until he succeeded or died.
Mary picked at the fish in sauce that was tasty but dry as dust in her mouth. The commander—Colonel Wheeler—had a fine cook he took with him wherever he went, who fixed him meals fit for an aristocrat. The colonel also provided them with sweet white wine he’d brought back from a campaign in the southern German states, light enough for ladies, he said, but fine enough for a gentleman.
Colonel Wheeler was a gracious host and deferential to Mary, her father, and Lord Halsey. However, an undercurrent of tension flowed beneath the conversation, making Mary’s fingers cold and her food tasteless.
They’d go to a house in Inverness, where they’d be safe, Colonel Wheeler assured them, and then Mary, Wilfort, and Halsey would be escorted the long way back to Lincolnshire. Charles Stuart had taken his army south through Carlisle, and now held that city, so Mary and her father would take the eastern roads.
Mary’s fingers clenched around her fork as she strove to keep herself still. She wanted to leap from the table and flee the tent and camp to go in search of Malcolm, who she knew was out there somewhere. He’d be waiting, watching. Wheeler was a fool if he believed the reports that his soldiers had lost both Alec and Mal, that they must be long gone, fleeing back to Kilmorgan. Mary’s feet twitched, longing to run after him, and she curled her toes in her boots.
Her common sense told her that such a flight would be imprudent. First, she’d be caught and brought back before she went ten steps. Second, even if Mary did manage to break through the camp’s perimeter, she did not know her way around in the darkness of the Highlands. She’d likely plunge into a stream or fall over a cliff—or some such foolish thing—or possibly be shot by a nervous sentry.
The likelihood she could find Malcolm out there by herself was small. She wasn’t even certain which direction Kilmorgan lay from here. North, yes, but which way was north?
The practical side of her told her to sit still until she reached Lincolnshire and home. Then she could gather money and provisions and make her way back up through Scotland to Kilmorgan. If Kilmorgan proved to be entirely destroyed and the Mackenzies gone, she’d go to France and stay with Audrey. Alec’s friends were there, possibly some of Mal’s too. They could help her find Malcolm and contact him, if he was alive to be found.
Everything would be fine, as long as Mary kept her head and did nothing stupidly rash.
She calmly ate her fish and sipped her wine without being able to appreciate any of it. Outwardly, her movements were steady and mechanical, like a clockwork automaton’s.
Inside, Mary was a roiling mess of emotions—terror, uncertainty, rage. These men had burned Mal’s home, cheerfully destroying all he and his family had, in the suspicion that Mal and his father might—might—be a danger. They were brutes, no matter how talented Colonel Wheeler’s chef was, or how sweet was his Bavarian wine. They’d pillaged the castle with glee, smashing things, stealing them, laughing as Alec and the duke fought—two against five dozen.
Fury spun around Mary’s heart, twining with her fear. She’d believed all her life that the English were good and just people, rational in matters of learning and good government. But give a man a weapon, tell him another man was a possible threat to him, and he became a ravaging boor, destroying all in his path. And then the commander of these brutes had brought his captives to his tent to try to impress them with a fine supper. She exchanged glances with her father and saw, to her surprise, that he appeared to agree with her. The thought warmed her.
Colonel Wheeler, oblivious to Mary’s condemnation, brought out brandy for his male guests. He’d enjoyed his meal, and now settled his wig on his round head, preparing to enjoy more of his luxuries. He poured the brandy into tiny glasses that were nearly lost in his thick fingers, and asked Mary if she would like coffee.
Mary opened her stiff mouth to reply coldly in the negative when a piercing scream sounded outside, followed by confused shouting.
Wheeler heaved a sigh, his wide-sleeved blue coat brushing the tablecloth as he down set the brandy decanter. “Ah, now what?”
He pushed back from the table, came to his feet, threw his napkin onto his chair, and strode out. Halsey lifted the brandy Wheeler had served and sipped it, undisturbed, but Wilfort left his seat and went out after the colonel.
Mary rose, her skirt nearly knocking the chair over in her agitation. Halsey put out a hand and steadied it.
“Let the colonel take care of whatever ails his soldiers,” Halsey said languidly. “Sit down and behave yourself.”
Mary shot him a venomous look and ducked out of the tent into the firelight and noise.
Soldiers were shouting, other men were trying to calm them down and demand to know what was going on. “What the devil is this?” Wheeler bellowed into the mix, his deep voice carrying over the others’.
“Poxy corporal saw a ghost,” a sergeant snapped.
“Not a ghost,” one of the young soldiers cried. “Dead men. They’re strung up in the trees. Our men, sir.”
“I saw them too,” another soldier, just as young and fearful, said. “All white, covered in blood.”
“Where?” Wheeler snapped. “Show me.”
Wheeler strode after his men as they went out from the edge of camp and down a hill. Wilfort gave Mary a stay here look as he followed, but Mary was having none of it. She gathered the plaid she’d been wearing as a shawl around her shoulders and hurried after her father.
At the bottom of the rise was a rushing stream lined with a string of trees. White fluttered from the black branches of the trees, long, pale forms caught by moonlight and mists. When one of the things turned, Mary saw gashes of black. Blood?
Wheeler halted, his back stiff, round face scarlet. After a long moment, he barked, “Lieutenant—have ’em cut down.”
A lieutenant, sergeant, and a few soldiers moved forward, joined by others. The younger lads did not want to go, but they were cowed by harsh words from their sergeant. Captain Ellis, who’d emerged from another tent when the shouting began, walked after them.
Mary waited, her hands balled at her sides, the wind cutting through the plaid. Her father stood close beside her, the ends of his coat moving in the sharp breeze.
The soldiers went closer, Wheeler directly behind them. The lieutenant stopped when he was beneath the first of the hanging figures. “Damnation!” he shouted and swung on the younger soldiers. “Is this a joke, lads?”
Captain Ellis came back to Mary and Wilfort, grim humor in his eyes. “Sheets stained with paint, hanging in the wind like efreets.”
Mary let out a breath. Not soldiers with their throats slit. Bed sheets to frighten the susceptible in the dark. Malcolm.
“Why—?” She heard Wheeler begin, then the colonel wheeled around and charged up the hill. “Back! Everyone back to camp! Now!”
His last word was drowned by a boom! Men were shouting, and a cloud of black smoke drifted up through the mists.
The camp was chaos. Another officer came rushing past Mary. “He got to the armory, sir,” he said, his eyes so wide Mary saw the whites of them in the dark. “Every bit of spare ammunition and powder was in there.”
“Son of a poxy whoring bitch,” Wheeler spat. “Every man who should have been guarding it gets a flogging!”
The officer swallowed. “Yes, sir.”
Spittle flecked the edges of Colonel Wheeler’s mouth. “Ghosts and dead men,” he said in disgust. “I never heard owt so daft. Burn those bed sheets and put double guards out for the rest of the night.”
“Yes, sir.”
Two more tents went up in flames. Mary let out a cry at the surprise of it, and Wheeler stopped cursing and simply stared.
Mary’s father put his arm around her. Mary shook, torn between fear and elation. Malcolm was taking his revenge. But he alone against so many—he was sure to be caught by the angry Wheeler, who would no doubt put him to death.
Wheeler saw Captain Ellis. “Take the woman inside,” he said. His jaw hardened as he turned back to his men. “I want that bastard found and brought to me. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said, and faded into the smoke and gloom away from his commander’s glare.
The soldiers searched but never found Malcolm. Not a trace of him. Another tent had been robbed while Wheeler and his soldiers stood at the bottom of the hill—the one that housed the colonel’s private food stores—but no one had seen anyone go in or out of it. What foodstuffs hadn’t been stolen had been trampled and ruined, and Wheeler’s beloved bottles of wine were smashed, the wine soaking into the ground.
A few of the men who’d gone out after Malcolm returned while Mary and her father stood with the colonel outside his commissary tent. The soldiers looked about nervously, their leader, a Scots sergeant with a hard face and beefy arms, white about the mouth.
They’d so far found no sign of Malcolm. However, horses had spooked, noises and lights had drawn them off the paths, but they’d found nothing when they investigated. Thin ropes stretched across the ground had tripped horses, and one officer had been pulled completely off his mount, his pistol stolen by ghost hands.
The sergeant had had enough. “He’s no’ a man; he’s a brollachan,” he snarled, then stamped away to begin cleaning up the mess.
“A what?” Halsey, who’d finally emerged from the colonel’s private tent, asked. “What sort of word is that? It sounds like a throat full of phlegm.”
“A brollachan,” Mary repeated. Mal had told her stories while they’d lain together, tales of old Scotland and its legends. “A formless creature with red eyes who can possess a man’s body and do terrible things in the dark.”
“Ah,” Halsey said, trying to sound wise. “Superstition. The Highlands are full of it.”
“Superstition can teach us much,” Captain Ellis said, the look in his dark eyes a mixture of amusement and wariness. “Lady Mary, I agree with the colonel. You need to be inside.”
He watched her expectantly. So did her father, Halsey, and the colonel. They wanted her out of sight, where she wouldn’t be a bother—at least, the colonel and Halsey did. “Yes, all right,” Mary said woodenly.
She took Captain Ellis’s arm and allowed him to escort her to the small tent that had been prepared for her. As they went, Mary scanned the darkness around her.
Malcolm was out there. She could sense him. Somewhere in the mist he waited, biding his time, leading the soldiers a merry dance.
When he was ready, he’d do what he’d come to do. Mary had no doubt about that.
By morning, Malcolm had not shown himself. As the sun rose, and the mists faded, the soldiers discovered that all but two of their horses had been cut free and were gone. The only beasts remaining were those that Mary and her father had ridden.
Wheeler, who Mary had gathered was on most days an even-tempered man, had reached the end of his tether.
“I want every man in this camp out there hunting him! Not a one of us leaves until he’s found.”
Mary stepped in front of Colonel Wheeler as he turned to shout more orders. “I beg your pardon, sir.”
Wheeler stopped, his round face reddening as he looked down at her. His wig was soiled with the night’s search—his batman, whose task would be to keep it clean, was no doubt out searching with the others.
Mary watched the colonel rein in his temper with effort. “Don’t worry, lass,” he said, his voice scratchy from shouting. “I’ll keep ye safe. Now that it’s light, we’ll find this so-called brollachan or chase him off.”
He spoke impatiently, wanting her to be gone. Mary stood her ground. “You don’t understand, Colonel. He wants me. Let him have me, and he’ll leave the rest of you alone.”
Wheeler pulled his attention from the camp and his harried men to regard her sharply. The blue eyes that looked into Mary’s were shrewd, those of a man who’d risen through the ranks by his abilities, not his money or family. A man who knew exactly where he stood in life, and what he’d do to advance still further.
“You’re a brave young lady,” Wheeler said after a time. “T’ come out here and face me alone and make that sort of offer. I have a daughter about your age, and I’d like t’ think she’d be as brave as you, were she in your circumstances. But because of that daughter, I’ll not turn ye over to a dangerous man like that. Highlanders think it’s a fine thing t’ steal women, but I’ll have nowt of it.” Wheeler gave her a nod, regarding her with more respect. “It’s good of you, lass, but ye mun not worry. We’ll be in Inverness by tonight, and you’ll be safe from this monster. I give ye me promise.”
Mary swallowed, her throat sore from smoke, cold, and fear. Wheeler did not understand what Malcolm was capable of, and Mary was coming to realize she hadn’t understood him either. She remembered the night she’d first seen Mal, when she’d thought of him as a wolf among sheep. A dangerous man, no matter that he wore civilized clothes.
Wheeler was not going to budge. He’d protect Mary from the Highlander she loved, no matter what she wished. Mary could only return to her tent, her heart beating faster, the rain thoroughly chilling her.
The men packed up the camp and set off along the road, everyone on foot now except Mary and her father. The baggage horses were gone, so supplies had to be abandoned, the soldiers carrying what they could.
Because of the slower pace; the steadily falling, freezing rain, which turned to ice upon the ground; and Wheeler expecting his troops to bring him Malcolm at every turn, they were nowhere near Inverness by nightfall.