Rebellion & In From The Cold (3 page)

“I assure you it was, as I remember both incidents very well.”

Coll knew better than to banter words with Brigham. “Brigham, be serious. As the earl of Ashburn you deserve to stay in England, go to your balls and card parties. You could still do the cause good here, with your ear to the ground.”

“But?”

“If I’m going to fight, I’d like to have you beside me. Will you come?”

Brigham studied his friend, then shifted his gaze up and beyond, to the portrait of his grandmother. “Of course.”

* * *

The weather in London was cold and dank. It remained so three days later, when the two men began their journey north. They would travel to the border in the relative comfort of Brigham’s coach, then take the rest on horseback.

For anyone who remained in London during the miserable January weather and chose to inquire, Lord Ashburn was making a casual journey to Scotland to visit the family of his friend.

There were a few who knew better, a handful of staunch Tories and English Jacobites whom Brigham trusted. To them he left in trust his family home, Ashburn Manor, as well as his house in London and the disposition of his servants. What could be taken without undue notice, he took. What could not, he left behind with the full knowledge that it probably would be months, perhaps even years, before he could return to claim them. The portrait of his grandmother still stood above the mantel, but on a sentimental whim he’d had the statue of the shepherdess wrapped for the journey.

There was gold, a good deal more than was needed for a visit to the family of a friend, in a locked chest beneath the floor of the coach.

They were forced to move slowly, more slowly than Brigham cared for, but the roads were slick, and occasional flurries of snow had the driver walking the team. Brigham would have preferred a good horse beneath him and the freedom of a gallop.

A look out the window showed him that the weather to the north could only be worse. With what patience he’d learned to cultivate, Brigham sat back, rested his booted feet on the opposite seat, where Coll sat dozing, and let his thoughts drift back to Paris, where he had spent a few glittering months the year before. That was the France of Louis XV: opulent, glamorous, all light and music. There had been lovely women there, with their powdered hair and scandalous gowns. It had been easy to flirt, and more. A young English lord with a fat purse and a talent for raillery had little trouble making a place in society.

He had enjoyed it, the lustiness and laziness of it. But it was also true that he’d begun to feel restless, fretting for action and purpose. The Langstons had always enjoyed the intrigue of politics as much as the sparkle of balls and routs. Just as for three generations they had silently sworn their loyalty
to the Stuarts—the rightful kings of England.

So when Prince Charles Edward had come to France, a magnetic man of courage and energy, Brigham had offered his aid and his oath. Many would have called him traitor. No doubt the fusty Whigs who supported the German who now sat upon the English throne would have wished Brigham hanged as one if they had known. But Brigham’s loyalty was to the Stuart cause, to which his family had always held true, not to the fat German usurper George. He’d not forgotten the stories his grandmother had told him of the disastrous rebellion of ‘15, and of the proscriptions and executions before and after it.

As the landscape grew wilder and the city of London seemed so far away he thought once again that the House of Hanover had done little—had not even tried—to endear itself to Scotland. There had always been the threat of war, from the north or from across the Channel. If England was to be made strong, it would need its rightful king.

It had been more than the Prince’s clear eyes and fair looks that had decided Brigham to stand with him. It had been his drive and ambition, and perhaps his youthful confidence that he could, and would, claim what was his.

* * *

They stopped for the night at a small inn where the Lowland plains started to rise into the true Highlands. Brigham’s gold, and his title, earned them dry sheets and a private parlor. Fed and warmed by the leaping fire, they diced and drank too much ale while the wind swept down from the mountains and hammered at the walls. For a few hours they were simply two well-to-do young men who shared a friendship and an adventure.

“Damn your bones, Brig, you’re a lucky bastard tonight.”

“So it would seem.” Brigham scooped up the dice and the coins. His eyes, bright with humor, met Coll’s. “Shall we find a new game?”

“Roll.” Coll grinned and shoved more coins to the center of the table. “Your luck’s bound to change.” When the dice fell, he snickered. “If I can’t beat that …” When his roll fell short, he shook his head. “Seems you can’t lose. Like the night in Paris you played the duke for the affections of that sweet mademoiselle.”

Brigham poured more ale. “With or without the dice, I’d already won the mademoiselle’s affections.”

Laughing thunderously, Coll slapped more coins on the table. “Your luck can’t hang sunny all the time. Though I for one hope it holds for the months to come.”

Brigham swept his gaze upward and assured himself that the door to the parlor was closed. “It’s more a matter of Charles’s luck than mine.”

“Aye, he’s what we’ve needed. His father has always been lacking in ambition and too sure of his own defeat.” He lifted his tankard of ale. “To the Bonnie Prince.” “He’ll need more than his looks and a clever tongue.” Coll’s red brows rose. “Do you doubt the MacGregors?” “You’re the only MacGregor I know.” Before Coll could begin an oration on his clan, Brigham asked quickly, “What of your family, Coll? You’ll be pleased to see them again.”

“It’s been a long year. Not that I haven’t enjoyed the sights of Rome and Paris, but when a man’s born in the Highlands, he prefers to die there.” Coll drank deeply, thinking of purple moors and deep blue lochs. “I know the family is well from the last letter my mother sent me, but I’ll feel better seeing for myself. Malcolm will be nigh on ten now, and a hellion, I’m told.” He grinned, full of pride. “Then so are we all.”

“You told me your sister was an angel.”

“Gwen.” The tenderness invaded his voice. “Little Gwen. So she is, sweet-tempered, patient, pretty as new cream.”

“I’m looking forward to meeting her.”

“And still in the schoolroom,” Coll told him. “I’ll be around to see you don’t forget it.”

A little hazy with ale, Brigham tilted back in his chair. “You’ve another sister.”

“Serena.” Coll jiggled the dice box in his palm. “God knows the lass was misnamed. A wildcat she is, and I’ve the scars to prove it. Serena MacGregor has the devil’s own temper and a quick fist.”

“But is she pretty?”

“She’s not hard to look at,” said her brother. “My mother tells me the boys have started courting this past year, and Serena sends them off with boxed ears, scrambling for cover.”

“Perhaps they have yet to find the, ah, proper way to court her.”

“Hah! I crossed her once, and she grabbed my grandfather’s claymore from the wall and chased me into the forest.” The pride came through, if not the tenderness. “I pity the man who sets his sights on her.”

“An amazon.” Brigham pictured a strapping, ruddy-cheeked girl with Coll’s broad features and wild red hair. Healthy as a milkmaid, he imagined, and just as sassy. “I prefer the milder sort.”

“Isn’t a mild bone in her body, but she’s true.” The ale was swimming in Coll’s head, but that didn’t stop him from lifting the tankard again. “I told you about the night the dragoons came to Glenroe.”

“Yes.”

Coll’s eyes darkened with the memory. “After they’d finished shaming my mother and firing roofs, Serena nursed her. She was hardly more than a bairn herself, but she got my mother into bed and tended her and the children until we returned. There was a bruise on her face where that black bastard had knocked her aside, but she didn’t cry. She sat, dry-eyed, and told us the whole tale.”

Brigham laid a hand over his friend’s. “The time’s past for revenge, Coll, but not for justice.”

“I’ll take both,” Coll murmured, and tossed the dice again.

* * *

They started out early the next morning. Brigham’s head ached, but the cold, blustery air soon cleared it. They went on horseback, allowing the coach to follow at a sedate pace.

Now they were truly in the land he’d been told of as a child. It was wild and rough, with crags rising high and moors spread out and desolate. Prominent peaks pierced the milky gray of the sky, sometimes cut through with tumbling waterfalls and icy rivers thick with fish. In other places rocks were tumbled as though they had been dice rolled by a careless hand. It seemed an ancient place, one for gods and fairies, yet he saw an occasional cottage, smoke belching from the central opening in the thatch.

The ground was heaped with snow, and the wind blew it in sheets across the road. At times they were nearly blinded by it as Coll led the way up the rising, rut-filled hills. Caves opened out of rock. Here and there were signs that shelter had been taken in them. Lakes, their waters a dark, dangerous blue, were crusted at the edges with ice. The effects of the ale were whisked away by a damp cold that stung the air and penetrated even the layers of a greatcoat.

They rode hard when the land permitted, then picked their way through snowdrifts as high as a man’s waist. Cautious, they bypassed the forts the English had built and avoided the hospitality that would have been given unhesitatingly at any cottage. Hospitality, Coll had warned Brigham, would include questions about every aspect of their journey, their families and their destination. Strangers were
rare in the Highlands, and prized for their news as much as their company.

Rather than risk the details of their journey being passed from village to village, they kept to the rougher roads and hills before stopping at a tavern to rest the horses and take their midday meal. The floors were dirt, the chimney no more than a hole in the roof that kept as much smoke in as it let out. The single cramped room smelled of its occupants and of yesterday’s fish. It was hardly a spot the fourth earl of Ashburn would be likely to frequent, but the fire was hot and the meat almost fresh.

Beneath the greatcoat, which now hung drying in front of the fire, Brigham wore dun-colored riding breeches and a shirt of fine lawn with his plainest riding coat. But though it might be plain, it fit without a wrinkle over his broad shoulders, and its buttons were silver. His boots had been dulled a bit by the weather but were unmistakably of good leather. His thick mane of hair was tied back with a ribbon, and on his narrow hands he wore his family seal and an emerald. He was hardly dressed in his best court attire, but nonetheless he drew stares and curious whispers.

“They don’t see the likes of you in this hole,” Coll said. Comfortable in his kilt and bonnet, with the pine sprig of his clan tucked into the band, he dug hungrily into his meat pie.

“Apparently.” Brigham ate lazily, but his eyes, behind half-closed lids, remained alert. “Such admiration would delight my tailor.”

“Oh, it’s only partly the clothes.” Coll raised his bicker of ale to drain it, and thought pleasantly of the whiskey he would share with his father that night. “You would look like an earl if you wore rags.” Anxious to be off, he tossed coins on the table. “The horses should be rested; let’s be off. We’re skirting Campbell country.” Coll’s manners were too polished to allow him to spit, but he would have liked to. “I’d prefer not to dally.”

Three men left the tavern before them, letting in a blast of cold and beautifully fresh air.

* * *

It had become difficult for Coll to contain his impatience. Now that he was back in the Highlands, he wanted nothing so much as to see his own home, his own family. The road twisted and climbed, occasionally winding by a huddle of cottages and cattle grazing on the rough, uneven ground. Men living here would have to keep an eye out for wildcats and badgers.

Though they had hours to ride, he could almost smell home—the forest, with its red deer and tawny owls. There would be a feast that night, and cups raised in toasts. London, with its crowded streets and fussy manners, was behind him.

Trees were scarce, only the little junipers pushing through on the leeside of boulders. In Scotland, even the brush had a difficult time surviving. Now and then they rode by a rumbling river or stream, to be challenged by the eerie, consuming silence that followed. The skies had cleared to a hard, brilliant blue. Above, majestic and glorious, a golden eagle circled.

“Brig—”

Beside Coll, Brigham had suddenly gone rigid. Coll’s horse reared as Brigham pulled out his sword. “Guard your flank,” he shouted, then wheeled to face two riders who had burst out from behind a tumble of rock.

They rode sturdy garrons, shaggy Scottish ponies, and though their tartans were dulled with age and dirt, the blades of their fighting swords shone in the midafternoon sun. Brigham had only time enough to note that the men who charged had been in the tavern before there was the crash of steel against steel.

Beside him, Coll wielded his sword against two more. The high hills rang with the sounds of battle,
the thunder of hooves against hard-packed ground. Gliding overhead, the eagle circled and waited.

The attackers had misjudged their quarry in Brigham. His hands were narrow, his body slender as a dancer’s, but his wrists were both wiry and supple. Using his knees to guide his mount, he fought with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. There might have been jewels on the hilts, but the blades were fashioned to kill.

He heard Coll shout and swear. For himself, he fought in deadly silence. Steel scraped as he defended himself, crashed when he took the offensive, driving at one foe and outmaneuvering the other. His eyes, usually a calm, clear gray, had darkened and narrowed like those of a wolf that scents blood. He gave his opponent’s sword one final, vicious parry and ran his own blade home.

The Scot screamed, but the sound lasted no more than a heartbeat. Blood splattered the snow as the man fell. His pony, frightened by the smell of death, ran clattering up the rocks. The other man, wild-eyed, renewed his attack with more ferocity and fear than finesse. The violence of the advance nearly cut through Brigham’s guard, and he felt the sting of the sword on his shoulder and the warm flow of blood where the point had ripped layers of clothing and found flesh. Brigham countered with swift, steady strokes, driving his quarry back and back, toward the rocks. His eyes stayed on his opponent’s face, never flickering, never wavering. With cool-headed precision, he parried and thrust and pierced the heart. Before the man had hit the ground, he was swinging back toward Coll.