The Pretender (21 page)

Much later, when the skies outside the cottage had dimmed, then darkened with the night, and the bedclothes were tangled hopelessly around them, Elizabeth lay still and quiet, listening to the gentle, even beating of his heart. It was perfect, this moment, kissed by twilight
and stars, but there was one thing she suddenly knew she needed to say.

“Douglas,” she whispered.

“Aye?”

“I love you.”

He tightened his arms around her. “I know, lass.”

He pressed his lips against her hair, and kissed her softly on the forehead. Elizabeth drifted to sleep, wrapped in the warmth and safety of her husband’s arms, no longer afraid of the shadows.

After Douglas returned to Dunakin, bringing Elizabeth as his wife, they went to see Iain Dubh with the news. Though the MacKinnon chief was not pleased that Douglas would be breaking his betrothal to Muirne Maclean, he could not deny the happiness that the Sassenach lass had given his nephew.

The task of telling Malcolm Maclean, however, would not be so easy.

Together, Douglas, Iain Dubh, Roderick, and Iain decided it would be best to wait to inform him until after they had successfully spirited the prince away from Skye. It would only complicate matters if Maclean decided to seek retribution for what he no doubt would see as an affront to his clan. Whatever action Maclean might eventually take, they would stand as one . . . and they would fight as one.

To engage the attentions of the Hanoverian general John Campbell of Mamore, and his captain, Fergusson, they agreed it was best Elizabeth know as little as possible of the details of their scheme. It was not because they didn’t trust her, but rather if she should be brought for
questioning, there would be nothing for her to conceal. Her part, they had agreed, would consist only of entertaining the visiting men and keeping them occupied by playing the role she had been tutored in since birth, that of noble lady and grand hostess. Other than that, she need know nothing more.

Two days later, Douglas and Elizabeth stood together on the ramparts of Dunakin Castle, watching as the naval cutter
Furnace
sailed through the still waters of the kyle, parting the mist like a hulking spectre as the sun slowly descended on the horizon.

Douglas turned to her. “You are certain you wish to do this? You can change your mind even now, if that is what you wish. I willna think any differently of you.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “I do not do this for any other reason than because it is right, Douglas.”

Douglas kissed her, embraced her tightly, then walked with her to the courtyard to meet their arriving guests.

Elizabeth watched as a party of men advanced along the seaward path. They were dressed in bright red coats decorated with braiding and buttons, their polished black boots tromping the heather as they approached. They wore black tricorne hats with the distinctive black cockade of the Hanoverian army and swords of gleaming silver at their sides. Their very arrival had brought a sense of foreboding to the glen, sending the people of Dunakin fleeing to the safety of their cottages.

Elizabeth’s heart beat rapidly as the company came to a halt before them. Her nervousness must have shown on her face. She felt Douglas’s hand slide around her fingers and squeeze reassuringly. She pasted on a pleasant smile and stood unflinchingly at his side.

“MacKinnon,” said the general in greeting, shaking Douglas’s outstretched hand. “It has been too long since we’ve seen one another.”

John Campbell of Mamore was a gentleman, from the trim and elegant tidiness of his powdered wig to the flawless red uniform that gleamed with honors and decoration.

“Aye, sir,” Douglas responded. “It has been too long. How does John fare these days?”

Campbell grinned. “My son is very well. It has been a long time, hasn’t it, since your days at university? He is presently at Fort Augustus with the Duke of Cumberland and hoping soon to remove to London.”

Douglas nodded. “Give him my best wishes, if you will, when next you see him.”

Campbell turned to the other man who had come forward to stand beside him. “Douglas, allow me to introduce Captain John Fergusson of H.M.S.
Furnace.
”

Elizabeth watched Douglas meet the man who had been in command of much of the brutal devastation wrought along the Scottish western seaboard.

The captain delivered Douglas a look of bland indifference, marked by the dark eyes of an ambitious man. Captain Fergusson had made it his public vow to capture the fugitive Charles, and had spared little in the way of decency in pursuing that aim. The stories of his viciousness and cruelty throughout the isles had been shocking in the degree of their dishonor. With his support, his men had killed, pillaged, and raped, cloaking it in the guise of casualties of war.

The captain didn’t want to, but courtesy demanded,
that he extend his hand to Douglas in greeting. “MacKinnon.”

Douglas acknowledged the captain so briefly that it bordered on a slight. Elizabeth recognized the dangerous spark of outrage light the man’s eyes as Douglas turned.

“General Campbell, Captain, allow me to introduce to you Lady Elizabeth MacKinnon, my wife.”

The general’s face registered his surprise. “What is this, you say? Your wife? Tell me, how did this all come about?”

“ ’Tis a story better told over brandy, sir.”

“Then by all means, let us proceed, Douglas.”

As they made their way inside, Douglas spun the general a brief and somewhat modified tale of their meeting, marriage, and misadventures. By the time he finished, they were seated in the castle’s great hall, enjoying brandy by the warmth of a roaring fire.

“So your father is the Duke of Sudeleigh?” Campbell asked. “I am acquainted with him. In fact I believe he said he had five daughters . . . ?”

“Indeed, sir. Of whom I am the eldest.”

Elizabeth looked up when she saw Eithne standing at the door, nodding silently.

“It seems our supper is ready, gentlemen. Shall we retire to the dining room then?”

Elizabeth slipped from the castle and crossed the shadowed courtyard on silent feet, heading for the stables. She glanced behind her once, twice, making certain there was no one following her. The moon was new, cloaking the castle in darkness, with only the distant sounds of the sea echoing on the wind. Before coming, she’d changed from her silk supper gown into one of more serviceable linen that wouldn’t
swish
when she moved, so as not to give herself away to the soldiers she knew were posted just outside the castle’s barmkin wall.

Supper had been a tense affair. At times, the others had fallen silent, watchful. The air of distrust among them had only thickened as the hours had passed. Elizabeth had done her best to both divert and engage attentions—making conversation, performing at the pianoforte, playing the part she’d watched her mother play countless times before. Finally, during the hour
approaching midnight, she’d left the men to their port and their pipes, begging off for her bed with fatigue.

In truth, she had one more guest awaiting her.

She patted one of the hounds who lay before the stable door as she carefully lifted its latch. The door squeaked softly on its hinges when she opened it. She quickly slipped past. Once inside, she daren’t light a lamp, so she had to feel her way past the numerous stalls, stepping cautiously along the straw-littered breezeway. A horse nickered softly to her in the darkness, lifting its head to watch her part the shadows as she passed. At the end stall, she paused, then ducked inside.

“Easy, girl,” she said to the mare, Caledonia. She set down the basket she carried and stroked the horse’s soft muzzle. Gifting her with a sugar lump, Elizabeth sank to her knees and ran her hands lightly through the dirt and straw that littered the ground. Her fingers soon grasped something—a small, twisted piece of rope set into the stable floor. She gave the rope a pull, and felt a breeze of cool air as the hatch lifted free.

Elizabeth swung her legs over the edge of a narrow opening in the floor. She searched with her toes for a foothold, nudging it with her slipper. Taking up her basket, she started down the ladder slowly, descending into total darkness. At the bottom, she turned, and whispered.

“Are you there? ’Tis I, Lady MacKinnon.”

A few silent moments later, the glow of lamplight came into view, casting its flickering light on the face of the prince.

“It is safe,” she said. “No one saw me come.”

It was impossible not to be awed by him. His light auburn hair was tousled, his face shadowed by a slight
beard, yet even standing in the ragged clothes of a fugitive, he had the noble bearing of royalty. He was handsome, tall, and it struck her then that he was only twenty-five, nearly the same age as she. Yet his eyes, a pale blue, looked as if they’d witnessed a lifetime.

“I have brought provisions for your journey,” she said. “Food, clothing, other things you might need—and this.”

She held out the small pouch of coin her mother had given her weeks earlier, the day she’d left Drayton Hall.

The prince took it all from her, bowing his head. “My lady, without friends like you, we would have been lost long ago.” He spoke English, but his words carried a distinctly Italian cadence. “I understand from the MacKinnon that you are our cousin.”

“Yes, Your Highness. Through the Tudor line, albeit a somewhat shadowed connection.”

“The ties of blood know no such incongruity.” He breathed a sigh, tired with discontent. “Would that Fate had allowed us to meet at St. James, my lady. Perhaps, one day yet, we shall. Until then, I must leave you with a token, something with which to bestow our gratitude for your kindness and aid.”

She watched as the prince rummaged through the pockets of his coat. “That is not necessary, Your Highness—”

He shook his head. “I fear I have nothing left to leave you with . . . except”—he held up a hand—“a moment. Have you anything to write with?”

Elizabeth looked at him. “In the basket. There is ink, quills, some foolscap. I thought you might need them.

The prince searched through the basket, removing
several things. He knelt on the ground, and quickly scribbled something in the shadowy light of his lamp.

When he handed the page to her minutes later, Elizabeth read what appeared to be a recipe.

“An Dram Buidheach,”
he said in Gaelic.

“An Dram-buie?” she repeated.

“It is a secret recipe that has been passed down in our family for generations, the favored drink of the Stuart kings. No one outside of the Stuart family has ever been allowed to know of it. We can think of no better person to whom we should entrust it than you, our dear cousin. And when the day comes that we are ensconced at our rightful place in St. James, we shall drink a toast together, my Lady MacKinnon. Until then,
an Dram Buidheach.”

The prince was delivered safely to the mainland in a small skiff accompanied by the MacKinnon chief Iain Dubh, Roderick, and Douglas’s brother, Iain. As they’d dined on boiled gigot of lamb and a Scottish trifle for dessert, the Hanoverian general Campbell of Mamore and the notorious Captain Fergusson were none the wiser.

It had now been a fortnight since Douglas and Elizabeth had consummated their marriage, a fortnight of days spent walking hand in hand on the shore beneath Dunakin Castle, talking of books, ideas, and times past. They picnicked by the burn and made love on a bed of heather as the sun had eased slowly behind the mountains.

Sometimes late at night, when she lay awake in his arms, Elizabeth still found herself wondering if she could be dreaming. But then Douglas would make love
to her with the moon shining its pale light in the window and the sound of the water of the Minch drifting on the soft summer breeze. No longer did nightmares haunt her. In Douglas’s arms she felt safe and free, and loved, truly loved, for the woman she was.

The sun was drifting slowly toward midday when Elizabeth stirred to see Douglas getting dressed across the room. When he turned and caught her watching him, a smile crept across his mouth. Elizabeth felt her cheeks flush, yet she didn’t look away.

“Keep looking at me like that, woman, and we’ll not leave that bed till the morrow.”

“Is that a promise, my lord?”

Her cheeky response brought a chuckle from deep in his belly. “Och, but I’ve wed myself to a wanton, I have,” he said. He leaned on the bed and kissed her deeply, a kiss that left her groaning in protest when he finally pulled away.

“You just keep that thought for tonight, lass, when I’ll be back from Kilmarie.”

“Must you really go?”

“Aye. Iain has returned from the mainland, but he is without my uncle or Roderick. He cannot come here for fear of discovery, so I must go to him to find out the news from the mainland.” He smiled at her. “Give me a kiss that will stay with me till I return.”

Elizabeth slid from the bed. She rose up on her toes and pulled his head down to hers.

Several moments later, he pulled it back. “I’ll be back afore the dusk.” His voice was husky with longing.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Elizabeth walked with him to the door.

“What will you do today, my lady?”

“I thought I might take a walk . . . to the cottage.”

“The cottage? But I had everything brought here to the castle for you.” He nodded. “Ah, I see. It’s that goat you’re missing, eh?”

Much as she hated to admit it, Elizabeth nodded. “Well, he certainly cannot chew through the roof of the castle, can he?”

Douglas chuckled, rubbed his knuckles against her cheek. “All right, lass. Fetch the goat, if you’d like, but dinna stay away long. There are troops yet loitering about the isle in failing hope of finding the prince.”

An hour later, dressed in a simple chemise and skirts with her Scottish
arisaid,
a ladies’ plaid that could be used as shawl, cape, or hood, Elizabeth set out across the glen.

It was a lovely day, the sun high and bright, and as she walked she picked wildflowers, tucking them into a small basket that she’d slung on her arm. She hummed a soft tune and stopped more than once to watch a sea tern soaring overhead. The breeze off the water teased her hair from its ribbon, and the warmth of the sun kissed her cheeks a rosy pink.

When she arrived at the cottage, she didn’t see the goat anywhere. She called to him once, twice, then decided to look inside.

As she sat in the chair beside the stone hearth, she thought back on her time there, and found herself smiling at the memory of the night when the roof had leaked from the rain. How ridiculous it must have looked with her panniers strung from the rafters. How wonderful it had been when Douglas had taken her to the byre, lying
with her on a bed of sweet straw while warming her with his body as the rain pounded the walls around them.

Had it been then, that night, when she first fell in love with him? Somehow she believed it had been long before that. Perhaps even that first day she’d seen him, laughing at her as she’d been slung over Manfred’s back in the middle of that murky bog.

Elizabeth heard a sound outside the door and quickly got up from the chair. “I was wondering when you’d decide to show your face, you little beast.”

She froze when a figure ducked inside the doorway.

A war cry rent the air.

“A MacGhille Eoin!”

A moment later, Elizabeth screamed.

Douglas made it back to Dunakin earlier than he’d expected. Which only meant he had that much longer to make love to his wife before supper.

He’d spent the afternoon with Iain, listening as he briefed him on the happenings with the prince on the Scottish mainland. From what he had to tell, things hadn’t gone smoothly. Finding a safe place on the coast of Morar, they had sought out the assistance of some of the known Jacobite clan chiefs. Most were hiding in caves and makeshift shelters in the wake of the government’s destruction after Culloden. Several of his most ardent supporters, who had stood beside the prince only months before, now refused to take part, fearing the risk to their families.

Iain Dubh and Roderick had stayed on, refusing to leave the prince until he was safely delivered to the ship that would take him to France.

When Douglas arrived back at Dunakin, he immediately went in search of Elizabeth, knowing she would be eager to hear the news.

When he couldn’t find any sign of her in the great hall, the study, or their bedchamber in the tower, he headed for the kitchen, where he found Saraid, the young maid whom he’d once set to scrubbing out the roasting hearth. This time, however, she was baking oatcakes.

The lass told him that Elizabeth had left shortly after breakfast and hadn’t returned. Trying to ignore his growing apprehension Douglas made for the stables to see if anyone there had seen her.

A quarter of an hour later, that apprehension had turned to panic.

He was saddling one of the horses when he heard someone behind him.

“Maclean has her.”

Douglas turned to see Iain standing in the stable doorway.

“How do you know?”

“After you left, soldiers began arriving at Kilmarie. I went to the croft, thinking to take refuge there until they removed. But when I got to the cottage . . . the place was all in chaos, Douglas, chairs overturned, flowers strewn about the floor. That ridiculous goat was standing outside the door, bleating like a bloody banshee. I also found this.”

He held out a scrap of tartan that bore the Maclean sett. “She must have torn it from him in the struggle.”

Douglas had feared something like this, but he hadn’t expected it so soon. Somehow, Maclean had taken his revenge by taking Elizabeth. Douglas couldn’t allow
himself to think of what a man like Malcolm Maclean could be doing to her.

“Saddle one of the horses, Iain. I need you to come with me.”

“Do you know where he’s taken her?”

“Aye. To Mull, and that bloody castle of his.”

“Caisteal nan Maoidh?
But isn’t it in ruins?”

“Aye. But it yet stands. There is a pit, scarcely wide enough for a man to stand and turn, hollowed out beneath one of its towers. He will lock her in there and leave her there to die.”

Iain nodded. “I have heard of it. I met a man who had once run afoul of Maclean in a game of chance. Maclean was heavy into his ale and put that pile of rocks up as his wager. When the man bested him, Maclean was so furious, he put him in that pit dungeon and told him that was the only part of the castle he’d ever lay hands upon. The man said ’twas a terrible, fearsome place, dank and moldering and echoing with the scurry of rats.”

“Oh, it willna be the rats that will terrify Elizabeth,” Douglas said. “It will be the dark.”

Douglas and Iain dipped the oars in wide strokes as they made their way across the sound toward the Isle of Mull’s eastern shore. In good weather and with a favorable tide, the crossing could take up to two days. They made it by the following evening.

Maclean would be expecting them from the sea, Douglas knew, so they would put ashore northeast of the castle and make their way on foot through thicket to the base of the tower wall.

The ancient Maclean fortress known as Caisteal nan
Maoidh stood like a menacing beast off the lonely Firth of Lorn. It had been built as a single rectangular tower house, commanding a wide prospect of the open sea. Broad merlons and narrow crenelles cut a jagged crown atop its breadth, adding to the dark aura of evil about the place.

As they approached, a quarter moon shone through the drifting clouds, casting the formidable tower in shadows. They watched, waited, until Douglas signaled Iain with a mock sheep’s
baa
. He waited for the signal, then, coming from opposite sides, they closed in on the castle’s landward wall.

They found Maclean alone and awaiting them inside.

“Stay here. Guard the entrance!” Douglas walked with purpose into the large central cavity of what had once been the castle’s great hall.

Decades of neglect had rotted away the flooring on the upper levels, leaving the chamber exposed to the sky above. Leaves and brush littered the stone floor; the walls, once hung with priceless tapestries, were now covered with creeping ivy. In the center of it all stood Malcolm Maclean, sword drawn, eyes flat and mad with murder.