White Rose Rebel (32 page)

Donald Fraser, on house guard that evening, was first in, pistol in one hand, sword in the other. Jessie and Will were close behind.

‘I saw no one,’ Fraser said, alarmed. ‘Where are they?’

‘I want Captain M
^c
Intosh locked up!’ Anne demanded. ‘This minute!’

‘
Dè
, the chief ?’

‘The prisoner,’ Anne snapped. She couldn’t look at Aeneas, sensed he was smiling that infuriating half-smile. If she saw it, the humiliation would force her to shoot him. ‘Put him in the cellar,’ she ordered, ‘in the wine cellar, where he might drink himself to death!’

When Elizabeth bounded down the stairs next morning, Anne was already in the hall, dressed to go out, sword and dirk buckled at her sides.

‘What’s all this,’ she grinned. ‘Are you fighting him off?’

Anne wasn’t amused.

‘I’m going to Inverness. I’ve given Jessie and the guard instructions. Yours are that there will be no more walks.’

‘Hold on,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I must’ve missed something.’ She glanced around. ‘Where’s Aeneas?’ Then she laughed. ‘Still asleep? Worn out, is he?’

‘Very comical,’ Anne said. ‘He was toying with us, Elizabeth, with both of us. He’s locked in the cellar, and in the cellar is where he’ll stay.’ She reached for her cloak.

‘No, wait,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I’ll come with you.’ She dashed back upstairs to change into outdoor travelling clothes.

While Anne waited, she had Will unsaddle Pibroch and prepare a carriage and horse instead. There was some fresh snow, wet and slushy. The carriage would be cosier for her sister in such chilly weather. Outwardly controlled and in charge, Anne seethed inside. A woman might refuse her husband, if he was brutish, drunk, unclean or annoying or because she simply didn’t want him, but this was unheard of. Men honoured their wives. That was all there was to it. He couldn’t change things to suit his peevishness.

By the time Elizabeth came down and joined her in the coach, Anne had worked herself back into the fury which had kept her awake half the night. She pushed the bag of fresh cockades for the troops behind the seats and set off at a cracking pace. After five minutes of skelping through slush, bouncing over ruts and stones, Elizabeth unclenched her jaw.

‘Anne,’ she said, her teeth rattling as she spoke, ‘could we maybe not drive so fast and you could tell me what happened?’

Mortified, Anne eased off slapping the rein and pulled back on it. She had been driving the horse too fast, dangerously so, and risking her sister as well as herself on the bends.

‘But he can’t do that!’ Elizabeth exclaimed when she heard Anne’s explanation. They both wracked their brains, but neither could think of a single occasion when it was said a man had refused his wife on purpose, from choice. Failure was as common as
uisge beatha
was popular, the one leading to the other as sure as night followed day, but that was an inescapable result of drink and ageing. A frustrated wife would normally take a lover if her husband’s over-imbibing left him unfit to please her.

‘That’s it!’ Elizabeth squealed, frightening the horse so it shied and nearly had the coach over anyway before Anne calmed it down.

‘That’s what?’ Anne asked once they were safely steady on the road again.

‘He said you’d made a mockery of his manhood.’

‘Aeneas is far from impotent,’ Anne snorted. ‘I think I can tell by now what’s going on under a man’s plaid.’

‘No, but he’s angry that he’d seem to be. Other folk will believe he can’t keep his wife content.’

‘So he punishes me?’

‘You took a lover.’

‘I’m entitled to have my needs met and Aeneas wasn’t there.’ Anne’s hackles rose. ‘He abandoned me, remember!’

‘I know, I know.’ Elizabeth tried to calm her. ‘But that’s not how he sees it.’

‘There’s another way to see it?’

‘Anne, just keep a tight rein for a minute. He thinks you left him, that you didn’t give him a hearing. You just rode off to war and didn’t come back.’

Anne frowned. There was some truth in that. She’d meant to return, several times. It hadn’t worked out that way for reasons that made sense at the time, reasons he couldn’t know.

‘You see?’ Elizabeth pushed the point home. ‘He couldn’t be a husband to you if you weren’t there.’

Male pride was tricky terrain. She’d taken his leadership of the clan. MacGillivray had taken him prisoner. Between them, they’d neutered his manhood. He’d lost chieftainship, his primacy as warrior, and, without any truth in it, his reputation in bed. Aeneas would hate being thought incapable.

‘No wonder he was cruel,’ she realized. ‘Spite is all he has left.’

There was a considerable buzz of excitement in and around Inverness. March had gone out like the proverbial lamb and, despite the changeable damp chill, everyone knew the next battle, perhaps even the last battle, would come some time in April. There was a gaping hole where the hated Fort George had been. Finishing what the townspeople started, the Jacobites had blown it up. They found MacGillivray directing men to billets around the square. Elizabeth jumped out of the carriage and ran to him.

‘MacGillivray!’ she called, gaining his attention and his open arms when he saw who it was. ‘We’ve missed you.’ And into his ear. ‘I missed you, at any rate.’ She had her arms round his neck, kissing his cheek, his mouth, but then he saw Anne, hanging back, waiting, and there was no point to any more hugs or kisses. The two of them stood looking at each other as Elizabeth unwound her arms from around MacGillivray and stepped back.

‘Would you take that note to the Dowager?’ Anne asked her sister.

‘But I want to stay here.’

‘And I want to have a private conversation with my commanderin-chief.’

‘Military?’ Elizabeth persisted.

‘Just take the carriage and go,’ Anne said.

When Elizabeth flounced off, Anne appraised MacGillivray. He had stood to attention and wouldn’t look at her now.

‘You can’t just walk away from me, Alexander.’

‘I’ll serve you till I die, you know that, but I owe Aeneas.’

‘You can’t owe him me. I own myself.’

‘My life, I owe him my life.’

‘I don’t understand. You took him prisoner.’

Now he looked down into her eyes, wanting to make her understand.

‘He could have killed me, if he’d wanted to.’

She looked at his arm. He’d winced that day, the day he brought Aeneas to her, from a wound.

‘He blooded you?’

‘It’s healed now. He tried to make me kill him first.’

‘Did he ask for your life?’

‘He asked nothing. I offered. He wouldn’t take it.’

Anne’s temper exploded. ‘So he humiliates us both!’

‘Dying would’ve been better,’ MacGillivray agreed, but he couldn’t resist smiling. Aeneas could no more have killed him than he could have killed Aeneas. Things were straight between them now. Anne would have to sort the rest out.

‘I should keep him in the cellar till he rots.’

‘He’s in the wine cellar?’ MacGillivray shook his head, grinning. ‘That’s a terrible punishment for a man to endure.’

Anne laughed. There was no staying angry with MacGillivray, and she knew he was at least relieved Aeneas wasn’t in her bed.

‘I’ll have him chained when I go back.’ She grew serious again. ‘We can’t be in the same room. When the war is won, I might go home to Invercauld.’

Hope flared in MacGillivray as if she’d breathed on dying embers.

‘If you leave, come to Dunmaglas.’

She couldn’t promise that. Last night had proved the passion between her and Aeneas was still powerful, strong enough to break them both. They’d be tied together until there was no anger left.

‘It’s not over,’ she said. ‘I can’t come to you unless it’s finished. Not again.’

Watching the hope die in him, she would have ripped this thing out of her if she could, if she knew what it was and how to end it. She had a joyous, untarnished love for MacGillivray with none
of the unfathomable currents that eddied around Aeneas. He did not deserve the grief she gave him.

‘He said you’d never be mine while he lived.’

‘I don’t mean to do this to you.’ She put her hand on his chest. ‘Find someone else to love.’

He covered her hand with his, threading his fingers between each of her own. ‘I don’t even wish that was a choice. My heart has a mind of its own, as yours has. All we can do is follow, until it beats a different tune.’

She reached up and kissed him.

‘I’m so glad of you, Alexander. Never mistake that. You’re right, and we should leave the future where it is. But be certain my world is brighter with you in it.’

‘Better watch my back then,’ he smiled.

‘I’ll do that,’ she promised. ‘We’re not done with this adventure yet.’

They discussed tactics. The Prince had asked the M
^c
Intosh regiment to hold Inverness. The other regiments were stationed at Ruthven or further afield in order to supply themselves. Several were already holding other parts of the country. They’d be called back when Cumberland moved out from Aberdeen. Weather permitting, it might all be over in a few weeks.

‘We will be up to strength?’ Anne frowned, none too happy about the geographical spread of their army if conditions prevented a rapid return. Cluny’s Macphersons were still at Atholl. Kept in Inverness, her depleted Clan Chattan forces would be the front line.

‘The regiments in Perth and the north will need time but we can avoid Cumberland till then. George is no fool. He’ll choose the right time and place.’

Reassured that everything was in good order, she took her leave.

‘I’ll be back when I’m needed,’ she assured him.

‘When the time comes, I’ll send word.’

Now that her relationship with MacGillivray was settled, the confidence and excitement in the liberated town was infectious. As she walked along the streets towards the Dowager’s house, people
waved and called or stopped to talk to her. She was still their heroine, the anticipation of victory heightened by how easily she’d routed the hated government troops from Moy, causing them to flee Inverness. It had been her intention to ask the Prince to remove Aeneas from her custody, but here, away from the oppressiveness of the house, that became inconsequential. She wasn’t disappointed to find their royal leader was out inspecting troops with O’sullivan. Even Elizabeth’s huff that she’d been dispatched on an errand like a child couldn’t dampen her mood.

‘And how is Aeneas?’ the Dowager asked, giving her a delighted hug.

‘Well, and out of harm’s way,’ Anne answered.

‘Good,’ the Dowager said. ‘My house is full of argument between the Prince and George, and I wouldn’t wish a disagreeable home on anyone. It’s good to have a day when they’re both out. Now come through and eat with us.’

A dinner party had been hastily arranged in Anne’s honour, the dining room full of old and new friends. The provost and dignitaries of Inverness showered her with plaudits and invitations, that she sit on the town council, join this guild and that. The French officers of the
Écossais Royaux
flirted, declaring her
magnifique
and
notre guerrière héroïque
. Margaret Johnstone and David Ogilvie were there with Greta Fergusson and Sir John, and Robert Nairn, her companion from the Edinburgh parole sessions.

‘You were so right, Anne,’ Robert said happily as he greeted her. ‘Better here in the wild and generous Highlands than down among those dour, hidebound
Sasannaich
.’

‘So who’s the lucky man, Robert?’ Anne laughed, glancing round the room, trying to guess which of those present had his favour.

‘I am,’ he assured her. ‘The place is crawling with muscular warriors, and a wee politician or two doesn’t go amiss for afters.’

‘Don’t you ever fall in love?’

‘Every five minutes.’ His face became serious then. ‘I am in love, don’t you know that? But, for the moment, he prefers a touch of the blarney.’

Anne was mystified. Then she remembered the Prince, drunk
and petulant at Stirling, giving ear only to O’sullivan, enduring no other companion, allowing no other advice.

Robert grinned at her again. ‘If you can’t have whoever you love, love whoever you can. Isn’t that what we both do?’

Returning home in the dusk, a light slushy snow falling, full of wine and fond wishes from good friends, with Elizabeth cuddled in beside her for warmth, Anne thought about that. Did she love Aeneas? If love could be measured by the degree of anger it could generate when thwarted, then she did. What bound them seemed hard as iron, inescapable, welded with fury. Shouldn’t love be kind, tender and joyful, as it was with MacGillivray, without challenge or confrontation? Aeneas didn’t accept or forgive, he demanded the absolute of their union. Her mind, body and soul committed to him. He could go hang. Twice, he’d held MacGillivray’s life in the palm of his hand, on the battlefield at Prestonpans, believing they were lovers, and when he was captured, knowing they were, and had given his life back to him. Yet he gave her nothing.

The carriage rattled over another rut. Elizabeth bumped sleepily against her. Anne looked down at her sister’s pretty young face. She loved her and she didn’t doubt Elizabeth returned that love. But it wasn’t the same as that shared by Aeneas and MacGillivray. Loyalty was a fair-weather companion between women, trustworthy only until it conflicted with other desires. The close bond between men was enviably more noble and selfless. They made no demands, didn’t judge and never turned away from each other. Even Robert Nairn, who loved and wanted the Prince, could serve without rancour, love without expectation.

Perhaps with a child, she might love so unconditionally, but not with a man. Aeneas had it quite the wrong way round. It didn’t matter if she loved him. It mattered that he should love her.

‘Can’t we at least torture him?’

‘
Isd!
Shh!’ Behind the scrub, Anne ducked her head lower and steadied her aim.

‘It would be more fun than this.’ Elizabeth lowered her voice to almost soundless.

Anne’s musket cracked off the shot. Elizabeth’s followed.