Sarah Gabriel - Keeping Kate

by Keeping Kate (lit)

  "Did you not say the Lord Advocate was one of your uncles?"

  "Aye," he growled. "The meanest of the lot."

  She smiled, despite the anxious feeling in her stom­ach. She had a strong urge to be with Alec, no matter the danger to her. What he and her kinsmen had de­cided to do was genuinely dangerous, and she would not stay home worrying about all of them. "Perhaps he can be charmed," she said brightly.

  "I doubt it." Alec said, sendine her a sober elance.

  Chapter 25

  %%^TW7atch your step," Connor said, leading the Ww way into the shadowy cave. "It's slippery through here."

  Following behind him, Alec took Kate's hand and ducked his head to enter the narrow cleft in the rock face, just above and to one side of the rushing waterfall. After one of Neill's sons had run back to Duncrieff with news of a find, Alec was anxious to see it for himself, and Kate went with him. Despite its precarious loca­tion, he would never have suggested that she wait at home. She was as good as or better than on this terrain as he was, and she had every right to see what her kins­men had found.

  "Look there." Connor said, his auiet voice echoine.

  Attaining the top of the inclined cavern floor, Alec stepped into a clearing in a narrow cathedral-like space, dark but for the lanternlight that reflected the slick dark stone of the interior walls. Just ahead, he saw Rob and Neill standing beside two large wooden chests.

  Rob flipped the lid of one as Alec and Kate came for­ward. Nearby, Neill raised the lantern high.

  "My God," Alec said, gripping Kate's hand more tightly.

  "Guns, aye—but I did not expect to see gold," Kate whispered in the echoing silence.

  Golden coins gleamed, sending a sunny glow up­ward to illuminate Kate's face as she knelt to peer into the chest. Thousands of coins were scattered among hundreds of weapons, the coins spilling around the pistols, muskets, bayonets, and swords as if they were wood shavings.

  Alec dropped down to one knee beside Kate, reach­ing out to run his fingers lightly over the upper layer of the contents of the chest. With a sweep of his hand, he touched the cold steel and wooden-and-brass fittings of a hundred flintlock pistols, and his fingers rippled over the faces and edges of silver and gold coins that filled the spaces between.

  "How many weapons are there?" Kate asked. She glanced up at her brother. "And how much do you think is here in coin?"

  "We do not yet know. It will take some time to count all of this out, and it cannot be managed here." He gestured

  toward the other chest. "That one holds broadswords and blades in particular, and more coins, too."

  Allan lifted the lid of the other chest, while Alec scrutinized the deadly gleam of the blades within. "Good Toledo steel. And those pistols in the other one are of the best Spanish make. I've seen those insigne be­fore," he said, indicating the engraved maker's marks on the butts of some of the weapons.

  "We'll have to move these out of here before we can safely assess what we've got here and decide what the devil to do with all of this," Connor said.

  "But can Spanish coin be used here in Scotland?" Kate picked up a silver piece, then a gold coin to look more closely at them.

  "Easily," Alec said. He sifted through the coins. "Sil­ver reales and escudos ... pieces of eight—that means it's worth eight reales," he told her, choosing a silver piece and dropping it again with a gentle chink. "Gold doubloons ... aye, it can all be used as currency. Span­ish coins are highly desirable and useful everywhere because they are made of pure silver, and pure gold. These coins can be traded for their value, or melted down to be used for their pure precious metals."

  "How do you know?" she asked.

  "I'm a lawyer and a merchant, both," he answered, then glanced at Rob and the others. "The Spaniards had their own reasons for wanting to see the English out of power in Scotland, and so the weapons and money were obviously intended to support the uprising of 1719. But someone hid it well after that rebellion failed."

  "Aye, a pity, too, for that uprising was the most likely to succeed of any we've seen so far," Connor said.

  "How did these chests come to be here?" Kate asked.

  "I suspect they were secretly brought by our father, along with Connor's father," Rob said.

  "Your fathers were in the 'Nineteen?" Alec asked.

  "Aye. They escaped the northern Highlands after the attempt floundered up there and came back this way with Cameron of Lochiel," Connor said. "I remember my father spoke of it at the time, but he said nothing of this cache. Too terrible a secret to let out to anyone, I suppose, until he and the others knew what they would do. But they never had the chance."

  "Cameron must have hidden away a stash of his own," Alec said. "Some of his men have been found with weapons like these, and Ian gave a few over to you lads. Lochiel has been eager to know where the rest of it was hidden. He must have suspected that MacCarran and MacPherson had possession of some of it, but he had to wait until the time was right. The last few years have not seen many rumors or attempts at another up­rising, but the rumbles are beginning again. Weapons and coin are sorely needed."

  "This looks like the bulk of the Spanish hoard," Neill said.

  "But my father and yours were never able to do any­thing about getting this to Locheil when the time was right," Connor said. "MacCarran of Duncrieff was ex­iled to France, and my own father was executed." He shook his head. "How did Ian find out?"

  "We'll have to ask the lad." Rob said. "First we'll find

  a better spot to hide this, then it's off to Edinburgh as fast as we can, before the military has a chance to break Ian for the information."

  "Oh, he'd never tell," Kate said. "He teased me that he would, and that I should say nothing of your business to him. But he'd never say what he knew except to us."

  "He would indeed say," Rob countered. "You don't know Ian as we do. He'd talk, if they pressed him hard enough. He's a fine man, but he has a wife and child to think about, and if he perceived a real threat to them, I think the man would speak."

  "With the amount of coin here, and the weaponry, there's more at stake than I thought," Alec said. "If the crown learns that this is here, they will do anything to take it and claim it, and they'll quickly punish anyone who knew of it."

  "Aye," Connor agreed. "We'd best move these chests somewhere else before we go east to the city."

  Kate stood. "Why not leave them here, where they've been safely hidden for years?"

  Rising to his feet beside her, Alec shook his head. "If Wade's soldiers discover anything from Ian, they'll come here as fast as they can. The chests should be moved quickly."

  Allan closed the heavy lid, shutting out the gleam of the gold like shutting a second lantern. "What should we do with the hoard itself? We cannot let it sit un­touched when it could be of use to the Jacobite cause."

  "It should be distributed somehow among loyal Highlanders," Alec said. "Though to whom, and how, is a difficult problem."

  "Should we give it to the Jacobite council?" Kate's eyes looked luminous and unsettled as she turned to look at him.

  "Some of it, certainly," Alec said. "But I'm thinking about the scores of Highlanders who consigned their weapons to the government. Most of them have little thought of rebellion. They are simple men who need weapons to protect their homes and to use in hunting to provide for their families. Those men deserve these arms more than war-minded Jacobite leaders."

  "I knew you were a good man," Kate said, smiling up at him.

  "That makes sense—the arms to those who need them and the coin to the Jacobite council," Rob said.

  "Cameron of Lochiel can convey the money to the council," Connor said. "We'll let him know. Alec can do that, since Lochiel is waiting to hear from him on this matter. As for the weapons, we'll have to spread the word somehow, but slowly and carefully."

  "Some of the weapons could be transported in cart­loads and on the backs of garron ponies," Neill sug­gested, "and some can be handed out secretly fr
om here. Word will spread among the rebels. One by one, the Highlanders will be armed again, and they will have a measure of safety they've not known for years."

  Allan nodded. "For now, where should we store the chests?"

  "Up at Glendoon," Connor suggested. "My ruined tower up in the hills is a perfect spot to hide these away again and a good place from which to distribute weapons to those who are eiven the discreet word. No

  one will come up there to search. It's said to be haunted."

  "Tcha!" Neill waved a hand. "I will not carry these heavy chests up that devil of a hill, Kinnoull."

  "Then we'll get your strapping young sons to help. Either way," Connor said, "by afternoon, we'll have this tucked away and be on our way to Edinburgh."

  Kate looked at Alec, and he saw uncertainty in her eyes.

  "Stay here, Kate my love," he murmured. "You will be safe at Duncrieff."

  "I'll feel safer with you—and I have to know that you are safe as well." She leaned against him. "Where you go, I will go."

  "Too much risk," he said, putting an arm around her. "You did all you could to keep from going there with me, and now the tables have turned. I want you to stay here."

  "We've each changed our stance on the matter." Her glance grew stormy, stubborn.

  "And changed in other ways. I did not know then what I know now, Kate," he whispered, bending to kiss her hair.

  "Neither of us did. And that is why I must go with you now." She gazed up at him. "No need to say that I am your prisoner ... just say I am your wife."

  Chapter 26

  A

  s a soft pink dawn bloomed over Edinburgh Cas­tle on its towering rock, they entered the city by the West Bow, a steep and winding hill that led from the western hills into the city past the high volcanic crag that supported the castle. The post chaise came down the twisting incline through the Grassmarket and toward the Canongate, passing through the portal kept by the City Guards. After a question parried by Jack, who rode postillion on the lead left horse, the ve­hicle was waved through. The horses' hooves clopped on the cobblestones, and the air was brisk and cool, and fresh with promise of a new day.

  They had traveled the whole of the previous day on earrons as far as the Perth road and MacLennan's

  Changehouse, where they met Jack. After a meal and a few hours' rest, they departed in the post chaise before dawn. Kate and Alec rode in the vehicle led by Jack on the lead horse, while Rob and Connor rode behind the chaise. They had planned to enter the city separately and stay at an inn in the Canongate frequented by Jaco­bites, rather than stir suspicion by arriving as a group at Hopefield House.

  Kate stifled a yawn and watched the sky glow over the castle. Seated beside Alec, who watched pensively through his side window, Kate wondered what awaited her here. She had been to Edinburgh often for shop­ping, theater, and concerts in the days before her fa­ther's exile, when she had been young and life had been so different for her family. Since then, she had made necessary trips for the household, and in the company of her kinsmen for matters of espionage and Jacobite loyalty.

  At last she realized with a sinking feeling that Alec had been right. Perhaps she should not have insisted on coming and instead stayed behind at Duncrieff, where she would remain safe. She could not predict whether she would have to face a hearing and a subsequent im­prisonment, or whether she would simply stay with Alec's family, as he planned, and escape the city with him after Ian, Andrew, and Donald were freed.

  They were all taking risks, she knew. Alec, her brother, and Connor MacPherson were about to place their lives in great jeopardy in order to save their com­rades. She could not, in good conscience, sit at home waitine for word of their mission.

  Alec reached over then to lay his hand over hers, which rested on the seat beside him. "Not so long ago, you thought I meant to bring you here in chains," he said, as if he knew her thoughts. "But I never intended for you to face the Court of Justiciary. I want you to know that."

  She looked at him, frowning in wonder. "What, then?"

  "I was going to let you go, Katie," he murmured. "Once you answered my questions, once I knew where the weapons might be hidden and what must be done to find them, I had thought to release you. I planned to take you to the town house where my aunt and uncle live, aye. But I did not always intend to take you to the court."

  "But those were your orders," she said.

  "Aye." He shrugged. "But if you had only told me what I needed to know—your name, who you were working with, what Ian Cameron had told you—I could have puzzled out much of the rest. If I could have spoken to your kinsmen to learn where the weapons were hidden ... I would have let you go."

  She listened in disbelief. "You mean, all that time you let me believe I was going to be interviewed and put in prison?"

  "You are scheduled for the interview, and would likely have been imprisoned afterward. But I knew there was a way out of it, if the other questions could be resolved. I had to let you believe otherwise because you refused to cooperate with me."

  She smiled a little. "I am elad vou came after me. But

  if it had not happened as it did, Alec, we might never have discovered ... our feelings for each other."

  Alec tightened his fingers over hers. "You're a wise lass, Katie-Katherine. Things do happen for a reason."

  "Even when we think something must be so wrong, it turns out later to be the best way, after all."

  He leaned close, as she did, hands clasped, shoulders touching. He kissed her, lifting his injured arm so that he could cradle her cheek in his hand. His lips brushed hers, caressed. A simple kiss, and so tender it brought tears to her eyes.

  He drew back, relaxed against the seat back. "Don't fret over it, Kate. We need never say who you are."

  "What will you tell your family?"

  Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it. "That you are my bride. It's true, or soon will be."

  "It is true. In Highland tradition, once a marriage promise is agreed upon, even if it is privately and with­out witnesses, if the two people then give themselves to one another in physical love, it becomes a binding mar­riage. And we have done that, I believe."

  "Matrimonio consummata," he said, nodding. He lifted a brow. "The marriage promise should be made first, and the consummation fixes it in a binding agree­ment. We had witnesses to our promise, which is quite binding, but we reversed the order of the events, you and I." He smiled mischievously.

  "We will have to correct that, then."

  His thumb made tiny circles on her hand, sending delicate shivers all through her. "We will amend it as soon as we can."

  She leaned back, close to him as he slid his arm around her, and she smiled up at him. Sunlight slanted through the window, illuminating the side of his face, glinting gold over his hair. Lifting her face to his, she kissed him again in silence and returned her glance to the window.

  Though it was early morning, the streets were al­ready busy. Shopkeepers were opening awnings and doorways, tradesmen and women were sweeping steps, and some were setting up small carts or tables to display wares just outside their entrances.

  The caddies were out, too, strolling up and down the hill on paved and earthen paths, sitting on doorsteps or street corners. A few waved to the chaise as it went by. Kate noticed that they were almost all Highlanders in plaids and shabby clothes, boys and youths willing, for a fee, to run here or there to carry messages, fetch things, carry packages, or lead anyone through the maze of streets and closes to reach a destination. Con­sidering the hills and slopes in the city, and the tower­ing tenement floors with sometimes a dozen staircases to climb, the caddies earned their pay.

  She saw the sedan chair carriers out, too, waiting be­side their chairs, ready to hire. The single seats were en­closed in boxes, sometimes elaborately painted and secured on carrying poles.

  Alec leaned toward Kate. "When you go up to the castle, you'll take a sedan chair," he murmured. "It's perfectly proper here. Ladies
frequently move about the city on their own in Edinburgh, with the chairmen

  and the caddies to carry them and guide them. You will not find a safer city than Edinburgh for that. And it best suits our plan that you go alone to see Ian and the oth­ers, without an escort."

  She nodded, aware of the basic plan, which she had discussed with Alec, Rob, and Connor at Duncrieff, and again at MacLennan's before approaching the city. "You would be too recognizable," she said, "and my kinsmen too conspicuous."

  "Exactly." He took her hand again. "Are you ner­vous?"

  "More because I am about to meet your family than because of any prison escape we have planned—that part is at least an expected danger. Your family is an un­known element."

  "They're nothing to fear. Just don't accept experi­mental chocolate from my uncle Walter."

  Laughing softly, she watched through the window as the post chaise followed along the Canongate and past the palace of Holyrood. She craned to look at the mas­sive towers beyond the gates and the hulk of the vol­canic hill called Arthur's Seat in the background.

  Moments later, she saw Rob and Connor ride past the chaise, the Highlanders resplendent in plaids fixed with silver brooches, wearing snowy shirts under leather waistcoats and dark jackets. Waving briefly, they headed straight along the Canongate.

  "They'll stay at Jenny Ha's Changehouse," Alec said. "It's a busy nest of Jacobite activity. They'll not be ques­tioned closely by the City Guards, who avoid con-

  frontation there, though we might be questioned if it were noticed that two Highlanders accompanied us up to my residence."

  She nodded, aware of arrangements previously agreed upon.

  Jack guided the horses leftward, and they departed the Canongate to climb the mile-long slope of the High Street, the Royal Mile that ran between Holyrood at its lower point and Edinburgh Castle at its peak. Here Kate saw more tradesmen, more caddies and chairmen. Here the grand facades of stately homes and beautiful civic buildings glowed in the rising sun alongside brightly painted shopfronts, taverns, and gloomy tene­ment buildings that rose so high that, in places, the sunlight was blocked. Even the more exclusive areas of Edinburgh showed the remarkable qualities of toler­ance and casual equality that was so common to Scot­land and the Scottish character.