Will leapt from rock to rock, dancing his way down the slope. Macdonald followed directly behind, never losing his footing. His ease with the path gave away the fact that he’d been down it before. Probably many times.
When the path leveled out at the bottom, Will made for the cracks in the cliff wall that led to the smaller caves. Macdonald was right behind him.
The tide was out, leaving damp sand in the lower half of the cave they entered. Will moved to the driest part and through one of the small openings he’d found the last time he’d explored. This slit opened into a shallow cave, the ceiling of which arched high, carved out of rock eons ago by the relentless beating of water.
Macdonald squeezed in behind Will so rapidly it was comical. He looked around at the very empty cave before he aimed the pistol at Will’s face once more.
“Tell me your game, Mackenzie.”
“This is where you hid it,” Will said.
“I know that,” Macdonald snapped. “Did you bring me down here to explain this to me? I’ll kill you now.”
“I didn’t say it was still here.”
Macdonald glared at him. Then he growled, stamped his way to the cave wall and scraped rubble from natural niches in the rock. Limestone carved well, and a man could easily chip out depressions until he had a nice set of footholds to climb to ledges above, then pile carving chips and rocks on the ledges to hide what he’d put there.
Only an observant man would note the tool marks on the walls, and only a determined man would discover if something had been hidden above him. Will was both observant and determined.
He watched as Macdonald scrambled up his makeshift ladder. Rocks clattered to the cave floor, and Will heard Macdonald cursing. The man slid back down, landing with a thump, pistol trained on Will.
“Where did you take it?” Macdonald demanded in a near shout.
“Never said I took it. I said I knew it was here, but now ’tis elsewhere.”
“Where?”
Will started to laugh. He heard the pitch of Sir William somewhere in the laughter, but there was a bit of all his characters in Will’s true self. “Did you really think it would be safe here? In a smugglers’ cave?”
“These caves aren’t used anymore. I made certain.”
“Of course you did. It was a wise choice—or would have been if you were more careful. Too many other men poking about the ruins of the castle, the foundations of Mal’s new house, and the tunnels of the distillery, but no one ever went to the caves. At least, so you thought.”
“Where is my bloody gold?” Macdonald roared.
“So you admit you stole it?” Will asked without moving. “How did you, by the way? Mal was part of the group meant to retrieve it and take it to Teàrlach and his generals, and I was with them when they were ambushed. Gold disappeared. Were you waiting at the docks with pack horses? Telling them you were an agent of the prince’s?”
Macdonald looked disgusted. “Don’t be thick. Who do you think paid for that consignment to come from France, who convinced their simpering king to send it? I didn’t have to intercept the gold. The men who carried it off the ship took it where I told them to. Easy to leave it be and retrieve it once Teàrlach was being chased around the western isles and his Highlanders rounded up.”
Will’s brows rose and so did his bile. He’d known Macdonald had somehow been on the spot to take the gold, but hadn’t realized the man had tricked the King of France into sending him a boatload of it in the first place. If Macdonald hadn’t been so contemptuous of the lives of others, and so utterly selfish, Will might admire the man.
“I admit, I hadn’t thought of that,” Will said. “You played the Jacobites’ ambition right into your own hands.”
Clennan gave him a tight smile. “It’s a Highland tradition. Use your enemy’s weakness.”
“Eh? I thought the tradition was to charge headlong with your claymore over your head and kill anyone threatening your clan. But never mind. Why didn’t you tell Cumberland what you’d done? Send word to King Geordie? You’d have been a hero.”
Macdonald looked at Will as though he were a simpleton. “Because then I’d have to hand them the gold. I might get a minute percentage as a reward, but no more.”
“And this way, you got to keep it all. So your plan was never loyalty to the crown, then.”
“What are you talking about?” Macdonald sounded amazed. “I spotted an opportunity, and I took it. You’ve done the same, and don’t tell me you’re so virtuous that you wouldn’t. Cumberland didn’t need to know. As far as he was concerned, the gold was lost, and the Jacobites didn’t have it. He cared for nothing else.” Macdonald took a step toward Will, pistol leveled. “So where is it?”
Will shrugged. “Maybe Cumberland came for it. Sent men to see why you wanted the Kilmorgan lands so badly.”
Macdonald shook his head. “Cumberland is a fool, and he’s back in France trying to pour more glory on himself, but he’ll never win there. Besides, he does as I tell him, and kept his hands off Kilmorgan once it became free. I’ll have it, you know. I’ll claim my reward from the king himself.”
Will felt cold. He’d known Clennan was a scheming bastard, but he hadn’t realized how far he’d go. Well, part of Will’s plan was to keep the man talking.
“What do you mean, Cumberland does as you tell him?” Will asked. “He’s a bold young man out to take the world by the horns and prove himself. He’s a hero already for putting down the Highlanders, although even ordinary Englishmen are appalled at his butchery.”
“He’s impetuous and rash,” Clennan said, not hiding his contempt. “He prevailed at Culloden, because I knew when the Jacobites would come out and what they’d do. Cumberland thinks I’m doing the same for him in France, because I know where the French army will be and what they’ll do. But he’s never thanked me for my help, never once.”
Will nodded as though in sympathy. “That must rankle. He’s as young a pup as Teàrlach. Tell me, why do you think Butcher Cumberland will never win in France?”
“Because he can’t plan his way out of his own front door, and relies on luck and the loyalty of his troops. Plus the information I send him.” Macdonald paused to look self-satisfied. “What I decide to send him.”
“So he fails because you don’t give him the right information? Or enough at the right time?”
“He fails because he bites the hand that feeds him,” Macdonald said impatiently. “He’d have lost at Culloden if not for me, but what does he do? Dismisses me out of hand, refuses the title I should have been given—I ought to be a duke, not your bloody father, who never did a damn thing in his life. Cumberland expects me to continue to give him information on French plans and troop movements, which I could do, but why should I? I have plenty of information to pass to the French army, who at least pay me. Cumberland acted on some of my dispatches but never once acknowledged what I went through to get them to him.”
“Well, no one ever said the man overflowed with kindness. So you keep the gold as payment of sorts?”
“Of course. Stupid young whelp. Told him it was at the bottom of the sea.” Macdonald darted a glance around the cave. “By rights, this hole and everything in it belongs to me. Including you and your life. Now, where is my gold?”
“You are a man obsessed, aren’t you? To think, if my mum hadn’t run from you, I might have to call you Dad.” Will shuddered. “I’d have had to live with the shame that you betrayed not only your own people, but those you betrayed them to.”
Macdonald’s eyes glittered with renewed fury. “Don’t talk to me about that ungrateful bitch. I arranged a perfectly fine marriage for Allison—she’d have had everything. Far more riches than your skinflint father gave her. And you mean my brother would have been your dad.”
Will shook his head. “Mum told many tales—I overheard her talking to my dad far more often than they thought. Your dear brother couldn’t sire children, could he? You’d have taken care of that detail, though. Car
ried on the line yourself without the bother of putting up with a wife. Plus, you’d have the pleasure of my mother.” Will lost his amusement, his voice growing hard as steel. “Which is why you’ll die, Macdonald. Think of her when you’re dropping on the gallows with a rope tight around your neck.”
Chapter 28
Josette raced through brush and bracken under the trees, thorns scratching the leather breeches she’d resumed beneath her skirt.
“Hurry,” she said breathlessly.
Henri did not answer—rightly—that he was moving as fast as he could. The ground was wet and boggy, and neither of them knew these woods well. But on the other side of the trees were the cliffs they needed to reach.
Bhreac, Errol, and others had followed Will and Mr. Macdonald—but not too closely, Will had admonished them. Macdonald was sharp-eyed and had been raised to know when an enemy was near.
Josette did not like that Macdonald and Will were alone in the caves, but she’d lost the argument of having Henri or Errol, or even herself, accompany them. Macdonald would only use them as hostages, Will had said, and Josette knew he was right.
But not knowing whether Macdonald would shoot Will in his anger, or just because he chose to, made Josette frantic with fear. Macdonald had not struck her as a man with the most even of tempers.
She and Henri emerged from the woods near the path to the cove, but remained far enough back from the cliff edge that anyone looking up from the shingle below wouldn’t immediately see them.
Boats waited out of sight—or should be waiting anyway—for Josette’s signal that Will had Macdonald cornered.
She caught her breath at the top of the cliff, while Henri moved along the edge, swiftly and silently. He was to go north of the cove and signal the additional ships that were supposed to be there.
Josette waited until the lad had faded back into the trees before she hastily unfurled a scarlet flag—a bedsheet dipped in dye—and waved it hard. Drops of red that hadn’t dried spattered her cheeks and hands like blood.
She saw nothing on the sea but the caps of waves under the wind. Josette continued waving the flag, her arms aching.
Had the ships not come? Will told her he’d extracted promises from Captain Ellis and Lord Wilfort, but perhaps they’d not been able to persuade their superiors to help.
A shot rang from the cove. Josette froze, more cold droplets landing on her face.
She had to keep signaling, to bring in the men from the ships, if they existed. But who had fired the shot? Will? Macdonald? Was Will lying on the ground, bleeding, dying? Or had he killed Macdonald and now he’d be the one arrested?
No ships appeared. Josette screamed through her teeth, dropped the flag, and bolted for the path.
She lifted her skirts and scrambled downward, skirting boulders along the way. She could see nothing of Bhreac, or of the men supposed to be keeping an eye on Will. Where were they?
Josette jumped the last few feet from the path to the shingle. Her boots splashed in water—the tide was coming in. She stumbled on wet rocks as she dashed for the cave where Will had found Duncan’s knife, and ducked inside.
The outer cave was empty, but Will had showed Josette the entrance to the inner chamber. Waves lapped the sand inside the first cave, but the ground would be dry in the second.
She squeezed through the niche to the inner cave, and stopped in horror, a cry dying in her throat.
Mr. Macdonald, braced with feet apart, held a pistol at his side, acrid smoke floating from it. Will was on the ground, but not laid out. He crouched next to a shaggy body, curses streaming from his mouth.
“Ye pox-rotted son of a bitch,” Will snarled. “Why’d ye shoot my dog?”
“Because it attacked me,” Macdonald snapped back. “You are next, unless you shut up and take me to what you stole.”
Beitris lay still under Will’s hand, but Josette could not see whether the dog was bleeding, dying, or already dead. All she knew was that tears dropped from Will’s eyes, streaking his exhausted face and falling on Beitris’s fur.
Josette’s fury erupted. Macdonald, the horrible, greedy bastard, cared so little for any but himself that he’d shoot a defenseless dog. He wanted to take everything from Will’s family—their land, their lives, and their name—all because Will’s mother had refused to have anything to do with him and his brother.
In spite of her rage, Josette knew how to move in silence—Will had taught her well. She had Duncan’s sgian dubh in her hand, and was behind Macdonald before he knew it.
As Clennan sensed her and began to turn, Josette crashed the bejeweled hilt of the knife into his temple.
McDonald grunted in pain. Blood trickled from the wound Josette inflicted, but he didn’t go down. His spent pistol fell to the sand as he staggered, and then he seized Josette’s wrists in a crushing grip.
Josette kicked him. She fought and twisted, struggling to break free.
Macdonald clamped down hard, his eyes filled with rage. “Give me that knife, ye bloody bitch. What I am going to do to you …”
Will rose behind him like a dark ghost. He roared an incoherent sound, one Josette had never heard come from his throat.
It was as if all the Highlanders Clennan Macdonald had sent to their deaths, including Duncan and Angus, screamed their fury, and their need to kill.
Will landed on Macdonald’s back, one hand gripping the man’s head, his other arm braced across his shoulders. Macdonald tried to twist, to throw him off without letting go of Josette, but Will clung fast.
He’d break the man’s neck. Clennan would be dead, gone, and the British soldiers would rush in to find an outlawed Mackenzie standing over the body of a loyal Highlander. They’d lead Will off in chains, and end his life.
That could never happen. Josette refused to live in the darkness Will’s passing would create.
Will was not the only one with ancestors who’d fought savagely. Josette came from a long line of men and women who’d had to battle to survive, in a country so many throughout the ages had tried to possess.
The cries of her ancestors streamed from her mouth as she wrested her hands free and battered Macdonald’s face with the very sturdy hilt of Duncan’s knife. Macdonald tried to seize her again, at the same time struggling to be free of Will, who transferred his grip to Macdonald’s throat, squeezing hard.
Macdonald gasped for breath, clawing at Will as his legs buckled. Will continued to squeeze, and Josette crashed the jewel-encrusted hilt between Macdonald’s wide eyes.
Macdonald fell more or less on Josette, who jumped backward, yanking her skirts out of the way as he crashed to the ground. Macdonald thudded forward on his face and lay still, blood seeping to the sand.
Josette didn’t bother finding out whether he lived. She raced past Will and fell to her knees beside the unmoving dog.
She gathered Beitris to her, cradling her as Will sank beside them. Josette saw no blood on the dog’s fur, but she ran her hands over Beitris’s body, searching for broken bones. Will bowed his head, his cheeks wet with tears, and rested his large hand on Beitris’s side.
The dog blinked open her eyes, swiveled them to pin Josette with a welcoming gaze, and thumped her tail. She betrayed no hurt or worry as she heaved herself onto her belly and thrust her nose into Josette’s hand.
“Will!” Josette cried with gladness. “She’s alive. She’s all right.”
Will rubbed his face with the heel of his hand, smearing dirt, blood, and tears across his skin. He took in the dog who shoved her head under Josette’s arm, then he turned on Josette.
“And what the devil are you doing here?” Will demanded, voice like broken gravel. “You’re supposed to be waiting at the top with your flag.” His eyes widened as he took in the scarlet spatters on her face and gown, but she shook her head.
“This isn’t blood. I heard the shot. I feared …”
“Aye, the great bloody dog followed us, and tried to attack Macdonald. He fired at her, and she yelp
ed and fell. I thought …” Will dragged in a shuddering breath. “I thought he’d killed her.”
Beitris climbed stiffly to her feet and then shook herself. Droplets of blood flew, scattered by her tail, which she continued to wag. Josette gently caught the tail in her hand.
“The bullet grazed her. See?” She showed Will the tip of Beitris’s tail, which was stained red. “Poor thing.”
Beitris jerked her tail from Josette and put her paws on Will’s shoulders, giving him a grin before she began to thoroughly lick his face.
“Daft beastie,” he managed as he climbed to his feet. “Ruining my plans and all. And you—” Will hauled Josette up to him, his eyes flashing golden anger. “Running in here alone. The man had a gun, knives. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking of saving you,” Josette returned. “I couldn’t let him hurt you.”
“Aye, she gave him a right tap,” came the admiring tones of Bhreac. He stood just inside the cave behind Errol and Captain Ellis, who strode to bend over Macdonald’s unmoving form. “About time too. I was tired of listening to him yap.”
“Please tell me you heard everything he said.” Will addressed Captain Ellis. “I doubt he’d confess to you, even under torture.”
“I did,” Ellis answered quietly. “That he purloined a treasure sent by the King of France and kept it for himself, and sells secrets to Cumberland when it suits him. That he sells British secrets to the French when that suits him instead. I will make certain my testimony is heard and noted.”
“If any listen to it,” Bhreac said skeptically.
“They’ll listen to a hero of the Jacobite war,” Will assured him. “And to Lord Wilfort. As long as Wilfort diverted those ships here, I’m happy. Or else, I’ll just shoot Macdonald right now.”
Shouts sounded without, and Josette heard boots on rock, then the clink of swords. The men from the boats—they’d come.
Errol and Bhreac shoved Macdonald through to the outer cave, which was fast filling with water. Perhaps that was why the ships had remained out of sight, Josette thought dimly as she slid out after them. They were waiting for the tide to rise, easier for them to land.
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