Charles cried, “Stay back, for the love of heaven!”
“Have a care,” called Victor, groping about for the tinder-box. “He may be only winged and have another pistol!”
“I—wish to God I did … damn you!”
The voice was young, breathless, and pained. It was certainly not the voice of Roland Fairleigh, and Victor swore for his rashness as he scraped at the tinder-box and awoke a flame.
Charles groaned. “Howard!”
“Oh—blast,” muttered Victor, lighting the candle.
Howard Singleton, an expression of bitter hatred on his pale face, was beside the desk, struggling up from his knees and clutching his shoulder painfully.
“I’m most damnably sorry.” Repentant, Victor started towards him. “I thought a—er, thief was—”
“You—filthy—lying—Jacobite scum!” snarled Singleton between his teeth. “Stay back! I’d sooner die than have your bloody hands touch me!”
Victor looked grimly at Charles and halted.
“Howard,” said Charles gently, “You must let us help you. We had no idea ’twas you in here, and—”
“Damn your treacherous soul,” hissed Singleton, turning on his cousin like a madman. “You! A man of—God! A man I—I honoured and I—looked up to all my life! Hal’s closest friend! ‘Like brothers’ you said to me when we heard he’d been killed. Brothers!” He laughed in a shrill, hysterical travesty of mirth. “Your ‘brother’ is slaughtered! And you help his murderers get away! Oh Lord, what stinking hypocrisy!”
Deborah ran into the room. “Howard! My heavens! What—”
“Stay back, Deb!” he shouted. “They’re traitors! Both of ’em! Victor’s bad enough, for he’s a sneaking Jacobite, but—Charles! Our saintly, gentle Charles is the ringleader of a nest of the traitorous vermin!”
“What the devil … are you … raving about?” thundered a new voice.
The reactions to that voice were extreme. Deborah gave a whimpering little cry and shrank back. Rosamond, who had entered behind her, flung both hands to her mouth and crouched, watching her father with wide, terrified eyes. Victor groaned several oaths under his breath and stepped nearer to his friend. Charles closed his eyes for a brief second, then, white to the lips, turned to face his sire.
Considerably out of breath, the colonel stood in the open doorway, a bright purple dressing gown over his night-shirt, and in his hands a bell-mouthed blunderbuss. He wore no wig, but his greying, grizzled hair added somehow to the power and the unyielding force that radiated from him. Rosamond had never seen just that look on her father’s countenance, and for an instant she could picture him on the battlefield, and was able to understand why his men had so feared and respected him. His hawk gaze ran swiftly around the dramatic tableau, then he stamped into the room.
“Sir—” began Charles in a strained but controlled voice.
The colonel ignored him. “Who shot the boy?”
“I did, sir,” said Victor. “But I’d no idea it was Singleton.”
“Hah!” snorted Howard shrilly. “Liar! Filthy—”
“That will do!” rasped the colonel. “Deborah, see to your brother’s hurt. Here—use this.”
She advanced, shaking, and took the handkerchief he proffered. “Uncle,” she said pleadingly, “’tis not—”
“Be still!” he snapped. “Rosamond, what you and Deborah are doing down here at this hour of the night is past my comprehension, but you will, I feel sure, have a proper explanation to give me! Wake up, miss, and close the door at once! If we’ve dirty linen to wash, ’twill be done in private.”
“Dirty … linen?” Singleton refused to sit down as his sister urged, but allowed her to ease off his coat, revealing the wet and scarlet stain above his collar-bone. “’Tis more than that, Uncle,” he gasped, leaning back against the desk. “Unless you are—prepared to name high treason as—dirty linen!”
The colonel blanched, but said harshly, “What I’m prepared to do is suppose you are run mad, boy! God knows I pity you for what you’ve suffered. But if you fancy I will believe my son to be a traitor to his country, you’re fair and far out!”
“I would not believe, either!” cried Howard, his voice strained, his young face a mask of pain and fury. “Not at first. For a long time I have thought it odd that Charles had been so sure of a living, but suddenly was no better than a temporary vicar, filling in for clergy who were ill or on holiday. About a month since I chanced to mention it to a friend whose father is a vicar in Essex, and he later told me his papa thought the whole procedure most peculiar, but had been told on enquiry that Charles had requested such an arrangement due to ill health. I was sure that was not true, but thought perhaps Charles had not pleased at Little Snoring and was being disciplined.” He gripped his arm and shifted painfully, then went on, “Since Hal’s death, I walk alone at night, for I find it hard to sleep. And often I have seen Charles down here in the wee hours of the morning, and sometimes, other men creeping in and out with great quiet and secrecy! I thought no more of it than that he was involved with Free Traders, so said nothing.”
The colonel frowned and looked from under beetling brows at his son, but did not interrupt.
“When Mr. Fairleigh came to our home,” Singleton continued, “I tried to discover if he knew aught of the business. But he turned the conversation most deftly and—and before I knew it, was telling me some tale of a stolen parchment writ by William Shakespeare. During our visit here yesterday, I sensed an air of—of extreme tension. When Victor was telling Mama and me about my—my brother’s death, I saw Rosamond look at him in a flame, and—”
“And it sounds to me, m’boy, as if you’ve made a molehill into a damned fine dung-heap,” interrupted the colonel irascibly. “Of all the half-formed, inconclusive—”
Singleton took a torn piece of paper from his pocket and thrust it at the colonel. “D’you call that inconclusive, sir?” he demanded shrilly.
The colonel peered intently at the writing. “I call it cursed nonsensical,” he growled. “Cattle sleep at night … riding off … quiet in the city … csandtefr … coococ … Bilge, sir! Gibberish!”
Victor, shifting his weight forward, was preparing to rush the colonel and grab that blunderbuss. Charles, watching him narrowly, was nerving himself for his own move.
“’Tis a code, Uncle!” cried Howard, his white face twisted with hurt and disillusion. “Don’t you see, sir? Fairleigh was trying to find out how much I knew!”
“Knew? By Aphrodite’s stay-laces!—knew about what?”
“About the cypher, Uncle Lennox! The cypher all England seeks! The cypher with the poem! Don’t you see, sir? This is part of an attempt to break a code! And they burnt some papers. I smelt it when I came in, and found a scrap on the hearth. ’Tis the parchment Fairleigh spoke of, I warrant, and poetry, no doubt, though none ever dreamt of by Will Shake____” He gave a gasp and was momentarily unable to continue as Deborah gently peeled his shirt from a deep graze across the base of his neck.
Victor had eased a pace forward.
The colonel, very white now, turned an astounded gaze on his son.
“Sir,” said Charles. “I can—”
“You can keep your tongue between your teeth,” growled the colonel in a voice of ice. “I’ll hear your side of this, when—”
“Your pardon, but you will hear it now, if you please.” Charles spoke as coldly and compellingly as his father. His fair head was proudly erect, his eyelids slightly drooping over the blue eyes in which the colonel had never seen anything but a calm patience, but that now held the glitter of steel. “You’d as well know, sir,” said Charles. “I have been helping Jacobite fugitives.”
17
Those dread words seemed to hang and vibrate on a well of silence that was broken by Deborah’s faintly gasped “But— ’tis not what you think, Uncle Len! He—”
The colonel’s face had become livid. His shoulders bent forward slightly, his head outthrusting, he advanced on his son
, overriding his niece’s words. “You—dare—to admit yourself a traitor to England? You dare to say you have betrayed us all? That you have fouled the honour of this house?”
The hushed quality of his words was more terrible than any shout, but Charles made no attempt to retreat. “The honour of our country has already been fouled,” he asserted levelly. “To defeat an enemy is one thing. To perpetrate the atrocities that Cumberland has unleashed in—”
“Why, you—muling … weak-kneed—WOMAN!” thundered the colonel. His fist flew up.
Rosamond screamed.
Victor sprang between father and son and grabbed that flying arm. The colonel was more than thirty years his senior, but he was a powerful and enraged man and it was all Victor could do to maintain his hold. Hanging on desperately, he gasped, “Sir! Let him speak! Do not do something you’ll regret all—”
With a mighty heave, the colonel tore free and Victor was sent reeling back.
“So you’re in this too, are you?” shouted the colonel.
“He’s an impostor!” accused Howard, pushing Deborah aside as she struggled to restrain him. “I’ll stake my life on it, sir! I heard him whispering to Rosamond’s maid last evening. She’s a Scot, and they were speaking in the Gaelic. Is what convinced me he is an escaped Jacobite!”
“What? Why, you treacherous hound! Hiding your filthy carcass in my home! Ogling my daughter! Accepting my hospitality when— By God—you’re not fit to live, sir!” The blunderbuss whipped up, the passion in the empurpled face, the glare in the glittering eyes leaving no doubt of his intent.
Knowing he was a hair’s breadth from death, Victor held his head high, and declared, “Aye, I’m a Scot! And proud of it!”
The colonel’s lips curled back from his teeth in a hideous grin and his finger tightened on the trigger. “You may be proud—all the way to hell,” he purred.
Charles stepped very close to Victor. “You will kill us both an you fire, sir.”
A muscle jerked in the colonel’s cheek. Briefly, anguish came into his eyes, but they hardened and he said relentlessly, “As well, perhaps. A mercy for all of us!” He steadied his aim.
Rosamond ran to fling her arms about Victor and stand pressed against him despite his efforts to tear her away. “Then you must kill me, too!” she sobbed.
“And me!” cried Deborah, crossing to Charles. “I am as guilty as your son!”
“My … God!” gasped the colonel, the weapon sagging and his face becoming ashen. “Am I … gone mad … or—”
Howard, as stricken, gasped, “Deb! Not you? Ah—no! Not you! I thought— Oh, my dear Lord! ’Twill kill Mama! How could you? Y-you loved Hal as—”
“It was because I loved Hal!”
Charles said sharply, “No, Deb!”
“Too late for that, friend,” said Victor wearily. “Sir—your son is—”
“Don’t listen to him, Uncle,” cried Howard. “He lies as easily as he breathes! You heard what he told Mama about—about my brother’s death. All stinking falsehoods to protect his skulking cowardice! Deny that if you can, traitor!”
Victor frowned and pushed Rosamond away from him. “I lied,” he admitted.
The colonel, who had been momentarily too stunned to speak, uttered an inarticulate growl and swung up the blunderbuss again.
“Shoot—if that is all will satisfy your blood-lust,” Victor went on scornfully. He stood very straight and held the stuggling Rosamond away from him with one hand, then said, “Give over, lass!” in a tone that made her shrink into stillness. “Fire that weapon ’gainst your son and me,” repeated Victor, “but, by the Lord Harry, I’ll use my last breath to tell you something, proud, arrogant Sassenach that you are. My father’s no colonel—only a Scottish professor of archaeology. He has no great fortune, no lofty title, no military rank, but he’s ten times the human being you are, Colonel Lennox Albritton! He’d ne’er condemn his son unheard—no matter what the charge, or who brought it!”
“How … dare you?” spluttered the colonel, still holding the blunderbuss levelled.
“I dare,” rejoined Victor ringingly, “because I know your son! How sad, sir, that you cannot say as much!”
“That’s enough, Rob____” said Charles. “Do not—”
“Damme but I shall! You are a blind man, Colonel! You sneer at Charles, mistaking compassion for timidity, and gentleness for weakness, and you never see the strength and the gallantry because it does not shout and bluster and wear a pretty red uniform!”
“By … by the—” gobbled the colonel, all but apoplectic, the blunderbuss shaking in his hands.
“He is a man of God!” cried Victor, even louder. “He saw it as his duty to help those who were persecuted and hounded and tormented! Have you any least notion, Colonel, of how many lives your— ‘muling, weak-kneed’ son has saved? Can you even begin to imagine the desperate chances he has taken—the number of times death has missed him by a whisper? He does not wage war, sir! He seeks only to help the innocent—”
“The traitors, you mean!” roared the colonel. “The worthless ingrates who turned against their king and country! Perhaps my renegade son can offer me his justification for saving such riff-raff! Eh, Reverend? CAN YOU?”
Angered, Victor started to retaliate.
“Be still, Rob!” said Charles in a voice none of them had ever heard before. “I will speak for myself, an you please!”
“The words have not been invented that could defend you!” snarled his father.
“I will speak, nonetheless,” said Charles. “You have your code, sir. It is not, nor ever has been, mine, but you despised me because I would not follow it. Always, I have fallen short of your expectations, I am well aware. Now, I have broken the law of the land, and you have every right to hand me over for punishment. I will not defend my actions, nor do I ask you to forgive me. I ask only that you believe I did not lightly take a step which was contrary to everything I have ever believed in. My reasons are my own, but they were most deeply considered and in my prayers for guidance, I—”
“Have done!” rasped the colonel with biting contempt. “’Fore heaven, sir, you make me want to vomit with your considerings and your prayers! You have admitted to being the vilest thing known to civilization! A traitor! You have betrayed your country; your family; and especially, may God forgive you, your valiant cousin, whom you have the foul gall to name your dearest friend and who died—”
“Alone, starved, hounded, cruelly slow,” put in Rosamond, white and tearful, but determined, “in the mountains of Scotland.”
Howard gave a gasp and stared at her in bewilderment.
“My beloved brother gave his life for the man he idolized,” said Deborah, wringing her hands, her voice shaking, but standing by her cousin. “Prince Charles Edward Stuart!”
The colonel almost dropped the blunderbuss and, recovering it, stood gaping at her.
“You have lost your mind!” cried Singleton, horrified. “You must be mad, Deborah, to speak such a wicked untruth of my brother!”
She turned to him, tears coming into her eyes. “Howard—oh, my dear, what else do you suppose would have driven Charles to help Jacobite fugitives? Why would I work with him in his brave efforts, except out of loving memory of my so dear brother…” Her voice broke. She put her hands to her mouth to stifle her sobs.
Charles said in his cool fashion, “Sir, you are a soldier, and I dare believe a splendid one. I’ll own that England fights her battles with pride and with a degree of sportsmanship seldom equalled in this sorry world. But can you truly admire what Cumberland is doing now? Is a rebellion—however wrong you may judge it—just grounds for wholesale slaughter of the innocent? For the savage hunting down and tormenting and merciless extermination of honourable fighting men? And all this misery continuing long after the Rebellion is crushed and—”
“Here it is! This way, you men!”
The shout from the garden jolted everyone in that tension-filled room.
&nb
sp; Heedless of the colonel’s blunderbuss, Victor leaped to peep around the edge of the curtains. “Dragoons!” he gritted, his eyes gleaming with desperation.
The colonel’s chin jutted.
Correctly interpreting that determined look, Charles warned quietly, “Sir, you must be very careful of what you say when you denounce me, lest all here are thrown under suspicion!”
Colonel Albritton scowled, but glanced uneasily at Singleton and the two frightened girls.
There was no time for more. Boots were stamping up the steps. The door was flung wide. An officer stood silhouetted against the dark greyness of the dawn sky, several dim figures behind him.
Captain Jacob Holt stepped inside, sent a shrewd glance around the silent occupants, and threw the colonel a brisk salute. “Trouble here, I see,” he said. And with a hard stare at Charles, “Cannot say I’m surprised.” His mouth a thin hard line, he marched over to Victor.
Charles’s fists clenched. Determined not to be taken alive, Victor stood very still, poised for his last battle. Rosamond, her heart leaping with suffocating violence, thought over and over again, ‘Please, Lord … Please, Lord…’
The colonel said heavily, “Captain, I regret to—”
“A moment, sir, with your permission,” interrupted Holt’s cold voice. “Very glad we have found you, Victor. I doubt there’s much can be done, but I shall ask that you let the young fellow wait for a few minutes.” He turned about and gestured impatiently. “Bring him in!”
Confused and offstride, Victor looked past him. Two dragoons supported a limp figure between them. A man who wore no coat, his dark head sagging, and his legs trailing helplessly as they bore him inside.
Rosamond watched in bewilderment, and as the dragoons lowered their burden to lie on his right side on the settle, she could barely conceal her astonishment. The dark hair was dishevelled, but that it had earlier been neatly tied back was apparent. The tall figure was clad with elegance, despite the torn shirt and the great blotches and stains that so terribly marred the snowy linen. The gentleman’s eyes were closed, the once sardonic mouth now showing a vulnerable droop in the relaxation of unconsciousness, but the high-peaked brows, the waxen features were unmistakable. She thought, stunned, ’Tis Billy Coachman!’
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