The Highland Commander

by Amy Jarecki

  Prince George lumbered to his feet. He offered his hand to the queen. “My dearest, you must be beside yourself. Did I hurt you, my love?”

  The Earl of Mar hastened to grasp the queen’s other elbow. “Please, allow me to help.”

  Nodding, Queen Anne allowed the men to help her lumber to her feet. “I am unscathed… I do believe. Perhaps a bit riled.”

  “That certainly is understandable, Your Majesty,” said the Earl of Sussex as he righted the throne.

  The door opened and in rushed the Duchess of Marlborough, leading the queen’s ladies-in-waiting.

  “What on earth happened?” asked the duchess.

  Lady Saxonhurst stopped midstride, sucking in a high-pitched gasp. Then she shook her finger at Maddie. “This is her fault. I asked Magdalen to replace the candles, and while she did it, she loosened the chandelier from its support. I am sure of it.”

  Clasping her hands to her chest, Maddie shrank backward. “I did no such thing.”

  “Call the guard!” Prince George glared at Maddie as if she’d just attempted murder. “Someone restrain this woman before the entire ceiling comes crashing down upon us.”

  Every person cringed and looked to the ornate relief above.

  In seconds six guards armed with pikes barreled into the chamber. “We heard the commotion from the courtyard.”

  “It was Lady Magdalen,” Saxonhurst shrieked, again pointing to Maddie. “She’s the Earl Marischal’s daughter—a man formerly imprisoned for being a traitor.”

  “I-I merely replaced the candles.” Maddie instinctively backed away from the guards, but still they seized her wrists. Jolting at the affront, she twisted against their grasps with little effect. “Everyone kens as well as I that my father is innocent.”

  The countess snorted. “Oh please. We all know he intended to march straight to London with the Pretender.”

  “I cannot abide treacherous urchins in my court,” fumed the queen. “I should have known not to open my arms and allow an ungrateful Highland woman into my inner circle. Trusting Scots is akin to trusting the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Take her to the Tower. I never want to set eyes on her again.”

  Maddie’s gaze snapped to the Earl of Mar, who merely shook his head.

  Would no one rise to her defense? “This is absurd.” Maddie again struggled against the guards’ iron grips while they strained to tug her toward the door. “I did nothing but replace the candles as Lady Saxonhurst directed. How on earth could I be held responsible for this? How many other people touched the chandelier this day?”

  The queen turned her face away. Lady Saxonhurst stepped into Maddie’s view, a smirk playing on her lips. “You have said quite enough.”

  Digging in her heels, Maddie narrowed her eyes at the evil countess. “’Tis you, is it not? At every turn you’ve tried to falsely implicate me.”

  “Oh?” The countess spun and faced the cabinet ministers. “You heard her. Now the earl’s bastard daughter is attempting to cast the blame to me… and when that spy has been caught in the act.”

  “Take her away,” commanded Prince George. “She will hang from the Tower’s gallows!”

  Maddie’s throat closed as the guards muscled her into the passageway. Her mind raced. She’d done nothing but give up the things she held dear to remain at court and play the blasted harp for the ungrateful queen, and this was how she was repaid? A clammy chill coursed over her skin as her breathing grew shallow and stuttered.

  Hang? Oh God. This cannot be happening.

  “Please! Someone fetch my father!”

  As Aiden made his way to the sparring court, a booming crash came from the queen’s apartments. In the blink of an eye, a mob swarmed toward the source of the sound.

  “’Tis the harpist. She rigged the chandelier!” someone shouted.

  The crowd erupted into a rumbling mass of dissention.

  Aiden’s gut gripped as he pushed ahead, straining to see over the tops of heads. But he didn’t need to push inside the passageway to know Maddie had been framed.

  The harpist rigged the chandelier? Preposterous.

  When Prince George’s voice carried outside the halls with a deep bellow, declaring she would be hanged from the Tower’s gallows, Aiden darted away from the crowd and ran for the stables. The mob would soon be shouting for a swift trial and execution, and the Earl Marischal would be powerless to stop them.

  By the time they figured out that Maddie was innocent, it would be too late.

  The more Aiden considered the direness of her plight, the faster he ran. Ahead a groom led a saddled hackney toward the barn. Dashing straight for him, Aiden reached for the reins. “I need this mount.”

  “But ’tis Lord Blackiron’s horse.”

  Aiden shoved his foot into the stirrup, chuckling at the irony. “It is he who is behind my urgency to make haste.”

  Before the groom could utter another word, Aiden mounted and dug in his heels, spurring the horse to a gallop. Shod hooves smacked the cobblestones.

  Aiden prayed that for once time would be in his favor.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  After slapping manacles on her wrists, two guards shoved Maddie into a coach with iron bars on the windows and bolted the door shut. Trapped within, she pounded on the side. “I am innocent!”

  “Lies,” shouted a woman’s voice, followed by taunts and jeers from the crowd.

  “Never trust a bastard,” a man bellowed.

  As the coach pulled away from Whitehall, it seemed every person in London had come to shout taunts at Maddie. Something hit the bars and oozed down the inside of the door—it stank like horse dung. Maddie pushed herself into the far corner, praying the nightmare would end.

  Tears filled her eyes as she frantically twisted her wrists against her shackles. Shoving the right bracelet downward, she squeezed her fingers together and tugged with all her might. As she twisted, a bit of skin scraped off. Blast it. The manacles had been locked so tightly around her wrists, there wasn’t the least bit of give.

  The coach swayed and bumped over the cobblestones, but mercifully, the farther they traveled from Whitehall the more the shouts ebbed. Thank heavens the vile courtiers weren’t running alongside the coach with their taunts.

  Maddie pressed her face into her palms. Her mind raced. How in heaven’s name would she free herself from this mess?

  Please, Da. Make haste.

  Though her father was her only hope, she feared there would be nothing he could do. He was still under scrutiny for marching his army to Edinburgh to meet King James.

  Aye, she’d replaced the candles in the chandelier. She had been all but ordered to do so by the countess. Everyone had seen her.

  Who else touched it?

  Innumerous servants for certain.

  She closed her eyes and recalled that the Duchess of Marlborough had been the one to wind it back into place—but the duchess had used a crank on the wall, and of all the ladies-in-waiting, the duchess was the closest with the queen and the least likely to do anything to harm Her Majesty. In fact, the Duchess of Marlborough’s husband was Britain’s champion general leading the troops on the Continent.

  Perhaps her father could find a solicitor to help prove her innocence? Would there be time, or would her hanging be ordered for the morrow?

  Her entire body shuddered.

  This cannot be happening.

  Who would be so evil as to do such a thing? Maddie’s mind went straight to Lady Saxonhurst. That woman somehow staged the whole affair to make me look the guilty party.

  But that made no sense. The countess was but a distant cousin to the queen. She had no right to the succession, though she abhorred Jacobites. If she was responsible, what was her motive? Blackiron?

  The pair of them had accused her father of being a Jacobite at the Hallowmas eve ball. And everyone knew Blackiron to be a staunch Whig.

  Maddie whimpered in the darkness of the coach.

  If the countess wasn’t involved
, if she truly suspected Maddie of treason, then who had rigged the chandelier? Had it been an accident?

  What if Queen Anne had been killed? Had someone truly tried to assassinate her?

  Maddie groaned. The reason for the accident didn’t matter. She was on a course to her execution, and she doubted there was a soul in all of London rational enough to discover the true cause of the incident.

  Ice pulsed through her veins.

  She clutched her fingers around her throat.

  I am going to be hanged by the neck until I expire.

  She sat frozen in the corner of the coach, too frightened to blink. Too frightened to swallow. What would it feel like to die? To have a rope slid over her head and tightened around her neck, and then, with a fatal push, to have the life choked out of her?

  She could feel it now. The coarse hemp rope cutting into her flesh and constricting.

  Oh God, help.

  Three miles took an eternity to traverse, but when the coach came to a halt, Maddie wished it had kept going, had left the city and headed north, had taken her far from this nightmare and the queen and court and all the horrible courtiers. She held her breath and listened for taunts, but the only noise was of the guards hopping from the driver’s seat, followed by the soles of their shoes slapping cobblestones.

  The door opened and the light from the setting sun blinded her. “I-I was merely playing my harp,” she tried to explain.

  A thud and a grunt sounded.

  Maddie clutched her fists beneath her chin. “It was Lady Saxonhurst who asked me to replace the candles.”

  Two more grunts followed. Something smashed into the side of the coach, then sounded as if it dropped to the ground.

  Maddie’s fists refused to stop shaking, no matter how tightly she squeezed her fingers. “The c-c-c-countess has behaved horribly toward me the entire time I’ve been at Whitehall.”

  “Maddie, come!” Through the glare Aiden’s face appeared, surrounded by white light as if he were an angel sent from heaven.

  Had fear killed her?

  She sucked in a sharp breath. “Have I already died?”

  “Nay, you are as alive as I.” He thrust out his hand. “We must hurry.”

  Shaking like a leaf in the wind, Maddie reached out with her manacled wrists. Aiden grasped her hand and pulled. Before her feet hit the ground, he had cradled her in his arms. Big, strong arms surrounded her and renewed her strength. Lord Almighty, the power that surged from him was palpable…

  But why was he there?

  Where had he come from?

  “I, ah…” Blinking, she glanced down. One guard lay flat on his face, and the other rested askew against the coach wheel.

  “What happened?”

  Aiden hastened toward a hackney stallion. “I readjusted their priorities.”

  “You wha—?” Her body sailed through the air. Maddie had known Aiden was strong, but she’d never thought him powerful enough to toss her onto a horse as if she weighed no more than a bag of oats. She’d barely had time to find her seat when, with one leap, he launched himself behind her and dug in his heels. After two trotting steps, the horse picked up speed into a canter.

  “We must haste,” Aiden growled in her ear.

  Clutching the stallion’s mane, she glanced back at the guards now starting to rouse. “To where?”

  “Blackwall Port.” Aiden’s voice rolled with the cadence of the horse.

  “Is the Royal Mary there?”

  “Highly unlikely. She’ll be in Portsmouth for another month.”

  “But—?”

  “Wheesht.” The reins cracked on the horse’s shoulders. “Lean forward. We must ride like hellfire.”

  “The prisoner’s escaping!” yelled a deep voice, made softer by the growing distance.

  Picking up speed, they nearly plowed into an old man with a barrow. Aiden steered the hackney around coaches and street vendors like Satan was on their heels.

  After pulling to a stop at the wharf, Aiden hopped down, then reached up to Maddie. “I’ll find us a boat.”

  “Why are you helping me?” she asked, placing her hands on his shoulders as his big hands closed around her waist.

  He grinned as he lowered her feet to the ground. Aye, in the face of certain death, the Marquis of Tullibardine smiled with those boyish dimples as if he hadn’t a care. Then he looked at her wrists and cursed. “Damnation.” Reaching into his sporran, he glanced over his shoulder. “Hold still.”

  She nodded and watched while he twisted a metal pick into one of the padlocks. With a flick of his wrist, it sprang open. He did the same thing to the next, then scooted sideways and dropped them into an empty barrel.

  “How did you do that?”

  “An old navy trick.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward a two-masted brig, her sails unfurled and picking up wind.

  “Where are you sending me?”

  “Home.” He tugged her arm.

  The skin had been rubbed raw, but at the moment Maddie would follow this man anywhere, even if he didn’t love her. Even if he had made her feel like a used carpet for anyone to wipe their feet upon. The Marquis of Tullibardine had come a long way toward exonerating himself.

  With purpose he strode up the gangway. “Where are you headed?” he asked of a seaman.

  “Alnwick.”

  “Indeed, luck is with us. Can you take on a pair of passengers?”

  A man dressed in a doublet with gold trim and looking like a captain with periwig and tricorn hat pattered down from the helm. “We’ve no cabins to spare. You’ll have to bed down belowdecks.”

  Aiden dug in his sporran. “That shouldn’t bother us overmuch, given it is a short jaunt to Alnwick.”

  “The fare is four crowns.”

  “Four?” Aiden looked as if he was about to pull Maddie off the boat.

  “The extra weight will slow us down.”

  “Hardly,” Aiden grumbled under his breath, but he placed the required fare in the man’s outstretched palm. “When do we sail?”

  “As soon as you step off my gangway so the men can draw it in.”

  “Very well.” Tugging Maddie’s raw wrist, Aiden pulled her onto the deck. “I am Mr. Blair and this is my lady wife.”

  “Captain Child.” His gaze sliding to her breasts, the captain shoved the coins in his purse, then held out his hand to Aiden. “What is your business in Alnwick?”

  The gangway scraped the deck as two sailors pulled it aboard.

  “Edinburgh, actually.” Frowning, Aiden brushed his fingers over the ship’s rail and then rubbed them as if he’d met with unseemly dirt. “I am an officer aboard a Firth ferry and must make haste to rejoin my crew.”

  Maddie gave him a sideways glance. His lies sounded like the honest truth.

  Captain Child squinted, looking beyond them. “You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you?”

  Aiden glanced over his shoulder. Maddie did, too. A retinue hastened toward the wharf. “No trouble at all.” He pulled her to his far side, blocking her from view from the shore.

  “How long will it take to sail to Alnwick?” she asked.

  “Weigh anchor,” hollered the captain before he answered, “We’ll sail through the night, madam. I suggest you and your husband head aft and make yourselves comfortable.”

  As they moved toward the rear of the brig, Maddie kept her head down, letting her shoulders fall forward as she leaned into Aiden as if she were elderly. “Do you think they’ve seen us?”

  “Not yet,” he whispered, and he pulled his tricorn hat lower on his brow. “But once they identify Blackiron’s horse, it won’t take long for them to fit the pieces together… and the harbormaster will ken where this ship is sailing.”

  “Do you think they’ll follow us to Alnwick?”

  “Aye, but I do not plan on staying there long.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  He spread his palms with a shrug. “I heard the crash and someone shouted that the har
pist had rigged the chandelier. I reckon that’s all it took. I kent if I didn’t take action straightaway, you’d be locked in the Tower, and once you were inside, there’d be no chance for rescue.”

  “But you’ll be implicated in this horrible sham.”

  “I reckon so, m’lady.”

  The ship rocked and groaned as she began to sail into the Thames, headed for the open sea. “So you’re my knight in shining armor?” she whispered.

  “Nay. I do not even own a coat of armor—at least I don’t think I do. I haven’t seen a report of my assets as of yet.”

  “I’m sorry to be such an unmitigated bother. Why didn’t you leave me aboard the ship and return to Whitehall?”

  “Are you jesting? Do you not remember the guards I knocked unconscious? Both of them will be pointing their fingers my way when they come to.”

  “Oh, my word. I’ve placed you in an untenable situation.”

  Aiden grasped her hand and held it to his heart. “Not at all, m’lady. In fact, a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.”

  Maddie knitted her brows. “Pardon?”

  “At this very moment, I feel like a bird released from its cage.”

  “Stop that brig!” a dragoon shouted from the shore, still only fifty yards away.

  Both Maddie and Aiden peered over the ship’s rail and watched the redcoats stand helpless as the brig picked up speed. The problem? Several members of the crew watched the dragoons as well.

  Aiden pulled her down a set of steps. “We’d best stay out of sight in case they decide to start shooting off their muskets.”

  Maddie squeezed his hand tightly. “I’ve ruined you.”

  “Nay, m’lady. It is I who have ruined myself.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  After their near brush with the soldiers on the wharf, Aiden had found a pallet of straw belowdecks near the bow, and as far as they could be from the crew’s hammocks. Once they were settled, he’d gone to the galley to ask for a bit of bread and bully beef. Other than that, they’d stayed out of sight. Aye, the crew had seen the soldiers, but thus far no one had sought them out to ask why they had been so anxious to board the merchant brig. With luck the crew would continue to mind their own affairs.