The Renegade (The Renegade, Rebel and Rogue)

by Christine Dorsey

“Nay, not ye, but others that may see ye. See ye here.” He’d settled his long, spare frame in a leather chair. “I kept my loyalty with the king... by outward appearances. ’Tis what saved my land.”

  “But what of Niall?” Keegan had fought with Sir John’s son Niall, had seen him die at Culloden.

  “We chose different sides in the rebellion. At least it appeared so. ’Tis the Stuart cause we both embraced with our hearts, but there were practical things t’ consider.” His small watery eyes lingered on the portrait of a handsome young man above the hearth.

  “I was with him, standin’ near shoulder t’ shoulder, when he died.”

  The older man seemed to grow more into himself. “I’ve been told he died well, a credit t’ his clan and name.”

  “Aye.” Keegan nodded. “Ye’d have been proud.”

  “Aye proud.” Sir John took a shallow breath. “And now I’ve this house and the fields, and tenants. Niall’s sacrifice for the clan.” His palms flattened on the polished desktop. “And I don’t wish t’ be squanderin’ it by takin’ in Jacobites. Especially those with a bounty on their head.”

  “Does that mean ye won’t be helpin’ me. You’ll forget the years ye knew my da. The times the MacLeods came t’ yer service.” Keegan took one step toward him, then another.

  “Ye needn’t be remindin’ me of the past... or me debts.” He sighed heavily, then pushed to his feet.

  “I’ll help ye this once t’ leave the Highlands.”

  “But ’tis to Castle MacLeod I go.”

  “Ach and why I would ask. ’Tis nothin’ for ye there lad. It’s been confiscated. There’s been a factor named t’ collect the rents from those crofters not killed or hidin’ in the hills.”

  Both men seemed to have forgotten she was there, standing in the shadows, and for that Zoe was grateful. For she could think of nothing to say to either man to ease their discomfort. Keegan’s expression closed, his eyes narrowed, and his jaw tensed.

  “Are ye certain of yer facts?”

  “Aye, ye’ll find no friendly faces t’ greet ye at Castle MacLeod, lad. For the sake of yer father... yer brothers, I say leave this place while ye can. Take yer fine Sassenach woman and go t’ France, or the New World. There’s no place for ye here.”

  Tough as his words were, Sir John bore Keegan no malice and showed it by having two of his best horses saddled and bags filled with oatmeal and tea. He even handed over a brace of pistols that had belonged to his son. But fear of English reprisal made him refuse the pair a night of rest on linens and goosedown.

  When they left Ramsey House, riding out under a moon, muzzy in the night mist, Zoe wasn’t certain where they were heading. Sir John’s suggestions seemed to have merit.

  But here they were, two days later, looking down from the drover’s road toward a lush, green glen surrounded on two sides by hills, the third by an arm of the sea. At one end the valley narrowed, becoming little more than a ravine. A river tumbled over rocks, forming waterfalls, splashing its way toward the deep, blue loch.

  On its bank, backed to the sea stood Castle MacLeod.

  The sight of it, surrounded by the untamed beauty of the land and water, nearly took Zoe’s breath away.

  And she had only to glance toward Keegan, sitting so proudly astride his horse to know how deeply it affected him. The walls were thick, seemingly made from and part of the same rock on which it stood. Towers and chimneys thrust toward the sky. Windows sparkled in the sun. The castle stood in lonely splendor.

  Defiant.

  They can’t take this from you,” Zoe mumbled, not realizing she’d spoken aloud till Keegan shifted his mount closer to hers.

  “I fear they already have.” Keegan calmed his horse with a pat before urging him along the only path leading into the glen. “But perhaps I can reclaim what is mine. What has belonged to the MacLeods for centuries.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The closer they came to the castle, the more desolate Zoe felt. The wind seemed to share her mind, howling through the mountains. They passed charred remnants of turf houses, bothies, empty and haunting.

  But even that didn’t prepare Zoe for the feel of the ancient castle when they dismounted and climbed the stone stairs. The door opened with a creak. Inside, dark shadows and cobwebs filled the high entrance hall with gloom.

  At the base of the staircase stood a heap of charred wood. The unburned chair leg and paneled door identified the remains as furnishings.

  “What happened here?” Zoe whispered. She walked about, as if afraid to move too quickly, staring around her.

  “The English is what happened. Or the Royal Scots. Same difference,” he added his voice thick with scorn. “ ’Tis punishment for all MacLeods to have their ancestral home burned.”

  “Where are they do you suppose? All the people who lived here.” Zoe wrapped her arms about her waist, for there seemed suddenly a chill in the air.

  “Gone t’ the hills. I hope and pray.” Keegan kicked at the charred end of a piano stool, sending a cloud of ashes into the air. “For if not, they’re dead.”

  “They wouldn’t have done that...” Zoe’s eyes beseeched. “Would they?”

  Keegan just stared at her, his mouth grim. Then he turned and strode through the open doors into one of the parlors. Zoe had no choice but to follow.

  The view through the bowed windows of the churning sea below was spectacular, a cruel contrast to the destruction within. Ransacked and stripped of valuables the huge room echoed with the down-draft of wind through the chimney. Like the hallway it smelled of burned wood and wool.

  When Zoe turned away from the window she noticed Keegan staring at the spot over the hearth where the paint was lighter.

  “My mother’s portrait was there. Da had her sit for it when they were in France. Not long before she died.” He glanced toward the pile of rubbish in the center of the floor, then back at the spot where she’d once reigned over family gatherings. He turned abruptly away. “We need t’ see if there be anythin’ of value worth savin’.”

  It took them the rest of the afternoon to search the mansion. They found mice and bats in the abovestairs rooms, but no people. Most of the bedrooms had received the same treatment as the parlors and dining room downstairs. But in some of the lesser rooms, and in the servants’ quarters, it was obvious the soldiers had grown bored with their destruction.

  Zoe found clothing. Nothing so grand as her borrowed riding habit, but that outfit had been through shipwreck and bog and was sadly in need of replacement. Zoe gathered the shifts and petticoats, skirts and plaids and went in search of Keegan.

  “There’s bedding in the rooms upstairs,” she said after finding him in the bedroom once occupied by his parents. When he only nodded, she stepped forward, grabbing his arm. “You can’t let this defeat you.”

  When he turned on her his expression was every bit as wild as when he first broke through the window at her house. His eyes shone with an intensity that almost made her back away.

  But she knew him now, and was not so easily quelled. “Do you think to scare me away, Keegan? You forget I haven’t the option of leaving.”

  His face darkened, then he shut his eyes. When his thick lashes lifted again there was such pain and sorrow in their green depths Zoe couldn’t stand to look into them. “I left,” he finally said. “They didn’t want me t’. But I’d had enough of life here.” He walked to the window. As did the one downstairs this bank of leaden panes overlooked the Atlantic. “ ’Twas too desolate for me.” He lifted his shoulders. “And there were too many responsibilities.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for any of this... this...” Zoe sighed. What could she call what had happened here? She’d never seen anything like it.

  “Who would ye have me blame, yer saintly brother?”

  Zoe didn’t look away from his stare this time. “Fox wouldn’t do this.”

  “Nay?” His brow lifted. “And I suppose he wouldn’t promise me my da would be taken care of, then watch
while he was tortured?”

  Zoe’s eyes widened. “He didn’t.” Zoe straightened her shoulders. “I know Fox better than to ever accept that.”

  “The strange thing is, I thought I did, too.” Keegan shook his head. “It sounds even more ridiculous when I say the words, but there seemed t’ be something between us... I don’t know. A bond, of sorts. Like I’d known him before.” His expression hardened. “But as it happens ye’re right about one thing. He didn’t watch. He simply turned away.” Keegan did the same now, walking across the room and out the door.

  Zoe watched him leave, her mind struggling with his accusation. “He’s hurt,” she mumbled. “Trying to hurt me in return.” And it did. Not that she believed any of it. Fox simply wouldn’t break his word. He was too honorable for that.

  But a small voice whispered in her ear that war made savages of men. Made them do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. “No.” She refused to believe Fox could be anything other than the brother she knew and loved.

  But there was one thing for certain. Keegan MacLeod believed what he told her.

  ~ ~ ~

  The kitchen garden had resisted the horses’ hooves bent on its destruction. Well, at least some of it had. Zoe knelt in the dirt, using a broken spade she’d found, to dig up potatoes. Even though a chill wind blew off the sea, the sun shone brightly, making her forehead damp with sweat.

  Zoe leaned back on her heels, arching her back. Her muscles ached, and she had the strongest desire to tell someone about it. Perhaps it was more than just discomfort caused by working too hard. What if there was something wrong with her?

  With a loud sigh Zoe bent back over the hole. There probably wasn’t anything dreadfully wrong with her. And even if there was, nothing could be done. It wasn’t as if there was a doctor about. She twisted her neck this way and that. Or anyone else for that matter.

  Keegan had gone off to hunt or fish, she wasn’t sure which. He’d been rather vague. But then he hadn’t done much talking since their disagreement over her brother. He had grunted something about finding them something to eat, which had given Zoe the idea to do the same.

  She glanced over at her small pile of wrinkled potatoes, pleased with her find. If Keegan brought back a grouse, or...

  Zoe sat up, shading her eyes against the sun, and glanced toward the stand of trees off to the right. Was that the cry of a child? She listened, cocking her head, but heard only the rhythm of the waves and the howling wind. And occasionally the shattering scream of the gulls swooping over the rocks.

  Shaking her head, Zoe lifted her skirts and pushed to her feet. She was beginning to hear things in this desolate— Twisting around, Zoe dropped the spade and headed toward the woods. There was someone there. A child. She was certain.

  Zoe had almost reached the stand of trees when a man, looking as wild and unkempt as Keegan once had, leaped from the screen of leafy undergrowth.

  The man yelled.

  Zoe screamed.

  And somewhere in the woods a baby cried.

  “My goodness.” Zoe clasped her heart with her dirt encrusted hand. “You frightened me.” Actually Zoe wondered if she still should be terrified, but it was difficult to fear a man of his age. He seemed to be at least seventy, with long grizzled hair and more spaces than teeth in his mouth. He studied her with as much concern as she studied him.

  “Who are you?” Zoe finally managed to ask. “And shouldn’t someone see to that baby.”

  “Someone is, if it be any of yer concern. And I’ve a mind t’ know who comes into the laird’s garden t’ steal potatoes.”

  “I wasn’t stealing.” Zoe was indignant. “My name is Lady Zoe Morgan, and I’ve come here—”

  “With me.”

  Zoe whirled around when she heard Keegan’s firm voice. She hadn’t heard him return. And it was just as obvious the old man hadn’t heard him either. When she looked back around the man’s eyes were as big as saucers.

  “Keegan MacLeod, be that ye, or am I seein’ ghosts in me old age?”

  “I’m no apparition, Donuld MacLeod, and don’t ye ever think otherwise.”

  Zoe watched as the old man’s toothless grin lit up his weathered face. Then he gave a high nasal call. As if materializing from thin air, three women, one holding a young child, moved into the clearing. They all appeared to have the same reaction when viewing Keegan. First surprise, then jubilation.

  They ignored Zoe.

  “So tell me all of it lad. We heard ye were more fodder for the Sassenach gallows.”

  They sat in the grassy area between the forest and the garden. Keegan leaned against an ash trunk, his long legs spread in front of him, his ankles crossed. One of the women had started a peat fire, the other washed the potatoes in a nearby rivulet. Since the third had a nursing child at her breast, Zoe was left to pluck feathers from the moor fowl Keegan caught.

  Keegan gave an abbreviated version of his escape and flight from England... one that did not include kidnapping, and both men laughed and joked about the inability of the English to keep water in a pail.

  But as the potatoes and grouse roasted, their talk grew more subdued. The old man was the father of the tacksman, apparently a coveted position among the clan. Of course the son was dead, a victim of Culloden Moor.

  “Aye, we mourned them all, we did, what was left of us. The laird, sad we were at his passin’. And yer brothers, a brave and bonny lot they were.”

  “ ’Tis true. They all are heroes, dyin’ for a cause they believed in.” Keegan took a bite of the fowl. “So are there any more of ye left or is this it?” He included all the group with a sweep of his hand.

  “Nay, lad, there be more. Scattered for the most part the remainin’ MacLeod are. When the English soldiers come, we took t’ the hills. The lasses and me just wander down every now and then t’ see if we can find a bit t’ eat.” He crunched into his meat with the few teeth left in his jaw.

  “Can ye find them do ye think?”

  “Find who?” Grease dripped down the old man’s whiskered chin and he swiped at it with his sleeve.

  “The others.” Keegan bent his knees and leaned forward. “I’ve a mind t’ see what we can do about unitin’ the clan again.”

  “Unitin’?” Donuld swallowed. “Where? How?”

  “Here.” Keegan pushed to his feet. “Here at Castle MacLeod where we’ve been for hundreds of years. We’ll raise cattle and oats and fish like we—”

  “Dunn’t ye know? ’Tis not ours anymore.” Donuld jerked his hand through the air, “The castle. The land.” He shook his head on a grunt. “None of it.”

  “I won’t let them take it away.”

  “But they’ve already done it lad. ’Tis nothin’ we can do.”

  “Is that it then, we just surrender all that’s been ours for centuries?”

  “But Keegan—”

  “What have ye now? A place t’ lay yer head at night? Enough food t’ eat? Ye think I didn’t notice yer salivatin’ over the measly grouse as it roasted on the spit. This glen can support us and all the others as it’s always done.”

  “They drove away the cattle.”

  “So we’ll get more... as our ancestors did if necessary. There be more than one Loyalist clan I wouldn’t mind strippin’ of a couple dozen head of their finest cattle.” Keegan looked from one to the other. Donuld was still shaking his grizzled head but Keegan could tell he was pondering the idea. The women, only one of whom he knew by name, stared at him, then drew back to whisper to each other. It was only Zoe whose gaze never left his. Her eyes were wide and as grey as the mist crowning the summits beyond the glen. He wished he could tell what she was thinking.

  “Ye know they’ll come,” Donuld began. “The factor...”

  “We’ll turn him away.”

  “The English troops.”

  What could he say to that? He knew as well as anyone what well-trained soldiers could do. But the MacLeods of old had built their stronghold to stand against man’s forces as
well as nature’s. There was but one land way into the glen. And the path was so narrow, the sides so steep, it only took a few well-placed men to defend it.

  The seaside was well insulated as well, with offshore rocks and currents that deterred any large-scale invasion. Did he think a few score tenants and crofters could hold out against the power and might of the British army? Nay. But as he’d said earlier, what choice did they have?

  Letting out his breath, Keegan stood, planting his feet firmly on the ground. “We’ll see about the soldiers when the time comes. There be more than one way t’ fight.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “What is it you wish to tell me?” Lord Foxworth glanced up from the map of the Highlands he was studying. His eyes narrowed as they fell on the disreputable figure on the other side of the desk. He was short, a seafarer by the cut of his clothing, which was torn and in sad need of a washing. As was the man himself. His hair hung limp and greasy from a kerchief tied about his head. But it was the stub where his left arm once was that caught Fox’s attention. He quickly pulled his gaze to the man’s face.

  “I’ve been waiting since yesterday to see you, goven’r.”

  And he wouldn’t be granting him an audience now if he hadn’t said one name that could gain it. Keegan MacLeod.

  “Yes, well I apologize for the delay. Fox leaned back in his chair. When his aide first informed him of the civilian wishing to discuss something private with him, Fox had brushed the request aside. The Highlands were full of Scots wanting this and that from the government. But it was not his duty to give them any special privileges. He was here for one reason and one reason only.

  “I hear you’re looking for that rebel bastard, Keegan MacLeod.”

  “I am.” His purpose was hardly a secret, and this was not the first person to come to him with wild tales of spotting the fugitive. He usually was described as near seven feet tall, with flames shooting from his mouth and eyes like burning peat. This damn MacLeod was becoming a folk hero among these people.

  But Fox knew the true MacLeod. He was no mythical character, no superhuman being, despite the fact that he’d escaped from New Gaol. He was just a man. A despicable one at that. A man who would steal a poor sick woman from her deathbed and... Fox didn’t want to think about what had happened to his beloved sister.