Clearly stunned by his mistress’s vehemence, Robert flinched out of her way, flattening himself against the panelled wall as she brushed past. His eyes remained owlish and watery as he swallowed and glanced nervously at the two remaining ladies.
“B-break down the door?” he stammered. “Carry him out over ma shoulder?” He paused and gulped again. “But … he’s The Stuart!”
“Well, I have no qualms about stirring the royal buttocks,” Catherine said firmly. “Take us to his rooms, then fetch two more sets of plain, warm clothing. Find Corporal Peters … Corporal Jeffrey Peters. He shouldn’t be too far if he’s heard there is trouble on the way … and have him waiting at the front door for us with horses and men to guard the prince. What are these caves you mentioned?”
Robert stumbled along beside them as he led the way down the hall. The tartan was becoming tangled around his bony legs, the trailing ends flapping this way and that, and he seemed to be having difficulty thinking, talking, and walking at the same time. Deirdre relieved him of the garments, earning a smile of gratitude.
“Aye,” he said. “The caves up the glen. There’s nae a house nor castle in the Heelands disna have a hidey-hole somewheres, by-the-by.”
“Do you know the way? Can you lead us there?” “Aye. Aye, I could dae.”
“Good. Then you’d best fetch some warmer clothes for yourself as well. And weapons. Pistols or muskets … even a fowling piece will do. And quickly. We’ll take care of the prince.”
Robert left them at the royal chamber and hurried away, repeating his instructions to himself in muttered Gaelic.
“Your Highness?” Catherine rapped sharply on the door. “Are you awake?”
When there was no answer, she tested the latch, not surprised to find it still securely locked.
“Your Highness? This is Lady Catherine. I must see you at once on a matter of great urgency.”
“Go away” came the muffled rejoinder. “I am not well …”
Catherine frowned and rattled the latch again. “Your Highness, I do not wish to alarm you, but there are soldiers on their way from Inverness. They have intentions of surrounding Moy Hall and taking you prisoner.”
“Have they a reputable physician with them?” the voice said, quavering. “If they do, I should gladly throw myself upon their mercy.”
Catherine looked at Deirdre. “What shall we do?”
“I doubt if we could break the door ourselves,” Deirdre said, studying the thick wooden panel skeptically. “We might have to go back down and—”
The key scraped into the lock and a bleary, bloodshot eye appeared in the crack of the door.
“Good God. Lady Catherine, it is you.” The crack widened and the eye narrowed as if to see through the alcoholic vapors of his own breath. “And Mrs. MacKail. What manner of mischief brings you clamoring to my rooms at this ungodly hour?”
“Sire. There are soldiers on their way from Inverness.”
“So you said. What do they want?”
Catherine held her patience in check, wondering why it was that all men seemed to revert to infancy when assailed by the slightest sniffle or sneeze? “They most likely want you, your Highness. We must, therefore, take you up into the hills and conceal you before they have a chance to succeed.”
“Into the hills?” he exclaimed. “In the abominable damp? I should die of the pneumonia long before I so much as saw a hill, never mind climbed one. Here—feel my brow. Does it not cry out for bedrest?”
Without leaving Catherine the choice, he snatched up her hand and pressed it to his forehead. Granted, there was some warmth under her fingertips, but she suspected it was more a result of the empty bottle she saw lying on its side by the bed than because of any fever he might be nursing.
She pushed her way into the room, wrinkling her nose distastefully at the smell of stale air, whisky, and a lidless chamber pot. The prince was similarly unkempt. The threads of fair reddish-blond hair that poked out from beneath his nightcap were scattered about his ears and temples, too thin and wispy to have retained any curl. His complexion was sallow, his brown eyes ringed with dark smudges. The linen nightshirt he wore reached his ankles and bore large splotches of spilled whisky, food, and other questionable stains.
“Your Highness, we have brought you warm clothes. You must get dressed at once. The soldiers—”
“A pox on the soldiers,” he grumbled, weaving his way back to the bed. “Let them come, if they like. I shall sneeze them all to perdition for their insolence.”
“There are fifteen hundred armed men on the way, sire,” Catherine said sharply. “I seriously doubt a few sneezes will deter them from clapping you in irons and dragging you away to jail.”
Charles staggered to a halt, his eyes screwing to slits as he peered back at Catherine. “How dare you speak to me in such a tone. Who the devil do you think you are?”
“Lady Catherine Cameron, as you well know. And who the devil are you to think you can jeopardize the lives of every single man, woman, and child on this estate simply because you do not feel well enough to stir from your bed?”
He drew back, blinking several times to bring her into better focus. “I beg your pardon, madam?”
“You heard me,” she said evenly. “And to think, our husbands almost had us convinced that what they are doing is right and just. They claimed you were an honorable, courageous man willing to continue this fight single-handed and to fight to the death, if need be, for the sake of what you believed in.” She paused and cast a sardonic glance along his dishevelled form. “In reality, it seems you are not even willing to risk a few hours of mild discomfort in order to save what is left of your army. The soldiers are welcome to you, sir. Perhaps they, too, will take pity on the miserable creature they find before them and continue to let him drown his miseries in fine whisky.”
In a swirl of velvet skirts, Catherine started back for the chamber door and gestured to an astonished Deirdre MacKail to deposit her armload of clothes on a chair and leave the room.
“Wait!” Charles demanded. “Hold up there, damn you!”
Ignoring the outburst, Catherine addressed him coolly. “Mrs. MacKail and I are adjourning to our rooms to change into warmer clothing. In fifteen minutes we will be outside the front door, mounted on horses, and prepared to leave. You may join us if you wish. If not”—retrieving a memory of one of Sir Alfred’s more dramatic moments, she spread her hands wide—“you may share the company and hospitality of the manor with whomever you choose.”
Ten minutes later Corporal Peters was waiting nervously by the front doors of Moy Hall, a primed and cocked pistol clutched in his hand. He was alone and did not appear especially pleased with the thickness of the shadows or the rustling night sounds that suggested an army of bloodthirsty warriors skulking behind every bush. He heard a particularly loud click behind him and spun on the balls of his feet, swallowing his heart back into his chest as he recognized Catherine, Deirdre, and Robert Hardy emerging from the house.
“Thank God,” he said, wiping a sleeve across his brow. “I’m h-hearing Cumberland himself at every other turn. Where is the P-Prince?”
Catherine sighed and accepted a pair of reins. “I’m afraid—”
“The prince is directly behind you,” Charles Edward Stuart said, stepping out of the doorway and into the faintly luminous mist. He was dressed, as they all were, in plaid trews—breeches—warm upper clothing, and a long swath of wool tartan draped around his head and shoulders for protection against the elements.
“Where are my guards?” he demanded.
“Th-there’s only me, sire,” Corporal Peters explained. “The others have been commandeered to w-watch the roads and fields approaching Moy Hall.”
“How many are there altogether?”
“Sixty-three, your Highness, plus another two dozen women who volunteered to help as well. B-but they are expecting The MacGillivray and his men any moment now.”
“It is my fault,” the prince mur
mured soberly, “for being so obstinate. I should have listened to Lochiel and moved to Kilravock as originally planned. Because of me, these good men and women must put themselves in dire jeopardy.”
He looked directly at Catherine and, after a moment, removed his bonnet and approached her. “Forgive me, Lady Catherine. You were perfectly within your right to say what you did, whereas my own behavior has been unconscionable. I trust you will not hold it against me overlong?” “It is already forgotten, sire.”
Raising her hand, he bowed over it and brushed his lips across the cool fingers. “Your servant, madam. I shall hereafter obey your every command unhesitatingly.”
“In that case, your Highness, choose your mount,” she said, pointing to the horses Corporal Peters had brought with him.
After assisting Deirdre and Catherine into their saddles, the prince and Corporal Peters mounted and the group set off in a brisk canter behind Hardy, who had taken the lead. They rode swiftly across the sweep of the glen, the motion of the horses stirring the trailing fingers of mist behind them. At the edge of the black, encroaching forest, they looked back to where the fires in the camp had been stoked into tall pyres and would, from a distance, give the impression of providing warmth for hundreds of men.
They entered the forest in single file, forced to walk their horses slowly until they could climb above the mist and use the light from the crescent moon to guide them. The air was damp and cold, chilling them through the heavy layers of clothing and seeping into flesh and bone so that they shivered uncontrollably. Charles Stuart, having sobered up considerably since leaving his rooms, frequently doubled over with bouts of sustained, wracking coughs that he could neither contain nor muffle. He cursed the weakness roundly in gutter Italian each time a spasm gripped him, and apologized profusely each time the echoes faded away. Neither sentiment aided in relieving their growing sense of unease as they climbed higher and higher on the mountain, deeper and deeper into the forest. Catherine’s skin was wet and clammy with perspiration. Fear of being followed, fear of an ambush, concern for her brother and the others left behind at Moy Hall, worry over the prince’s health were thoughts enough to keep her glancing constantly back over her shoulder.
A light snowfall earlier in the evening had cloaked the fields but had not been able to penetrate the thick overlay of branches in the forest, keeping the paths they followed as black as pitch. Here and there, where there was a clear patch of ground, it shone out of the gloom like a beacon, drawing the riders toward it, casting them adrift again when they passed. There was little wind to bring the surrounding hillside to life, only a gentle whisper of dead leaves and the careful plodding of their horses hooves scraping over frozen earth and loose stones.
Conversation between the five riders was minimal. Too many glaring interruptions were brought about by distant, disturbing echoes of sound far below in the glen. Too many whispered speculations made everyone prefer to hunch their shoulders deeper into their tartans and ride with their own private thoughts.
To Robert Hardy’s credit, he never seemed to falter when it came to choosing the correct path to take. He had admitted early on that it had been many years since he had sought refuge in the caves. His bones were too old for such nonsense, he claimed, yet he kept them moving at a brisk pace up the mountain and allowed only brief five-minute rests at infrequent intervals.
At the end of an hour, he stopped his horse and tilted his head to one side. The trees had been visibly thinning, the patches of moonlit snow growing wider over ground that bore the solid feel of rock instead of earth beneath them.
“Caves be just ayont,” Robert murmured, conscious of how the slightest sound vibrated the nerves along everyone’s spine. “They be stocked wi’ food an’ blankets an’ the like.”
“A fire?” the prince asked hopefully, his teeth chattering around the words.
“I shouldn’t advise it, sire,” Corporal Peters said. “In these hills, in this kind of darkness, the glow from a fire would be visible for miles.”
Indeed, once out of the trees, the air was crystal clear, the moon a bright slash of blue-white light set against a backdrop of pure black velvet sky. The path they rode upon climbed steeply for perhaps another dozen yards, then leveled onto a wide, flat plateau, its front and back faced with a sheer, ragged drop of solid rock. Below them the glen sprawled black and cavernous, the moonlight glowing on the upper surface of the mist, broken here and there by black protrusions of hilltops and ridges.
Hardy dismounted and seemed to disappear into a crack in the side of the rock wall. His efforts at scraping tinder and flint were clearly discernible in the eerie silence, and in a few moments, the opening of the fissure bloomed with a soft yellow light.
Contemplating the height and width of the opening, Catherine clung to the corporal’s helpful hands a moment longer than was necessary as he helped her off the horse.
“Corporal … could we not find some way to cover the mouth of the cave?” she asked, her voice a sliver of ice. “See? It is not very wide, not very tall—”
“We could use blankets,” Deirdre suggested. “Or cut branches thick enough to cloak it.”
“We could certainly try, ladies,” Peters conceded. “Especially since the alternative appears to be five frozen blocks of ice come morning.”
The prince succumbed to another bout of ragged coughing and, in consideration of the others, staggered a few feet farther along the plateau. Hardy reappeared at the mouth of the cave, but his smile was cut short on a shouted warning.
Charles Stuart stumbled back again, the coughing spasm shocked into silence as he realized how close he had come to stepping off the lip of the cliff and falling into the darkness below.
“Good God, man.” He gasped as the others rushed to join him. “Is there anything else we should be aware of? Are you certain we’re safe here?”
“Safe as in yer own bed, sire,” Robert assured him. “An’ as cozy, too, once we get a fire lit. It’s no’ so bad a drop, in truth,” he added, peering over the edge of the cliff. “Mayhap twenny feet, an’ all bush tae the bottom. Come daylight ye’ll see f’ae yersel’.”
“Thank you, but I shall take your word on it,” the prince said, stopping shy of admitting outright that he was uncomfortable with heights. As for hiding in caves … “It’s not exactly Holyrood House, is it?” he mused, casting an eye up the sheer rock face.
“But safe,” Robert Hardy reiterated. “A flea couldna find us here an’ the cave were full O’ brayin’ hounds.”
“Well, we are hardly fleas, Robert,” Damien said in a distinctly dry tone as he and another rider nudged their horses out of the shadow of the trees. “Yet we have managed to find you easily enough.”
“Damien!” Catherine cried, running along the plateau to greet him. “Where have you come from? And how did you find us?”
“A more pertinent question, Kitty dear, is what the hell are you doing here? I thought I gave you direct orders to remain locked in your room. When I went to collect you there, all I found was a very pretty pile of crushed velvet and wired petticoats.”
“Panniers, darling, and they are most uncomfortable when one is contemplating going any distance on horseback. As for you issuing a direct order and my feeling obliged to obey it, you should have learned by now I have a mind of my own.”
“I can attest to that,” the prince said wryly. “But you shouldn’t scold her, Damien. She has done us all an inestimable service tonight—one that shall not be soon forgotten.”
Catherine’s smile held for several seconds as she looked from Charles Stuart to her brother. “You still haven’t told us how you managed to find us.”
“I confess.” Damien nodded. “Young Laughlan here had an idea where you might be headed and, well, it seemed a good idea to hang back a little to make sure no one else was following.”
“Just in case,” Corporal Peters advised, “we should tether the horses somewhere out of sight and tuck ourselves away in the cave.”
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“Agreed,” Damien said at once, and half turned to the silent shadow standing beside him. “Laughlan—do you think you could take those daggers you call eyes out of my back long enough to see to the animals? Hello there? Have you gone suddenly deaf, lad?”
Laughlan MacKintosh had not gone deaf or blind. The longer he stared, the more the others became aware of the distant popping sounds that were coming from the glen below. There was no mistaking the sporadic crackle for what it was. In the past few weeks, they all had become acquainted with the sound of musket reports and too uncomfortably aware of the telltale volleys that marked a skirmish.
Colin Fraser had been a happy man in his former employ as smitty to the tiny village of Moy. More recently, as a recruit to Colonel Anne’s contingent of MacKintoshes, he had proved himself to be an able leader who found the danger and excitement more stimulating than any threats or entreaties his wife of twenty-two years could provide. He had marched away to join Bonnie Prince Charles against her wishes and undoubtedly would march back to their small thatched clachan when all this was over against his own.
Roused by the sight of Lady Anne thundering out of the smoky evening mists astride her huge gray gelding, he had quickly taken the eleven men assigned to him as scouts and headed off at a run down the forested dirt road. Halting his patrol some three miles from Moy Hall, he had deployed them at intervals along the roadside, then settled himself behind a camouflage of junipers and hunkered down to wait and watch.
He hadn’t been hiding a full minute when he felt the hairs at the nape of his neck stand on end as he realized they were not the only ones skulking in the woods. More specifically, he knew he was not the only one who had chosen that particular clump of junipers in which to crouch.
Slowly, sinew by cautious sinew, he stretched his neck to its full length so that just the top of his head and his two bulging eyeballs cleared the awning of evergreen branches. What he saw was another head stretched upward, another pair of startled eyeballs peering back at him from less than a body length away. Without thinking, and certainly without giving the other fellow a chance to react, he sprang up from the bushes, knife in hand, and launched himself at his enemy.
The Blood of Roses Page 38
