Pursuit of Princes (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 5)

by Julia Brannan

  He’d heard rumours that Inversnaid barracks, completely destroyed by the MacGregors last year, was about to be reactivated. If that was true the redcoats would have a base only a day’s march away from them, and they would then be open to the same sort of treatment that had been meted out to the Camerons, Frasers and other clans loyal to the Stuarts.

  He would not mention that until rumour became certainty though. Let them enjoy their party. He intended to try to enjoy it himself, and dismiss the memories of the last big party the MacGregors had had, which had been to celebrate his wedding. And the best way to do that was to get thoroughly drunk, he decided, reaching for the whisky.

  He, along with most of the other men, but oddly none of the women, had made good headway in achieving inebriation when Morag walked into the clearing with a stranger in tow, a middle-aged man dressed in a dark feileadh mhor, but who appeared to carry no weapons. This was an unusual enough occurrence to cause those of the men still coherent to stop what they were doing and look at the newcomer, although the women seemed completely unperturbed, which Alex would have found strange had he not been concentrating all his attention on attempting to appear sober in order to greet the man as the chieftain should. He stood up somewhat unsteadily as Morag and her companion made their way towards him, but to his surprise she led the man straight past him and over to Angus.

  “Angus, I want ye to meet a kinsman of Allan’s, Fergus MacDonald,” she said.

  Angus, along with half the MacGregors, looked at Allan who, clearly recognising his kinsman, blushed furiously and suddenly found something of great interest in the patch of grass at his feet. Angus, forced to take on the role of the chieftain by Morag’s disrespect of the proprieties, held his hand out to the stranger.

  “Pleased to meet ye, Mr MacDonald,” he said. “But really it’s my brother ye should –”

  “Mr MacDonald,” Morag interrupted rudely, “more commonly goes by the title ‘Father’. So if ye’ve no more objections, Angus Malcolm Socrates MacGregor, we can get straight on with the wedding.”

  There was a moment’s silence while the women, who were clearly in on the conspiracy, grinned and Angus sat down suddenly as though he’d been hit on the head. Then Kenneth let out a great whoop of laughter.

  “She’s got ye, laddie,” he called. “I’d marry her and quick if I were you, for if ye dinna, I’ll take her to wife myself!” Several others laughed at that.

  Angus looked helplessly at Alex, who held his hands up in a gesture of defeat.

  “Morag,” he said, “I canna marry ye now. I’ve a blood-“

  “…oath to fulfil. Aye, I ken. Ye’ve tellt me often enough. Alex,” she said, turning to face the chieftain, “when we marry, if I’ve nae objection, will ye allow your brother to carry on raiding wi’ ye till he’s had his fill of killing redcoats?”

  “Aye, I will,” Alex replied, recognising a lost cause when he saw one, “as long as you’re aware of the danger that ye could end up a young widow wi’ a bairn to look after.”

  “We’re all aware of that danger,” Peigi called out. “We’re MacGregors. We take care of each other.”

  There was a cheer from everyone which Alex ignored, keeping his eyes fixed on Morag’s, whose expression had now become serious, although her eyes were still sparkling. She walked over to her chieftain and took his large hand in her small, work-reddened one.

  “I’m aware o’ the danger,” she said softly to him. “I’m no’ the wee lassie I was two years ago when I nearly let Robbie have his way wi’ me in the barn. I saw the way you and Beth were together, and I love your brother the same way she did you, and I believe he feels the same for me.”

  “Aye,” Alex said, equally softly. “I believe ye’ve the right of it. But –”

  “And I ken you’re grieving something fierce, and that ye’ll never be the same again. But at least ye had that time together. Married or no, I’ll mourn him dreadful if it comes to it, but if we marry now, at least I’ll have the memories to comfort me.”

  “They’re no’ always a comfort, lassie,” he told her.

  She nodded.

  “Even so, better to have them than live the rest of your life regretting that ye didna grab the happiness when it was there for the taking.” She looked up at him, her heart in her eyes, and he took her in his arms.

  “I’ll be proud to call ye my sister-in-law,” he said. He gave her a quick, fierce hug, then let her go and smiled at her, although tears sparkled in his eyes.

  “Well, then,” he said, in a voice that carried round the clearing, “It seems we’ve a wedding to attend! Are ye wanting to go and dress in your finery?” he asked his white-faced brother, who had now managed to stand up again.

  “No,” Morag answered before he could open his mouth. “I’ve waited long enough already. I’d as soon get on with it, if it’s all the same to you.”

  Father MacDonald looked from the glowing bride to the stunned groom.

  “Before I conduct the ceremony,” he said, “I have to ask if you are both willing and happy to be joined in matrimony this evening.”

  “I am,” Morag answered immediately. She glanced across at Angus, who was staring at her, took in his pallor, and for the first time a shadow of anxiety clouded her face. He licked his lips nervously. Father MacDonald waited calmly for the young man’s response. A profound silence settled on the clearing.

  Angus closed his eyes, and breathed in deeply through his nose.

  “Aye,” he said. “I’m willing and happy to be joined in matrimony this evening. But dinna think ye can get your way in everything, lassie, for there’ll be a reckoning later for what ye’ve done here today.”

  “I hope so,” she shot back. “Ye’d better stay sober enough for the ‘reckoning’ tonight, for I’ve been waiting over two years for it, and I’ll no’ wait any longer!”

  A great roar of laughter rose from the impromptu congregation, and Morag’s father moved forward, all smiles, to hand responsibility for his daughter over to her husband-to-be, who was now regaining his colour and his general good humour with it, and had clearly accepted his fate.

  After which everyone, male and female, got happily and spectacularly drunk, including, unfortunately, the bride herself who, by the time her new husband carried her over the threshold into her new home, was incapable of doing anything but sleep, with the result that the long-awaited ‘reckoning’ had to be delayed until the following morning.

  * * *

  London, November 1746

  Sarah was concerned. For the last two hours a man had been loitering outside her shop. She couldn’t see him well enough through the opaque green glass of her window panes to tell if he was someone she knew; all she could ascertain was that he was dressed in rags, was very thin and had dark hair. He might have been there for longer than two hours, but she had first noticed him at around two o’clock. At first she had taken him for a beggar, but he didn’t appear to be accosting people as they passed by or as they came into her shop, which was odd.

  She had also dismissed the possibility that he might be a robber of some sort; no one intending to commit theft would hang around outside one building so conspicuously for such a long time.

  She got on with her work and tried to forget him, but as the clock struck four and she could still see him standing outside, she decided to confront him before it got dark and passers-by became scarce. If he seemed a decent sort, she’d give him a few coppers and send him on his way. She went to her counter and took out a few pennies, and her pistol, which she hid in her skirts, in case he didn’t seem to be a decent sort. Better to be safe than sorry.

  When she stepped out of the shop he had walked a few paces up the street and had his back to her. She observed him for a moment. He was indeed dressed in rags, but even in the dim light of the evening she could see that he had made an attempt to look respectable; although hatless, his brown hair was clean and tied neatly back with a scrap of ribbon, and while he wore no hose and his shoes were ve
ry worn, his breeches had been carefully patched, as had his tattered coat.

  Then he turned and saw her, and jumped violently. She decided to take the initiative.

  “Why have you been waiting outside my premises for over two hours?” she asked. “Are you begging?”

  “No!” he exclaimed. “No, I works for my living, Miss. I’m a link man.”

  “A link man,” she echoed. His face was in shadow, but there was something familiar about his voice. She didn’t know any link men. “Wouldn’t you be better waiting outside the theatre then? You won’t get any custom here. And where’s your torch?”

  He looked at his empty hands as though expecting a torch to materialise there, and then at her.

  “I’m…I’m not working tonight, Miss,” he said.

  Deeply suspicious now, she gripped the pistol, still concealed in her skirt.

  “Well, I suggest you find something more entertaining to do with your free time than loitering outside my shop,” she said firmly.

  He took a step toward her, and she moved backwards into her doorway. She would run back into the shop and lock the door if he made a move on her. If he attempted to stop her she would show him she was armed. That should be enough to frighten him away.

  He stopped and held his hand up in a conciliatory gesture.

  “Miss Browne, you won’t remember me, but I know you and I need to tell you something awful bad, Miss. I’ve got to tell someone and I don’t know no one else who was close to her. I don’t mean you no harm, Miss, I swear it.”

  “Let me see your face,” Sarah said, frowning. There was a candle burning in her window to show that she was open for business. Obligingly he turned his face towards it, and she saw his profile; young, snub nose, firm mouth. She gasped.

  “I know who you are,” she said. “You’re Lord Edward’s coachman.”

  “Not no more, Miss,” he replied, and took another step forward.

  “You keep away from me,” she said, her voice rising. “You’re the bastard who helped Lord Daniel when he kidnapped Beth. Tom, isn’t it? You’ve got a cheek, coming here! If you think I’ll feel sorry for you just because you’re out of work, you’re wrong. You deserve to rot in hell!”

  “I didn’t know Miss Elizabeth was so against him, Miss! Lord Daniel, he told me that she didn’t want to marry Sir Anthony and that I was helping him rescue her. I haven’t come here to beg off you, Miss. I – I owes Miss Elizabeth my life, I does. She made them let me go. I’d have hung, else.”

  “You should have done, for what you did!”

  “I think of it every day, Miss. I told her I’d never forget what she done for me, and I haven’t. That’s why I’m here. I needs to speak to you about her, Miss, most desperate.”

  He looked at her, and now he was a little closer she could see that he was shaking, but whether from the cold or emotion, Sarah couldn’t tell.

  “What do you need to say?” she said. If he asked her to let him come in the shop now, she’d show him her pistol, call for the watch and have him arrested. She wasn’t falling for that one.

  He didn’t. He glanced up and down the street to make sure no one was in earshot, and then he took one more step toward her so he was close enough that she could hear him if he spoke quietly, and started talking earnestly.

  “Miss Elizabeth, she’s in Newgate Prison, Miss, or she was a couple of months ago. And she…she was…she…” He choked, and swallowed hard.

  “She was what?” Sarah asked.

  “She was tortured, Miss, most terrible,” he said, then burst into tears.

  Sarah stood frozen with shock. No. It wasn’t possible. How could Beth be in Newgate, and nobody know? Edwin and Caroline would have known…Anne would have known. Something like that could never be kept from London society. And if society knew, she, who heard everything, would know.

  She looked at him as he cried, great racking sobs. No man cried like that. He was insane. The few people still out and about were crossing the road to avoid him. She should get herself behind a locked door, now.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said bluntly instead. “I’d know if Beth had been arrested.”

  “It’s true, Miss, honest it is,” he replied desperately. He took a great sobbing breath, trying to get control of himself. “Ned said it’s been kept close, Miss, because she knows who Sir Anthony is, but she wouldn’t tell, and then they…sent her brother to talk to her, to see if she’d tell him.”

  “Richard,” Sarah breathed.

  “Richard. Yes, that’s him,” he said.

  “Who’s Ned?”

  He flushed.

  “I shouldn’t have said his name, Miss. I told him I wouldn’t. He’s scared, Miss, of the captain, says he’ll kill him if it gets out that he told me.”

  “Well you have said his name. So you might as well tell me who he is. I’ll tell you this much; I hate Richard Cunningham. If you’re telling me the truth about Beth, then I’m not going to say anything that will get this Ned in trouble with him.”

  Tom hesitated for a minute, then came to a decision. “Ned’s my brother. He’s in the army, and he was set to guard Miss Elizabeth. We’re very close; he tells me everything, and when he came home on leave he said he had this secret and he had to tell someone, and it was when he said her name was Beth and she had this lovely silver hair that I knew it was her, because I never saw no one else with hair like that. But you mustn’t tell no one, because the captain, Miss, he’s crazy and he mustn’t know that –”

  For the second time in as many months, Sarah followed her instincts and allowed a stranger to come into her premises when she was alone. But this one she kept in the shop and made him sit on a stool at first, while she sat on the other side of the room, her hand still on the pistol. Just in case.

  He made no move towards her. Instead he sat and told her what his brother had told him; that he’d been ordered to guard an important prisoner who had crucial information, that she wasn’t allowed to sit down but had anyway, what the sergeant had done to make her stand, and how he’d tried to help her, and that she’d been concerned that he’d get into trouble for it.

  And then Sarah knew Tom was telling the truth for certain, because that was Beth all over, so she went into her living room, checked on Mary, and came back with a mug of warmed ale for him. When she came back he was still sitting in the exact spot she’d left him, so she took him into her home and let him get warm by the fire while he told her the rest of the story.

  “…and then when Ned saw all the blood, Miss, he ran to fetch the keeper, and met him coming back with the surgeon, who was coming to put her shoulder back in, and then they both ran to see her and the keeper, Mr Jones, he told Ned to forget everything that had happened, forget there was ever a prisoner, or it’d go very badly for him.”

  “Dear God,” Sarah said.

  “But he said he couldn’t forget, and so he told me because he was having bad dreams about it, and he thought telling someone he trusted might stop them.”

  Sarah closed her eyes. She had to ask the question, but wasn’t sure if she could bear the answer. She summoned all her resources.

  “Was she dead?” she asked, and in her fear her voice sounded cold and impersonal. Tom looked at her oddly, but answered.

  “I don’t know, Miss. Ned wanted to find out, but he was posted away the next day so he couldn’t ask anyone. But he said she wasn’t dead when he left her to fetch the keeper, no.”

  “How long ago was this?” she asked.

  “August, Miss.”

  August? Three months ago! Anything could have happened since then.

  “Why did you wait all this time to come and tell me?” she asked.

  “I didn’t, Miss! I came as soon as Ned told me. He came home on leave three days ago, but he only told me yesterday.”

  She thought, quickly.

  “I want to speak to your brother,” she said. “Not that I don’t believe you, because I do. What you’ve said about Beth, and Richar
d, that’s just what they’d do. But he might remember more. Take me to him.”

  “I can’t, Miss. He left this morning. He’s bound for Flanders. I told him I was wanting to come and see you because I owed Miss Elizabeth a big debt, and I didn’t know anyone else who was so close to her who’d even look at me. And he agreed, because he knows the captain’s in Scotland and can’t do anything to him from there, and because he said he’d feel better if I could find someone to help her. If she’s alive.”

  If she was alive. Damn, damn, damn. Sarah sat and thought furiously. Tom sat opposite, drinking his ale, eyeing her nervously over the rim of the tankard.

  “It’s worth a try, I suppose,” she said to herself.

  “What is?” Tom asked.

  “Are you really a link man?” she asked.

  “Yes. I couldn’t get another job as a coachman, couldn’t get any job at all, after…” His voice trailed off.

  “Go and get your torch,” she said. “Can you be back here in half an hour?”

  “Yes,” he said. “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to Newgate,” she said.

  Tom was back in twenty minutes, by which time Sarah had dressed in her finest clothes, had checked that Mary was fast asleep, and had put several shillings and a golden guinea in her pocket. She tucked the pistol in the back of her skirt just in case anyone should try to rob her, and then putting on her cloak, scrutinised herself in the mirror.

  She couldn’t pass for a lady, she knew that. Her clothes were of excellent quality, but her accent would betray her. Although she had worked hard to improve her vocabulary and soften her flat northern vowels, she did not have the cut-glass accent of an aristocrat. Nor did she have the natural arrogance that seemed to come with a title. But she would pass for a wealthy businesswoman, or at least the wife of a wealthy businessman, and that would have to do.