The Stolen Mackenzie Bride

by Jennifer Ashley

  “You’re wrong.” More steel entered the duke’s voice. “He’s the kind of man who does nae understand the odds against him and thinks he can win by determination alone. He counts on not only the Highlanders but the Lowlanders and the English rallying to join him. Why the hell should they? He’s a dreamer, and he’ll dream us all into disaster.”

  Malcolm said nothing, because he privately agreed.

  “What d’ye expect us to do then?” Mal asked after his father had drunk a few more swallows. “Throw a blanket over Duncan and drag him home?”

  “Aye!” The duke half climbed to his feet. “That’s exactly what ye and your good-for-nothing brothers need to do. Go out there and find him!”

  “On the moment?” It was past midnight, and Mal had hoped for a little sleep at least.

  “Aye, on the moment!” The duke was all the way out of his seat. “Now, ye whelp. I want Duncan here so I can rip that cockade off his hat and throw it in the fire. Trumped up, arrogant, son of a—”

  His last words slurred, then cut off. The duke glanced in sudden suspicion at his whisky, then glared at Malcolm. “Ye bloody little—”

  His fall slid two plates to the floor, where they broke on the carpet with a muffled clatter. The louder noise was the sound of the duke’s body hitting first the table, then the carpet.

  “What the devil?” Angus rushed in, followed by Alec and Naughton. Angus gave Mal a glare worthy of the duke. “What did ye do to him?”

  “I didn’t have t’ do much, did I?” Mal said. “He’s pissing drunk.”

  Angus growled and demanded Naughton to help. Their father’s body was limp, unresisting, as Naughton and Angus struggled to drag the man out. Alec and Mal stepped aside, happy to let Angus take over.

  Getting the duke up the stairs would be impossible, so Angus took him into a side chamber they kept set up for guests who might grow too inebriated to walk home. Now the duke would grace the room.

  When the door shut, Alec, so unlike Angus in personality, turned to Malcolm. “Tell me the truth, runt. What did ye do?”

  Malcolm shrugged. “I dosed him with a little laudanum. He’d have gone on for hours if I hadn’t, and he needs the sleep.”

  Alec grinned. “He’ll hate you when he wakes up.”

  “Ah, well. Nothing new there.”

  Alec glanced at the door Angus had closed. They could hear both Angus and Naughton cursing as they heaved the duke into the small bed.

  “He wants us to go fetch Duncan, does he?” Alec asked.

  “That he does,” Mal said. “I have an idea how to go about it.”

  Alec’s eyes were as red-rimmed as the duke’s had been, but he was far livelier. “How’s that?”

  “We get Will to do it,” Malcolm said with a grin. “Then we’ll have some more drink and help find me a ship out of here.”

  Alec laughed. “You’re as mad as the rest of us,” he said, but he snatched up his greatcoat and followed Mal out into the chill night.

  Will was indeed with women again, as the duke had suspected. By the time they dragged him out of that brothel, and he threw off his drunken Highlander act, it turned out Will already knew where Duncan was. At Holyrood.

  “Why?” Mal asked as the three of them strode through fog and mist down the hill toward the gates. “Is he intimate with yon prince now?”

  “Intimate is a word that can be interpreted many ways,” Will said, sounding cheerful.

  “Aye, I know,” Mal answered impatiently. “That’s why I said it. What makes you think they’ll let us in there to see him?”

  “I know people,” Will said.

  “Of course you do,” Alec said under his breath.

  Mal gave Alec’s shoulder a squeeze. He knew why his brother was morose, but maybe Malcolm could help him in that regard. Jeremy and Audrey would be better off with an escort to France, and Mal resolved to shove Alec off with them. Mal would miss his favorite brother, but he wanted to see the man happy. Besides, Alec’s pining was getting wearying.

  “So, we’re to march up to the door of the palace and knock?” Mal asked Will.

  “Why not?” Will quickened his pace. “Come on—don’t straggle.”

  “Duncan probably told the soldiers to shoot us on sight,” Mal said to Alec.

  “Aye,” Alec agreed. “Would surprise me not a whit.”

  Mal growled. “Ye sound like a bloody Englishman. Need to cure you o’ that.”

  “Be quiet, runt.”

  Mal fell silent as they passed the jumbled houses inside the city gates. In the old days, gates like these had been made to withstand sieges. If soldiers made it through the outer gates, they still had to pass under the gate house, where holes in the ceiling could let down flaming oil, arrows, or men with large swords.

  These days, gates were quaint reminders of another time, the gatehouse a place for vendors to sell flowers and souvenirs of the city to gawping tourists.

  Tonight Highland soldiers lounged about, keeping watch, staying warm the usual Scots way—wrapped in kilts and passing flasks. Many were in great kilts, plaids wrapped around their shoulders and belted at the waist, cloth to keep out the chilling mists of Edinburgh. All were armed.

  Will wrapped his own flapping plaid around him and walked right into the middle of them. He’d gotten most of the way through, heading across the courtyard that fronted Holyrood, before he was stopped. A lantern flashed in his face.

  “Who is that?” the sentry barked.

  Will drew himself up. “Lord William Mackenzie,” he said in stentorian tones.

  The sentry, a tough-looking man with wiry black hair and a once-broken nose, only glared at him. “What clan?” he demanded.

  “Mackenzie of Kilmorgan.”

  “Oh, aye? What are ye doing here, then?”

  “I could ask you the same,” Will said easily. “We’re not here to murder his highness; we’re here to talk to me good-for-nothing brother. Kindly send word we’re out here.”

  The man didn’t move. A lordling asking him to kindly do something clearly had no interest for him. Other sentries had joined him, looking as implacable as the first. Another man, younger, a lieutenant or captain by the epaulets on his coat, came up behind the sentries.

  “Willie Mackenzie. Well met.”

  The other man’s hand came out, and Will clasped it. “Cameron,” Will said. “Ye remember my brothers.”

  “I do.” The large, red-haired man nodded at them. Mal recognized him as Stuart Cameron, a friend of Will’s. Most people in Scotland were friends of Will’s. “Come to throw in your lot with us?” Stuart asked.

  “Come to have words with our brother. He in there?”

  “Duncan? Oh, aye.” Stuart rolled his eyes. “Are ye going to convince him to abandon us? Please say ye are.”

  “Meaning ye stand a better chance if he’s gone?” Will paused, as though considering this. “I’ll do me best. But it’s really up to him, and me father.”

  “Lord help us.” Stuart wrung Will’s hand again. “We’ll get drunk when this is done, eh? The ladies in Paris are anxious to have us back.”

  “Done.” Will clapped Stuart on the shoulder.

  Stuart stepped back and bellowed orders at the soldiers to let them through—and not to kill them, or rob them, or fight them. The men either glowered or laughed, and parted the way for the three brothers.

  Will led them through the throng, crossing the courtyard full of fires, men, ale, and the inevitable women who would make a few pence warming a soldier’s night. A small door at the side of the main gate opened for them, and Malcolm stepped inside after his brothers, into the heart of the Jacobite army.

  Chapter 10

  Holyrood House was built in a quadrangle around a courtyard, a bit like the house where Jeremy Drake lived, but on a much grander scale. Arched walkways surrounded the four sides, and windows marched along three floors, flanked by columns. Mal, who was interested in architecture, craned his head to take it in, consigning the columns,
pediments, and symmetrical design to his compartmentlike memory.

  Though those they passed were celebrating victory, Malcolm was not about to let down his guard. He knew how easily Highlanders could go from affable drinkers to killing machines in a few seconds flat. Hell, Alec could do it if you woke him too early in the morning.

  For now there were called greetings, toasts to the prince, taunts to poor Johnny Cope, whose army had fled before them once, and was likely to again.

  Duncan was on the far side of the courtyard, in a group of officers. Will and Alec headed to him, returning greetings to Highlanders who knew them.

  Mal halted on his journey to Duncan to cut out a pair of men he knew. “Gair Murray,” he said. “What the bleeding hell are you doing here?”

  The man with a kilt so weathered Mal couldn’t tell what had been its original color, sun-bleached hair, and a face as baked as his kilt gave Mal a nod.

  “Looking to make coin, what else?” Gair smiled, his teeth crooked but whole. Gair was only about ten years older than Mal, but his dedication to life on the sea had aged his skin to tough leather.

  The man with him, as stringy and tanned as Gair, was called Padruig, his first mate, who was never far from the man’s side. Padruig, as usual, wore more weapons than Gair—two long knives, a pistol, and a musket over his shoulder. He had a patch covering one eye, giving Mal a warning stare out of his good eye, which was sea gray.

  Mal hid his pleasure at finding them. He’d been looking for Gair up and down all night, but he kept his question causal. It did not pay to sound too eager or desperate with Gair. “And what are you two selling the good prince?”

  Gair answered readily. “Arms, rations, ammunition, ponies, blankets, knives, swords, names of men eager to join him, transportation, message service, and souvenirs.” He took from his pocket a carving of what looked to be a rose, along with a piece of tartan. “Trinkets to remind him of his glorious time leading the Scots to victory.”

  “In other words, anything ye can convince him and his quartermaster t’ buy,” Mal said.

  “Aye.” Gair held out the carving, which was nicely done, and the blue and green plaid. “Only two shillings, since ye’re a friend.”

  Mal kept his hands at his sides. If you touched something Gair handed you, he considered that you’d bought it, and Padruig would finger the hilt of a knife until you paid. “Does Teàrlach know you’re a thief?”

  “Aye,” Gair said. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “As it happens, I’m glad I chanced upon ye here. I might have a commission for ye.”

  “What is it, lad?” The questionable souvenirs disappeared, and Gair gave Mal a solicitous smile. Like looking at a shark, it was. “What can I do for his lordship who has more money than any young lad has a right to?”

  “Aye, and I bust my balls for it.” Gair had all sorts of arguments for why rich men should give him their money, of their own free will, of course. “I need safe passage to France. Can ye give me it?”

  “To France? Are ye mad?” Gair tried to look astonished. “With every naval frigate watching the Scottish coast, every port on the lookout for French ships coming to the prince’s aid, ye want me to sail you off to France?”

  “Not me,” Mal said, holding on to his patience. “A young lady and her husband. Once he becomes her husband, that is. I still have to sort that.”

  “Ah, I see. I’m to be giving a young man and his wife a honeymoon, am I?” Gair let out his quick laughter. “What a lovely way for a couple to start out in life, running an English blockade.”

  “Which you do all the time,” Mal said. He knew damn well Gair would do this—his arguments were to justify the exorbitant price he’d get around to demanding. “War or peace, you fly past English ships without them ever being the wiser. I’m only asking you to do what you do every day of your life.”

  “Ye have much faith in me. I’m getting old, ain’t I, Padruig? Harder for me to man a sail, innit?”

  Out of the corner of Mal’s eye, he saw Duncan striding out of the darkness for Will, and Alec looking around for Mal. Mal curbed his impatience. One of his brothers would come and drag him away very soon.

  “I don’t have time to argue with ye,” Mal said. “How much to take them away tomorrow night?”

  Gair stroked his bewhiskered chin. “Well, now, I—”

  “Name it. Before Duncan comes over here and throws you out on your backside.”

  “He can’t,” Gair said. “I’ve been recruited by the bonnie prince himself.”

  “Never think me brothers can’t do anything they’ve put their mind to. Or me. How much, Gair?”

  He named his price, which was three times as much as any safe passage should be, even in troubled waters. Mal rolled his eyes, said “Done,” and turned around to meet Alec.

  “Godspeed,” Gair said, his grating chuckle trailing behind Mal.

  “Duncan’s as foaming at the mouth as Da,” Alec said as Mal met him halfway across the courtyard. “What were you doing with Gair Murray? Ye still have everything in your pockets? The shirt on your back?”

  “I stayed outside his arm’s reach and didn’t let him or Padruig touch me. Is Duncan coming home quietly? Or do we have to truss him up?”

  “He wants us to stay. Join him. Better still, run up north and convince all the Mackenzies back with us.”

  “Da would go apoplectic if he heard that,” Mal said, his irritation at Duncan rising. Mal’s father wasn’t clan chief, however, despite his lofty title, which had been bestowed on Old Dan, the first Duke of Kilmorgan for favors received by a grateful Scottish king. If the current Mackenzie chief wanted to spill all the Mackenzies out of their lands, the duke couldn’t stop them.

  “Not our dilemma,” Alec said. “We’re being taken to meet the prince.”

  “What for?” Mal asked, frowning. “So we can build our own gallows and be done?”

  Alec shrugged, not liking it any better. They reached Duncan and followed him from the quadrangle through a column-flanked door into the bowels of the palace, a place Mal had never been.

  Unlike the castle at the other end of town, Holyrood was a royal residence. Charles’s grandfather, James, had lived here when he’d been Prince of Wales, but he’d gone to London to be king. These days, aristocrats with connection to the English government lived in apartments upstairs, though Charles had now commandeered the rooms and ousted their inhabitants.

  If Charles and his father, James, managed to take over, though, they wouldn’t stay here and rule a free and independent Scotland, Mal was certain. Charles would go to London, boot out the Hanoverian king, and bring his father in from Rome to live in St. James’s Palace. They’d strut around London, cultivating connections there, and the Scots would be left out in the cold again. The fact that the men in plaids, some barefoot, lounged in the courtyard, and men in well-tailored breeches and English coats wandered about inside, in the heart of the palace, only bolstered Mal’s cynicism.

  Prince Teàrlach mhic Seamas received them in a large room full of people. Servants and retainers ran about attending all the different masters in the chamber. Duncan walked among the Highland leaders as though Camerons and Macdonalds were his oldest and dearest friends.

  “Your Highness,” Duncan said, when Charles finally found the time to receive them. “My brothers, Will, Alec, and Malcolm Mackenzie.”

  Charles was a disappointment for Mal. Gossip in taverns and coffeehouses had built him up to be a man of vast charm and energy, the great hope who would lead Scotland to greatness.

  What Mal saw was a man his exact age, twenty-five, with a receding chin and a high, sloping forehead. He wore a fair-haired wig that had bunched curls over each ear and a tail in the back. His dress was standard for an English gentleman—frock coat and knee breeches, waistcoat, neckcloth, fine stockings and shoes.

  The Mackenzie brothers were all taller than Charles, who’d rectified that fact as they approached by backing up onto a stone step that separated
one part of the room from another.

  The prince’s eyes sparkled with energy, that was true, and also with confidence that bordered on arrogance. But he had far less charm and the verve to lead than Will Mackenzie, who could make people do anything he wanted—much of the time without those in question even realizing it.

  Charles’s gaze lit on Mal, as though sensing his assessment. The gaze was interested but haughty—Yes, we are of an age, but I was born a prince, chosen by God to rule.

  Mal noticed how the other men in the room looked at Charles, and it was not entirely with respect and tenderness. Lord George Murray, who commanded the army, and his ilk were experienced at fighting and tactics—plenty of men here had fought in British regiments in the wars on the Continent.

  The clan chiefs who’d thrown in their lot with Charles were wily. They knew that if they won through, their stars would rise—a grateful king would bestow on them more titles and power, and perhaps give them the coveted lands of their neighbors who’d chosen to side with the English.

  And some, like Duncan, truly believed they had a duty to fight for their rightful prince, whoever he might be. That line of succession had been disrupted—little matter that it had been done more than fifty years ago—and should be restored.

  These men were risking everything they had and everything they were, but the confidence in this room was palpable. Charles’s army had walked right into Edinburgh without opposition. Forced the gates open in the wee hours of the morning, bowled over the sentries, and declared the city theirs. The triumph of that sparked in the air.

  The prince began speaking to Duncan and his brothers in French. Mal knew plenty of French, as did Alec, the pair of them having spent much time learning about life in the streets of Paris. Duncan, who never left the Highlands and spoke only English and the Scots language, looked annoyed.

  “We need the Mackenzies,” Charles was saying. “Strong, brave men, like yourselves. They could turn the tide. If the Duke of Kilmorgan joins me, we cannot lose.”