She came to realize Captain Ellis was wrong—Malcolm did mean to marry her. He was waiting for the right moment, for everything to be perfect. Malcolm was a planner, wanting every contingency taken care of before he executed his scheme. He worked by talking to people, charming them, slipping them coin, anything needed.
His thoughts went so lightning-fast that it sometimes seemed he acted impulsively, but Mary soon saw that he worked out every scenario to its end before he leapt upon the best one.
Mal was taking more time over Mary, because he didn’t want to make a mistake. He feared that any misstep would destroy what he’d won. And so he was silent, testing his way as he might put his feet down on an uncertain path.
Mary knew Mal would never, ever admit this, of course. He behaved as though they had all the time in the world—they were young, together, and falling in love. That Mal believed he and Mary would be with each other forever, there was no question.
Nights grew shorter as October progressed, and the wind took on more chill. At Kilmorgan, the castle was never quiet—not only filled with the shouts of Malcolm and his brothers and father, but also the horde of retainers who lived there to keep the place. These retainers had families on the farms around, and came and went as they raced to harvest their grains before winter set in.
Kilmorgan was lucky in that it had more arable land than most of the area. An inland cut of sea and high banks around it trapped moist air that kept things a touch warmer in the glen and the soil rich. Even so, the farmers labored hard for even the smallest crops, and the Mackenzies went out to help them.
Lairds took care of their people, Mary soon realized. Mal and his brothers made certain that the crofters’ houses were sound for the winter, roofs didn’t leak, and that their tenants would have food to last the long cold season. The Mackenzies rode the bounds and worked the lands alongside the farmers, bending their backs to menial labor a London gentleman would scorn.
Wilfort had told Mary that some lairds felt that the women among their tenants were theirs to do with as they pleased, but Mary saw no fear or worry about that with the duke or his sons. The duke was deferential to the wives and daughters and respectful of the men. His people liked him.
Mal relayed that the duke had been devoted to their mum, Allison McNab, whose portrait hung prominently in the downstairs sitting room. The picture showed a regal-looking woman with a longish nose and black eyes full of fire as she gazed down upon her family. The portrait had been painted by Allan Ramsay, depicting the duchess at a three-quarter profile, her head turned to the viewer. The blue and white silks of her gown shimmered in soft light, finished by a piece of blue and green plaid wrapped over one shoulder and pinned with a brooch of dull silver. The picture was so breathtakingly real, Mary thought that at any moment, Allison might open her lips and speak.
Mal had the look of his mother about the cheekbones and chin, though in most respects he strongly resembled the duke. Alec, Angus, and Duncan bore more of her features, including the sparkle of her eyes, the firm set of mouth, and long, straight nose. Will, on the other hand, Mary observed, was pure Mackenzie.
Mal explained that the duke had completely changed when their mother died. He’d become bitter, angry, and hadn’t wanted anything to do with his sons. No reminders of Allison. For some reason, he’d only been able to abide Angus. None of them knew why, not even Angus.
Eventually, the duke had come out of his terrible grief, but even now, he was rarely pleased with his sons. The duke’s swift acceptance of Alec’s marriage and baby had been a surprise.
“You’re softening him,” Mal said to Mary. “He likes having you about—I can see it in him.”
Mary was skeptical about her hand in changing him. She’d already discerned that the duke cared more for his family than he let people understand.
Though the castle was remote, they were not entirely cut off from the wider world either. They had deliveries most days of the week, of letters and newspapers, books and parcels. Mary’s father could even have the papers and journals he preferred from London. The duke grumbled that most letters arrived open and gone through, both by the English government and the Highlanders.
Plenty of goods came from the north also, from the secret coves and inlets that ran close to Kilmorgan. French brandy and other luxuries landed often on the Mackenzies’ dining room table—Mal’s friend Gair was hard at work.
Mackenzies had a wide network through which they were able to keep an eye on what was happening with Charles and his army. Charles had spent the month in Edinburgh, they learned, while many small skirmishes took place between the Jacobites and the Highlanders who remained on the British side.
“Do not call them loyal,” the duke had snapped, when Wilfort referred to Scots who supported King George as loyalists. “They simply want to be on the winning side. If Charles starts to prevail, ye can be assured many of them will turn around and start shooting the other way.”
Wilfort had only shrugged in his bland way, unoffended.
Mary sometimes felt as though they were riding out a storm that raged around them, while Kilmorgan bobbed in a bubble of calm.
The calm didn’t last. Near the end of October, the Jacobites tried to attack one of the military forts near Inverness—Duncan was one of that attack’s leaders—but they were repulsed. Not many days later came the news that Charles had ridden out of Edinburgh, taking his army south toward England.
Duncan was riding with him, leading three hundred men behind him to join the cause. Angus, to everyone’s amazement, announced that he was going with them.
To say that Malcolm’s father was furious with Angus would be to understate it. As the duke’s voice rose to fever pitch, Mal decided it was time to take Mary and discreetly depart the house.
In the end, Angus simply had to run for it. He came charging out of the castle and down the hill. The duke tried to pursue him, but Angus dashed down the path on swift, youthful feet, leaving his father raging and panting halfway up the hill. Angus had a pack slung over his back, and he’d wisely hidden his weapons under the trees at the edge of the grounds before he’d made the announcement.
“Why?” Alec asked, even as he helped Angus gather his things. “Why are ye doing this, Angus? Ye’ve no love for the old kings.”
Angus mounted his horse, then gazed down at Mal and Alec, who stood together as ever. “Because I need to look after Duncan,” Angus said without heat. “If Dad loses him, it will kill him.”
“No, lad,” Malcolm said. He put his hand on Angus’s booted leg. “It will kill him if he loses you. He loves ye best of us all.”
Angus shook his head. “No, he doesn’t. He likes me taking care of him, but it’s not the same thing. He wants Duncan to be duke when he’s gone—he’s always wanted that.”
Mal didn’t agree. “It’s ye he loves, Angus. None of the rest of us can understand why.” He patted Angus’s leg as he said the last, his throat aching. He’d always known he couldn’t keep Duncan safe, but Angus did not have the same mettle as their oldest brother. Mal closed his hand around the leather of Angus’s boot, as though that would keep him tethered to Kilmorgan.
“When Mum died, he nearly went mad w’ it,” Angus was saying. “I made sure he lived. Now he thinks he can’t do without me, but he needs to learn he can.”
“Don’t be daft,” Mal said, his breathing tight. “Will or me can go along and save Duncan’s head. We’re good at keeping ourselves in one piece. You don’t even like t’ fight.”
“Ye might be surprised about that,” Angus said with dark humor. “Will’s a spy, not a fighter, Alec’s got a wee one to think about now, and you’ve got Mary. So it has to be me.”
“Damn and blast ye,” Mal said, feeling desperate. “If ye go, we’ll have t’ lock Da in the cellar until he calms down. Which might be a few years from now.”
“Have Mary talk to him,” Angus said, giving Mal a wry look. “He likes her. Ye’ve done well there, runt. Don’t let her get away.�
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Angus nudged his horse into a walk, but Alec stepped forward and caught the horse’s bridle. He’d said nothing as Mal and Angus had argued, but his look was as distressed as Mal’s. “Ye look after yourself, ye hear me?” Alec growled up at him. “I’m your twin. If something happens t’ye, it will happen t’me. Don’t you forget that.”
Angus gave him the ghost of a grin. “Never bothered ye before, Alec. It’s always been you and Mal. I want ye to go on having each other. Now turn me loose before Dad charges down here and shoots me to stop me from leaving him.”
Alec released the horse but pressed his big hands together, as though ready to pray. “God go with ye, Angus.”
“You too, Alec. Mal.”
Angus gave them both a nod, turned the horse, and urged it into a trot. All too soon, he was lost under the trees. Shadows gathered after him, his plaids fading last thing.
Mal didn’t like the shiver the sight gave him. Alec came to stand beside him, the warmth of his shoulder bolstering as they watched their brother be swallowed by darkness.
Soon after that, Will disappeared. Since Will often left in the night without a word, Mal didn’t worry unduly. Will knew how to survive as he slipped through the Highlands, and Mal made himself believe he was well.
Mal and Alec, the only brothers left, continued to work the land. Cold came, and with it, earlier darkness. Mal no longer felt it safe to take Mary to their secret bower in the woods, so they found places to be together inside the house.
As Castle Kilmorgan was large and not all of it used, there were hideaways aplenty. Mal converted a room at the top of the keep into a cozy nest, with blankets and a featherbed for the floor, paper to stop up the cracks in the windows, and the fireplace unblocked so it could be lit.
He knew the servants were all aware that he brought Mary up there and why, but they said nothing, bless them. Mary loved the subterfuge. She’d retreated a long way from her everything-must-be-proper self, smiling up at him from a sea of blankets, raising herself on her elbow to listen to Mal’s stories as the night passed around them.
She’d always been this woman, Mal realized. She’d been waiting for him when he’d seen her in the vast room at the Bancrofts’, waiting for the world to drive them together.
They’d have a grand wedding when the time was right. Mal had sent his letters off to Lord Halsey’s man of business before they’d left Edinburgh, telling him to free Mary from the contract her father had signed with Halsey. He wanted no legal way for Halsey to make Mary’s life—or even Wilfort’s—miserable.
Once Mal received word that the contract was clear, and Prince Charles either went home or sat uncontested on the throne, he and Mary would wed.
Mal was daydreaming of his life with Mary as he rode home one day in late November. She’d grace his behemoth new house and its gardens, and more importantly, their bedchamber.
A plume of smoke rose from the hills ahead of him. For a moment, Mal didn’t understand what he was seeing, until a blacker smoke billowed from the trees, and he heard distant shouting. His body chilled while his heart pumped, and he moved his horse faster, then faster.
He reached the bottom of the hill to Kilmorgan and found what he’d dreaded—fire and smoke pouring from the castle. Mal leapt to the ground and sprinted up the path, his breath labored, as though his chest were being crushed to one, hard point.
Ewan burst from the castle’s door, straight into Malcolm. “Everyone’s gone!” he yelled, his voice cracking. “They took ’em. Except your da. He’s inside, and I can’t bring him out!”
Ewan collapsed in a fit of coughing, and Malcolm, his world spinning into madness, ran inside.
Chapter 26
Stone didn’t burn, but the wooden paneling and floorboards of the rooms did. The massive old staircase twisting through the heart of the keep was alive with flames. Smoke blanketed everything—thick, black, and nasty.
“Dad!” Malcolm bellowed. “Where th’ devil are ye?”
No answer, but from a room above, Mal heard a tinkle of glass. The lower stairs hadn’t caught yet, and Mal charged up them.
At the same time, the duke came out of a room on the first landing, dragging a bundle that clanked. He saw Mal and bellowed, “Get up here and help me, runt! Hurry!”
The duke dove back into the room. Mal took the stairs two at a time, nearly tripping over the bundle, which he saw was a rug wrapped around silver and gold objects.
Fire was coming down the upper stairs and bursting out of the back of the keep below. They’d never lug this all and get away at the same time.
Mal lifted the bundle and threw it over the stair railing, watching it land with a clatter on the floor below. Ewan started dragging it away with his small hands.
“Dad!” Mal charged into the sitting room to see the duke tugging the large portrait of his mother from the wall. The frame was heavy and gilded, but Mal knew the picture inside was worth everything in this house to his father.
“I have to save her!” the duke said frantically.
Smoke poured in through the door, stealing the air. Mal’s father dropped the picture, coughing. “Help me.”
Mal slid his dirk from its sheath, turned the painting over, and cut it out of the frame. He hastily rolled the canvas, stuffed it into his plaid, and grabbed his father’s big hand.
“Out!” he commanded. “Now!”
The smoke had thickened so fast Mal could no longer see the door. He pulled a fold of plaid over his nose and mouth and dragged the duke, both of them stumbling, to where the door ought to be.
Mal smacked straight into a wall. Breathing shallowly, he groped his way along it, bumping into furniture, tripping over whatever the hell things were that he swore had never been there before. The duke clung to Mal, the two linked in the thick mass of smoke.
Mal’s hand finally contacted open air. He pulled the duke through the door to the stairwell, which was burning fully now. With a crackle and hiss, the railed gallery on the other side of hall leaned forward and pitched into the hall below. More fire raced toward them at high speed.
“We have t’ jump!” Mal shouted.
His words were muffled by the plaid, but his father heard. Together they sprung up on the railing, then dropped, down, down, their kilts rippling around them.
Mal landed hard, rolled, came to a stop, his hand around the painting under his plaid. His father thumped into a heap beside him, grunting in pain.
Mal grabbed the duke’s arm, hauled him to his feet, and pulled him outside. The duke limped, but Mal, his father’s arm around his shoulders, ran them both out into clean, sweet air.
Behind them, inside the house, the rest of the gallery fell, and the keep became an inferno.
Malcolm dragged his father along the narrow path around the west side of the castle, where the thick walls would contain smoke and fire. They sank to the rocks and yellow tufts of grass, gasping for breath, as the last of the day’s light touched them.
Ewan came running, towing the carpet that held what his father hand managed to save. The duke didn’t look at any of it.
“The painting?” he demanded, his voice a faint croak. “Did ye get it?”
Malcolm unfolded his kilt from around it and put the canvas in his father’s hands. The duke quickly unrolled it and stared down at Allison McNab’s handsome face and defiant eyes. She looked back at him with the same serenity she’d always had, a hint of a smile on her face.
The duke began to weep, tears streaming from his amber-colored eyes. He clutched the picture to his chest, holding to his heart the wife he’d lost so long ago.
“Ewan, ye have t’ tell me what happened, lad.”
Malcolm had his hand on the boy’s shoulders, trying to keep the terrified Ewan calm, but it was difficult when Mal was shaking with rage and absolute fear. The duke still sat with his back to the castle wall, his head bowed, unable to speak.
Ewan’s eyes were huge in his small face, but he nodded. “They came—soldiers.
From Inverness. English ones.”
Malcolm restrained himself from letting his fingers bite down on Ewan’s shoulders. “And what? Go on.”
“They came into the keep and started tearing things apart. Captain Ellis, he tried to stop them, and so did your da and Lord Alec, but there were too many. They said we were a secret Jacobite stronghold and had to be super . . . supper . . . suppressed. All the servants but me ran away, and the soldiers started burning things. They took Lady Mary and her da and Captain Ellis. And Lord Alec. They tried to take your da, but he had pistols and blasted away at them.”
Mal had no word for the feeling rising inside him, the mixture of desperation, fear, and over it all, incredible rage. “Took them? Where did they take them?”
“I don’t know. They had Lord Alec in shackles, but Lady Mary’s da and the captain, they walked away with them.”
“And Lady Mary?” Malcolm was amazed at how calm his voice was, as his emotions churned and danced inside him.
“She was fighting them—and swearing something hard. Very bad words, sir. I never heard an English lady say such bad things. But then, she’s a soldier.”
Mal rose to his feet. Inside he was raging and shouting all the words he imagined Mary had said and many she didn’t know. Outside he was steely, a cold, cold shell descending over him. Every feeling within him dissolved into a strange sense of purpose.
“Ye need to stay with him,” he told Ewan, gesturing to the duke. “Help him carry the stuff down the hill—take him into the hollows, set up camp in the distillery, if they’ve left it alone. If they destroyed it, go to the crofters. They’ll have t’ take ye in. Find someone to look after him. All right?”
Ewan nodded, scared. “Are ye going after them?”
“Aye, lad, that I am.” He remembered the game Mary played with Ewan to keep the boy calm. “Those are your orders, Sergeant. Carry on.”
The Stolen Mackenzie Bride Page 21