Highland Crown

by May McGoldrick

  She forgot the rest of what she was going to say, for Cinaed was about to fall over. She rushed to his side, and he handed her the pistol.

  “When they get back, don’t hesitate to shoot him right between the eyes.” He draped an arm around her shoulders to steady himself.

  She’d never fired a pistol, but by heaven, she’d use it now. She’d happily give them a reason to hang her if she could stop that killer. She was a condemned woman anyway. Jean pushed a chair up behind him, and Isabella handed her the firearm before helping Cinaed sit.

  She was so grateful to him, and she had so much she wanted to say. He’d done the impossible. Only minutes ago, she’d nearly given herself up for lost, and now she was ready to exact retribution on behalf of decent folk who now lay dead.

  Isabella had no idea how he’d managed it, or what he’d said to convince the farmers and fishermen in the tavern to come to their assistance. The church bell continued to ring, and she expected an army of people descending on them at any moment.

  “Should we open the door?” she asked.

  He was struggling to keep his eyes open. She placed her hand on his forehead and was alarmed by the heat.

  His fever was a result of the gunshot in his chest. Considering everything he’d gone through since she’d operated this morning, it was a miracle he was still alive. She had to move him to a bed and clean the wound and possibly stitch him again. Then they would need to wait. Wait and hope that he was strong enough to last until the fever broke.

  The persistent knocking continued. She turned to Jean. “Open the door and tell them the soldiers have escaped. They need to go after them.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Cinaed interjected, his voice weak.

  Jean unlatched the door and yanked it open. The surprised innkeeper stood on the threshold, his meaty fists up in the midst of his banging. His eyes went wide when he saw the pistol in Jean’s hand. He took an immediate step back.

  “Inside,” the old woman ordered.

  Wringing his hands, he surveyed the room before taking a few cautious steps past Jean. He emitted an anguished moan when he saw Cinaed slumped in the chair. “Don’t say he’s dead?”

  “It’s your lucky day. I’m still alive.”

  Barely, she thought. The whites of his eyes were bloodshot. His eyelids drooped as if the exertion were too much to keep them open. The muscles in his jaw clenched as he tried to control the shivering.

  “And they’re gone?”

  “They’re gone.”

  The man ran his fat fingers through his hair. “I done just as ye said.”

  Cinaed reached into the purse at his belt and took out some coins. He held them out. “It was all well done.”

  “And the lad?” the innkeeper asked as he took the money.

  “Go tell him to stop ringing the bell.”

  Isabella stood for a moment, unsure of what had just happened. Was it possible this had all been a bluff? No mob was standing at the door, trying to get at the officers. There was no one in the hallway at all. No one but the innkeeper.

  “And when the lad brings the cart, change that horse for a fresh one and bring it to the back door. I don’t want to go out through the taproom.”

  The innkeeper started to back toward the door, keeping an eye on the pistol in Jean’s hand.

  “And not a word to anyone out there. Understand?”

  With a nervous nod and a hurried bow, the man scurried out, closing the door behind him.

  “No one is coming?” Isabella flicked a hand toward the window. She didn’t know if she should panic or laugh. “The bell wasn’t calling anyone? You paid a boy to ring it?”

  He leaned forward, his forearms on his knees. She knew his head had to be exploding with pain.

  When Cinaed burst into the room, bloodied and heroic, she’d never been more impressed with a man. Now she was practically speechless at his brilliance. It was all a ruse, except for his blood and heroism. “You made Hudson believe … you made me think…”

  “Didn’t I tell ye I know a fine man when I see one?” Jean’s low chuckle confirmed it. She slapped Cinaed on the back, and Isabella had to dive forward to catch him before he fell off the chair.

  “We don’t have much time.” His voice was hoarse, and he struggled to get the words out. “They’ll be coming back and bringing every soldier they can spare from Fort George. We need to leave now.”

  She didn’t know how far it was to the fort or how long before Hudson and his men returned. Still, she couldn’t leave here without finding out what she could about John Gordon. So much had gone wrong. He was the only link she had to the location of the girls. Feelings of desperation filled her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. She couldn’t go. Perhaps someone at the inn knew who John’s friends were. He’d only been here a day, but if he sent a message, someone would have taken it to them. She had to find a clue to their whereabouts.

  “I can’t just run and leave my nephew to these dogs,” Jean announced.

  They knew everything else about her. Isabella decided to explain the rest of it.

  “My sister, Maisie, and my stepdaughter, Morrigan, are somewhere near Inverness. John hid them with people he trusted. There’s a chance someone here knows where they are. I can’t leave until I know.”

  “We can’t stay here,” he repeated.

  Even as she talked, she understood the futility of staying. She’d doubted they’d have any support here once Hudson and his Hussars returned.

  Isabella tried to stay calm, but a frantic fear was edging into her. “They’ve taken him to Fort George. What happens if he breaks down and tells these monsters where my family is?”

  “He is a Scot. And a Highlander.” He addressed Jean. “Is he not?”

  The old woman’s face lit with a glimmer of hope.

  “I’ve sailed past Fort George a dozen times. With a few good men, we can rescue him. But the three of us can do nothing right now.”

  She crouched before Cinaed. The fever chills had taken full hold of him. It took great effort for him to talk. His face was covered with sweat. She wiped the perspiration from his brow.

  “I need only a few minutes to ask questions. I have some money. The innkeeper helped you. If I pay him, he might do the same for me.”

  He took hold of her arm and brought her face close to his. She could see nothing but the blue of his eyes.

  “Listen to me. They’ll kill you. There isn’t a man in this inn who doesn’t know by now that the British want you. And there’s a cloth manufactory not five miles from here. The weavers are the reform leaders here as well as in the south. Any one of them in that taproom could have heard that you’re wanted. They’ll turn you over to one side or the other to collect the bounty. Do you understand?”

  She did. The innkeeper and his wife had already betrayed them to the British. But they’d cooperated with Cinaed. Of course, from the way the man acted just now, she guessed he’d given them no choice.

  She mustered all her courage. What would it matter if she lived and her family was taken? She would never forgive herself if someone like Hudson got his hands on them. “I cannot just run away.”

  His hold loosened. His fingers trailed along the line of her jaw before his hand dropped away. She sat back on her heels.

  “Take me to Searc Mackintosh. In Maggot Green in Inverness. Near the Black Bridge. He’s kin. He’ll shelter us. It’s near enough.”

  Isabella looked over her shoulder at Jean, wondering if she could make any sense of this direction.

  “We’ll find it.” The old woman stuffed a pistol in each of the bags. “He’s right, mistress. We can do no good here for my John nor for yer lasses. And there’s no point staying and letting these lowlife curs at ye.”

  Here, two strangers were coming to her rescue. Continuing to risk their lives to help her.

  “I owe you so much,” she whispered, mopping the beads of sweat from his face. “You could have gone, and you’d have been better off for i
t. But you stayed. You saved my life. I can never repay you for what you did today.”

  He opened his mouth to answer, but she recognized how quickly he was sinking. She put her fingers to his lips.

  “You are a fighter.”

  Of all the people she’d cared for over the years, of all the sickbeds she’d been called to, no situation matched this moment. She was desperate to get him through this, but her education and her years of training were meaningless. Everything told her he needed to lie quiet in a clean bed. He needed fluids and medicine. But she could give him none of that. He was right; the soldiers would be back, and they had no time.

  “You’re going to live.” The assurance was as much for herself as for him.

  Resigned to their plan, Isabella was trying to decide how she’d get him into the cart when the innkeeper arrived. The stable boy was on his heels.

  “He’s not strong enough to make it out of here on his own. You’ll need to help us. We’ll use the chair as a litter.”

  A moment later, they were making their way out into the corridor and through a back door. It took all four of them to lift Cinaed from the chair into the waiting cart. His eyes opened as she climbed in beside him, while Jean took the reins.

  “They’ll be back here looking for ye.” The innkeeper’s eyes were scanning the fields to the north. “What should I be telling them? I don’t care to hang for helping ye.”

  “You didn’t help,” Cinaed murmured hoarsely. “Say a handful of men you didn’t know came in with me. One of them went to the kirkyard and started ringing the bell. They held a knife to your wife’s throat. We forced you.”

  “But where should I say ye all came from?”

  “Duff Head,” Cinaed muttered, looking up at Jean.

  The old woman shrugged.

  “Duff Head,” the innkeeper said, stepping back.

  Jean flicked the reins, and a moment later, they were on the road to Inverness.

  Isabella raised his head and pushed a travel bag beneath it. As the cart rolled past the kirk, she covered him with her cloak.

  “So you do believe in revenge, Captain Mackintosh.”

  His face was grim. “I’m missing three longboats filled with my men. I have no idea if they’re dead or alive. But if any of them came ashore at Duff Head, I know their fate. Those villagers almost killed me. They deserve what’s coming to them.”

  “They’d have killed us all, to be sure,” Jean said sadly. “The sea provides, and the sea takes her due.”

  Isabella was about to say something more, but the words withered in her throat as the sound of hooves drew her eyes back along the road. In the distance, a detail of mounted British soldiers was thundering toward them.

  At the head of the line was a rider taller than the rest. Lieutenant Hudson.

  CHAPTER 10

  Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can,

  Come saddle your horses, and call up your men;

  Come open the West Port, and let me gang free,

  And it’s room for the bonnets of Bonny Dundee!

  —Sir Walter Scott, “Bonny Dundee”

  A half-dozen men were bearing down on them along the coach road, and Cinaed knew there was no point in trying to outrun them with a single horse pulling an old cart. Their pursuers were coming hard on fresh horses.

  He forced himself into a sitting position. Escape was impossible. A stone’s throw from the road, long stone walls and ditches enclosed large flat tracts of land that had once been farms. Now flocks of sheep grazed unperturbed around the ruined walls of ancient cottages. Across the fields, a grove of tall trees stood like an island of deep green, but they’d never reach it in time, and it offered little protection. They had nowhere to hide and nowhere to run to.

  Behind him, Jean was muttering curses under her breath, and Isabella was sitting with her back straight as a mainmast, cool disdain on her face. She was a goddess of composure in the face of grave danger.

  No matter how sick or injured one might be, he thought, nothing was more jarring than knowing one could die at any minute. Forcing himself to ignore his pain and exhaustion, he focused on the soldiers.

  “Hudson and his bloody skip jacks made good time.” He drew a deep breath as he flexed his shooting hand. “Where are the pistols?”

  “Jean has one in that bag beside her. The other is here,” Isabella answered, taking it from her travel bag and quickly sliding it under the edge of the cloak.

  His fingers closed around the handle, and he left the pistol where he could reach it when the time came. He pulled his knife from his boot and placed it beside the firearm.

  Unless Hudson had ordered them killed on sight, which was unlikely, they had two choices. They could fight—and that would be a brief skirmish, at best—or they could allow themselves to be taken. The end result would be the same. They’d be dead.

  Isabella was drawing a scalpel from her bag and secreting it in her dress.

  She shrugged. “I plan to fight them. I’ll die before they arrest me. If they take me, my death will be far more dreadful.”

  Their thoughts were sailing on the same tack.

  As the Hussars rode up and came to a halt, they formed a half-circle around the cart. Cinaed placed his hands where they’d be seen.

  “I’d like to thank you for ringing the bell. It certainly worked in my favor,” Hudson said as he nudged his horse forward. His pistol was pointed directly at Isabella. Davidson lagged a few judicious steps behind him.

  Cinaed would put his bullet into Hudson’s brain and, before being cut down by the others, make sure his knife found Davidson’s heart. What happened after was out of his hands. His fingers inched toward the edge of the cloak.

  Hudson was still crowing like the cock of the roost. “Unlike your cowardly Highlanders, who no longer have the heart to show up to do battle, my men responded to the sound of the bell. Davidson and I were met before we’d traveled far.”

  “Terribly embarrassing, was it not,” Cinaed taunted, “to have your own men find you running back to the barracks with your tail between your legs?”

  Hudson reined his horse to a halt not fifteen feet from the cart. Davidson moved to the side where he’d have a clear shot at Cinaed.

  “A very impressive performance on your part,” Hudson said, ignoring the insult. “As fine as any actor in London. I’m quite curious to know just who you are.”

  In a moment, he’d be their worst nightmare. The angel of destiny. The reaper of souls.

  He scoffed, not deigning to answer. From running a revenuer ship aground to conveying rebels to safety to what he did today, he’d been a scourge to them. The Highlanders called him the son of Scotland.

  Of late, while folk all over the Highland were being subjected to every imaginable savagery as a way of “encouraging” them to emigrate to some new land, Cinaed had been using the Highland Crown to bring powder and guns to those who chose to resist. He was giving them the means of fighting for their land. And for a better price than they could get from other weapons smugglers.

  This blue-jacketed fool and his seagoing cronies had never come close to catching him. They’d never learned the name of the captain who’d slipped by their naval patrols and beneath their noses along this coast. And they would never know now that his lionhearted ship lay buried inside the reef at Duff Head.

  “Soon, quite soon, in fact, you’ll be telling us everything we want to know. As will your lovely companion. And it will be a pleasure loosening both of your tongues,” Hudson threatened. He raised a hand and motioned to his men to approach. “Take them. And if any one of them offers the slightest resistance, kill him. But I want Mrs. Drummond.”

  Cinaed’s hand closed around the pistol, and he met her flashing eyes. “I am sorry that it has to end like this.”

  “I’m ready,” Isabella told him.

  She was braver than any woman he’d ever met, and she didn’t deserve to die here. But he would not willingly let her be taken and broken by this blackg
uard.

  Before he could draw the weapon, Jean’s shout rang out.

  “Ha, you dog-faced misery! How wrong ye are! Our lads are always keen to fight. And what a sweet, lovely moment it’ll be to piss on a bunch of spineless, lowlife southlanders bleeding out in the Highland dirt.”

  She was pointing across the field. It took a moment for Cinaed’s vision to focus. At least two dozen armed men on horseback were sitting side by side in front of the grove of trees. Suddenly, it was Hudson who was outgunned. Cinaed watched him nudge his horse back toward his men, assessing his odds.

  He wheeled his mount. “Davidson. Get the woman.”

  The sergeant raised his pistol and spurred his horse as he fired. Cinaed pulled Isabella’s head down and returned fire.

  “Go, Jean!” he shouted as Davidson dropped from his saddle. The cart took off as if a team of eight were pulling it.

  Wild battle cries filled the air as the Highlanders raced across the field. The British fired, but to no effect, and rather than draw their sabers and fight to the end, they turned as one and retreated down the coach road, led by Lieutenant Hudson with the Highlanders in pursuit.

  Cinaed would have liked nothing better than to go back and join in the fight. But his body was betraying him again, and it was more important to get Isabella as far away from Hudson as possible.

  He waited until they were approaching a bend in the road before he let her up. That’s when he saw she was covered with blood.

  “You’ve been shot!”

  * * *

  The last she’d seen of the Highlanders who’d come to their rescue was the mud being kicked up by their horses as they flew after Hudson and his Hussars. A moment later, they’d disappeared around a bend in the coach road.

  For one insane minute, all she could do was sit still and hold her breath as Cinaed’s hand moved over her arms and the front of her dress.