Highland Crown

by May McGoldrick

  Hudson had come for her.

  Isabella glanced at the door to the malt house where her patients lay.

  Unwilling to lead him to them, she ran in the opposite direction, toward Searc’s gate.

  * * *

  Before Cinaed and his men even reached the bridge across the River Ness, he could see the smoke and flames were rising above the crowded buildings and alleys around Maggot Green.

  As they spurred their horses through the wild-eyed crowds streaming out of the Maggot, Cinaed worried about Isabella. He’d been able to see the fires had not yet reached the lane between Searc’s house and the malt house where he’d left her, but he feared it might just be a matter of time.

  They reached the smoke-filled green and found panic and pandemonium everywhere. A light rain began to fall, adding to the chaos. The streets were choked with abandoned carts loaded with household goods. Some still had terrified goats and cows tethered to them. People were running in every direction. Unattended children wandered in the smoke and rubble. Near the distillery, the entire block was aflame.

  It was clear the fires had been started in different parts of the Maggot. Several lines of courageous residents were trying to pass buckets of water hand to hand, but their efforts were being thwarted. Blue-jacketed soldiers on horseback were charging back and forth across the green, swinging their sabers and scattering the lines. At the river, a line of Hussars was forming to clear out those trying to reach the Ness with their buckets.

  This was a nightmare come to life. These were his people, and he would not stand aside.

  Signaling to his Highlanders, Cinaed drew his sword and they charged.

  CHAPTER 24

  And come he slow, or come he fast,

  It is but Death who comes at last.

  —Sir Walter Scott, “Marmion,” Canto II

  Take her alive or order the house burned with her in it? Have his men run her down or capture her himself?

  Counting on Hudson’s arrogance, she decided he was certain to follow her across the lane and take her on his own. At least, that was what she prayed as she raced through the open doorway of Searc’s home. The most important thing at that moment was to lead him away from the innocent people lying helpless on the malt-house floor.

  In the great hall, the housekeeper stood, uncertain in her panic as to what she should do. “All the men have gone to help with the fire, mistress. And only the cook and I and—”

  “Take the tunnel to the river.” She dragged her toward the corridor on the far side of the hall. “The soldiers might set this house on fire too. Gather whoever is left in the house and go. Go now!”

  “Come with us, mistress.”

  “Not now. I’ll join you.”

  Thankfully, the older woman didn’t argue and yelled to a serving girl rushing from the kitchens. They both disappeared.

  Isabella reached into the pocket of her apron for the scalpel she’d tucked there earlier. She could hardly hope to throw it with any success at the monster, but she was still prepared to fight him to the end.

  She faced the door across the great hall. The labyrinth of corridors lay behind her. She knew her way through them now. She could disappear, and he would never find her. She could leave the building. But she wasn’t going to run away. She was the one who’d brought Hudson to Inverness, and one way or the other she would send him away from here.

  The door from the lane flew open with a smash. He swaggered in and stopped across the great hall when he saw her, his face at once smug and triumphant. Thank God, she thought, he’d chosen to come after her alone.

  “Good day, Dr. Drummond. Or is it Mrs. Murray today? Wait, I believe you must be Mrs. Mackintosh, the lovely wife of this new son of Scotland everyone speaks so highly of.”

  Of course, word would have reached Fort George. Son of Scotland. She’d heard the term used over and over. She knew they were referring to Cinaed. She took a couple of steps back. The door behind Hudson stayed open, but no one else appeared.

  “How did you find me?”

  “It was easy,” he said, strolling casually toward her. “A fine-looking woman with a Lowlander’s accent who happens to have medical knowledge.”

  She retreated, backing into a wide corridor leading into the house. “If you knew where I was, why burn this neighborhood? Why not just take me and drag me back to Edinburgh with you? Why make these people suffer?”

  “A little late for such talk, don’t you think?” he asked, continuing to follow her. “But I’m not here to take you back. I no longer need you. I no longer need the names of your troublemaking friends.”

  Isabella shot a quick glance over her shoulder. She kept backing away, slow enough to keep him coming. He was enjoying this. She was a mouse, trapped between his cat claws. In a moment, he’d become bored with the game. The time for toying with her would be over. And then he’d pounce.

  “You don’t need me?” she asked, stalling.

  “Not at all. You’ve given me something greater. Another husband. Another enemy of the Crown. You have a keen interest in traitors.”

  She bit back her words.

  “Thanks to you, I now know the man who is fast becoming the heart of all our future troubles here.”

  Isabella didn’t need to ask. Cinaed.

  “Unlike you, he is a true enemy of the Crown, wanted for years. Sinking government ships. Bringing illegal arms into the Highlands.” He shook his head like he expected better. “It wasn’t too difficult to realize what was on the Highland Crown. I hear the explosions lit up the sky before it sank.”

  “Much like that ship not a mile from here,” she taunted.

  “As you say. But you’ve given me another charge to attach to his name.”

  “I’ve given you nothing,” she spat.

  “He is a bold one, and shrewd. I’ll give him that. Bleeding, smelling like a dead fish, and still he bursts into that dining room to rescue you. But if for nothing else, I’ll enjoy seeing him hang for killing Sergeant Davidson.”

  The length of his stride was longer than hers. He was closing the distance between them.

  “I do enjoy a spirited competition, when it benefits me,” he said. “And our little game has benefited me greatly since the day you two escaped Stoneyfield House. Now, I have a face for every treasonous act that has occurred since we arrived here.”

  She backed around a corner into another hallway, and he followed.

  “The rescue of John Gordon.” He smiled. “The destruction of HMS Pitt in retaliation for Searc’s pending execution. More celebration for me. And of course, hearing our spies constantly speaking of this liberator who’s returned to his people. With his Lowland bride on his arm. It all came together for me last night. My superiors in Edinburgh … in London … will be falling over themselves in their gratitude and their desire to decorate me.”

  “Still, why take Searc Mackintosh?”

  “Ah, women never understand the art of war. It’s difficult for you to appreciate the brilliance of a finely wrought military maneuver.” He dragged his nails along the wall as he advanced. “All corruption leads back to this house. Pull Searc Mackintosh from his lair, and the so-called son of Scotland would surely show his face.”

  Panic clutched Isabella’s chest. It wasn’t only her own life that she worried about, but Cinaed’s. Hudson knew everything about him. Because of her, they had a name. And then wherever he was, be it Inverness, Dalmigavie Castle, Halifax, or the far side of the Antipodes, they’d go after him.

  “I believe your husband’s weakest move came this morning. Such a simpleton, after all. To think I’d ever go to a place so convenient for an ambush, even to have you turned over to me.”

  She backed away quicker, and he lengthened his strides.

  “You can kill me,” she told him. “But you will never have him.”

  “Well, my dear. Killing you is only an eventuality. You’ll serve me much better as bait. I’ve seen how he reacts when you’re in trouble. And in my han
ds, you’re about to learn what real trouble is.”

  Isabella turned and yanked open a door. Dashing through it, she found what she wanted.

  Hudson entered, and his eyes lit up. He stared at the portrait above the fireplace as if he’d found the Holy Grail.

  * * *

  The rain was falling harder, an unexpected gift from the heavens. The fires were coming under control, though it appeared the distillery would be lost.

  Buckets continued to be passed from hand to hand, men and women working hard to douse the flames and keep the fires from spreading farther.

  Cinaed stepped out of the line and drew his saber when he spotted two Hussars at the end of a lane. Seeing him, they quickly wheeled their horses and put the spurs to their flanks. It hadn’t taken long to rout Hudson’s men, and those who hadn’t already fled were fast disappearing.

  “That coward Hudson never showed his ugly face.” Blair walked up the lane behind him. “No one’s caught even a whiff of the poxy cur.”

  “I’ll find the devil, wherever he is hiding. And I’ll make him pay with his blood for all of this.”

  An old man staggered from an alley and leaned exhausted against a wall. Cinaed nudged his steed closer and saw his hands were burned.

  “I’ll take yer place in the line,” Blair offered, “if ye want to take him to get them hands looked at.”

  They’d arrived at the Maggot in the midst of a disaster. But his mind had never strayed from Isabella. He knew how close she was to the danger.

  Helping the old man into the malt house a few minutes later, he handed him into Jean’s care and looked around for Isabella.

  The floor of the entire room was crowded with people. As he walked through, the smell of burned flesh and wool stung his nostrils. The wide eyes of children looked up from soot-covered faces. He took buckets of water from a lad and carried them across the room. A man needed to be helped in from the lane. Picking up a lost child, he searched until he found a neighbor who knew her. Cinaed remained there, helping where he could.

  These were his people. The keen edge of guilt cut into him, for he knew that he was as responsible as Hudson for the pain reflected in their lives. He’d expected a reprisal, but he thought he could control it. He’d been outflanked, and it hurt him. Next time, he’d be smarter.

  Isabella. He hadn’t seen her. He looked over the crowd and found Carmichael, instead. When was it he’d seen the surgeon last? He couldn’t remember. The man’s shoulders sagged from the suffering around him.

  “Where is she?” he asked the surgeon when he reached him.

  Carmichael straightened and looked around. “I … I don’t know.”

  “When did you last see her?”

  The surgeon shook his head. Cinaed forced himself to stay calm and moved to one of the women he’d seen earlier. And then on to the next, asking the same question. Finally, a young woman holding a small soot-covered child told him she thought she’d seen his wife go out into the lane, but that was ages ago.

  Ages ago?

  He didn’t know how he found his way out of the building, for his eyes were blind to everything as he searched for a glimpse of her. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the roaring in his head. His brain was telling him over and over that no one had seen Hudson. Now Isabella was missing.

  Searc’s housekeeper, coming from the direction of the river, ran up the lane to him. “She came into the house … Aye, long ago. She told me to run. She was worried the house would go up in flames.”

  Cinaed ran down the lane to the gate. Finding the door standing open, he felt another cold wave of doom wash over him, threatening to push him under. He forgot how to breathe.

  No one was inside. No servants. None of Searc’s men. He called her name from the bottom of the tower stairwell. Nothing. In the great hall, he shouted up the wide stairs toward the drawing room.

  A weak answer came, but from the bowels of the house.

  Too afraid to hope, but praying she was unharmed, he called again, moving through the corridors in search of her.

  Cinaed found her down the hall from Searc’s clan room, sitting on the floor, her back against the wall. As he approached, he saw she was covered in blood.

  “By the devil!” he exclaimed, rushing toward her.

  “Not mine.” She stood and threw herself into his arms as he reached her. “It’s his blood. Hudson’s. I had to do it. I had no choice. I had to kill him.”

  Cinaed held her, caressed her, spoke softly in her ear. She was shaking uncontrollably. Her face was wet, though he didn’t think she even realized she was crying. He understood. She’d spent her life saving lives, and today she’d been forced to take one.

  He kissed her furrowed brow and leaned her against the wall. She was reluctant to release him.

  “I need to make sure,” he said softly.

  The clan-room door was open. Cinaed entered and found Hudson on the floor. The backsword had pierced his heart. His eyes stared blankly at the portrait on the wall, the throes of death etched across his face.

  CHAPTER 25

  Time will rust the sharpest sword,

  Time will consume the strongest cord;

  That which molders hemp and steel,

  Mortal arm and nerve must feel.

  —Sir Walter Scott, “Harold the Dauntless”

  Deep in the Highlands, in a remote glen of the River Findhorn, Dalmigavie Castle sat on a craggy hill overlooking the valley. Around its ancient stone walls, far-off mountain peaks soared, kissing the sky.

  Cinaed knew and loved these hills. He was nearly home, but he wasn’t home either. He was happy to meet the folk he’d grown up amongst, but he feared the bond of kinship had already been severed with too keen a blade. As they climbed ever higher into the mountains, he enjoyed seeing the excitement build in Isabella and Jean. The old woman’s face lit up with every turn of the narrow road, thinking they had perhaps arrived. They were eager to be reunited with their families, and he tried to hide his own ambivalence.

  They’d needed to wait a week before leaving Inverness for the journey to Dalmigavie. After the sinking of the ship and the fire at Maggot Green, the city streets had been crawling with patrols of armed soldiers, but in a few days, calm returned. After a brief investigation, the explosion on HMS Pitt was called a “tragic accident.” The bodies of Lieutenant Hudson and a number of his men were discovered in several of the burned buildings. Searc had been released as soon as the Deputy Governor of Fort George returned from Fort William, with the general’s apology for the rogue officer who’d demonstrated irrational behavior and acted without authority. Searc appeared to be in good health. Regarding Isabella Drummond, the search was finished in Inverness. The lieutenant’s orders were being referred back to London for review.

  Cinaed knew all of this because of Searc and his unabated flow of information. He’d managed to become even more controlling and influential after the incident at the hands of Hudson. No one, be it Highlander or Englishman, wished to have their relationship with the burly man damaged.

  With the turmoil of Hudson’s inquisition behind them, Searc decided to accompany them on this visit to Dalmigavie.

  The Mackintosh clan throughout the Highlands was fond of celebrations, and Blair had already warned him a great feast and ceilidh was being organized for him. Cinaed had no desire to arrive under false pretenses, however. He didn’t want to be the center of such festivities when he had no intention of staying.

  They were perhaps only an hour or so from the castle when he stopped the carriage and their escort of riders. He took Isabella for a walk in the nearby meadow overlooking the river.

  The smell of pine on the breeze, the deep azure sky, the sun on the majestic mountain peaks, the sparkling river tumbling toward the next bend and the unknown beyond all teased his memories. A piece of him belonged here, though he found it hard to admit.

  “Lachlan has agreed to meet with me at an old lodge at this end of the glen,” he told Isabella. “You and Je
an will continue to the castle with Searc and the rest of the men.”

  She didn’t argue. She knew about his past and understood his concerns. “Will you send a message and let me know where you go from here? We’ll be ready, whenever you decide we should come. That is, if you want us to join you.”

  “There are no ifs.” He pulled her into his arms. Cinaed held her, inhaled the scent of her hair, thankful that she was in his life. She completed him.

  “I love you,” he told her. “And whether I remain in that lodge or go elsewhere, I’ll wait for you until you’re ready. Searc can arrange it all. He’ll bring you to me.”

  “And I love you, Cinaed Mackintosh. But know this, whatever you decide is your path, whatever your people’s plans turn out to be, I’ll not allow my past to hinder your—”

  He silenced her with a kiss. Cinaed didn’t know what she’d been told or by whom, but several times this past week she’d hinted about the need for going separate ways, about not being a burden to him. He wouldn’t have it. He wouldn’t allow it.

  Too soon, he had to let her go. Cinaed watched until Jean and Isabella were on their way before mounting his horse and riding toward the hunting lodge.

  Though he’d been here only a few times as a lad, he had no difficulty finding it. As he approached, however, he realized how different his perception of the place was now from what he remembered. What had once been an impressive building had turned into a moss-covered stone edifice. The roof of a nearby stable had fallen in on itself. A single horse was grazing in the meadow.

  Cinaed had asked for Lachlan to come alone, and he was satisfied to find his request had been honored.

  His uncle was not the man that Cinaed remembered, either. The years had been tough on the laird who’d once been a tall and strapping man. He was now grey, bone thin, and his face was deeply marked with the lines of age.

  Seeing the ravages of time in Lachlan, he felt a sadness emerge in him. In spite of anything he’d done, this man was his closest kin.