by Louise Clark
An officer, dressed in a fine scarlet uniform, urged the troop toward her. The sound of his voice broke Maggie’s paralyzed trance. Picking up her skirts she fled, heading for the treed hillside and the almost indiscernible paths she knew so well. But her debilitated condition and the precious seconds she had stood, unable to move, betrayed her. She was pursued and easily overtaken by two of the cavalrymen.
Casually they herded her back to the officer, who was sitting languidly on a big black stallion. He was a thin man of perhaps twenty-four or twenty-five years of age. Pale eyes under sandy brows watched her with dispassionate menace while his small, petulant mouth curved into a cruel, mocking smile.
A sharp blow on the side of her head drove Maggie to her knees and brought her thoughts abruptly back to the realities of the situation. A bullying voice shouted in her ear, “He asked you a question, and when Lieutenant Williams asks you a question, you answer! Understand, wench?”
Maggie looked up. All she could see was the massive shoulders of the horse and the black of the officer’s boot. “Aye, sir,” she whispered.
“Get her to her feet so I can hear her,” Williams drawled. There was pleasure in his tone. He was enjoying the situation.
The soldier grasped Maggie’s shoulder and pulled her up, tearing the seam of her dress in the process. The fabric fluttered down, exposing her thin, well-used shift that showed more than it hid. There were lascivious comments and a few guffaws from the watching troopers. Maggie hurriedly pulled her torn dress back together and defensively wrapped her arms against her breasts.
“Silence,” shouted Williams. Quiet fell. Maggie felt a surge of relief that the lieutenant was able to control the rabble he commanded. Williams drew his sword, an elegant blade with a chased silver hilt, and flicked it under Maggie’s chin. She gasped, then uttered a choked off sob of pure terror. The mocking smile on the Englishman’s face widened.
*
“What are you doing?” Thea demanded in a loud, imperious voice. Her earlier hope that the group of horsemen had stopped at Maggie MacLonan’s home for some benign purpose had fled as she neared the cottage and saw that Maggie was in the center of the ominous circle of men. A cold fear that the situation had gone too far for her to be able to take control of it made her wish, more than ever, that she had brought an escort with her today.
The officer looked up, but didn’t remove his sword from Maggie’s throat. “I am interrogating a witness,” he said smoothly in the refined accent of southern England. His gaze traveled the length of Thea’s body, taking note of the excellent cloth of her well-used riding costume, the expensive fur that trimmed her cloak, her patrician features, and her spirited mount. His head flicked to one side. One of his men moved surreptitiously. “Do I have the pleasure of conversing with the Lady of Glenmuir?”
“You do,” Thea replied curtly. “You have the advantage of me, sir. What is your name and rank?”
He smiled cruelly, and bowed. As he moved, his sword scraped along Maggie’s skin, leaving a long scratch. Blood oozed slowly from the mark. “Lieutenant Williams of His Majesty’s Dragoons, at your service, ma’am.”
“Lieutenant Williams!” Thea gasped, watching the blood dribble down Maggie’s skin until it reached the thin stuff of her shift, where it left a bright red stain. “Take care! Sheathe your sword, if you please!”
“But I do not please.”
As he spoke, Thea noticed that several of his men were standing unpleasantly close to her mare. Close enough to grab hold of the bridle, close enough to catch the stirrups and pull her off the horse. She raised her brows haughtily. “What are you doing on MacLonan lands?”
Williams’s stallion moved and he allowed the sword to trail further down Maggie’s shoulder. She flinched and tried to move away, but the trooper holding her forced her forward. The sword bit into flesh and she sobbed helplessly.
Anger flashed in Thea’s eyes. Who does this vicious junior officer think he is dealing with? “My husband is the Master of Glenmuir. If you have some accusation to make about Maggie MacLonan, then you must bring it before him. Until then, release the woman and be on your way!”
Williams laughed. “I don’t have to do anything, my fine lady. I’ve been ordered to patrol this area and make these barbarians aware that London rules here.” His sneering smile showed sharp yellow teeth. “That includes enforcing the laws and searching out illegal contraband. I’m simply questioning this woman for information.”
“I don’t have information! I’ve been ill with fever. Please don’tâ”
Maggie cried out as the soldier holding her in place cuffed her on the side of the head. “You’ll speak when you’re spoken to, wench!”
“Well done, Brown,” the lieutenant murmured silkily.
“Cease this pointless assault immediately, Lieutenant Williams.” Thea looked hard at the dragoon holding Maggie’s shoulders. She knew the man, and at her pointed stare he swallowed and looked down at the ground. Williams was new to her, but her father had told her that when he was transferred out, a number of other officers had also been reassigned, with new men coming in. Williams must be one of those. “You can see for yourself how isolated Maggie’s farm is. Her husband was transported in ‘46 and she’s been a recluse ever since! She knows nothing of what goes on in the valley.”
“But you do, I’ll warrant, Mrs. MacLonan.”
Thea felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise with primitive fear. “There are no illegal activities in Glenmuir. My husband wouldn’t countenance them.”
Williams lowered his sword. Maggie closed her eyes and breathed deeply, her body trembling from the stress of the last few minutes. “No illegal activities at all, Mrs. MacLonan?” he repeated mockingly. “Your husband’s word on it, I suppose.”
“Yes!”
“The word of a Jacobite.”
“The word of a gentleman,” Thea countered furiously.
Williams smiled and relaxed in the saddle, the hand holding the reins resting lightly on the pommel. The big stallion pulled at the bit and stamped impatiently.
“A Jacobite hardly qualifies for the title of gentleman. A barbarian outlaw is what your husband is, Mrs. MacLonan. A lying rebel who cannot be trusted by any decent man.”
“You impertinent jackanapes! I demand an apology immediately!”
The lieutenant’s face twisted with rage. “Mind your tongue, woman,” he snarled. “Or I shall make very certain you regret you ever learned to speak!”
The situation tottered on the edge of explosion. Williams was not the man to gracefully accept criticism from anyone, especially not a woman, and especially not in front of the men he commanded. Maggie, trembling and terrified, the sword still dangerously close to her body, unwittingly turned the situation in a new direction.
Her voice quivering with fear, she shrieked, “Tell him who you are, lady! Save us both! Please, tell him!”
Curiosity flickered in Williams’s eyes, and the tension in his body eased away as if he felt he’d regained control of the situation. “How intriguing,” he drawled in a perfect imitation of a supercilious society fop. “Yes, my lovely lady, do indeed tell me who you are.”
Thea raised her brows haughtily. Her voice was icy with disdain. “She wishes me to inform you that I am English born and that my father is Sir Frederick Tilton, a general officer in the King’s army, and recently in command of the troops stationed in Edinburgh.” Though she kept her voice level, inwardly Thea was furious. Infected by her mistress’s seething emotions, Firefly tossed her head and sidled nervously. “You cannot expect to insult me and get away with it!”
“Insult you, Mrs. MacLonan?” Williams nodded in her direction. One of the soldiers looked briefly at Thea, touched his cap, then grabbed her mare’s bridle. A second stood by the mare’s side and twitched the reins from Thea’s hands. Williams laughed nastily. “You will allow my man to help you dismount, won’t you, Mrs. MacLonan? That mare of yours seems a rather fidgety animal. Too spirited
for your capabilities, I think. You’re better off on the ground.”
Thea looked down at the stony face of the soldier at her knee and bowed to the inevitable. After shooting a smoldering glance at Williams, she slipped off the mare, avoiding the soldier’s raised hands, apparently outstretched to assist her. He was a stranger to her and she didn’t like the appreciative gleam she could see deep in his eyes.
“An intelligent decision, ma’am,” Williams said. Then he addressed the soldier holding the bridle. “Take the horse and tie it behind the house. Youâsee that the lady doesn’t injure herself by getting involved in what she should not.”
The dirty fingers of the nearby soldier’s hand closed around Thea’s arm above the elbow. Resisting a shudder, she faced Williams proudly. “You will regret this, sir.”
He raised mocking brows. “Regret what, my fine lady? Having my man assist you in dismounting to ensure your safety?” He turned to the soldier holding the wilting Maggie. “Brown, I’m sure this woman can tell us any number of secrets if she’s questioned properly. And remember, these are rebel lands. I want to be sure there’s nothing afoot here that should not be.”
“Don’t touch her!” Thea ordered in a tone she’d heard her father use many times. It spoke of confidence and authority, but more importantly, it hid the fear that lurked very close to the surface.
The soldiers halted, instinctively responding to the command in Thea’s voice. Firefly pulled at the reins held by one of the dragoons, reaching down to nibble at a tuft of grass. Maggie choked back a frightened sob.
Williams still lounged in the saddle, but his expression was impatient. “You’re interfering in the interrogation of a rebel.”
“Maggie is no rebel!”
“She’s a Scot. They’re all rebels at heart. Barbaric savages,” Williams added for good measure.
“It is you who are the barbarian!”
“Take care, my fine English lady, lest you push me too far and I treat you like the Scots you so admire!”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
Williams laughed nastily. “Would you care to put me to the test?”
“I am not without protectors!” Thea said hotly. “My husband will see to it you are punished for this day’s work!”
“Whose word would be accepted regarding what happened here? A former Jacobite’s? Or a loyal officer just doing his duty?”
“My word will be accepted. I told you…”
Williams raised sardonic brows. “The word of a turncoat? A traitor to her own kind? I think not, lady. I think not.”
The color drained from Thea’s face. Satisfied, Williams glanced at his men. In a voice that threatened violence if he wasn’t immediately obeyed, he snarled, “You were given orders. Carry them out!”
There was a flurry of activity. The trooper holding Firefly jerked the mare’s head up and pulled her into motion. His path led him past Williams, still relaxed on his horse, now watching with amusement as Maggie struggled against the soldier’s hold. Her movements brought her near to his mount and he raised his sword to ward her off. Thea stared helplessly, her hands balled into fists of impotent anger.
The soldier leading Firefly was not used to a nervous horse that tried to rear, tossed its head, sidled, and generally did its best to resist the pull of the rein. As he led the mare past his lieutenant, the horse’s hindquarters swung round as she danced with irritation. The big black stallion, catching the mare’s scent, snorted and lunged with an instinct as old as time.
The movement caught Williams off guard. He teetered in the saddle, his balance lost. As the stallion bounded forward, the sword Williams had pointed insultingly toward Maggie pierced her flesh. She screamed and her knees buckled. Williams jerked hard on the reins, halting the stallion, then pulled his weapon free of Maggie’s body. She collapsed into a heap on the ground.
In the silence that followed, the only sound was the beat of Firefly’s hooves as she escaped from the limp grasp of the soldier leading her. No one moved or spoke as they all stared in blank horror at the wounded woman.
“Sergeant,” Williams said at last. “Mount your men. We are moving out.”
Thea dragged her appalled gaze away from Maggie’s still form. “You’re leaving? Just like that? You won’t even carry her into her house? Or try to tend her injuries? Do you care if she’s even alive?”
Williams rammed his blade into the scabbard. “I told you to mind your tongue, woman.”
“You call the Scots savages, but I think it’s a name you are better qualified to wear, Lieutenant! Your actions today are a stain on the honor of England. I hold you beneath contempt!”
The soldiers were mounted, the troop ready to depart. Williams spurred his horse into motion. As he passed, he leaned down and struck Thea squarely across the face with the back of his hand.
She fell to her knees, her ears ringing and her vision blurred. The tricorn hat she wore, a jauntily cocked imitation of a man’s, flew from her head with the force of the blow and the pins holding her mane of thick golden hair were loosened. It fell in a bright cascade over her shoulders as the riders disappeared into the mist.
Emotions began to replace the numbing shock as the sound of the last hoofbeats faded away. Hatred flooded Thea first, then rage that a vicious, overbearing underling should dare to act as Williams had done. If the lieutenant had been beside Thea at that moment and she’d had a weapon in her hands, she would have killed him and smiled while she did so. But Williams was long gone and Thea’s rage burnt itself out in helpless frustration, leaving desolation and despair in its charred ruins.
A pitiful moan from Maggie drew Thea out of her own troubles and back to the need to act. Shakily, she rose to her feet and went over to the other woman, then knelt down beside her.
“Maggie? Maggie, did you call? How can I help you?”
Maggie didn’t reply. With fumbling fingers, Thea ripped a strip of cloth from her petticoat to bind the wound the sword had left in Maggie’s chest. Then she undid the clasp of her cloak and, swinging the garment from her shoulders, draped it over Maggie’s inert body. The garment hid Maggie’s torn and bloodied clothes, but it couldn’t hide the pallor of Maggie’s face. Thea bit her lip. There must be something she could do to ease the woman’s pain.
Looking around, she spotted the bucket Maggie had carried from the cottage. She began to rise, intending to fetch water to bathe Maggie’s forehead, but the woman opened her eyes and croaked, “Don’t go.”
Thea jumped, so unexpected was the sound of Maggie’s voice in the heavy stillness. Once she’d regained her composure, she said gently, “Maggie, I’m only going over to the stream to get some water. I won’t be but a moment.”
Something flickered in the other woman’s eyes; then her lids drooped closed and she turned her face away. Thea shivered, feeling shut out and frightened. Not liking the sensation, she hurried over to the stream. When she returned, she tore another piece of cloth from her petticoat, dipped the rag into the icy water, and began to bathe Maggie’s face.
“Someone should be coming from the village soon,” she said as she worked, but whether she was comforting herself or Maggie she wasn’t sure. “They knew where I was going and how long I’d be.”
“I thought you’d left,” Maggie muttered thickly.
“No, I only went to get water. I won’t leave you alone.”
“They’ll be back.”
“W-who?”
“The soldiers.” Maggie shut her eyes. “I thought if they knew you was one of them they’d go away.”
“Those men were renegades. Outlaws,” Thea stated forcefully. “They weren’t typical British soldiersâ”
Maggie laughed. “You still don’t understand, do you, lady? The first time the soldiers came was after Culloden. We hadn’t heard, then, about the battle. If we had, my Dougal would have taken to the hills like a sensible man. He’d done nothing. Nothing! He’d refused to fight for the Prince, said he had no quarrel with London. Mast
er Neil tried to persuade him to go, but he was adamant and in the end he stayed here to look after his own.”
Thea sat back on her heels, watching the other woman’s face.
“When the soldiers came we told them Dougal was innocent, but they wouldn’t believe us. They took him anyway, bound his wrists with chains, and laughed at his anger. Then they slaughtered our animals and burned our house. And if that didn’t shame Dougal enough, they raped me in front of him, made him watch while they took their brutal pleasure of me. Then they dragged him away, helpless and humiliated.”
Maggie’s breath was coming in short, panting gasps, as if she was having trouble breathing, and there was an ominous rasp underlying the sound.
“Maggie, it won’t happen again. Someone will be here soon…”
“I never saw him again,” Maggie muttered, her words slurring one into the next. “He was sent to the colonies for a crime he didn’t do. And I am alone.”
Thea reached under the cloak to clutch Maggie’s hand.
“Not alone, Maggie. Not any more.”
The Scotswoman fixed her eyes on Thea’s. There was an unnatural glitter in them that burned into Thea’s heart. “You’re not alone, lady. My man is gone. He cannot help me now. But yours can. Master James can avenge you.”
“But I don’t want vengeance!”
“Blood demands blood,” Maggie muttered harshly. Her eyes glittered fiercely for a moment more. “You see to it, lady,” she said. Then her voice stilled and her eyes drooped shut as she sank into unconsciousness.
Thea crouched beside her, more terrified than she’d been before. She clutched Maggie’s limp hand, staring at her face, but seeing instead the contempt in the Lieutenant’s icy gray eyes and the sneer on his mouth as he called her a traitor to her own kind.
She began to shiver from a cold deep within her bones.
“James,” she whispered, as she huddled there dispiritedly. “James.” She needed him now, needed to feel his arms around her, needed to hear his comforting voice telling her everything was all right. For a moment her mind escaped from the horror of what she’d witnessed as she thought of her husband and of the life they were building together. Then that lovely dream shattered as she realized how very fragile it was.