“Are you absolutely certain there isn’t Scots blood in you somewhere?” he murmured. “You show remarkable skill with a verbal blade.”
Catherine bit down on her lip and waited.
“You are right, of course,” he admitted with a sigh. “I wasn’t sure what to do with you once I had you. I wasn’t sure if you had just been carried along in something new and adventurous, or if you could actually love me enough to turn your back willingly on all of this. I sent you out of Scotland for your own safety, make no mistake about that. But I guess … in a way, I was also testing you. Testing myself as well.”
“And?”
“And”—he smoothed his thumbs lightly along the curve of her cheeks—“I think I should consider myself a lucky bastard to have a wife who knows my faults and isn’t afraid to stand up to me, rather than one who ignores my faults and learns to live with them. Mind you”—a quick downstroke brought both thumbs to rest against her parted lips—“I would naturally expect the same rights and privileges.”
“Naturally,” she whispered.
“I know I have not been much of a husband to you in the past few months, and I may not make much of a domesticated creature in the years ahead … but, by God,” he mused, “I’d like to try. I’d like to grow old with you. In fact, I want to grow old and portly and contented—just like my brother. I always thought Donald’s love for Maura was his one great weakness, but I can see now it is his strength.”
Catherine tried to match his smile, but the quivering in her chin and the sudden scalding of tears in her eyes did not permit much success. Alex gathered her close and wrapped warm, wonderful arms around her, and for a few moments, that was enough.
“Actually … there was another reason why I sent you out of Scotland,” he said huskily, pressing a kiss into the crown of her hair.
“Another reason?”
“Mmmm. If I’d taken you back to Achnacarry, you would still be there and I would be here, and … if the prince has his way, a month from now he’ll be marching through the gates of London and we would have been that much farther apart.” His teeth flashed a smile and his hands stroked down through the tousle of her hair to settle over the rounded softness of her buttocks. “Rather clever of me to have planned to have you here, wasn’t it?”
“Very clever,” she murmured dryly. “And I don’t believe a word of it.”
Melting into the sensation of his roving lips, she allowed herself to be gently guided deeper beneath the warm cocoon of blankets, to be loved and caressed by his hands, his lips, his superbly honed body. And for a time, she almost forgot there was a war going on outside their isolated sanctuary of happiness. She almost forgot that, in a few hours, he would be gone again and the fear would begin its process of erosion all over again.
“Alex?”
“Mmmm?”
“Are you asleep?”
He stirred and she could feel the lingering dampness that still clung to his chest and shoulders.
“Sleep?” he asked on a yawn. “What’s that?”
“I’m sorry,” she said guiltily. “Forget I said anything.”
He took a deep breath and his body tautened through a stretch that brought his head sliding up from its resting place on her belly. He snuggled into the crook of her shoulder, his arms enfolding her more securely, a long leg nestling more intimately between hers. In a few moments his breathing was deep and even, his body completely relaxed.
“Alex?”
“… mmm …?”
“Are you really going to sleep?”
The dark eyes opened slowly. “Apparently not. Why?”
“I have been thinking about what you said—about me being here and you being in London. Is it true? Is Charles Stuart really planning to march his army all the way to London?”
Alex knuckled the weariness from his eyes and stretched again. “I don’t know. He has his army and his intentions aimed that way.”
“Can he do it? Can he reach London?”
“Well, no one thought he could get this far, including some of his closest advisors, but he has.”
A very neat way to avoid answering the question, she thought. “Father says the Young Pretender will have to meet and destroy the king’s army before he advances much further.”
“He says that, does he?”
“And more besides. He says that even if the prince does reach London, he will never hold the city against the guns of the Royal Navy. He says Admiral Vernon will never serve under a Stuart monarchy, and with five hundred ships under his command, he will have the firepower to prove his point.”
“Your father is very perceptive. Has he any insights as to how the government will react?”
“He is certain Parliament would collapse and all but certain the nobility would band together and form their own army to march against the Stuarts.”
“He is talking civil war,” Alex remarked calmly.
“And then there is the church. Canterbury will never tolerate a return of the papacy to England, and there are simply not enough Catholics in the country strong enough to wrest the power away from the Anglican bishops.”
“For someone who professes to dislike politics and talk of war, you seem remarkably well informed.”
“I have eyes and ears.”
“So you do,” he mused, gazing thoughtfully at both. “Beautiful eyes and perfectly charming ears.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” she reminded him firmly.
The dark eyes flicked down to the naked opulence of her breasts. “The mood is hardly what you might call conducive to talk of armies and political strategies.”
“Nor is it, evidently, very fertile for truth and simple honesty … or is this how you mean to share your thoughts with me: by changing the subject when it pleases you, or avoiding unpleasant topics when the mood is not upon you?”
The black lashes lifted slowly and, after a careful scrutiny of the clear, direct expression on her face, he sighed and pushed himself higher on the pillows, propping them comfortably behind his back and crossing his arms over his chest.
“Very well. If it is the truth you want, it is the truth you shall have. Ask me whatever you want to know.”
Catherine noted the prick of irritation in his voice but softened her own enough to undermine it. “Is it true? Will the prince march on to London?”
“If the decision is his to make: yes.”
“Is his army strong enough to meet and defeat King George’s troops?”
“If Cumberland’s ships sink in the Channel and the Dutch have a change of heart, I’d give us an even chance. In spirit, I would even go so far as to say our Highlanders could win hell from the devil, if they set their minds to it.”
“In spirit? Are you saying they are lacking elsewhere?”
“The English don’t seem to think so. Not after General Cope was so obliging at Prestonpans by leaving behind his artillery, his stores and equipment.”
Catherine’s attention was distracted briefly to the fresh scar above her husband’s left ear. He hadn’t mentioned the wound, or how he had earned it, and she had not asked, but she did not have to be a doctor to see how close he had come to losing his ear, his eye, even his life.
Unwittingly, her eyes traveled higher to the opposite temple, to the thin white furrow of scar tissue that marked the cut Hamilton Garner’s sword had dealt him in the duel. He bore another on his thigh from that same encounter, and she had a sudden, clear image of how he had looked standing in the parlor, fresh from the duel, the sweat still glistening in his hair, the blood still leaking over the top of his tall black boots as he repeated his marriage vows. He had worn the same impenetrable mask over his features then as he did now, and, wary of his mastery over words as well as emotions, Catherine proceeded cautiously.
“Father credited the loss at Prestonpans to inexperience. Even Uncle Lawrence admitted General Cope was ill-supported and the troops were mainly new recruits, few of whom had seen battle before.”
“True enough,” Alexander agreed. “But the bulk of the prince’s army consisted then, and now, of farmers and shepherds who had never seen a musket before Prestonpans, much less faced or fired one. Cope’s troops, on the other hand, even though they lacked the seasoning, were trained and drilled, well equipped with not only muskets and shot but enough artillery to pepper the countryside full of holes.”
“It was also said your army took them by complete surprise.”
“Cope had the advantage of choosing the field. He had his back to the sea, a wide open plain on either flank, and a morass of filthy swampland guarding his front door. A schoolboy with a handful of stones should have been able to defend that position. Cope deserved to be humiliated, and he was.”
He was testing her desire to learn the truth, Catherine suspected. Telling her something … but what?
“Cope had barely three thousand men,” she said slowly. “The prince reportedly had four times that number.”
“Scraping the barrel for excuses, are we?” A black brow arched in wry amusement. “Rather creatively too. Four times as many, you say? The last I heard it was only three.”
Thrust and counterthrust.
“You said if it was the prince’s decision to make, there would be no question of marching against London. Does that mean there are those among you who might prefer another strategy?”
“Some of the clan chiefs have been against the idea of invasion from the outset,” Alex admitted candidly. “Others were willing enough to make the attempt, providing there was some show of support from the English Jacobites.”
“And? Has there been?”
“Not so that you’d notice,” he said dryly.
“Does that mean the prince is losing support from within his own ranks?”
“Even a blind man knows when to turn away from a stone wall.”
“A stone wall? Must you speak in riddles?”
Alex sighed. “A stone wall—figuratively speaking. In reality, what the chiefs are beginning to see, and quite clearly, is an army of Highland sheep farmers marching boldly along a main road of a country that has not had an army invade this deeply into its heart since the days of William the Conqueror. On their left flank they see Marshal Wade lurking with his army of five thousand men, all of whom would dearly love to avenge their fallen comrades at Prestonpans but who are wary of a similar fate befalling them should they act in too much haste. On the right flank is Sir John Ligonier’s army of seven thousand, equally eager, equally prudent. And now we hear the news that King George’s son, the Duke of Cumberland, is speeding back across the Channel with several thousand well-blooded veterans who are most perturbed at having to abandon their jolly little war in Flanders just to deal with a horde of skirted insurgents at home.
“Last but not least, is the stalwart brigade of a few thousand dragoons and assorted royal guardsmen who stand poised at Finchley Commons, not too pleased at the prospect of standing alone to defend the city against the descending hordes, but nobly willing to die for king and country should the duke not arrive home in time to fortify the ranks. I was in the city when King George delivered a rousing speech intended to bolster the courage of his brave guards—at the same time he was discreetly loading his valuables on a ship anchored in the Thames. He obviously has more faith in the prince’s loyal followers than he does in his own.”
Catherine did some quick mental arithmetic. “Discounting Admiral Vernon’s navy, and discounting the pockets of local militia throughout the countryside, the government only has about twenty thousand men to pit against the prince’s army. No wonder the king has reservations.”
There was a strange glint in Alexander’s eyes. “The odds are considerably more in his favor than they were in ours at Prestonpans, yet we held no such … reservations.”
“I’m not sure I follow you.”
He smiled faintly. “Despite what you heard, we put fewer than two thousand men on the field that day; Cope had closer to three. One of the main reasons why we had to release most of the prisoners was due to the fact that there were more of them than there were of us.”
“But … why would the prince only send two thousand men into his first engagement with the English army? Was he not taking a terrible risk with their lives?”
“He had no choice. Two thousand was all he could spare. The rest—a few hundred here and there—were needed at Perth and Edinburgh to hold on to what we had already captured.”
“A few hundred? But we heard there were upward of ten thousand at Prestonpans, with more joining the rebel army every day!”
Alex uncrossed an arm and ran a blunted fingertip along the curve of her cheek. “Catherine,” he said softly, “if we had ten thousand Highlanders in our army, we could capture not only London but all the capitals of Europe as well. There have never been more than five thousand following the prince’s standard at any one time.”
Catherine’s look of total disbelief mirrored his own of less than a month ago, when Donald Cameron had informed his officers of the prince’s decision not to winter in Scotland but to push on with the invasion without delay.
“Charles Stuart has invaded England with five thousand men?” she asked incredulously. “Five thousand against … against a modest estimate of twenty thousand? Surely you are joking!”
“I wish I were,” he replied tautly. “Well? What do you think of the truth so far?”
“So far?” she whispered. “Does the prince realize the odds he is facing?”
“Amazingly enough, he does. He is quite well informed, whereas—and here we only have Lord George’s brilliance at deception to credit—his enemies are completely ignorant of the most basic information: namely, the numbers and exact whereabouts of our forces.”
“How does he justify marching so few against so many?”
“Our Bonnie Prince Tearlach is obsessed with the justness of his cause,” Alex said simply. “He is also convinced, beyond a doubt, that not only will the common people rise in support of his father, King James, but every English soldier bearing arms against him will lay his weapons aside and welcome the restored Stuart monarchy with rose petals and accolades.”
“He’s mad.” Catherine gasped.
“We are all a little mad,” Alex said with a sad smile, “or we would not be where we are today.”
“And tomorrow? Don’t you care what will happen to you tomorrow if Wade and Ligonier and the Duke of Cumberland join forces? Or if even one of their armies discovers the ruse?”
“Of course I care,” he said gently, bending his lips to the glowing softness of her shoulder. “But what would you have me do—desert?”
“Yes!” she cried promptly. Then: “No.” And after yet another miserable pause: “I don’t know!”
“You’ve about covered every option,” he remarked. “And it gives you some idea of the prevailing mood of the prince’s nightly councils.”
“Your brother: What does Donald think?”
Alex raked a hand through the thick black waves of his hair and sighed. “Donald has been pleading for caution for so long, the prince only listens with one ear. He pretends to listen raptly, of course, for he knows if he loses Lochiel’s Camerons, then he loses a third of his army—and that doesn’t include the clans that have been feeling the shroud tightening around them since we crossed the River Esk. They would only have to smell a hint of a mutiny in the air and they would be back across the border before the prince knew they were missing.”
“But what hold does the prince have on them? What possible arguments could he use to persuade a man like your brother against truth and logic? Sweet merciful heavens, why is Donald remaining with him if he sees little hope of success? And please dear God, don’t tell me about Scottish pride and honor and loyalty, or I shall scream, I swear it!”
“All right, I won’t tell you about pride or honor or loyalty,” he said. “I’ll tell you about consequences instead. Each and every man who rallied at Glenfinnan knew there could be no compro
mises, no turning back. Either we would win it all this time or lose everything. You said earlier we had gained Scotland back from the English and asked what possible threat a few garrisons of Hanover troops could prove. Well, it’s true, we won Scotland fairly and cleanly, and I suppose the logical move would have been to spend the next six months or so fortifying our borders, strengthening our defenses, arming ourselves against the counterattack that would be sure to come. And there would have been a retaliatory strike against us, no doubt about it. England could not possibly sit back and accept such an insult to her imperialistic pride. How would it look to the rest of her budding empire if she could not even hold a barren stretch of rock and moorland that adjoined her own border? The North American colonies would surely sit up and take note. So would her enemies—Spain and France— both of whom are vying with the British for trading footholds in the West Indies and Persia. King George would have had to send his army north, to fight us for possession of Scotland whether he wanted it or not. England’s pride would be at stake, not ours.”
“But at least you would have bought the time to build your army,” Catherine argued.
“Aye, and maybe had twenty or thirty thousand men willing to fight for their freedom instead of the five or six we have now. But there again, we would have given England more time as well. The English would not waste the same six months idling in ignorance; they would call in all their markers from allies abroad, they would train and drill their army so that a fiasco like Prestonpans would never happen again, they would utilize their naval power first and strangle us to death with a blockade so tight the fish would be screaming. There would be no more mistakes, no more inefficiency, no more second-rate generals being sent to deal with a minor disturbance. England would throw everything she had against us, and it would be a bloodbath on both sides.”
Alex saw her worried frown and took her small, cold hands into his. “In the end, you could be sure they would have left us with nothing. The English would have conquered us and destroyed us once and for all, if only to use us as an example to any other colony that might be getting ideas. But instead of five thousand misguided fools to punish for their audacity, there would be thirty thousand, all with wives and families and properties. Everything we had would be confiscated or destroyed. There would be no more Scotland.”
The Blood of Roses Page 15