The Freemason's Daughter

by Shelley Sackier

  “Wha cares for a’ their creeshy duds,

  And a’ Kilmarnock sowen suds?

  We’ll wauk their hides and fyle their fuds,

  And bring the Stuarts back again.”

  Peeking around the corner, she spotted the two inebriated men wandering behind the cottage. Strangers. They were attempting to reload a flintlock pistol, but both the dark and their alcoholic stupor were making it challenging. She wondered in a moment of panic where her clansmen were.

  Lord Pembroke pulled her back and put his hand out flat. “Hand me your knife.”

  “Where’s yours?” Jenna said.

  He turned to whisper, “I find it challenging to sit in the parlor with a sword attached to my breeches. Now, if you please, give me your knife.”

  She reached under her dress and retrieved her sgian dubh, resignedly handing it to him. “What are you going to do?”

  “Do any of the men keep a firearm in the cottage?”

  “We have a musket above the door, but it’s unloaded and I don’t know where the powder’s kept,” she said, inching back toward the entrance.

  “Hopefully, it won’t matter.” He looked around the corner at the men again, watched them struggle to reload the pistol. “Damn. Where are the guards?” He motioned behind him. “Hurry, get the gun. But be silent about it—and don’t light any candles.”

  Jenna reached the door handle and opened it a crack to squeeze through. She felt her way to the corner of the room and pulled a stool to the doorway. On tiptoe, she unlatched the musket from its leather straps and brought the gun down, surprised at the weight of it. Silently, she slid out the door and over to where Lord Pembroke crouched, watching the men. They were singing another tuneless round of the rebellious chorus.

  “Do you have a plan?” She handed him the gun.

  “Well, there are only two of them, and they’re well liquored. The pistol they’re using isn’t terribly reliable or accurate; still, I would feel more comfortable coming at them from behind.” He turned to her. “If anything goes wrong—run. Go to the house, find the damn guards, wherever they are, and tell them what’s happened. Do you understand?”

  “Of course,” Jenna said stiffly.

  He bent down, moving closer to her and said, “And when this is all done, perhaps, at last, I shall hear the truth?”

  He left with the gun poised at his shoulder, and Jenna’s mind whirled with myriad wretched possibilities as to where her father and the rest of her family were when she heard the pistol fire again. It made her ears ring in pain and her whole body jump with fright.

  “God bless King James the eighth!” shouted one man, clearly pickled.

  “And Bolingbroke!” added the other.

  “Who?”

  “Bolingbroke,” the first one said again.

  Lord Pembroke approached the men, his body a shapeless form in the dark. “Drop your weapons,” Jenna heard him order. His voice was full of authority. She would have dropped hers, had she been on the opposite side of him.

  But she was on the opposing side, she thought anxiously, and chances were, in a few short minutes, he was going to find that out.

  There was a dull-sounding thud, a soft groan, and then the noise of what sounded like a man falling to the ground. She held her breath for a moment and then heard a second body collapse onto the muddy earth. She peered around the cottage wall, and identified only one upright figure looking down over the other two.

  “Bloody idiots,” she heard Lord Pembroke say as he bent down for the pistol. She walked toward him, wary of the two still figures.

  “What happened?” She watched him feel for a pulse.

  “They never heard me coming. I just walked up to the one with the gun and hit him over the head with the butt of the musket. He went down like a stone.” He pointed to the second man. “That one, I never touched. He just passed out from too much liquor, I would imagine.”

  “Your turn,” came a husky voice from behind them, and Jenna felt a painful crack on the head.

  THIRTY-ONE

  “YOU SNORE.”

  Jenna groaned and opened her eyes to a throbbing ache at the base of her skull. “What?”

  “I said, you snore.” Lord Pembroke tweaked one of her fingers.

  “I don’t snore,” she murmured confusedly.

  “Well, I think you’re in a poor position to dispute that if you’re unconscious when it occurs.” He took a deep breath. “How is your vision? Anything blurry?”

  “My memory. Where are we?” She looked around and blinked in the dim light.

  “By the looks of it, I would guess in an abandoned barn. But where the barn is located in relation to where we were—I’m not sure. It can’t be far. It’s still night.”

  “My head hurts—does yours?” Jenna wished she could rub the painful spot.

  “Probably not nearly as much. I’m thick-headed, I’ve been told.”

  “Do you know what happened?” She tried recalling the details herself.

  “I’m only guessing, but it would seem those two fellows brought friends. It pays to have backup.” He turned to peer over his shoulder at Jenna. “So you’re telling me neither of the men were associates of yours?”

  She snorted. “God forbid.” Her face took on a serious nature. “But I highly doubt you’ll believe anything I have to say.”

  “It’s not that I don’t believe what you say,” Lord Pembroke said, again twisting awkwardly, “it’s just you’ve said so little to believe. I have nothing much to go on.” He settled back. “Why don’t you start filling in a few of the particulars for me? It’s not like you can actually run away at this point, can you?” he said sardonically.

  Jenna tried twisting the ropes that bound their wrists together as they sat back-to-back on the cold dirt floor.

  “I find it curious that you’ve had these growing suspicions about my situation for some time, and have managed to squelch them successfully up until . . .” She paused and thought about what to say. She was going to answer up until you believed I was engaged to Mr. Delafuente, but even thinking these words sent a flush of heat through her body. Plus, it would come across as flirtatious banter, and part of her brain niggled with the admonishment that it was wrong. Lady Lucia’s woebegone tale resounded in her head.

  “Up until . . .”

  “Are you planning to marry that fellow?”

  “What?” she exclaimed. “You want to know the answer to that? Not are you really a Jacobite? Or why is it you can calculate figures? Or even, how come you can’t cook? But rather are you planning to marry that fellow? That’s the burning query?” She wrenched her shoulders around to make eye contact with him.

  “You don’t know how to cook?”

  She turned back with a sound of incredulous amusement.

  “A rule of thumb, Miss MacDuff. . . . Never ask a question you don’t already know the answer to.”

  She turned her head to the side to see his face. It was dark, but she could make out the mud streaks that left marks on his jaw and chin, as surely as it did on hers. She watched his expression, waited to see what it would reveal. “And what is it you know?”

  “As much as I need for an educated guess.”

  “You’re lucky,” Jenna said. “Until recently, most of my questions have never been answered. I simply go wherever they do. Apparently, though, I’m becoming a liability.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, as I’ve gathered, my family—the clansmen—never thought I would develop an opinion of my own.”

  Lord Pembroke laughed. “I can’t imagine it came as much of a surprise to them.” His tone turned serious. “So what is your opinion about all of this, then?”

  Her stomach lurched at the thought of his demanding questions. Given the circumstances, and his level of suspicion, she probably had one of two choices. Answer his question, and take her chances appealing to his sympathies, or be passed off to the local authorities, where no one would give a damn what happened to them. J
enna swallowed hard. “It’s not easy to explain, I think. And honestly, all I’m doing is thinking about it. Everyone tells me I need to make up my own mind—find a purpose, champion a cause. It’s surprising to think it could be different from all of theirs . . . if I wanted it to be.”

  “Is it?” he probed.

  The door burst open with a thundering kick, and a snarling man in a rough shirt and dingy breeks plowed in with a gas lantern. His deep-set eyes and wide forehead displayed a temper that had been toyed with long enough.

  “I canna sleep wi’ the yapping going on in here,” he growled. He knelt down beside them, and pulled two greasy rags from his trouser pocket. “If ye’d just kept quiet like, I wouldna have to do this, but I’m far worn out, and I’ve had enough of your bantering for one night.”

  The smell of alcohol was ripe on him, and Jenna steeled herself against the reek of his breath as he tied the oily cloth around her mouth and head. She felt Lord Pembroke’s hands wrap around hers, steadying her angst.

  The sour-faced man did the same to Lord Pembroke and then stood up gruffly with his lantern. He made his way to the barn door, slammed it shut behind him, and bolted it.

  Jenna felt the ropes on her wrist straining as Lord Pembroke wrestled with the cloth binding his mouth. After a minute or two, he had successfully rolled the gag off his face, and it now rested like a dirty necklace around his throat.

  “Can you get yours off?” he whispered.

  Jenna struggled, tried to rub her chin against her shoulder to pull it downward, but it was tightly bound. She shook her head.

  “Oh, the things I could say right now, if I wanted to,” he murmured, chuckling and working the ropes at their wrists. His arms were long and the ropes loose enough to allow him to twist sideways somewhat. The strain on her shoulders made her muscles burn, but she realized he was trying to shift enough to get his face closer to hers to help draw the rag down.

  He grabbed the bottom edge of it with his teeth and slowly pulled it over her chin. She felt his nose press against her cheek and the stubble of his chin graze her jaw as he worked the cloth loose, bit by bit. His elbow dug into her shoulder blades, pushed for leverage, but she kept quiet, as finally, he pulled the last of it away from her mouth and let it fall around her neck. He reached over one last time, covered her mouth with his, and kissed her. Whatever pains she felt from the raw rope burns and searing muscles were replaced by the feel of her racing heartbeat.

  When he broke away and sat again, his back to hers, she was quiet. Finally, she whispered, “Is this your way of showing compassion to the Scots?”

  Lord Pembroke chortled and said quietly, “Not all of them.” And after another moment he said, “Our worlds continue to collide, Miss MacDuff. But this is the crux of it. They are two wholly separate worlds. I am compelled with a yearning to place myself in yours, but circumstances dictate that this is a choice I will not be afforded. At least not without dire consequences—those for which I would never forgive myself if they came to fruition.

  “I ask that you excuse my forward behavior just now. It was selfish of me. But I am not sorry for it. I hope it will only represent a token of my affection, as much it pains me that I will never be able to repeat it.”

  The rush of hearing those words made Jenna both giddy with inebriating joy and grief-stricken with reality once they sunk in, but before she could respond, the sound of voices outside had them turning their heads toward the door. “It’s my father,” Jenna said. Relief poured through her body, and she strained to hear the conversation.

  “What were ye thinking, man?” Malcolm barked angrily. “Were ye gonna hold him for ransom?” The bolt slid back and the door kicked open again. The lantern light spilled across the floor and lit Malcolm’s fuming face. The grumpy guard following behind him, slightly abashed.

  Jenna’s father took out his dirk and knelt down, deftly slicing through the thick ropes binding Lord Pembroke and Jenna together. As they got to their feet, Lord Pembroke rubbed the raw spots around his wrists for a moment, then flexed the muscles in his hands and fingers, made a solid fist, and punched the cantankerous guard in the face. The man grunted and staggered backward, blood trickling out his nose. Lord Pembroke yanked the dirty rag from around his neck and threw the greasy cloth at him. “Try staunching the flow with this.”

  Malcolm looked at Lord Pembroke nervously. “I dinna ken what to say. Should we . . . do we . . . ?” Jenna could see her father trying to assess just how much Lord Pembroke knew.

  He shook his head. “There’s nothing to say. Clearly, a mistake was made here. No harm done.” He nodded at Malcolm and briefly held Jenna’s gaze. Then he walked out the barn door into the night.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THEY SAT AT THE TABLE, GRIMLY RUBBING BEARDS, kneading foreheads, and closing eyes in deep thought. Malcolm paced the length of the room and created a breeze as he strode. Jenna stared hard into her mug of willow bark tea, mesmerized by a reflection that would blur whenever someone jarred the table.

  She had told them everything she thought they needed to know, and nothing else. What happened between her and Lord Pembroke would stay between the two of them, at least for now. Lord Pembroke knew who they were—that much she confirmed, or rather, he knew who they supported, but beyond that, it was purely supposition. What he intended to do with his theories and postulations, if anything, was the unanswered question that plagued them all.

  Except for Jenna. She believed with every breath of her body that he would not allow harm to come to her—or rather, he would not himself harm her.

  “He didna actually say what he would do now that he ken?” Gavin asked Jenna again, his fingers rubbing his temples.

  She shook her head and sighed, and removed the wet, cool cloths at her wrists. “I’ve told you, he said he already knew—he’d put it together before tonight. The fact that Da was the one to find us probably erased any doubt he’d been harboring up until then. He never asked me what we intended to do, never questioned our purpose here. Perhaps he doesn’t believe we’re here to cause trouble. Maybe he thinks the garrison will be built and we’ll be on our way.”

  Each of the men grumbled in disagreement with their own versions of Fat chance of that, until Malcolm cut in.

  “As I see it, we’ve got two choices. We either pack up and leave, which would ruin months of work and countless other schemes tied to it—not to mention cause a full-blown manhunt if we’re on the run, or we watch our steps and prepare for an ambush. Either way, a decision’s got to be made.”

  Jenna discovered the men had all been at the garrison feverishly working in order to make the newly announced deadline when she and Lord Pembroke came to the cottage. They hadn’t heard the gunshots because they’d been in the chambers belowground.

  “Do ye think we ought not speak to the lad?” Angus ventured. “He’s obviously soft on Jenna, and perhaps that’s the reason he’ll keep mum about what he’s found out.”

  There was another rumble of opinions and Ian stood. “What fools the lot of ye are—and ye ken it,” he growled. “If ye think he’s no gonna up ’n’ tell the duke this minute, then you’ve got less sense than a doorpost. I say we get out now, while we still have a neck.”

  “But surely, we’d have been questioned by now had the young man followed his suspicions from the beginning,” Colin broke in. “The fact he’s nay brought us to the attention of the duke says something of his intent—or lack of it, aye?”

  “And who’s to say he hasna told the duke of us?” Ian countered. “The lass is fit to have us believe whatever her glassy-eyed temperament dreams up at the moment. Ye canna believe the lad would hold on to something such as this.”

  Jenna turned to her father, desperate to placate her growing sense of alarm that the clan may decide they have no other choice than to silence Lord Pembroke. “As far as the duke’s son is concerned, I think he’s far too intelligent to become distressed that people living on his family’s estate hold differing political per
spectives. He appears to favor rational debate over violence, and as far as I’ve gathered from all of you”—she turned to look at the men—“that is the same path most Jacobites would prefer. Little or preferably no bloodshed in trying to reestablish the Stuart monarchy.”

  There was a cryptic silence that filled the room, and Jenna slowly took in their expressions. “Are you telling me I am wrong?” she began, feeling a cold and unforgiving dullness set in throughout her body. “Am I mistaken?”

  Her father looked at her gravely. “Jenna, your interpretations are not wrong in that it is the path that most anyone would want in order to accomplish what they desire, but I’m afraid we’ve come to a point of realization that it is a not a reality we will see unfold.”

  Her hands and feet went numb. “Da? . . . What are you saying? What precisely is going to unfold here on the night of my birthday?”

  She watched her father swallow uncomfortably.

  “Are we planning to . . . to kill people?”

  He drew in a deep breath and looked at her with an expression fiercer than she’d ever seen before. “We are planning to restore a usurped king to his rightful throne. And there may be people who would rather sacrifice their lives than see that happen. Just as we are willin’ to give of ours.”

  Jenna cringed, recalling Daniel’s words: Each side believes they are right. And many will fight to the death to prove it.

  Malcolm made a faint nod in Jenna’s direction and, turning to the others, said, “Seeing as the lad hasna done anything up to this point, and there are no guards pounding at our door, it leads me to believe Jenna may be right. Perhaps we’re safe to carry on.”

  Safe to carry on? Safe to carry on building an arsenal of weapons that will tear apart someone’s world? Does Lord Pembroke suspect this bit at all?

  Malcolm tapped on the table. “But it seems there are a few loose cannons wandering about the countryside whose tongues and impatience may cost us the element of surprise we’re countin’ on. Apart from a few of us making rounds and spreading the attitude of forbearance, I doubt there is much else we can do.”