The Freemason's Daughter

by Shelley Sackier

  At last, he stopped on a slight rise and stood, eyes to the moon. A thick wedge of yellow spilled light on the hillsides and created shadows beneath the trees. The branches swayed with the wind. “Miss MacDuff—” he began, but Jenna cut him off.

  “You must leave.”

  His eyes flashed wide with surprise.

  Jenna swallowed and looked around. “Please go.”

  “I don’t understand. What’s the matter?”

  Jenna scrambled for an idea, anything to get Lord Pembroke out of harm’s way. She wanted to tell him what was about to happen. To make him understand. And to protect him. But she couldn’t. It would ruin everything. She squeezed her eyes shut and blurted out, “I am in love with him.”

  “With whom?”

  “With Daniel. I have always been in love with him. I will always be in love with him. There is no point in us—”

  “You needn’t say anything more,” he murmured. “I understand.”

  “Then go,” she said firmly. She looked into his eyes and saw the hurt spilling out of them. She wished she could rip her own heart out of her chest, it hurt so badly.

  “Jenna?”

  They spun around to see Jenna’s father standing in the shadows of an old pine.

  And Mr. Finch behind him.

  They stepped forward, and Jenna felt her breath draw in sharply at seeing Mr. Finch’s hands clasped together around the ivory handle of a pistol. Lord Pembroke stepped in front of Jenna.

  Mr. Finch shook his head. “No, Alex. She goes to stand with the master mason—or rather the master of this whole machination.” He gestured with the gun and Jenna dashed to her father’s side. “You are such a fool, Alex, to make it all come to this. It still doesn’t have to be,” he said, raking a hand past his eyes as the wind threw his thick black hair into his field of vision. He tried to hold the gun steady, hands trembling despite his cool exterior.

  “Julian, what are you doing?” Lord Pembroke pleaded.

  “Exposing the error of your ways.”

  “What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

  Mr. Finch took a step forward and motioned with the gun. “She’s been trespassing, but of course this is the least of her crimes.” He took a swipe at the hair the wind batted against his eyes and returned his hand to the weapon.

  “Julian, put the gun down and we’ll discuss this like gentlemen. You cannot become violent every time someone upsets you,” Lord Pembroke said, putting his hands up and taking a step closer to Mr. Finch.

  “I found her hair!” he shouted. “Her long, red strands lay in the page of a book where I keep the key to my writing desk.” His voice rose. “No one I know has hair like her. It’s unmistakable. She cannot deny it!”

  Jenna’s heart thudded loudly in her chest, the music from the cottage barely audible over the sound of the whipping wind. She looked up at her father, but his face was staid. He slowly pushed her behind him.

  “What of it?” Lord Pembroke came back.

  “She has been working her charms to her advantage, Alex—and you are too naïve to see the schemes. You know what her family is up to with the garrison. Yet you close your eyes to it, as you are closing your eyes to your familial duty!”

  “Julian. You’re delusional. This girl has done nothing wrong, and I have done nothing to harm Lady Lucia.”

  “And yet I continue to find you frolicking in the moonlight with a girl whose every intention is to lead you astray.” His voice rose above the wind. Fat droplets of rain began to fall around them. “You have a choice, Alex. Either you marry Lady Lucia and stay here with us, or I will march this girl and her family straight to your father. Tonight. And I do believe we discussed exactly the fate of anyone who is a Stuart sympathizer, did we not?”

  The rain began in earnest, and Mr. Finch drew back the hammer of the flintlock, clicking it into place and aiming it at the tall Scot.

  “Wait!” Lord Pembroke shouted, spreading his hands upward. “Julian, my God. . . . I can’t believe you would—”

  “No more waiting, Alex. Choose!”

  A whirling sound sliced past Jenna’s ears. A solid thud and the deafening explosion of a gun followed. Her father simultaneously spun on his heel, leveling himself and Jenna to the ground. After a moment, Jenna raised her head and saw Mr. Finch on his back, only the shaft and tang of a sgian dubh revealing the fact that its blade lay sheathed in his chest. Lord Pembroke scrabbled his way to Mr. Finch’s side. The man’s breathing was ragged and shallow.

  “I have loved you . . . always,” Mr. Finch whispered, staring up into the rain.

  Jenna was only a moment behind Lord Pembroke and, upon seeing the knife, gasped. “Oh my God . . . Ian.”

  They both turned in the direction of the knife’s flight and saw the fixed, scowling expression on the dour Scotsman’s face. He stood motionless, staring at them. Behind him, the rest of her clan ran toward them from the cottage’s back garden. As they came close enough to see what had transpired, there was a moment before Malcolm spoke.

  “Get rid of him.”

  Ian grabbed her, shook her to look at him. “Jenna! Run to the garrison. Hide. Hurry!”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  JENNA RAN BLINDLY IN THE SPATTERING RAIN, HER mind snaking from one moment to the next, a stream of consciousness fragmented with spurts of conversation and the faces of people.

  You needn’t say anything more. . . . I understand.

  She pushed the sting of those words away with each thrust of her legs.

  Get rid of him.

  She skidded in the mud, sliding to a halt in front of the garrison’s rain barrel. She wanted to wash away the whole night. She scrubbed ferociously. Chilly water splashed over her face.

  No more waiting, Alex. Choose!

  Jenna recalled the look of anger on his face, the hurt. She scrubbed to the point of rawness when the image of the buried knife flashed before her closed eyes. Water dripped from her hair and chin. She heard voices.

  “Hide!” Ian had shouted. The guards surely heard the gunshot.

  She threw open the door. It was dark inside, but at least it was a reprieve from the rain that soaked her clothing. She listened as the water hit the fire of the torch outside, the hiss and spit of darkness trying to overcome light. She whipped the door closed and turned to hide.

  She stumbled on building supplies stored inside overnight, ran her hands along the smooth walls. It was too dark. Where do I go? She was beginning to panic. Slow down. Those voices might be the clan. She stopped to listen. But maybe it isn’t them. Where should I hide? She crawled along the floor, her fingers searching for any piece of it that was loose, revealing where the money and artillery were stored. She pulled on the lip of a stone and found it shifted beneath her hands. Carefully, she raised the solid, removable piece, pushing it off to the side. She fumbled in the dark below and found the ladder that led to the hidden rooms beneath the garrison. She swept up her skirts in one hand and lowered herself into the nebulous cellar.

  Pitched into obscurity, Jenna clutched the ladder with a death grip. She envisioned her descent into the seventh circle of Dante’s Inferno, anticipating that any moment she’d be dipping her toe into the river of boiling blood. She was sickened by visions. The men disposing of Mr. Finch’s body. How would they do it? Where would they put him? Tears streamed from her eyes, and she made no move to wipe them away.

  Her father had demanded Lord Pembroke leave and be seen by as many people in the house as possible. He needed an alibi when, and if, people started to question Mr. Finch’s disappearance. As much as Lord Pembroke protested the plan, he was no match for Malcolm and five other determined Scotsman. They said they would take care of it—and they would. Jenna had been ordered to leave at once. They would come for her.

  But the thought of Lord Pembroke being sent away on his own to pretend nothing happened, and to know his whole world will be ripped apart again in a few short hours plagued her to the point of breathlessness, turning her stomach t
o liquid. She needed to find him. To tell him. To save him.

  The sound of voices yanked her out of the stupor she’d sunk into. With a sharp intake of breath, she realized she hadn’t covered the access. The stone still lay askew. Frantic with terror, she scaled the ladder. The mud from her shoes had covered the rungs. She reached for one of them and felt it slip through her fingers, her hand scrabbling in the air. She cried out in alarm as she plunged downward, smacking her chin against a rung and biting her tongue as her head snapped back. Her foot caught a hold and, wrapping an arm through each rung, she pulled herself to the top. It was still dark and cryptically silent. No voices. Move the stone.

  She dragged it from beneath. It grated softly against the floor. Then stopped. She pressed it farther, pushing it against whatever made it stick. Please, please, please!

  She smelled horse dung. Her fingers went in search of the edge of the stone, the impediment blocking it. She found it . . . the toe of a boot. She gasped and heard a crisp snap. Above her, a torch was thrown into waiting hands. The snapping flames reflected into the eyes . . . of Garrick Wicken.

  It felt like eternity. She’d rocked herself, crying in a tight ball, sobbing for so long she’d run dry of tears, and now only hiccupped. The spasms that wracked her, and the fear that propelled them were still present, but her mind poked through. Part of her wanted to stay curled up, to protect the terror-stricken pieces inside. But there was a niggling part of her brain that warned her, she’d better start thinking, better start acting. She rose from the dirt floor of the dungeon, muddy and drenched. She’d never even thought about the estate having one, but it shouldn’t have been surprising. People did wicked things, and the duke needed a secure place to put those people. By the looks of it, its last occupants hadn’t been far behind her. The place smelled dank with fear and urine, and despite a thin, high window, the interior of the room was the definition of foreboding.

  She stared into the darkness. She had ruined everything. Despair crushed like a fist around her heart. Her family’s losses pierced her with guilt, and a fresh wave of tears streamed from her eyes.

  She ran a trembling hand along the wall and its cold square stones. It wasn’t even a properly made stone wall, she observed, for some of the squares were loose and crumbling. She dislodged a smooth, flat chunk and set it on the floor. Her knees were shaking too much to stand. The stone would be cleaner than sitting on the dirt.

  A scuttling sound from the corner made her jump to her feet and cry out. She was used to sleeping on the ground and the ordinary sounds of sharing space with nature, but not in the prickly darkness of a dungeon with no place to escape.

  Suffering hung in the air. Death spilled through the cracks of the walls and floor, and it heightened her terror. Had it been hours of waiting? Had her father tried to find her? Did he know where she was? The dread of not knowing, the endless possibilities. Her father would come; the clan would come. They’d find a way to get her out. But she could almost hear the click . . . the shift of her faltering mind. What if they didn’t? What if they couldn’t? Please be all right. Please.

  Where was Lord Pembroke right now? Was he fingering Ian for murder? Jenna slid down the wall and sat on the flat stone. She let the blackness envelop her mind. Her head nodded, the exhausting fear slipping away, until at last she slept in fitful spurts.

  Whether it was hours or minutes later, she jerked awake at the whinnying of several horses outside the high window. She listened keenly, wondering if this was the start—if the Jacobite soldiers had arrived and at the crack of gunfire everything would explode in wild, lawless anarchy.

  She strained to listen in the dark, and heard the ominous clipped walk of someone approaching. She recognized the guard’s heavily booted feet, echoing on the flagstones. Unnerved, she pulled her skirts in around her protectively. The footfalls ended at the massive wooden door with its black iron hinges. A key slid into the catch and made a great clank to unlock the door. It swung open. A bulky, black-bearded guard held a torch in one hand and thrust it inside to locate his prisoner.

  “I’ve been told to give you water,” he began gruffly. His face, lit by the flickering torch, showed naked contempt, and sent shivers up Jenna’s spine. Her teeth chattered from fear as much as from cold. It was impossible to keep them still.

  He left the jug on the floor and gave her one last look of disgust before grabbing the door handle to pull it closed. “Wait!” she called, her mind reeling at a panicked speed. “Have they caught them?” she asked quickly.

  The guard paused. “Who?”

  “The other men—the . . . the Jacobites?” she whispered.

  “Every one of ’em—the filthy sluggards.” He started to pull the door shut again.

  “Good,” Jenna said loud enough for the guard to hear.

  He opened the door a bit wider. “What’d you say?”

  “I said good. They deserve to be caught.”

  The guard thrust the light into the cellar. “What’s it to you? You’re one of ’em.”

  Jenna shook her head. “I’ve never been one of them. I’ve been nothing but a slave to those wretched swines ever since I was a little girl—cooking and cleaning, and living in their filth. I hope . . . I hope they hang.” Her teeth were fully chattering now.

  The black-bearded man seemed a little intrigued. “What’d they do to you?” He opened the door and stood at the threshold.

  Jenna’s voice was low and faint, alluring enough to entice the stocky man to move closer. “They killed my brother,” she said hoarsely. “They killed him and took me—I was just seven. . . .” Her tears began to fall.

  “They’ll get what’s coming to ’em now, I tell you. They’re being saddled up and taken to the duke’s hunting lodge in Carlisle. Gonna be hanged like the animals they are.” The black-bearded man nodded. “There, there, now. This’ll all get sorted out.”

  The guard leaned down to see her face more clearly.

  Jenna swung the stone she’d been sitting on into the side of the guard’s head with a bone-splintering crack, and the thick-bodied man crumpled heavily over her legs, the torch rolling onto the dirt floor and sputtering out. She flipped him onto his back and crawled her way to the door, locating the key, still in the lock. After fumbling for a moment, Jenna locked the guard inside the cell.

  “You’ve really got to watch out for those filthy Scots. Savages, the lot of them. Especially the women.” She smirked.

  She ran along the corridor, hoped that at this late hour there’d be no one else about, and was rewarded with nothing but the black night and stillness. When she reached the barn, she ran to Henry’s stall and found him snorting and agitated that the rest of his companions had left without him. But she also found him saddled and ready. Turning to look deeper into the shadowy recesses of the barn, she saw the outline of a man walking toward her. Limping toward her.

  Jeb grabbed Henry by the reins and pulled him out of the stall, his finger to his lips.

  “God speed,” he whispered.

  She waited for no further explanation but grabbed only a strong bow, with its quiver of arrows, and hurried the horse out the stable. On his back, she whispered to him urgently and hoped he had the good sense to find the trail her family traveled.

  THIRTY-SIX

  ALEX HURRIED DOWN THE CORRIDOR TOWARD LADY Lucia’s suite of rooms. He knew it was late, but he also knew exactly what needed to be done and was determined not to waste another moment waiting.

  He knocked urgently on the door and only a moment passed until it swung open, revealing the anxious face of his young Italian bride.

  “What is it, milord? What is the matter?” Her eyes, spilling liquid brown, expressed true fright in the dimly lit shadows of the hallway.

  “Milady, may I come in? I must speak with you on an urgent matter.”

  The young woman looked behind her. “Mamma is in the other room, currently occupied.”

  “This won’t take long, and I’d rather not wait. I’m sure
she’ll seek me out soon enough after we’re finished.” Alex stepped into the room and moved far across to the window. He pushed aside the drapes and spoke. “Have you ever looked through this window, milady?”

  She took a few steps toward the casement and said in a quiet voice, “Sí.”

  “Do you know what it is that we see out this window?”

  The young woman was quiet, but moved another step closer.

  Alex went on. “We see my father’s world. It is not my world, and I doubt very much that it is the one you want to reside in either. Would I be correct?” He turned to watch her reaction.

  Lady Lucia dipped her head with the tiniest of nods. “Sí.”

  “I think it best that neither one of us forces the other to suffer a lifetime of displacement and unhappiness. You deserve better than that.”

  Lady Lucia simply lowered her eyes to the floor and moved away from the window.

  The adjoining door opened and the countess backed in with a tray. “Lucia, bella, I have brought you a cup of tea.”

  “Mamma.”

  The countess looked up from her tray and jolted at the sight of Alex.

  “What is the meaning of this visit?” she said, putting the tray down and smoothing her hands across the front of her gown.

  “One you will not approve of, no doubt, but it has been decided nonetheless. There will be no marriage here. I cannot agree to it.” Alex worked to keep his features full of resolve.

  The countess’s eyes flared widely. “That is not your decision to make, milord. It has been arranged by our families. An agreement that will be fulfilled because of promises made. It is your duty—and . . . and one that reflects upon your honor!”

  “Mamma,” Lucia whispered.

  Alex simply shook his head.

  “I still hold the letter,” she said, pointing a shaky finger at Alex.

  “Dear God, I hope my son will never crumble under blackmail,” the Duchess of Keswick said.

  They both turned to see Alex’s mother, steadying herself within the door frame. She looked solemnly at the countess. “I find it highly ironic that you should remind my son of honor as you speak of extortion. No. He has my permission, and that is all that is necessary. We shall not be bound to a family that has ransomed their way into ours.”