by Judith James
He was weary and distracted, and he’d had his share of drink, but years of experience drew him up short, several yards from the cottage. A wisp of smoke trailed from the chimney, so thin it was barely visible, swallowed almost immediately by the harrying wind. The windows were shuttered tight, but a small sliver of light escaped from the crack beneath the door. He drew his sword and advanced, silent through the storm.
The door wasn’t latched and he eased it open, his eyes scanning intently through the half-lit gloom. A low fire f lickered in the grate, illuminating a figure slumped in a chair. It looked to be an English soldier. It was hard to see in the dim light. He looked to be little more than a boy, but a musket lay within easy reach on the f loor beside him. Jamie entered noiselessly, creeping forward, coming to a stop with the tip of his sword resting against the base of the intruder’s throat. The lad yawned and stretched, turning his face toward the firelight.
Jamie’s sword clattered to the f loor. “Sweet Christ! Catherine?”
Catherine gasped and jumped to her feet, leveling the musket at his chest. “Jesus, Sinclair! You scared the devil out of me! Where have you been? I’ve been waiting here almost a week.”
“I took the long way home, mouse. Are you going to shoot me?”
“I’m very tempted,” she said, putting down the weapon.
They stood, awkward and silent, two feet apart, neither of them sure what to say next. Then Jamie reached out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and she was in his arms. He moaned and pulled her tight against his length, his grip so fierce she winced in pain, but she made no protest, and her hold was just as tight as his.
“Catherine, Catherine, Catherine,” he whispered against her hair. “What are you doing here? I might have killed you.” He was the closest to tears he’d been since childhood.
“I feared if I let you go you’d wander too far and never come back.”
“You were right, love! Don’t ever let go of me. If you do, I’ll soon be lost.”
They managed to stumble to the cot, peeling off boots and breeches and wet clothes before falling in a tangled heap. Jamie was cold from the inside out, but Catherine wrapped him in a blanket of warmth, rubbing his limbs and covering his body with frantic kisses. He tasted like he had the first night she’d met him—heat and life, whiskey and rain—and her heart swelled. Thank God I found him before he slipped away. She was full of questions but she didn’t ask them now. They spoke without words, through heated caress and tender embrace, using the ancient language of lovers, gasps and murmurs and sighs at first, then low moans, animal sounds, and wild cries.
Spent, they lay in each other’s arms, hearts still pounding, slick with sweat, finally capable of speech.
“I could never love you enough, Catherine.”
“You’re doing just fine,” she said, giving him a tight hug.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“You showed me. Don’t you remember? You said it was where you came when you needed a place to hide. When I found you gone, I decided if you were here, then you wanted me to find you. You did, didn’t you?”
“God yes! With all my heart. You can’t imagine… your love, it’s the only thing that means anything, Catherine. You’re all that matters to me.
“Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“I knew what your council would say. I could see it clearly in your uncle’s eyes.” His fingers trailed absently through her hair as he talked, and one hand stroked her back. “I’ve betrayed or abandoned two kings and their causes. I’m done. Finished. I can’t go back to the life I knew, and I can’t live here anymore. You still have a home you can return to. I couldn’t ask you to come with me, but I knew if I waited and saw you, I would. You should never have come, love. I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. I’m not sure of anything except what I feel for you. I don’t think I can let you go a second time.”
Her hands had begun to wander and her lips fastened on his nipple.
His hips jerked and his chest expanded on an indrawn breath. “Catherine, are you listening?”
She folded her arms on his chest and rested her chin on her hands. “Yes, Jamie. You have my full attention. You’re saying you have to leave. What about the O’Sullivans? Have you settled matters with them?”
“No. Kieran’s married to Maire, and they’re expecting a child.”
“I saw that coming a while ago. That’s good news, isn’t it?”
“He’s being stubborn. He intends to stay and fight for James. His thoughts are much like your uncle’s and he’s set upon his course. I’ve done what I could and now it’s beyond my control. We… had words.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. That must have hurt.”
“It did, but I’m feeling a good deal better now.” He grinned and tapped the end of her nose.
“So what now, Jamie?”
“I wish I knew, love. The best I can hope is that William has taken me for dead. I can’t afford to be seen by the English or they’ll know I’m not. Talbot’s men will recognize me as no friend of James, and I can’t stay with the O’Sullivans anymore. Your Highlanders will kill me if they can, and I’ll be seen as a traitor by the lowland Scots. I’m like to be harassed and chased no matter how I approach it. I’ll affect a disguise, I suppose, and make my way to the continent. Perhaps… if you wish it… once I’m settled you might join me there.”
“Why is it that we fit so well when it’s just you and I? When we’re together like this, or in disguise, it seems we’re in our own world and no two souls were ever closer. It’s only when we have to deal with other people that things go wrong.”
He ruff led her hair. “I know, mouse. We’re rebels, you and I. We refuse to accept the life others have chosen for us and when they press too hard, instead of breaking or bending, we slip through the cracks and disappear.”
Catherine’s heart stuttered as she realized how close he’d come to doing just that. She grasped his hair and turned his head so he looked her straight in the eye. “You’ll not disappear on me again, Jamie, will you? I won’t forgive you if you do.”
“No, love, I promise. Not without telling you first. Sometimes I think it’s too bad we can’t both just don a costume and disappear, like we did in London.”
“Why can’t we?”
“What?”
“Why can’t we?” Catherine was growing more excited by the second. “It’s the perfect solution!”
“No, it’s not. You’ve been with me that way before. You’ve seen what it’s like. It’s dangerous and uncertain, and if you come with me, you leave all you hold dear behind.”
“Pah!” Catherine scoffed. “Are you dense, man? You are what I hold dear! If I let you go, I lose everything that matters, so you’d best believe that if you head off adventuring, I’ll be coming, too. I’m no stranger to danger. Didn’t you once tell me I had the soul of a traveler? So it doesn’t matter where I am, if I’m with you, I’ll be at home.” She straddled his waist and grabbed his wrists, holding his hands above his head as he’d once held her. “You’re mine now, Jamie Sinclair. And I’m not letting you get away from me again.” She lowered her head and stole a kiss from his parted lips, and then she kissed the bridge of his nose. “I did that to you.”
“Aye, lass, you’ve left your mark on me, inside and out.” He freed his wrists and gathered her in his arms, giving her a tender kiss that churned her insides. They fell asleep with their lips touching, their breath intermingling, and their bodies wrapped in a warm embrace.
They woke in time to watch the dawn light the valley from the east. After a breakfast of black pudding, oatcakes, and tea, Catherine straightened her uniform, slung her musket and haversack over her back, and gave Jamie a jaunty salute. His heart ached to look at her, and for the second time in less then a day he found himself blinking back tears. He offered her his hand. “Tinker, tailor… soldier, sailor… gentleman, apothecary… plough-boy, thief,” he said, quoting an old rhyme. “Will you
take to the road with me, Catherine?” Catherine’s face lit with a brilliant smile. “Aye, Jamie, I will.” Hand in hand, they started down the road.
Historical Note
The fifty-year period between 1640 and 1690 was a time of religious and political upheaval in Britain. There was conf lict between different forms of Protestantism, and between Protestantism and the older Catholic faith still practiced in much of the Highlands, Ireland, and parts of England. An ongoing struggle between parliamentary rule and the divine rights of kings led to civil war and the execution of King Charles I, followed by a commonwealth republic and eventual dictatorship under Cromwell. The monarchy was restored under Charles II, whose hedonistic court rebelled against ten years of Puritan rule. Dissolving Parliament when it attempted to exclude his Catholic brother from the succession, Charles was arguably the last British king to hold absolute power. A bloodless coup d’état against his brother, King James II, the last Catholic monarch, ushered in a constitutional monarchy under William and Mary, that has been uninterrupted since.
During this time, two political parties were born. The Tories (Irish slang for a “popish” outlaw) descended from the Cavaliers and landed aristocracy, and upheld the divine right of kings and the Anglican Church. The Whigs (a term of contempt in Scotland for a fanatic Presbyterian), descended from the Roundheads, represented the commercial classes of the cities and championed Parliament against the king.
James II’s attempts to establish a base in Ireland after his expulsion from England were defeated at the battle of the Boyne in 1690, a year after the events described in this story, and despite the Jacobite victory at the Battle of Killiecrankie (which according to historical accounts really was over within ten minutes), the uprising in the Scottish Highlands was effectively quelled by the loss of Bonnie Dundee and the subsequent Williamite victories at Dunkeld and Cromdale. White-water rafting is popular today at Killiecrankie, and visitors can see the soldier’s leap where Willie MacBean is said to have dropped his gear and made the eighteen-foot leap with claymore swinging Highlanders in hot pursuit. James II died of a brain hemorrhage in 1701 in France, but efforts on behalf of his son James and his grandson, known to history as Bonnie Prince Charlie, fueled Jacobite rebels for years to come, culminating in a Battle at Culloden in 1746.
Highland Rebel is a work of fiction, and of necessity, greatly simplifies these complex times. There were Covenanting Highlanders and Catholic Lowlanders and Protestants who supported the Catholic king. There were also, not surprisingly, men like Jamie, who tried their best to balance competing loyalties, and when faced with shifting circumstances often shifted for their families and themselves. Lady Castlemaine’s erstwhile lover, John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough, a prominent example, abandoned his patron and sponsor King James for William and Mary, and later became a Duke. There’s an interesting discussion on the growth of Restoration era apathy and indifference in religious matters, and the loosening of ties to the church after a generation of religious turmoil, in David Cressy’s Birth Marriage & Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-cycle in Tudor and Stuart England.
It should be noted that another invitation to William was delivered at the same time as Jamie’s was, by a similar character under similar circumstances, Arthur Herbert, Earl of Torrington.
Women like Catherine were not unheard-of, either. During the civil war, some donned armor and led their people in defense of their homes. There were women who went to war as soldiers, women who inherited, and women who ran businesses or wrote plays and books. Restoration-era ladies were comfortable traveling the city, shopping, and going to the theatre accompanied only by a maid, and in seventeenth-century Holland, England, and Germany, some women chose to dress and live as men. These freedoms gradually disappeared through the Georgian and Regency periods, and to all intents and purposes were gone by Victorian times. Readers who are interested in learning more about the lives of seventeenth-century woman might enjoy Antonia Frazer’s The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in 17th Century England, or The Tradition of Female Transvestism in Early Modern Europe by Rudolf M. Dekker and Lotte C. Van De Pol.
Catherine, Jamie, their families and retainers, are fictional characters, as are Jamie’s mistresses. Characters such as the Duke of Buckingham, Lady Castlemaine, and John Churchill, as well as other court personages, are historical figures. I claim some literary license in their interactions with Jamie and Catherine, but the quotes or comments attributed to them or about them are readily available in the historical record. Readers who are interested in reading more might start with Antonia Fraser’s King Charles II; Christopher Sykes’s Black Sheep; Stephen Coote’s Royal Survivor, or Graham Hopkin’s Constant Delights.
There were Earls of Carrick in County Tipperary, but the title became extinct in 16***2. Peerages could be bought in seventeenth-century England if one could afford them, and many English soldiers of higher and lower degree were paid for their services with Irish lands and titles, much as Jamie was. The Drummond clan were supporters of the Jacobite cause and fought at Killiecrankie, but for story purposes, I’ve moved my Drummonds farther north, to the lands of Moray. Kinsmen and Clansmen, by R.W. Munroe, gives a history of many of the major Scottish clans, including some who passed lairdship on through the female line.
Several variations of the fortune-telling rhyme, “Tinker Tailor,” were in common usage going back to at least 169***, and it seems safe to assume it was around long before that. A Tom Otter was a term used to describe a henpecked husband, and referred to a character in Ben Johnson’s The Silent Woman, and the first recorded usage of the term tomboy in the sense we know it today was in 1***92.
The English coffee houses, called by Charles II seminaries of sedition, played a key role in the dissemination of political, social, and scientific ideas, and were the forerunners of the gentlemen’s clubs of later years. Brooke’s began as a coffee house and White’s as a chocolate house. The interested reader is referred to The Penny Universities: A History of Coffee-Houses by Aytoun Ellis, and London Coffeehouses: A Reference Book of Coffee Houses of the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries by Bryant Lyllwhite.
Readers who are interested in learning more about day-to-day life in Stuart England from firsthand accounts might enjoy any of the following highly entertaining, readable, and informative firsthand accounts: The Diary of Samuel Pepys tells all, even the naughty bits; Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: Court of Charles II is a highly entertaining, gossipy account of court life by the handsome French courtier and diplomat, le Compte de Gramont; and The Diary and Correspondence of John Evelyn, esteemed member of the Royal Society, a man of science and philosophy who was familiar with the highest levels of society, covers a span of fifty years.
Acknowledgments
Writing a story is a solitary process, but taking a story and turning it into a book involves a great many people. I would like to thank my agent Bob Diforio, editor Deb Werksman, Susie Benton, Sarah Ryan, Danielle Jackson, and all the other fine folks at Sourcebooks who made this possible. I would also like to thank my good friends Cheryl and Nick for reminding me there’s a life outside whatever story I’m writing, and my family for their constant encouragement and support. Special thanks goes to Sandra, who spent hours at a very busy time, reading and making comments that were always insightful and often invaluable. Thanks also to Anne, for her support, help and friendship, and to those wonderful diarists, Pepys, Evelyn, and Gramont, whose words bring the seventeenth century alive in vigorous, colorful, informative, and delightfully entertaining detail, making research not a burden, but a joy.
About the Author
Judith James has worked as a legal assistant, a trail guide, and a counselor. Living in Nova Scotia, her personal journey has taken her to many different places, including the Arctic and the West Coast. Her writing combines her love of history and adventure with her keen interest in the complexities of human nature and the heart’s capacity to heal.
Table of Contents
One
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sp; Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Historical Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author