“I know that,” Alisdair commented sourly. “But I dinna hold with profiting from an alliance that means selling our wee Jessalyn into wedlock with an old Sassenach marquess.”
“Not Chisenden,” Auld Tam interrupted. “Chisenden is still married to his marchioness.”
“Then who?” Alisdair asked.
“The grandson,” Dougal replied. “The marquess of Chisenden has a grandson. A marriageable grandson and he’s here in Scotland. At Kilchumin to be exact.” Dougal couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice or the sparkle from his rheumy eyes.
Alisdair raised an eyebrow at Tam.
Tam acknowledged Alisdair’s unspoken question with a brisk nod. “Aye. The new earl of Derrowford.”
“The new earl of Derrowford? Why I heard that he’s the one …”
“Aye,” Auld Tam said, a hint of pride in his voice. “He’s presently engaged in the construction of Fort Augustus and the fine wall going up around it. Word has it that our earl is a pure genius when it comes to building. He would have had the wall finished by now, if it wasna for the delayed shipment of stone out of Edinburgh.” Tam scratched at the spot under his bonnet once again, then winked. “ ’Tis fortunate we are that the stone dinna make it. A completed wall would have made our little raid much more difficult.”
Alisdair snorted in disbelief. “What are we gonna do? Walk all the way to Kilchumin? Just the three of us? Afore we knock on the doors and beg polite admittance?”
“Bah!” Dougal spat in disgust. “We’ll not be walking. We’ll be riding.”
“On what?” Alisdair had every right to be skeptical. Clan MacInnes hadn’t owned a horse since the latest doomed Uprising.
“On those.” Auld Tam pointed over Alisdair’s left shoulder as the sound of muffled hooves penetrated the quiet outside the castle.
Alisdair and Dougal turned in unison and discovered Tam’s two unmarried daughters, Magda and Flora, riding into view astride two shaggy ponies.
“Ye only brought two horses,” Tam admonished, slapping his bonnet against his thigh in disgust. “Have ye forgotten everything I taught ye about raidin’? What’s Alisdair going to ride?”
“We brought six horses,” Magda announced. “In addition to the ones we’re riding.”
With the wind abruptly taken out of his sails, Auld Tam, along with Alisdair and Dougal, watched in amazement as she tugged on a rope and pulled three ponies, Munros from the look of them, into line behind her. “We’ve forgotten nothing, old man.” She nodded toward her sister who also held a string of three ponies. “Alisdair can have his pick of these.”
“Have any trouble?” Auld Tam asked, suddenly enormously pleased with his female progeny.
Magda shook her head as she removed a tartan woven in the Munro colors from around her shoulders. “With Munros? Och! I’d always heard the Munros paid more attention to their whisky than to their herds or to their women. Now, I know it’s true.”
“There’s nothing wrong with men paying attention to their whisky,” Alisdair said.
“Och! Indeed there is not when the men are paying more attention to the making of it than to the drinking of it!” Magda shuddered.
“No one waylaid us,” Flora informed them. “Or questioned our right to be on Munro lands. We captured most of their herd.”
Tam laughed and poked Dougal in the side with his elbow. “See, I told you we should strike the Munros instead of the Sutherlands! The Munros always lose livestock, while the earl of Sutherland is quite fierce in his stewardship of his lands and property.” He turned his attention to his eldest daughter. “If ye managed to steal eight horses from the Munros without any trouble, what happened to the boy I sent along with ye?”
“He chose a pony for himself and is taking the roundabout way with the cattle,” Flora replied.
“Cattle?” Dougal raised his brow.
“Aye,” Magda pronounced. “A cow, a calf and a bullock. I sent Ian ahead with them, but he’s taking the dangerous route and he’ll be covering the tracks to keep the Munros from following—should they bestir themselves and decide to follow.”
“Heaven help the lad if he’s caught driving livestock through that corner of Sutherland land.” Dougal quickly made the sign of the cross.
“He’s a clever lad. He won’t be caught,” Magda said.
Alisdair rubbed his palms together in anticipation. “Then ye’ll be roasting veal on the morrow.”
Flora shook her head. “Nay.”
“What do you mean nay?” Alisdair demanded.
“He’s too young to put on a spit,” Flora explained. “But we’ll have milk and cream and butter to mix with our oatcakes. Besides, we’ll be tending to our bridegrooms on the morrow.”
“Bridegrooms?” Auld Tam glared meaningfully at his daughters. “Ye mean bridegroom. One bridegroom for our new laird.”
“No,” Magda corrected. “We mean bridegrooms. One for our laird, one for Flora and one for me. That’s why we brought the extra horses.”
“You expect us to stop and choose a couple of likely Sassenachs to be husbands to you while we’re in the midst of slipping through the gap in the wall and spiriting away our Jessie’s intended? Do ye take us for fools?” Alisdair shouted.
“I take ye for highland warriors,” Magda retorted. “I was taught that one highlander was worth the whole of the Sassenach army. Our doomed Uprising notwithstanding, ye’ve another chance to prove it. Ye may be scrawny and ancient, but you’re highlanders and there’s three of ye. We’ve helped ye with the planning and the stealing of the horses and we’ve taken care of a few necessary and helpful details. So, while ye abduct Jessie’s man, Flora and I will choose our own.”
Auld Tam had to bite his tongue to keep from roaring in frustration. “That’s enough nonsense. Get down off those horses and let us be on our way.”
“No,” Magda and Flora answered defiantly.
“We stole these ponies. They’re ours. They’ll not be heading off to Kilchumin without us.” Magda gathered her pony’s rein and nudged him in the ribs. She turned him toward Fort Augustus and urged him forward.
Tam reached out and quickly grabbed a fistful of mane belonging to the pony Flora was riding to keep his younger daughter from following her sister’s lead. “These ponies belong to our new laird,” he reminded his daughters. “I sent you to steal them for her so we could use them in this, our most important of missions.”
“You mean your most secret of missions.” Flora glared at her father. “I wonder what Jessalyn will have to say about you bringing her a bridegroom without her knowledge and while she’s in mourning for her papa.”
Auld Tam studied the hard-packed dirt at his feet before shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “I’m following the auld laird’s command by serving his heir in the way that he saw fit. I don’t see what Jessie could find wrong with that. And I know ye love Jessie too much to hurt her. Ye wouldn’t dare run blathering to her.”
“Yer right.” Magda grinned. “We won’t run blathering as long as we’re with you.” She smiled triumphantly at her sister, then turned to her father and waited patiently for his capitulation.
“We’ve no time for ye to choose husbands!” Tam protested. “You’ve got a full score and eight years and a full score and six years behind ye already and you’ve not taken the time to choose husbands.”
“What was there to choose from?” Magda demanded. “Munros?”
“Our auld laird had six sons,” Dougal replied.
“Aye,” Alisdair agreed. “Five of them courted ye. What about Connor and Harry and Jamie and Allen and Charlie and Craig? They were all good men. Kinsmen.”
“Aye they were. And they wanted to marry us, but they failed to do it afore they went to war and then they dinna come back. Besides, what does it matter who courted us?” Flora asked, tears shimmering in her soft brown eyes. “They’re dead. Like all the other good young Scotsmen we might have married, like all our kinsmen.”
?
??But the men in Kilchumin are English.”
“So what?” Magda asked. “They’re young and strong and breathing.”
“And if a Sassenach is good enough to be husband to the MacInnes, then two more will do quite nicely for us,” Flora added with a stubborn tilt of her chin.
Auld Tam threw out his hands in exasperation. “All right,” he announced. “But don’t be saying I didn’t warn ye. Two lowborn Sassenach soldiers aren’t at all the same as an English earl who comes from a well-favored Whig family.”
“We’ll take our chances,” Flora stated. “For we have no intentions of dying old maids.”
Chapter Three
Neil lay on his back staring up at the rough wooden beams crisscrossing the ceiling of his quarters, loudly cursing his own smug arrogance and his ungoverned tongue. In a burst of furious energy, he rolled to his side and attempted to get to his feet, but found he couldn’t. The iron manacles clamped on his wrists and anchored around the iron bedstead prevented it. He unbuttoned his red wool coat, shrugged it off his shoulders and managed to get it halfway down one arm, before he realized his coat wouldn’t go over the manacles either. He was trussed up like a Christmas goose while the gap in the wall called his name. And he had no one to blame for his predicament but himself. He had deliberately baited Spotty Oliver, deliberately tested his commanding officer’s authority, while the four-foot gap in the outer wall sang to him the way sirens sang to sailors at sea, luring them into uncharted territory. The need to resume his duties—to continue to patrol the wall he’d laboriously constructed—bit at him like fleas in a mattress but he’d been too angry to use logic to show that idiotic, overblown, pock-marked, preening fop of a commanding officer the error of his ways. And as a result, Neil now found himself chained to his bed like an animal.
He sighed, then let out a steady stream of vile curses. He should have handled things differently. He shouldn’t have barged into his commanding officer’s quarters like a bull in a china shop. He should have accepted Spotty’s invitation to the celebration, then bowed out as quickly as possible and gone about the business of inspecting the wall as he did every evening with Sir Charles Oliver none the wiser. But he’d botched it because he’d never been able to suffer fools in silence—especially arrogant fools like Spotty Oliver—and he hadn’t been able to keep his damned mouth shut or his unwelcome opinions to himself.
“Relax, old man, and indulge yourself,” Spotty had said. “Celebrate the long and difficult completion of the fruit of your labor.”
“The fruit of my labor isn’t complete,” Neil said through clenched teeth. “The outer wall is breachable, leaving the fort vulnerable to attack. I see no reason to draw attention to the fact by hosting a celebration.”
“Nonsense. I’ve sent my report to General Wade and informed him that the outer wall has been completed.” Spotty stared into a polished silver mirror as he fiddled with a length of gold braid attached to the shoulder of his uniform jacket. “Surely that’s just cause to tap the kegs and celebrate.”
“Your report was premature, Charles.”
“Sir.” Spotty corrected, nonchalantly straightening his gold braid and brushing invisible lint from the jacket’s carefully tailored seams.
“What?”
“Sir. Your report was premature, sir. You may outrank me in society, Claremont, but here in His Majesty’s army I am your superior officer.”
“Derrowford,” Neil told him. “In or out of His Majesty’s army, I am the earl of Derrowford and you are merely Sir Charles Oliver. As long as I am in the army, you are, in fact, my commanding officer, but I must be honest and admit that I’ve yet to find you superior. A superior officer would understand that securing a contract for stone from the mason’s guild in Edinburgh in order to overcome a delay in the construction schedule is more important than consulting with one’s tailor. And a superior officer would know that having a four-foot gap in the outer wall of one of the first of His Majesty’s Scottish perimeter forts is no bloody reason to celebrate!”
“You are insolent, sir!” Spotty’s neck and ears turned a bright shade of red and his voice shook with barely suppressed rage. “And your insolence and insubordination compel me to punish you. You shall not attend the celebration or be allowed to consort with the men, have congress with the females, or partake of the libations.”
Neil clamped his mouth shut to keep from grinning. If Spotty thought preventing him from attending a celebration he didn’t want to attend was a just punishment for insubordination, Neil wasn’t going to enlighten him. “Is that all?”
“Sir,” Spotty practically spat the word.
Neil didn’t bother to hide his contempt. “Is that all, sir?”
“No, that is not all.” Spotty Oliver was hopping mad. “Derrowford, not only are you barred from attending the celebration, but you are confined to your quarters until further notice.”
“I don’t think so,” Neil replied.
“What?”
“I refuse to be confined to my quarters while the outer perimeter of this fort goes unpatrolled and unprotected.”
“You can’t refuse. You will return to your quarters of your own volition or I’ll have you shackled and escorted to the stockade,” Oliver commanded.
“There is no stockade,” Neil reminded him with a scornful look. “My orders were to construct the fortifications and to provide barracks and latrines for the troops. The stockade is further down on my list of priorities.”
“I am commander of the post. Your job is to build it!” Spotty shouted.
“I’ll start work on the stockade as soon as I complete the outer wall,” Neil assured him. “And once it’s finished you may confine me to it. Until then, I suggest you set me to the task of patrolling the wall.”
“H-h-how dare you, sir?” Spotty sputtered. “Does your insolence know no bounds, Derrowford?”
Neil smiled. “Apparently not.” He hadn’t thought it was possible for Spotty Oliver to get angrier or to turn redder, but Neil soon realized he had been wrong. Major General Sir Charles Oliver was a fool, but he was a vain and powerful fool—the most dangerous of fools—and one who could only be pushed so far.
“Marsden! Stanhope! Guards!” Spotty bellowed. “Escort Major Claremont to his quarters at once and see that he stays there. Shackle him to his cot if necessary!”
It had been necessary. Neil didn’t take confinement well—especially enforced confinement. He tossed and turned on his cot as far as the length of chain attached to his wrist would allow and listened to the familiar rumbling voices of Sergeant Marsden and Corporal Stanhope deep into their cups just outside the door to his quarters. All around him the barracks buzzed with the sounds of his fellow officers drinking and carousing. Neil strained to make out the details of Marsden and Stanhope’s conversation and was stunned when their quiet debate abruptly ended.
The fine hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as the sound of two heavy dull thumps penetrated the walls of his quarters. “Sergeant! Corporal!” Neil shouted. “Are you there? What’s happening to you? Are you all right?” He barely managed to get the questions out before the door to his room crashed open and swung back on its thick leather hinges.
“Nothing’s happening to them, laddie. Nothing that a few hours’ shut-eye won’t fix.”
“Who the devil are you?” Neil demanded as the big ruddy-faced old man, wearing threadbare plaid, stepped through the doorway.
The highlander grinned, showing the dark gaps surrounding his remaining four teeth. “A few months ago, I would ha been yer fiercest enemy, but now, I guess ye can say I’m yer staunchest defender.”
“How did you get in?” Neil had to ask, even though he already knew the answer.
“I came through the hole in the wall. Nice of ye to leave it open for us, yer lordship.” He studied Neil for a moment, awaiting his reaction. “Ye are Neil Claremont, seventh earl of Derrowford, are ye not?”
“I am.” Neil uttered a string of vicious curses
and tugged at the shackles clamped around the leg of the iron cot. “What do you plan to do?”
The highlander moved further into the room. “First, I mean to free ye from yer bonds and then I mean to escort ye to a wedding.”
“A wedding!” Neil scoffed, pulling harder on his chains. “I’m not going to a wedding.”
“I beg to differ, yer lordship, because I’m here to see that you do.”
“Who sent you?”
“That’s neither here nor there,” the highlander replied.
Neil shook his head then tried again. “All right, whose wedding am I attending?”
“Yours, yer lordship,” the older man replied earnestly as he pulled a battle axe from beneath the folds of his plaid.
“You’re mad!”
“Not at all, yer lordship.” The old man stared down at Neil for a moment. “But I am in a bit of a hurry and although I hate to admit it, my aim isna what it once was. And since I’m quite sure you’ll be needin’ all yer limbs, maybe it’s best ye don’t watch.” With that, the highlander raised the axe.
But Neil didn’t heed the warning. He met the highlander’s gaze, then watched the axe’s rapid descent in a determined effort to look his murderer in the eyes until his last moment on earth. And he succeeded—right up until the moment the old man turned the axe and tapped him on the temple with the flat of it.
“Stubborn,” the old man commented as he hacked through the shackles on Neil’s wrists. “Stubborn and brave. I like that in a mon.”
Jessalyn noticed their absence right away. They’d whispered amongst themselves and cast glances her way all evening and the moment her attention was diverted Auld Tam, Dougal and Alisdair had stealthily crept out of the keep. And it hadn’t escaped her notice that Tam’s two daughters, Magda and Flora, and young Ian MacCurran had been missing since her father’s funeral either. The kinsmen might be trying to keep secrets from her, but Ian had been spotted heading toward Sutherland lands. She might not have been able to hear what the Ancient Gentlemen of the Clan were planning, but Jessalyn knew it involved raiding one of their nearest neighbors. And while Jessalyn didn’t believe in stealing, she saw no harm in relieving the Sutherlands of the livestock they’d claimed after the Sassenach soldiers had scattered what they hadn’t slaughtered of the MacInnes’s herds and flocks. As far as Jessalyn was concerned, that wasn’t stealing, it was reclaiming. She didn’t object to the raid, she objected to being kept in ignorance and left behind. She was laird of the clan and the laird didn’t sit idly by while her clan went raiding without her knowledge. And as soon as Andrew finished his extremely long-winded story, she meant to correct their oversight and follow them.