Highland Crown Page 20

  Isabella hadn’t realized she was crying until Cinaed wiped away the tears that had slipped from the corners of her eyes.

  “He had to be all of those things and more,” he said softly. “Or you wouldn’t have married him.”

  Isabella pinched the top of her nose, but the tears wouldn’t stop. Guilt had a tight grip on her throat.

  She’d never had the chance to say good-bye. He had dedicated his life to making people’s lives better. He’d given his life for his ideals. But she’d never understood. Until now.

  And later, after an English bullet had cut him down, his body had been disrespected by Hudson and his barbarous soldiers. Archibald had deserved better.

  Cinaed pulled her to his chest as a sob escaped her throat. Then the tears flowed, hot and unstoppable.

  Since before she’d left Edinburgh, she’d never had a chance to mourn her husband. But the time had come, and her grief for him now poured out of her.

  Finally, Isabella was saying good-bye.

  CHAPTER 19

  I’ll listen, till my fancy hears

  The clang of swords, the crash of spears!

  These grates, these walls, shall vanish then

  For the fair field of fighting men,

  And my free spirit burst away,

  As if it soar’d from battle fray.

  —Sir Walter Scott, “Lady of the Lake,” Canto VI, stanza 14

  Tomorrow, the strikes would shut down Inverness. Tomorrow, he was going after John Gordon.

  Word had come yesterday through Blair Mackintosh that the men from the third longboat had joined the rest of his crew in Nairn, but he wasn’t thinking about them now.

  Six people had gathered to finalize the preparations for the strikes—two of the weavers’ organizing committee, Searc, and two of the men from his gang who’d be in the fields assuring the safety of the protestors. And the surgeon, Mr. Carmichael, explaining the measures he’d taken to set up a temporary hospital in an empty book warehouse overlooking the fields. He turned and thanked Cinaed for Isabella’s offer to join him tomorrow.

  Cinaed stood by the door, trying to control his rising anger. It wouldn’t do. He wouldn’t allow it. And he’d put a stop to it right now.

  He stalked from the room, passing through a blur of corridors and rooms. What the devil was she thinking? Someone jumped out of his way as he stormed past. All he kept seeing was Isabella, cornered by Hudson and his weasel of a sergeant, in the private dining room at Stoneyfield House. If he hadn’t shown up to rescue her, she would have been arrested, tortured, used, and molested. Bloody hell!

  Since that day, word had continued to come back to Inverness of Hudson’s rampages through the countryside. Davidson had died from Cinaed’s bullet, and every Highlander knew the British military rarely shied away from savage reprisals, especially when it suited them. Hudson’s Hussars, temporarily stationed at Fort George, had been carving a swath through the area, using violence, coercion, and arrests in their drive to find the “treacherous murderers.”

  The lieutenant, however, was more single-minded, and he let it be known in every village and farmhouse that Isabella Drummond—an outsider in these Highlands—was an enemy of the people and the cause of their present misery. Three days ago, the bounty on Isabella’s head had been doubled—a fortune for any man or woman who would provide information leading to her arrest—and this time the British would take her alive or dead.

  Cinaed hadn’t wanted to worry her with any of this news, so he’d kept it from her. But now he saw he’d been a fool to do so.

  Taking the stairs three at a time, he felt his head beginning to pound. He’d like nothing better than to get his hands on that filthy dog Hudson, drag him out of Fort George, and finish him, as he should have done that day on the coach road.

  Jean was coming out of the tower chamber just as he reached the door.

  “Steady there, Captain, and guard yerself,” she warned, going by him. “That wife of yers is raging about like a fishwife on a Friday.”

  He took a deep breath to calm down, but it had no effect. What the deuce did she have to be angry about?

  Isabella stood by the window, and she whirled around as he entered. Jean was correct. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were spitting fire. And from the hands fisted at her sides, it was obvious she had a few things on her mind too.

  He closed the door behind him, hard enough to let her know how he felt. “So I must hear it from Carmichael?”

  “And I need to hear the truth from Blair Mackintosh?” She matched the sharpness of his tone.

  Cinaed was stunned for a moment. She’d gone outside. Without him. “When the deuce did you speak to him?”

  “When I went with Mr. Carmichael to see for myself the arrangements he’s made for tomorrow.”

  Cinaed tried to restrain his temper, but his simmering blood was about to boil over. She’d walked the streets of Inverness. Unprotected. This morning, while he’d been out with Searc and Captain Kenedy.

  He hadn’t been gone for too long. They’d simply walked to Citadel Quay to inspect the first of the schooners being outfitted. The money Searc had “invested” for him was being put to good use. But they’d passed a dozen British soldiers, if not more. He’d seen new broadsides being put up on the walls of the buildings. He didn’t go close enough to read them for fear of attracting Searc’s attention, but he guessed they were about Isabella and himself.

  The entire time he was out there, his mind was at ease because she was here in the house. Safe. Out of sight.

  “Why, Isabella? Why are you doing this?”

  “I was about to ask the same question of you.”

  She’d not just gone outside, but to the fields on the way to Longman. Downstairs, Carmichael had told him no other physician or surgeon in Inverness had agreed to help for fear of the possible violence or retribution later on. Cinaed had been ready to kill the man when he proceeded to thank him. And now he found out she’d already gone there to inspect the site.

  “You lied to me,” she snapped. “You lied about how many men you were taking to rescue John Gordon. Blair told me that none of Searc’s gang could be spared.”

  “I never mentioned a number.”

  He may have mentioned a number, but that was beside the point. Cinaed couldn’t believe the Highlander would talk so freely, telling Isabella what they were and weren’t planning for tomorrow. Chattering away like a drunken magpie.

  “You did.”

  “You’re changing the subject,” he barked. “But what made you think you could safely go out and talk to those men? I’m certain I was clear about the risk. You must assume that everyone who passes you on the street is an enemy who will gladly take the fortune being offered for handing you over to the British. Every blasted one of them—man, woman, or child—cannot be trusted.”

  “Blair was kind enough to escort me, watch over me, and stand guard while Mr. Carmichael and I looked over the inside of the building.” She planted her hands on her hips. “What was I to do? Not speak to him at all? Do you honestly think I wouldn’t ask him about how prepared he was to protect my husband tomorrow?”

  Cinaed raked a tired hand through his hair. He didn’t know if he should continue berating her or make love to her.

  “I am your husband,” he reminded her.

  This was only a continuation of the argument they’d been having twice every night of this week. Once before making love and again while they lay in bed exhausted.

  “How does that have anything to do with this discussion? Who is changing the subject now?”

  “I came from Searc’s study just now. They’re expecting upwards of five thousand people out there. No one knows how many soldiers will come from Fort George. The local magistrates are worried that hotheads from both sides will turn the assembly into a riot and the dragoons will charge in to break up the protest. It could be another Peterloo. As your husband, I’m ordering you to stay inside this house tomorrow.”

  Isa
bella snorted, letting him know exactly what she thought of his directive.

  “We are not married.” She waved her forefinger like a schoolmaster’s birch rod. “And even if we were, I would never allow you to bully me or order me about. I don’t care one whit what those wild-eyed clergymen say about the ‘sacred vows of matrimony.’”

  Cinaed forced himself not to laugh at her imitation of a clergyman’s voice. “You think you can wave your finger and make me forget what could happen to you if you were caught up in that violence?”

  She threw both hands in the air and started pacing the room. “Then how does this sound? As your wife, fraudulent as that may be, I’m ordering you to send Blair and his men to fetch John Gordon while you stay here in this house with me.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “I’m simply turning your own words back on you.”

  Cinaed had come to understand her so well. Isabella was smart, outspoken, independent. She also didn’t do well with authority. He knew he could talk until he hadn’t a breath left in his body, but unless he tied her to this bed—not an unattractive thought—she was going to do as she pleased. Since arriving here, day after day, Isabella had grown back the wings that tragedy had clipped in Edinburgh. Day after day, she had become more confident. He’d seen it in the way she dealt with Searc, the way she moved about the house, the way she questioned and challenged him after the nightly dinners downstairs with some guest, whether it was a clan chief or a ship owner or a local politician. She was involving herself in his business.

  Cinaed loved her. He wanted her at his side forever. The mention of marriage terrified her, even though to him they were already committed to each other in every way that a husband and wife could be. Still, he was impatient for the day when she would accept his offer.

  He realized he was still standing by the door, and she was barricaded behind a table and chair near the window. He strolled to the bed and sat on the edge.

  “In two days, we’ll be going up through the glens to Dalmigavie Castle. I suspect in less than a fortnight, the schooner I saw today will be ready for us to sail to Halifax. Why are you doing this? Why are you putting yourself in danger?”

  He finally had asked a question to which she had no ready reply. Cinaed watched her as she turned her back and stared out the window. He guessed at the answer, but he wasn’t going to say it.

  She was battling the same conflicted feelings he’d been wrestling with. The emotional groundswell of change in the air, the possibility of making life better for all of Scotland, was powerful. Every night she’d come downstairs with him to dinner, even though she didn’t have to. Every conversation she’d listened to intently, even though she held back from offering too much of an opinion, for fear of revealing anything of her past life in Edinburgh.

  “My motivation in going to the gathering tomorrow is not as unsullied as it might look.” Isabella wrapped her arms around herself as she turned away from the window. “I volunteered to go to be useful to Mr. Carmichael in case of … if the need arises, but I also am going for Archibald.”

  The sadness reached her eyes. On their first night together in this bed, Cinaed had held her as she’d cried. She told him about the years of her husband’s political life. They’d each lived two lives. They had two sets of friends. Two political ideologies—one real and the other a façade. Then she spoke of the attack on their house. She wept as she talked about the injured she’d had to leave behind, about the betrayal she’d felt for deserting those who needed her.

  He had understood she was finally grieving, not just for her lost husband, but for everyone and everything she’d lost.

  “This past week, so many times, I’ve found myself pausing and imagining what Archibald would have said in a certain situation. Or how proud he would have been to learn that the struggle wasn’t dead. And the strikes and speeches tomorrow…” She paused and looked out the window again. “It took them months to plan them in Glasgow and Edinburgh, working in secret. Or so they thought. But here in Inverness, the weavers and the other trades, the ministers and the clan chiefs, have courageously and openly gone about organizing, preparing to protest, even though they know other gatherings in other cities have turned deadly.”

  A beam of light shone on her profile, making her skin glow. She looked to be an angel watching over the town beyond.

  “Are you only doing this for your husband?” he asked. “Will you continue to fight his battles?”

  Her lips parted to answer, but she stopped before any words escaped.

  “Did he ever try to persuade you to march on the streets with him?”

  “He was a planner. He was not one to move in a more public sphere.”

  “Then, did he ask you to sit with him at his meetings?”

  She shook her head.

  “That terrible day, did he ask you to tend to the injured people who were brought to your house?”

  “Of course not. I did it myself.”

  “So how strongly did Drummond demand that you be involved in his fight?”

  Once again, she started to respond, perhaps to defend her husband, or to defend herself, but she stopped.

  Cinaed had spent enough years on ships to recognize when a sailor came aboard having already mastered his sea legs. This was the same with Isabella. She already had the fight in her.

  “He never demanded such a thing,” she finally answered. “He was happier when I stayed away from all of it.”

  Cinaed watched her, waiting to give voice to what was on his mind.

  “Who are you doing this for, Isabella?”

  He knew she was not taking part in these protests because of him, and not because of her late husband.

  “Whose battle are you fighting?” he asked again. “Because I know … as surely as we’re standing here, two hundred miles from where your journey started.”

  Her eyes were clear and untroubled as she met his gaze.

  “This battle is my own.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Rouse the lion from his lair.

  —Sir Walter Scott, The Talisman

  Like a flowing river of humanity, the marchers swept out of the city into the fields beyond. And Isabella finally knew she was no outsider. She was part of this. Part of the thousands moving together, breathing together, marching together. Her heart beat as one with the crowds. She was with the old tanner, his face lit with the possibility of change. With the schoolmaster, his lads at his heels, wide-eyed and expectant. With the mother, holding her babe in her arms. With the dockworker, his hook on his shoulder and the words of liberty on his lips.

  As one, they flowed past the lines of glowering magistrates. Past the lines of mounted dragoons, their faces impassive, their sabers at the ready. Disapproving manufactory owners and landowners staring hard-faced from carriages and from horseback. Their privileged lives blinding them to the pain of those who suffered.

  Isabella and her people—her people—continued onward without regard for their looks of anger. Their censure meant nothing. The swords and the soldiers and the line of cannon in the distant fields meant nothing. They moved together—one voice, one heart, one goal.

  And Isabella marched with them, caught up in the passion of the thousands around her. She marched for the tenants forced from their land and left to wander. She marched for the families torn apart by the violence of their oppressors. She marched for her father, for her husband, for all the generations before them whose noble cause of independence was betrayed. She marched for a lost world where standing up for freedom and justice was now a crime.

  And she marched for herself, a woman awakened and willing to fight against the strong-armed tyranny that repressed her people.

  A pull on her arm made Isabella blink back the tears. Her immediate surroundings came into focus, and she caught Jean, who’d stumbled. She shielded her from the sea of marchers behind them as the old woman found her footing.

  “If ye wish it, I’ll walk into battle wi
th ye,” she said. “But the sawbones been calling ye that way.” Jean motioned to the building they were passing.

  Mr. Carmichael. Caught up in the excitement, Isabella had lost track of where she was going.

  They’d joined the stream of people on Chapel Street. Soon, however, as they approached Rose Street, their progress slowed. The folk walking from the Maggot and the harbor were merging with those coming from town, and the line stretched back toward the center of the city for as far as she could see.

  Isabella counted the tolling bells of church steeples; it was ten. The crowds jostled them from behind, but she took her instruments bag out of Jean’s hand and, holding her friend by the other, cut across.

  Mr. Carmichael held the door open for them, and they stepped through it.

  “Much larger crowd than was expected. The word has spread. I hear they’re coming from as far away as Dingwall and Nairn.”

  Isabella paused at the open door looking out beyond the ropeworks at the open fields, the destination for the marchers. A large crowd was already filling the space.

  “Your husband is the spark, you know. With all he’s doing and his return at this moment, he’s helped awaken the people of Inverness. Folks are ready to tear down the old and build anew.”

  * * *

  Cinaed breathed the smell of pine and horseflesh and looked out from the line of trees where his Highland riders waited, grim-faced and silent, beside him.

  He didn’t know how long they’d have to wait for the prison escort to pass, but if their information was correct, the wagon bearing John Gordon and the others, protected by a half-dozen mounted dragoons, should be coming soon. He nudged his horse forward and looked up the coach road. No sign of them yet.

  Beyond the flat fields, Moray Firth was grey and choppy, and distant storm clouds closed off the skies to the east. Here, though, the sky was clear, and that served them well. Cinaed ran through the plan in his head again. They’d attack the escort after it passed, keeping the bright morning sun behind them and in the soldiers’ eyes.