Wolf, Joan (39 page)

"Looks as if it's the Young Pretender, all right," Lieutenant Morton replied. "What do we do now, Colonel?"

"Cut off his head and send it to London," Lord Edward Sackville replied. "The last of the bloody Stuarts." He smiled thinly. "We shall be heroes, Morton. I'll get a letter off straightaway to Lord Albemarle."

"Yes, sir," replied the lieutenant, and turned to go and order the disposition of Alan's remains.

The ride back to Morar was silent. Van's mind was filled with memories of Alan. He should have stayed in Morar, she thought hopelessly. I knew he should have stayed.

"Will you be all right?" Edward asked her when they reached the door of Creag an Fhithich.

She looked at him in surprise. "Aren't you coming in?"

"I want to tend to Fitz," he replied, patting his horse's neck. "I have not quite managed to convince your clansmen that horses require more care than ponies."

"I shall be fine," she replied, her attention focused fully on her husband for the first time since she had seen Alan. He was regarding her with polite concern. "Is something wrong, Edward?" she asked hesitantly.

The golden eyebrows rose. "No." There was just the slightest gleam of irony in those blue eyes. "You've had a shock," he said. "Try to get some rest."

"Yes, I will," She watched him lead the horse and pony back down the drive, the faintest of frowns between her brows.

CHAPTER 31

Alan's head was sent to London and for several weeks the hunt for the prince cooled. Throughout the end of August and early September a few lonely patrols were sent out from Fort Augustus to struggle through the mountains to search for Charles, but otherwise the west was quiet. Albemarle abandoned Fort Augustus himself and moved his headquarters to Edinburgh, a location far more comfortable than the tent city which he had inhabited at Fort Augustus.

On September 6 the prince, Niall, Lochiel, and his brother Dr. Archibald Cameron were all safely hidden in a cave high on the slopes of Ben Alder. This cave was the headquarters of Cluny Macpherson, head of the clan Macpherson, and from this mountain eyrie Cluny had been ruling for months in perfect safety.

Cluny's cave was far more luxurious than Niall and Van's cave in the hills above Loch Morar. The cave on Ben Alder, concealed by a grove of holly, was constructed on two levels and was roofed with turf. Against a great slab of gray rock behind it, the smoke from its chimney was invisible, and with a fire to warm them, six or seven people could find room to play cards and cook their meals.

The fugitives were physically comfortable yet they were restless. They had been on the run for five months now. What they needed desperately was a ship to France.

The hunt had quieted but there were still navy ships in the waters of Arisaig and Sleat. Neither Edward nor Van thought much of the fact that two ships flying British colors had cruised into Loch nan Uamh. It was in the late afternoon of September 6, while Niall was on Bel Alder eating his dinner, that Van discovered that the ships were not English but French.

The news was brought to her by Macdonald of Boisdale. Fortunately Edward was out, so she met him in the office.

"The two ships lying in Loch nan Uamh are not English but French," Boisdale informed her immediately. "They are in search of the prince, my lady. Can you get word to him?"

"Dhé!" said Van. "The prince is not near Morar, Boisdale. It will take a little time to locate him."

"Aye, so I told the French officer."

"How did they find you?" Van asked. They were speaking in low voices and in Gaelic.

"The ship put a party ashore to contact someone who could get word to the prince. There were directed to me."

"And no one suspects they are not English?"

"They fly the British flag, my lady, and the ships look just like English ships. There is a militia camp near Arisaig, but they have not been curious."

"The militia will not recognize them for impostors, but the navy will. They cannot remain for too long in Loch nan Uamh." Van's body was taut with tension. At last a ship... if only she could get word to Niall in time. "Listen to me, Boisdale," she said. "Tell the French officer to lie offshore for a while and then to be back in the loch in two weeks' time. I will have the prince at Loch nan Uamh by then and they can take him off."

"Aye, my lady."

As Boisdale prepared to leave. Van smiled ruefully. "You look so strange without your kilt," she said. "I cannot get accustomed to seeing Highlanders in breeches."

MacDonald of Boisdale raised his chin proudly. "Wait until the prince returns, my lady. Then we will drive the Sassenach out of our glens forever. The chiefs and the tartan will be restored when our bonnie Charlie comes again."

"Aye," said Van, and watched with somber eyes as the MacDonald turned and left the office. Then she set out herself to look for Lachlan.

Lachlan left for Cameron country to get word of the prince on the night of September 6. On September 10 a letter arrived for Edward from London, delivered by a Campbell from Inverary. The letter was not from Edward's mother, however. The seal was official. Van accepted it, fed the Campbell messenger, sent him on his way, and sat down to wait for her husband and to worry.

Edward did not return to the castle until nine that evening. He had taken to spending long hours out in the hills and the glens of Morar, evaluating, as he said, the potential for farming in this rocky Highland soil. Van, however, had a growing suspicion that one of the reasons for his extended hours away from the castle was that he was avoiding her.

She had almost given him up and gone to bed. She was so tired these days, weary with a fatigue she had never felt before. She was also nauseous in the mornings and food had lost all attraction for her. She was beginning to suspect that she might be with child.

She heard his step behind her coming across the drawing-room floor and turned her head to peek around the high back of her chair. The castle drawing room was so big, she thought. How could one man's presence seem to fill it as his did? Sunshine and energy and strength walked into a room with Edward. Van felt some of her own weariness lift. She smiled up into his face and said lightly, "Have you eaten? Shall I order supper for you?"

He shook his head. "Glen Alden shot a stag this afternoon and he feasted me well." MacIan of Glen Alden was one of Morar's most important tacksmen.

Van stared at her husband in wonder. He was sunburned and carelessly dressed and his once-polished boots were worn and scarred. Eating stag with Glen Alden, she thought. The sophisticated and immaculate Earl of Linton. He stretched his long legs in front of him and gave her a faint smile. "What have you done with yourself all day?"

She answered slowly, "A letter came for you, Edward. From London. It looks very official." She took the letter from the mantel and brought it to his chair.

He did not change his relaxed posture while he ripped the seal and read what was inside.

"What is it?" Van asked a little breathlessly. Without answering, he handed the letter to her.

It was precisely what she had thought it would be. Precisely the message she had been dreading and preparing for these last weeks. Lord Newcastle had written to inform Lord Linton that the man slain in Knoidart, the man whom his wife had identified as the Young Pretender, was not Charles Stuart at all. Charles Stuart must therefore be presumed to be alive and still hiding somewhere in Scotland.

Van lowered the letter and looked at her husband. He was gazing at the top of his boots, seemingly perfectly relaxed. His hands, ringless save for the one signet, were resting lightly on the chair's arms.

"Edward," Van said. "I am sorry."

His head lifted slightly and he looked at her. His face was perfectly contained. Van thought she would have felt better if he had been angry. "I'm glad you didn't try to say you had made a mistake," he said.

"No. Of course I knew it was not the prince." He was so composed, so... distant. "It was Alan MacDonald," she said. Her voice trembled and then steadied. "I would probably have married him if I had not met you."

That surprised him. His eyes widened just slightly and she dropped to her knees by his side. "He died saying those words, Edward," she said. "What else could I do? I could not betray the last great selfless act of his life. He loved me. I think I might have loved him were it not for you."

She knelt there, her face upturned to his. A memory flashed into her mind of one other time she had knelt thus, the time his mare had died. She thought, from the flicker of expression in his eyes, that he was remembering that time too.

"You should have told me." His voice was very quiet. She searched his face, trying to read his mind.

"How could I tell you? I know how you feel about the prince. You would have been honor-bound to inform the government of the truth. And if you did not tell them, then you would be an accessory as well as I. I could not put you in such a compromising position. Surely you can see that?"

The expression on his face did not challenge. "But I knew all along it was not the prince," he said.

Van felt shock run like lightning through her body. Her lips parted. "What?" she said faintly.

"I knew all along it was not the prince," he repeated. "It was I who closed his eyes. Charles Stuart's eyes are brown."

Van thought of the greenish-hazel of Alan's eyes. She stared at her husband and her shoulders slumped. "You never told me you knew."

"No. I was hoping, you see, that you would tell
me.
That you would trust me." There was a long pause as she stared at him hopelessly. "It was obvious that you knew him," he said at last. "If I had realized that, I would never have brought you to Knoidart. I did not mean to hurt you."

"But why, Edward?" She was completely bewildered by now. "Why, when you knew it was not the prince, did you give me the chance to say that it was?"

"Christ," he said. "I don't know. I knew you would identify him, of course. It was a perfect opportunity to have the hunt called off for a while." He smiled but there was no humor in it. "I'm sick of all this. Van," he said. "I'm sick of being made to feel I belong to a race of executioners. I wanted to run Sackville through that morning. I was hoping that the prince
would
get away in the interim, I suppose. Hoping that this whole bloody 'pacification of the Highlands' would come at last to an end."

Van stared at her husband, her heart in her eyes. "I do trust you," she said. "I trust you more than anyone else in the world. And I love you..."

He reached for her, pulled her up onto his lap, his arms cradling her close, his lips in her hair. "I know," he said. They sat quietly for some minutes, Van with her eyes closed, feeling perfectly sheltered and safe. He spoke into her hair. "One day soon this will all be over," he said. "One day soon you will make music again." She pressed closer to him, and his arms around her tightened.

It had begun to rain by the time they went upstairs to bed. It beat against the windows of their bedroom, hard and relentless, sweeping in from the sea to cover the loch and the land. Van tried to ignore it, to seek refuge in her husband's nearness, his pulsing strength, the safety of his great body.

There were French ships in Loch nan Uamh and she had not told Edward. "I trust you," she had said to him, and she did. She trusted in his wisdom, in his kindness, in the breadth of his vision, and in his perception of morality. She did not think that he would betray the ships' presence to the government.

But she could not burden him with that decision. She lay in his arms, listening to his heartbeat, and thought of what he had said earlier. He had known all along that Alan's body was not that of the prince. What would happen to Edward if the government became aware of his deception?

He would be accused of helping the prince to escape. He would be labeled a Jacobite. People would say that his wife had converted him. He could even be arrested himself.

The military leaders in Scotland were not happy with the Earl of Linton; she had seen that in various ways over the last six weeks. They were not happy with his shiploads of food, with his protection of Morar, with his outspoken disapproval of their tactics. They would love a chance to vindicate their own actions, to put Edward in the wrong.

He could not be implicated in the prince's escape. For his own sake, he must be kept ignorant. He must be able to swear, with a clear conscience, that he had known nothing of Charles Stuart's movements at any time.

Would he ever forgive her?

"Listen to the rain," his voice said softly into the darkness above her head. It beat so hard now against the glass that it drowned out the sound of his heartbeat. Edward's arms were a refuge for her no longer.

CHAPTER 32

Lachlan discovered from a clansman of Lochiel's the whereabouts of the Cameron chief, and made for Ben Alder in order to search him out. Van had told Lachlan to first find Lochiel, as he was the person most likely to know the whereabouts of the prince.

For so long now the Highlands had been covered with troops and guarded like a city in a siege, that the easy going he had surprised the MacIan clansman. The government, however, was now convinced that the prince had gone to the east coast to make his escape, and so the guard on the west had been relaxed.

Lachlan was accosted by a MacPherson clansman on the slopes of Ben Alder and, once he had identified himself, conducted to the cave where the MacPherson chief was entertaining royalty.

Lachlan's message put the prince and his entire party into holiday spirits. "What fine, brave women these Highlanders are," Charles said to Niall. "Your sister has the heart of a lion."

Niall thought of that other brave woman, Flora MacDonald, now in prison in Edinburgh, and a little of the spark left his eyes. Van was putting herself into danger for them, but he did not see how it could be helped.

They left Ben Alder at one in the morning on the thirteenth of September and began their final journey through the Highlands, going north at first between Ben Alder and Loch Ericht, then west through the Ben Alder Forest and past the south end of Loch Laggan toward Glen Roy. They moved at night and lay hidden and rested by day. They crossed Glen Roy and the river Lochy by moonlight, in a boat that leaked badly the whole way, and came for the last time to Lochiel's ruined house of Achnacarry.