44

IN WHICH QUITE A LOT OF THINGS GANG AGLEY

I hunched closer to the fire, holding out my hands to thaw. They were grimy from holding the reins all day, and I wondered briefly whether it was worthwhile walking the distance to the stream to wash them. Maintaining modern standards of hygiene in the absence of all forms of plumbing sometimes seemed a good deal more trouble than it was worth. No bloody wonder if people got ill and died frequently, I thought sourly. They died of simple filth and ignorance more than anything.

The thought of dying in filth was sufficient to get me to my feet, tired as I was. The tiny streamlet that passed by the campsite was boggy near the edges, and my shoes sank deep into the marshy growth. Having traded dirty hands for wet feet, I slogged back to the fire, to find Corporal Rowbotham waiting for me with a bowl of what he said was stew.

“The Captain’s compliments, Mum,” he said, actually tugging his forelock as he handed me the bowl, “and he says to tell yer as we’ll be in Tavistock tomorrow. There’s an inn there.” He hesitated, his round, homely, middle-aged face concerned, then added, “The Captain’s apologies for the lack of accommodation, Mum, but we’ve fixed a tent for yer for tonight. ’S not much, but mebbe’ll keep the rain off yer.”

“Thank the Captain for me, Corporal,” I said, as graciously as I could manage. “And thank you, too,” I added, with more warmth. I was entirely aware that Captain Mainwaring considered me a burdensome nuisance, and would have taken no thought at all for my night’s shelter. The tent—a spare length of canvas draped carefully over a tree limb and pegged at both sides—was undoubtedly the sole idea of Corporal Rowbotham.

The Corporal went away and I sat by myself, slowly eating scorched potatoes and stringy beef. I’d found a late patch of charlock near the stream, leaves wilting and brown around the edges, and had brought back a handful in my pocket, along with a few juniper berries picked during a stop earlier in the day. The mustard leaves were old and very bitter, but I managed to get them down by wodging them between bites of potato. I finished the meal with the juniper berries, biting each one briefly to avoid choking and then swallowing the tough, flattened berry, seed and all. The oily burst of flavor sent fumes up the back of my throat that made my eyes water, but they did cleanse my tongue of the taste of grease and scorch, and would, with the charlock leaves, maybe be sufficient to ward off scurvy.

I had had a large store of dried fiddleheads, rose hips, dried apples and dill seeds in the larger of my two medicine chests, carefully collected as a defense against nutritional deficiency during the long winter months. I hoped Jamie was eating them.

I put my head down on my knees; I didn’t think anyone was looking at me, but I didn’t want my face to show when I thought of Jamie.

I had stayed in my pretended swoon on Falkirk Hill as long as I could, but was roused before too long by a British dragoon trying to force brandy from a pocket flask down my throat. Unsure quite what to do with me, my “rescuers” had taken me to Callendar House and turned me over to General Hawley’s staff.

So far, all had gone according to plan. Within the hour, though, things had gone rather seriously awry. From sitting in an anteroom and listening to everything that was said around me, I soon learned that what I had thought was a major battle during the night had in fact been no more than a small skirmish between the MacKenzies and a detachment of English troops on their way to join the main body of the army. Said army was even now assembling itself to meet the expected Highland charge on Falkirk Hill; the battle I thought I had lived through had not, in fact, happened yet!

General Hawley himself was overseeing this process, and as no one seemed to have any idea what ought to be done with me, I was consigned to the custody of a young private, along with a letter describing the circumstances of my rescue, and dispatched to a Colonel Campbell’s temporary headquarters at Kerse. The young private, a stocky specimen named Dobbs, was distressingly zealous in his urge to perform his duty, and despite several tries along the way, I had been unable to get away from him.

We had arrived in Kerse, only to find that Colonel Campbell was not there, but had been summoned to Livingston.

“Look,” I had suggested to my escorting gaoler, “plainly Colonel Campbell is not going to have time or inclination to talk to me, and there’s nothing I could tell him in any case. Why don’t I just find lodging in the town here, until I can make some arrangement for continuing my journey to Edinburgh?” For lacking any better idea, I had given the English basically the same story I had given to Colum MacKenzie, two years earlier; that I was a widowed lady from Oxford, traveling to visit a relative in Scotland, when I had been set upon and abducted by Highland brigands.

Private Dobbs shook his head, flushing stubbornly. He couldn’t be more than twenty, and he wasn’t very bright, but once he got an idea in his head, he hung on to it.

“I can’t let you do that, Mrs. Beauchamp,” he said—for I had used my own maiden name as an alias—“Captain Bledsoe’ll have my liver for it, an’ I don’t bring you safe to the Colonel.”

So to Livingston we had gone, mounted on two of the sorriest-looking nags I had ever seen. I was finally relieved of the attentions of my escort, but with no improvement in my circumstances. Instead, I found myself immured in an upper room in a house in Livingston, telling the story once again, to one Colonel Gordon MacLeish Campbell, a Lowland Scot in command of one of the Elector’s regiments.

“Aye, I see,” he said, in the sort of tone that suggested that he didn’t see at all. He was a small, foxy-faced man, with balding reddish hair brushed back from his temples. He narrowed his eyes still further, glancing down at the crumpled letter on his blotter.

“This says,” he said, placing a pair of half-spectacles on his nose in order to peer more closely at the sheet of paper, “that one of your captors, Mistress, was a Fraser clansman, very large, and with red hair. Is this information correct?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering what he was getting at.

He tilted his head so the spectacles slid down his nose, the better to fix me with a piercing stare over the tops.

“The men who rescued you near Falkirk gave it as their impression that one of your captors was none other than the notorious Highland chief known as ‘Red Jamie.’ Now, I am aware, Mrs. Beauchamp, that you were…distressed, shall we say?”—his lips pulled back from the word, but it wasn’t a smile—“during the period of your captivity, and perhaps in no fit frame of mind to make close observations, but did you notice at any time whether the other men present referred to this man by name?”

“They did. They called him Jamie.” I couldn’t imagine any harm that could be done by telling him this; the broadsheets I had seen made it abundantly clear that Jamie was a supporter of the Stuart cause. The placing of Jamie at the battle of Falkirk was possibly of interest to the English, but could hardly incriminate him further.

“They canna very well hang me more than once,” he’d said. Once would be more than enough. I glanced at the window. Night had fallen half an hour ago, and lanterns glowed in the street below, carried by soldiers passing to and fro. Jamie would be at Callendar House, searching for the window where I should be waiting.

I had the absurd certainty, all of a sudden, that he had followed me, had known somehow where I was going, and would be waiting in the street below, for me to show myself.

I rose abruptly and went to the window. The street below was empty, save for a seller of pickled herrings, seated on a stool with his lantern at his feet, waiting for the possibility of customers. It wasn’t Jamie, of course. There was no way for him to find me. No one in the Stuart camp knew where I was; I was entirely alone. I pressed my hands hard against the glass in sudden panic, not caring that I might shatter it.

“Mistress Beauchamp! Are ye well?” The Colonel’s voice behind me was sharp with alarm.

I clamped my lips tight together to stop them shaking and took several deep breaths, clouding the glass so the street below vanished in mist. Outwardly calm, I turned back to face the Colonel.

“I’m quite well,” I said. “If you’ve finished asking questions, I’d like to go now.”

“Would ye? Mmm.” He looked me over with something like doubt, then shook his head decidedly.

“Ye’ll stay the night here,” he declared. “In the morning, I shall be sendin’ ye southward.”

I felt a spasm of shock clench my insides. “South! What the hell for?” I blurted.

His fox-fur eyebrows rose in astonishment and his mouth fell open. Then he shook himself slightly, and clamped it shut, opening it only a slit to deliver himself of his next words.

“I have orders to send on any information pertaining to the Highland criminal known as Red Jamie Fraser,” he said. “Or any person associated with him.”

“I’m not associated with him!” I said. Unless you wanted to count marriage, of course.

Colonel Campbell was oblivious. He turned to his desk and shuffled through a stack of dispatches.

“Aye, here it is. Captain Mainwaring will be the officer who escorts you. He will come to fetch ye here at dawn.” He rang a small silver bell shaped like a goblin, and the door opened to reveal the inquiring face of his private orderly. “Garvie, ye’ll see the lady to her quarters. Lock the door.” He turned to me and bowed perfunctorily. “I think we shall not meet again, Mrs. Beauchamp; I wish ye good rest and God-speed.” And that was that.

I didn’t know quite how fast God-speed was, but it was likely faster than Captain Mainwaring’s detachment had ridden. The Captain was in charge of a supply train of wagons, bound for Lanark. After delivery of these and their drivers, he was then to proceed south with the rest of his detachment, delivering nonvital dispatches as he went. I was apparently in the category of nonurgent intelligence, for we had been more than a week on the road, and no sign of reaching whatever place I was bound for.

“South.” Did that mean London? I wondered, for the thousandth time. Captain Mainwaring had not told me my final destination, but I could think of no other possibility.

Lifting my head, I caught one of the dragoons across the fire staring at me. I stared flatly back at him, until he flushed and dropped his eyes to the bowl in his hands. I was accustomed to such looks, though most were less bold about it.

It had started from the beginning, with a certain reserved embarrassment on the part of the young idiot who had taken me to Livingston. It had taken some little time for me to realize that what caused the attitude of distant reserve on the part of the English officers was not suspicion, but a mixture of contempt and horror, mingled with a trace of pity and a sense of official responsibility that kept their true feelings from showing openly.

I had not merely been rescued from a band of the rapacious, marauding Scots. I had been delivered from a captivity during which I had spent an entire night in a single room with a number of men who were, to the certain knowledge of all right-thinking Englishmen, “Little more than Savage Beasts, guilty of Rapine, Robbery, and countless other such Hideous Crimes.” Not thinkable, therefore, that a young Englishwoman had passed a night in the company of such beasts and emerged unscathed.

I reflected grimly that Jamie’s carrying me out in an apparent swoon might have eased matters originally, but had undoubtedly contributed to the overall impression that he—and the other assorted Scots—had been having their forcible way with me. And thanks to the detailed letter written by the captain of my original band of rescuers, everyone to whom I had later been passed on—and everyone to whom they talked, I imagined—knew about it. Schooled in Paris, I understood the mechanics of gossip very well.

Corporal Rowbotham had certainly heard the stories, but continued to treat me kindly, with none of the smirking speculation I occasionally surprised on the faces of the other soldiers. If I had been inclined to offer up bedtime prayers, I would have included his name therein.

I rose, dusted off my cloak, and went to my tent. Seeing me go, Corporal Rowbotham also rose, and circling the fire discreetly, sat down by his comrades again, his back in direct line with the entrance to my tent. When the soldiers retired to their beds, I knew he would seek a spot at a respectful distance, but still within call of my resting place. He had done this for the past three nights, whether we slept in inn or field.

Three nights earlier I had tried yet another escape. Captain Mainwaring was well aware that I traveled with him under compulsion, and while he didn’t like being burdened with me, he was too conscientious a soldier to shirk the responsibility. I had two guards, who watched me closely, riding on each side by day.

At night, the guard was relaxed, the Captain evidently thinking it unlikely that I would strike out on foot over deserted moors in the dead of winter. The Captain was correct. I had no interest in committing suicide.

On the night in question, however, we had passed through a small village about two hours before we stopped for the night. Even on foot, I was sure I could backtrack and reach the village before dawn. The village boasted a small distillery, from which wagons bearing loads of barrels departed for several towns in the surrounding region. I had seen the distiller’s yard, piled high with barrels, and thought I had a decent chance of hiding there, and leaving with the first wagon.

So after the camp was quiet, and the soldiers lumped and snoring in their blankets round the fire, I had crept out of my own blanket, carefully laid near the edge of a willow grove, and made my way through the trailing fronds, with no more sound than the rustle of the wind.

Leaving the grove, I had thought it was the rustle of the wind behind me, too, until a hand clamped down on my shoulder.

“Don’t scream. Y’ don’t want the Capting to know yer out wi’out leave.” I didn’t scream, only because all the breath had been startled out of me. The soldier, a tallish man called “Jessie” by his mates, because of the trouble he took in combing out his yellow curls, smiled at me, and I smiled a little uncertainly back at him.

His eyes dropped to my bosom. He sighed, raised his eyes to mine, and took a step toward me. I took three steps back, fast.

“It doesn’t matter, really, does it, sweet’art?” he said, still smiling lazily. “Not after what’s ’appened already. What’s once more, eh? And I’m an Englishman, too,” he coaxed. “Not a filthy Scot.”

“Leave the poor woman alone, Jess,” Corporal Rowbotham said, emerging silently from the screen of willows behind him. “She’s had enough trouble, poor lady.” He spoke softly enough, but Jessie glared at him, then, thinking better of whatever he’d had in mind, turned without another word and disappeared under the willow leaves.

The Corporal had waited, unspeaking, for me to gather up my fallen cloak, and then had followed me back to the camp. He had gone to pick up his own blanket, motioned to me to lie down, and placed himself six feet away, sitting up with his blanket about his shoulders Indian-style. Whenever I woke during the night, I had seen him still sitting there, staring shortsightedly into the fire.

Tavistock did have an inn. I didn’t have much time to enjoy its amenities, though. We arrived in the village at midday, and Captain Mainwaring set off at once to deliver his current crop of dispatches. He returned within the hour, though, and told me to fetch my cloak.

“Why?” I said, bewildered. “Where are we going?”

He glanced at me indifferently and said “To Bellhurst Manor.”

“Right,” I said. It sounded a trifle more impressive than my current surroundings, which featured several soldiers playing at chuck-a-luck on the floor, a flea-ridden mongrel asleep by the fire, and a strong smell of hops.

The manor house, without regard to the natural beauty of its site, stubbornly turned its back on the open meadows and huddled inland instead, facing the stark cliffside.

The drive was straight, short, and unadorned, unlike the lovely curving approaches to French manors. But the entrance was equipped with two utilitarian stone pillars, each bearing the heraldic device of the owner. I stared at it as my horse clopped past, trying to place it. A cat—perhaps a leopard?—couchant, with a lily in its paw. It was familiar, I knew. But whose?

There was a stir in the long grass near the gate, and I caught a quick glimpse of pale blue eyes as a hunched bundle of rags scuttled into the shadows, away from the churn of the horses’ hooves. Something about the ragged beggar seemed faintly familiar, too. Perhaps I was merely hallucinating; grasping at anything that didn’t remind me of English soldiers.

The escort waited in the dooryard, not bothering to dismount, while I mounted the steps with Captain Mainwaring, and waited while he hammered at the door, rather wondering what might be on the other side of it.

“Mrs. Beauchamp?” The butler, if that’s what he was, looked rather as though he suspected the worst. No doubt he was right.

“Yes,” I said. “Er, whose house is this?”

But even as I asked, I raised my eyes and looked into the gloom of the inner hall. A face stared back at me, doe-eyes wide and startled.

Mary Hawkins.

As the girl opened her mouth, I opened mine as well. And screamed as loudly as I could. The butler, taken unprepared, took a step back, tripped on a settee, and fell over sideways like a bowls pin. I could hear the startled noises of the soldiers outside, coming up the steps.

I picked up my skirts, shrieked “A mouse! A mouse!” and fled toward the parlor, yelling like a banshee.

Infected by my apparent hysteria, Mary shrieked as well, and clutched me about the middle as I cannoned into her. I bore her back into the recesses of the parlor with me, and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Don’t tell anyone who I am,” I breathed into her ear. “No one! My life depends on it!” I had thought I was being melodramatic, but it occurred to me, as I spoke the words, that I could very well be telling the exact truth. Being married to Red Jamie Fraser was likely a dicey proposition.

Mary had time only to nod in a dazed sort of way, when the door at the far side of the room opened, and a man came in.

“Whatever is all this wretched noise, Mary?” he demanded. A plump, contented-looking man, he had also the firm chin and tightly satisfied lips of the man who is contented because he generally gets his own way.

“N-nothing, Papa,” said Mary, stuttering in her nervousness. “Only a m-m-mouse.”

The baronet squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled deeply, seeking patience. Having found a simulacrum of that state, he opened them and gazed at his offspring.

“Say it again, child,” he ordered. “But straight. I’ll not have you mumbling and blithering. Take a deep breath, steady yourself. Now. Again.”

Mary obeyed, inhaling ’til the laces of her bodice strained across the budding chest. Her fingers wound themselves in the silk brocade of her skirt, seeking support.

“It w-was a mouse, Papa. Mrs. Fr…er, this lady was frightened by a mouse.”

Dismissing this attempt as barely satisfactory, the baronet stepped forward, examining me with interest.

“Oh? And who might you be, Madam?”

Captain Mainwaring, arriving belatedly after the search for the mythical mouse, popped up at my elbow and introduced me, handing over the note of introduction from Colonel MacLeish.

“Hum. So, it seems His Grace is to be your host, Madam, at least temporarily.” He handed the note to the waiting butler, and took the hat the latter had taken from the nearby rack.

“I regret that our acquaintance should be so short, Mrs. Beauchamp. I was just leaving myself.” He glanced over his shoulder, to a short stairway that branched off the hall. The butler, dignity restored, was already mounting it, grubby note reposing on a salver held before him. “I see Walmisley has gone to tell His Grace of your arrival. I must go, or I shall miss the post-coach. Adieu, Mrs. Beauchamp.”

He turned to Mary, hanging back against the paneled wainscoting. “Goodbye, daughter. Do try to…well.” The corners of his mouth turned up in what was meant to be a fatherly smile. “Goodbye, Mary.”

“Goodbye, Papa,” she murmured, eyes on the ground. I glanced from one to the other. What on earth was Mary Hawkins, of all people, doing here? Plainly she was staying at the house; I supposed the owner must be some connection of her family’s.

“Mrs. Beauchamp?” A small, tubby footman was bowing at my elbow. “His Grace will see you now, Madam.”

Mary’s hands clutched at my sleeve as I turned to follow the footman. “B-b-b-but…” she began. In my keyed-up state, I didn’t think I could manage sufficient patience to hear her out. I smiled vaguely and patted her hand.

“Yes, yes,” I said. “Don’t worry, it will be all right.”

“B-but it’s my…”

The footman bowed and pushed open a door at the end of the corridor. Light within fell on the richness of brocade and polished wood. The chair I could see to one side had a family crest embroidered on its back; a clearer version of the worn stone shield I had seen outside.

A leopard couchant, holding in its paw a bunch of lilies—or were they crocuses? Alarm bells rang in my mind as the chair’s occupant rose, his shadow falling across the polished doorsill as he turned. Mary’s final anguished word made it out, neck and neck with the footman’s announcement.

“My g-g-godfather!” she said.

“His Grace, the Duke of Sandringham,” said the footman.

“Mrs.…Beauchamp?” said the Duke, his mouth dropping open in astonishment.

“Well,” I said weakly. “Something like that.”

The door of the drawing room closed behind me, leaving me alone with His Grace. My last sight of Mary had been of her standing out in the hall, eyes like saucers, mouth opening and shutting silently like a goldfish.

There were huge Chinese jars flanking the windows, and inlaid tables under them. A bronze Venus posed coquettishly on the mantelpiece, companioned by a pair of gold-rimmed porcelain bowls and silver-gilt candelabra, blazing with beeswax candles. A close-napped carpet that I recognized as a very good Kermanshah covered most of the floor and a spinet crouched in one corner; what little space was left bare was occupied by marquetried furniture and the odd bit of statuary.

“Nice place you have here,” I remarked graciously to the Duke, who had been standing before the fire, hands folded beneath his coattail as he watched me, an expression of wary amusement on the broad, florid face.

“Thank you,” he said, in the piping tenor that came so oddly from that barrel-chested frame. “Your presence adorns it, my dear.” Amusement won out over wariness, and he smiled, a bluff, disarming grin.

“Why Beauchamp?” he asked. “That isn’t by chance your real name, is it?”

“My maiden name,” I answered, rattled into the truth. His thick blond eyebrows shot up.

“Are you French?”

“No. English. I couldn’t use Fraser, though, could I?”

“I see.” Brows still raised, he nodded at a small brocaded love seat, inviting me to be seated. It was richly carved and beautifully proportioned, a museum piece, like everything else in the room. I swept my sodden skirts to one side as gracefully as I could, ignoring their liberal stains of mud and horsehair, and delicately lowered myself onto the primrose satin.

The Duke paced slowly back and forth before the fire, watching me, still with a slight smile on his features. I fought the growing warmth and comfort that spread through my aching legs, threatening to drag me into the abyss of fatigue that gaped open at my feet. This was no time to let down my guard.

“Which are you?” the Duke inquired suddenly. “An English hostage, a fervent Jacobite, or a French agent?”

I rubbed two fingers over the ache between my eyes. The correct answer was “none of the above,” but I didn’t think it would get me very far.

“The hospitality of this house seems a trifle lacking by comparison with its appointments,” I said, as haughtily as I could manage under the circumstances, which wasn’t all that much. Still, Louise’s example of great-ladydom had not been entirely in vain.

The Duke laughed, a high, chittering sort of laugh, like a bat that has just heard a good one.

“Your pardon, Madam. You’re quite right; I should have thought to offer you refreshment before presuming to question you. Most thoughtless of me.”

He murmured something to the footman who appeared in answer to his ring, then waited calmly before the fire for the tray to arrive. I sat in silence, glancing around the room, occasionally stealing a look at my host. Neither of us was interested in making small talk. Despite his outward geniality, this was an armed truce, and both of us knew it.

What I wanted to know was why. No stranger to people wondering who in hell I was, I rather wondered myself where the Duke came into it. Or where he thought I did. He had met me twice before, as Mrs. Fraser, wife of the laird of Lallybroch. Now I had turned up on his doorstep, posing as an English hostage named Beauchamp lately rescued from a gang of Scottish Jacobites. That was enough to make anyone wonder. But his attitude toward me went a long way past simple curiosity.

The tea arrived, complete with scones and cake. The Duke picked up his own cup, motioned to mine with a lift of one brow, and we took tea, still both in silence. Somewhere on the other side of the house, I could hear a muffled banging, as of someone hammering. The soft chime of the Duke’s cup against its saucer was the signal for the resumption of hostilities.

“Now, then,” he said, with as much firmness as a man who sounded like Mickey Mouse could manage. “Let me begin, Mrs. Fraser—I may call you so? Thank you. Let me begin by saying that I know a great deal about you already. I intend to know more. You will do well to answer me fully and without hesitations. I must say, Mrs. Fraser, that you are amazingly difficult to kill”—he bowed slightly in my direction, that smile still on his lips—“but I feel sure that it could be accomplished, given sufficient determination.”

I stared at him, unmoving; not out of any native sang-froid, but from simple dumbfoundedness. Adopting another of Louise’s mannerisms, I raised both eyebrows inquiringly, sipped tea, then patted my lips delicately with the monogrammed serviette provided.

“I am afraid you will think me dense, Your Grace,” I said politely, “but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Haven’t you, my dear?”

The small, jolly blue eyes didn’t blink. He reached for the silver-gilt bell on the tray and rang it once.

The man must have been waiting in the next room for the summons, for the door opened immediately. A tall, lean man in the dark habiliments and good linen of an upper servant advanced to the Duke’s side and bowed deeply.

“Your Grace?” He spoke English, but the French accent was unmistakable. The face was French, too; long-nosed and white, with thin, tight lips and a pair of ears that stood out from his head like small wings on either side, their tips fiercely red. His lean face grew still paler as he looked up and spotted me, and he took an involuntary step backward.

Sandringham watched this with a frown of irritation, then switched his gaze to me.

“You don’t recognize him?” he asked.

I was beginning to shake my head, when the man’s right hand twitched suddenly against the cloth of his breeches. As unobtrusively as possible, he was making the sign of the horns, middle fingers folded down, index and little finger pointed at me. I knew, then, and in the next instant had seen the confirmation of my knowledge—the small beauty mark above the fork of his thumb.

I hadn’t the slightest doubt; it was the man in the spotted shirt who had attacked me and Mary in Paris. And all too obviously in the Duke’s employ.

“You bloody bastard!” I said. I leaped to my feet, overturning the tea table, and snatched up the nearest object to hand, a carved alabaster tobacco jar. I hurled it at the man’s head, and he turned and fled precipitately, the heavy jar missing him by inches to smash against the door frame.

The door slammed to as I started after him, and I stopped in my tracks, breathing heavily. I glared at Sandringham, hands braced on my hips.

“Who is he?” I demanded.

“My valet,” said the Duke calmly. “Albert Danton, by name. A good fellow with neckcloths and stockings, but a trifle excitable, as so many of these Frenchmen are. Incredibly superstitious, too.” He frowned disapprovingly at the closed door. “Bloody papists, with all these saints and smells and such. Believe anything at all.”

My breathing was slowing, though my heart still banged against the whalebones of my bodice. I had trouble drawing a deep breath.

“You filthy, disgusting, outrageous.…pervert!”

The Duke seemed bored by this, and nodded negligently.

“Yes, yes, my dear. All that, I’m sure, and more. A trifle unlucky, too, at least on that occasion.”

“Unlucky? Is that what you’d call it?” Unsteadily, I moved to the love seat, and sat down. My hands were shaking with nerves, and I clasped them together, hidden in the folds of my skirt.

“On several counts, my dear lady. Just look at it.” He spread out both hands in graceful entreaty. “I send Danton to dispose of you. He and his companions decide to entertain themselves a bit first; that’s all well and good, but in the process, they get a good look at you, leap unaccountably to the conclusion that you’re a witch of some kind, lose their heads entirely and run off. But not before debauching my goddaughter, who is present by accident, thus ruining all chance of the excellent marriage I had painstakingly arranged for her. Consider the irony of it!”

The shocks were coming thick and fast, and I hardly knew which to respond to first. There seemed one particularly striking statement in this speech, though.

“What do you mean ‘dispose of me’?” I demanded. “Do you mean to say you actually tried to have me killed?” The room seemed to be swaying a bit, and I took a deep gulp of tea as being the nearest thing to a restorative available. It wasn’t terribly effective.

“Well, yes,” Sandringham said pleasantly. “That was the point I was endeavoring to make. Tell me, my dear, would you care for a cup of sherry?”

I eyed him narrowly for a moment. Having just stated that he’d tried to have me killed, he now expected me to accept a cup of sherry from his hands?

“Brandy,” I said. “Lots of it.”

He giggled in that high-pitched way again, and made his way to the sideboard, remarking over his shoulder, “Captain Randall said you were a most diverting woman. Quite an encomium from the Captain, you know. He hasn’t much use for women ordinarily, though they swarm over him. His looks, I suppose; it can’t be his manner.”

“So Jack Randall does work for you,” I said, taking the glass he handed me. I had watched him pour out two glasses, and was sure that both contained nothing but brandy. I took a large and sorely needed swallow.

The Duke matched me, blinking his eyes at the effect of the pungent liquid.

“Of course,” he said. “Often the best tool is the most dangerous. One doesn’t hesitate to use it on that account; one merely makes sure to take adequate precautions.”

“Dangerous, eh? Just how much do you know about Jonathan Randall?” I asked curiously.

The Duke tittered. “Oh, virtually everything, I should think, my dear. Most likely a great deal more than you do, in fact. It doesn’t do to employ a man like that without having a means at hand to control him, you know. And money is a good bridle, but a weak rein.”

“Unlike blackmail?” I said dryly.

He sat back, hands clasped across his bulging stomach, and regarded me with bland interest.

“Ah. You are thinking that blackmail might work both ways, I suppose?” He shook his head, dislodging a few grains of snuff that floated down onto the silk waistcoat.

“No, my dear. For one thing, there is something of a difference in our stations. While rumor of that sort might affect my reception in some circles of society, that is not a matter of grave concern to me. While for the good Captain—well, the army takes a very dim view of such unnatural predilections. The penalty is often death, in fact. No, not much comparison, really.” He cocked his head to one side, so far as the multiple chins allowed.

“But it is neither the promise of wealth nor the threat of exposure that binds John Randall to me,” he said. The small, watery blue eyes gleamed in their orbits. “He serves me because I can give him what he desires.”

I eyed the corpulent frame with unconcealed disgust, making His Grace shake with laughter.

“No, not that,” he said. “The Captain’s tastes are somewhat more refined than that. Unlike my own.”

“What, then?”

“Punishment,” he said softly. “But you know that, don’t you? Or at least your husband does.”

I felt unclean simply from being near him, and rose to get away. The shards of the alabaster tobacco jar lay on the floor, and I kicked one inadvertently, so that it pinged off the wall, ricocheting and spinning off under the love seat, reminding me of the recent Danton.

I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to discuss the subject of my aborted murder with him, but it seemed at the moment preferable to some alternatives.

“What did you want to kill me for?” I asked abruptly, turning to face him. I glanced quickly over the collection of objects on a piecrust table, looking for a suitable weapon of defense, just in case he still felt the urge.

He didn’t seem to. Instead, he bent laboriously over and picked up the teapot—miraculously unbroken—and set it upright on the restored tea table.

“It seemed expedient at the time,” he said calmly. “I had learned that you and your husband were attempting to thwart a particular affair in which I had interested myself. I considered removing your husband instead, but it seemed too dangerous, what with his close relation to two of the greatest families in Scotland.”

“Considered removing him?” A light dawned—one of many that were going off in my skull like fireworks. “Was it you who sent the seamen who attacked Jamie in Paris?”

The Duke nodded in offhand manner.

“That seemed the simplest method, if a bit crude. But then, Dougal Mac-Kenzie turned up in Paris, and I wondered whether in fact your husband was in fact working for the Stuarts. I became unsure where his interests lay.”

What I was wondering was just where the Duke’s interests lay. This odd speech made it sound very much as though he was a secret Jacobite—and if so, he’d done a really masterly job of keeping his secrets.

“And then,” he went on, delicately placing the teapot’s lid back in place, “there was your growing friendship with Louis of France. Even had your husband failed with the bankers, Louis could have supplied Charles Stuart with what he needed—provided you kept your pretty nose out of the affair.”

He frowned closely at the scone he was holding, flicked a couple of threads off it, then decided against eating it and tossed it onto the table.

“Once it became clear what was really happening, I tried to lure your husband back to Scotland, with the offer of a pardon; very expensive, that was,” he said reflectively. “And all for nothing, too!

“But then I recalled your husband’s apparent devotion to you—quite touching,” he said, with a benevolent smile that I particularly disliked. “I supposed that your tragic demise might well distract him from the endeavor in which he was engaged without provoking the sort of interest his own murder would have involved.”

Suddenly thinking of something, I turned to look at the harpsichord in the corner of the room. Several sheets of music adorned its rack, written in a fine, clear hand. Fifty thousand pounds, upon the occasion of Your Highness’s setting foot in Scotland. Signed S. “S,” of course, for Sandringham. The Duke laughed, in apparent delight.

“That was really very clever of you, my dear. It must have been you; I’d heard of your husband’s unfortunate inability with music.”

“Actually, it wasn’t,” I replied, turning back from the piano. The table at my side lacked anything useful in the way of letter openers or blunt objects, but I hastily picked up a vase, and buried my face in the mass of hothouse flowers it held. I closed my eyes, feeling the brush of cool petals against my suddenly heated cheeks. I didn’t dare to look up, for fear my telltale face would give me away.

For behind the Duke’s shoulder, I had seen a round, leathery object, shaped like a pumpkin, framed by the green velvet draperies like one of the Duke’s exotic art objects. I opened my eyes, peering cautiously through the petals, and the wide, snaggle-toothed mouth split in a grin like a jack-o’-lantern’s.

I was torn between terror and relief. I had been right, then, about the beggar near the gate. It was Hugh Munro, an old companion from Jamie’s days as a Highland outlaw. A one-time schoolmaster, he had been captured by the Turks at sea, disfigured by torture, and driven to beggary and poaching—professions he augmented by successful spying. I had heard he was an agent of the Highland army, but hadn’t realized his activities had brought him so far south.

How long had he been there, perched like a bird on the ivy outside the second-story window? I didn’t dare try to communicate with him; it was all I could do to keep my eyes fixed on a point just above the Duke’s shoulder, gazing with apparent indifference into space.

The Duke was regarding me with interest. “Really? Not Gerstmann, surely? I shouldn’t have thought he had a sufficiently devious mind.”

“And you think I do? I’m flattered.” I kept my nose in the flowers, speaking distractedly into a peony.

The figure outside released his grip on the ivy long enough to bring one hand up into view. Deprived of his tongue by his Saracen captors, Hugh Munro’s hands spoke for him. Staring intently at me, he pointed deliberately, first at me, then at himself, then off to one side. The broad hand tilted and the first two fingers became a pair of running legs, racing away to the east. A final wink, a clenched fist in salute, and he was gone.

I relaxed, trembling slightly with reaction, and took a deep, restorative breath. I sneezed, and put the flowers down.

“So you’re a Jacobite, are you?” I asked.

“Not necessarily,” the Duke answered genially. “The question is, my dear—are you?” Completely unselfconscious, he took off his wig and scratched his fair, balding head before putting it back on.

“You tried to stop the effort to restore King James to his throne when you were in Paris. Failing at that, you and your husband appear now to be His Highness’s most loyal supporters. Why?” The small blue eyes showed nothing more than a mild interest, but it wasn’t a mild interest that had tried to have me killed.

Ever since finding out who my host was, I had been trying as hard as I could to remember what it was that Frank and the Reverend Mr. Wakefield had once said about him. Was he a Jacobite? So far as I could recall, the verdict of history—in the persons of Frank and the Reverend—was uncertain. So was I.

“I don’t believe I’m going to tell you,” I said slowly.

One blond brow arched high, the Duke took a small enameled box from his pocket and abstracted a pinch of the contents.

“Are you sure that’s wise, my dear? Danton is still within call, you know.”

“Danton wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole,” I said bluntly. “Neither would you, for that matter. Not,” I added hastily, seeing his mouth open, “on that account. But if you want so badly to know which side I’m on, you aren’t going to kill me before finding out, now, are you?”

The Duke choked on his pinch of snuff and coughed heavily, thumping himself on the chest of his embroidered waistcoat. I drew myself up and stared coldly down my nose at him as he sneezed and spluttered.

“You’re trying to frighten me into telling you things, but it won’t work,” I said, with a lot more confidence than I felt.

Sandringham dabbed gently at his streaming eyes with a handkerchief. At last he drew a deep breath, and blew it out between plump, pursed lips as he stared at me.

“Very well, then,” he said, quite calmly. “I imagine my workmen have finished their alterations to your quarters by now. I shall summon a maid to take you to your room.”

I must have gawped foolishly at him, for he smiled derisively as he hoisted himself out of his chair.

“To a point, you know, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Whatever else you may be or whatever information you may possess, you have one invaluable attribute as a houseguest.”

“And what’s that?” I demanded. He paused, hand on the bell, and smiled.

“You’re Red Jamie’s wife,” he said softly. “And he is fond of you, my dear, is he not?”

As prisons go, I had seen worse. The room measured perhaps thirty feet in each dimension, and was furnished with a lavishness exceeded only by the sitting room downstairs. The canopied bed stood on a small dais, with baldachins of ostrich feathers sprouting from the corners of its damask drapes, and a pair of matching brocaded chairs squatted comfortably before a huge fireplace.

The maidservant who had accompanied me in set down the basin and ewer she carried, and hurried to light the ready-laid fire. The footman laid his covered supper-tray on the table by the door, then stood stolidly in the doorway, dishing any thoughts I might have had of trying a quick dash down the hall. Not that it would do me much good to try, I thought gloomily; I’d be hopelessly lost in the house after the first turn of the corridor; the bloody place was as big as Buckingham Palace.

“I’m sure His Grace hopes as you’ll be comfortable, ma’am,” said the servant, curtsying prettily on her way out.

“Oh, I’ll bet he does,” I said, ungraciously.

The door closed behind her with a depressingly solid thud, and the grating sound of the big key turning seemed to scrape away the last bit of insulation covering my raw nerves.

Shivering in the chill of the vast room, I clutched my elbows and walked to the fire, where I subsided into one of the chairs. My impulse was to take advantage of the solitude to have a nice private little fit of hysterics. On the other hand, I was afraid that if I allowed my tight-reined emotions any play at all, I would never get them in check again. I closed my eyes tight and watched the red flicker of the firelight on my inner eyelids, willing myself to calmness.

After all, I was in no danger for the moment, and Hugh Munro was on his way to Jamie. Even if Jamie had lost my trail over the course of the week’s travel, Hugh would find him and lead him right. Hugh knew every cottar and tinker, every farmhouse and manor within four parishes. A message from the speechless man would travel through the network of news and gossip as quickly as the wind-driven clouds passed over the mountains. If he had made it down from his lofty perch in the ivy and safely off the Duke’s grounds without being apprehended, that was.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said aloud, “the man’s a professional poacher. Of course he made it.” The echo of my words against the ornate white-plaster ceiling was somehow comforting.

“And if so,” I continued firmly, still talking to hear myself, “then Jamie will come.”

Right, I thought suddenly. And Sandringham’s men will be waiting for him, when he does. You’re Red Jamie’s wife, the Duke had said. My one invaluable attribute. I was bait.

“I’m a salmon egg!” I exclaimed, sitting up straight in my chair. The sheer indignity of the image summoned up a small but welcome spurt of rage that pushed the fear back a little way. I tried to fan the flames of anger by getting up and striding back and forth, thinking of new names to call the Duke next time we met. I’d gotten as far in my compositions as “skulking pederast,” when a muffled shouting from outside distracted my attention.

Pushing back the heavy velvet drapes from the window, I found that the Duke had been as good as his word. Stout wooden bars crisscrossed the window frame, latticed so closely together that I could scarcely thrust an arm between them. I could see, though.

Dusk had fallen, and the shadows under the park trees were black as ink. The shouting was coming from there, matched by answering cries from the stables, where two or three figures suddenly appeared, bearing lit torches.

The small, dark figures ran toward the wood, the fire of their pine torches streaming backward, flaring orange in the cold, damp wind. As they reached the edge of the park, a knot of vaguely human shapes became visible, tumbling onto the grass before the house. The ground was wet, and the force of their struggle left deep gashes of black in the winter-dead lawn.

I stood on tiptoe, gripping the bars and pressing my head against the wood in an effort to see more. The light of the day had failed utterly, and by the torchlight, I could distinguish no more than the occasional flailing limb in the riot below.

It couldn’t be Jamie, I told myself, trying to swallow the lump in my throat that was my heart. Not so soon, not now. And not alone, surely he wouldn’t have come alone? For I could see by now that the fight centered on one man, now on his knees, no more than a hunched black shape under the fists and sticks of the Duke’s gamekeepers and stable-lads.

Then the hunched figure sprawled flat, and the shouting died, though a few more blows were given for good measure before the small gang of servants stood back. A few words of conversation were exchanged, inaudible from my vantage point, and two of the men stooped and seized the figure beneath the arms. As they passed beneath my third-floor window on their way toward the back of the house, the torchlight illuminated a pair of dragging, sandal-shod feet, and the tatters of a grimy smock. Not Jamie.

One of the stable-lads scampered alongside, triumphantly carrying a thick leather wallet on a strap. I was too far above to hear the clink of the tiny metal ornaments on the strap, but they glittered in the torchlight, and all the strength went from my arms in a rush of horror and despair.

They were coins and buttons, the small metal objects. And gaberlunzies. The tiny lead seals that gave a beggar license to plead his poverty through a given parish. Hugh Munro had four of them, a mark of favor for his trials at the hands of the Turk. Not Jamie, but Hugh.

I was shaking so badly that my legs would hardly carry me, but I ran to the door and pounded on it with all my strength.

“Let me out!” I shrieked. “I have to see the Duke! Let me out, I say!”

There was no response to my continued yelling and pounding, and I dashed back to the window. The scene below was eminently peaceful now; a boy stood holding a torch for one of the gardeners, who was kneeling at the edge of the lawn, tenderly replacing the divots of turf dug up by the fight.

“Hoy!” I roared. Covered as they were by bars, I couldn’t crank the casements outward. I ran across the room to fetch one of the heavy silver candlesticks, dashed back, and smashed a pane of glass, heedless of the flying fragments.

“Help! Ahoy, down there! Tell the Duke I want to see him! Now! Help!” I thought one of the figures turned its head toward me, but neither made any motion toward the house, going on with their work as though no more than a night bird’s cry disturbed the darkness around them.

Back to the door I ran, hammering and shouting, and back to the window, and back to the door again. I shouted, pleaded, and threatened until my throat was raw and hoarse, and beat upon the unyielding door until my fists were red and bruised, but no one came. I might have been alone in the great house, for all I could hear. The silence in the hallway was as deep as that of the night outside; as silent as the grave. All check on my fear was gone, and I sank at last to my knees before the door, sobbing without restraint.

I woke, chilled and stiff, with a throbbing headache, to feel something wide and solid shoving me across the floor. I came awake with a jerk as the opening edge of the heavy door pinched my thigh against the floor.

“Ow!” I rolled clumsily, then scrabbled to my hands and knees, hair hanging in my face.

“Claire! Oh, do be quiet, p-please! Darling, are you hurt?” With a rustle of starched lawn, Mary dropped to her knees beside me. Behind her, the door swung shut and I heard the click of the lock above.

“Yes—I mean, no. I’m all right,” I said dazedly. “But Hugh…” I clamped my lips shut and shook my head, trying to clear it. “What in bloody hell are you doing here, Mary?”

“I b-bribed the housekeeper to let me in,” she whispered. “Must you talk so loudly?”

“It doesn’t matter much,” I said, in a normal tone of voice. “That door’s so thick, nothing short of a football match could be heard through it.”

“A what?”

“Never mind.” My mind was beginning to clear, though my eyes were sticky and swollen and my head still throbbed like a drum. I pushed myself to my feet and staggered to the basin, where I splashed cold water over my face.

“You bribed the housekeeper?” I said, wiping my face with a towel. “But we’re still locked in, aren’t we? I heard the key turn.”

Mary was pale in the dimness of the room. The candle had guttered out while I slept on the floor, and there was no light but the deep red glow of the fireplace embers. She bit her lip.

“It was the b-best I could do. Mrs. Gibson was too afraid of the Duke to give me a key. All she would do was agree to lock me in with you, and let me out in the morning. I thought you m-might like company,” she added timidly.

“Oh,” I said. “Well…thank you. It was a kind thought.” I took a new candle from the drawer and went to the fireplace to light it. The candlestick was clotted with wax from the burned-out candle; I tipped a small puddle of melted wax onto the tabletop and set the fresh candle in it, heedless of damage to the Duke’s intaglio.

“Claire,” Mary said. “Are you…are you in trouble?”

I bit my lip to prevent a hasty reply. After all, she was only seventeen, and her ignorance of politics was probably even more profound than her lack of knowledge of men had been.

“Er, yes,” I said. “Rather a lot, I’m afraid.” My brain was starting to work again. Even if Mary was not equipped to be of much practical help in escaping, she might at least be able to provide me with information about her godfather and the doings of his household.

“Did you hear the racket out by the wood earlier?” I asked. She shook her head. She was beginning to shiver; in such a large room, the heat of the fire died away long before it reached the bed dais.

“No, but I heard one of the cookmaids saying the keepers had caught a poacher in the park. It’s awfully cold. Can’t we get into b-bed?”

She was already crawling across the coverlet, burrowing beneath the bolster for the edge of the sheet. Her bottom was round and neat, childlike under the white nightdress.

“That wasn’t a poacher,” I said. “Or rather it was, but it was also a friend. He was on his way to find Jamie, to tell him I was here. Do you know what happened after the keepers took him?”

Mary swung around, face a pale blur within the shadows of the bed hangings. Even in this light, I could see that the dark eyes had grown huge.

“Oh, Claire! I’m so sorry!”

“Well, so am I,” I said impatiently. “Do you know where the poacher is, though?” If Hugh had been imprisoned somewhere accessible, like the stables, there was a bare chance that Mary might be able to release him somehow in the morning.

The trembling of her lips, making her normal stutter seem comprehensible by comparison, should have warned me. But the words, once she got them out, struck through my heart, sharp and sudden as a thrown dirk.

“Th-they h-h-hanged him,” she said. “At the p-park g-gate.”

It was some time before I was able to pay attention to my surroundings. The flood of shock, grief, fear, and shattered hope washed over me, swamping me utterly. I was dimly conscious of Mary’s small hand timidly patting my shoulder, and her voice offering handkerchiefs and drinks of water, but remained curled in a ball, not speaking, but shaking, and waiting for the relaxation of the wrenching despair that clenched my stomach like a fist. Finally I exhausted the panic, if not myself, and opened my eyes blearily.

“I’ll be all right,” I said at last, sitting up and wiping my nose inelegantly on my sleeve. I took the proffered towel and blotted my eyes with it. Mary hovered over me, looking concerned, and I reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“Really,” I said. “I’m all right now. And I’m very glad you’re here.” A thought struck me, and I dropped the towel, looking curiously at her.

“Come to think of it, why are you here?” I asked. “In this house, I mean.”

She looked down, blushing, and picked at the coverlet.

“The D-Duke is my godfather, you know.”

“Yes, so I gathered,” I said. “Somehow I doubt that he merely wanted the pleasure of your company, though.”

She smiled a little at the remark. “N-no. But he—the Duke, I mean—he thinks he’s found another h-h-husband for me.” The effort to get out “husband” left her red-faced. “Papa brought me here to meet him.”

I gathered from her demeanor that this wasn’t news requiring immediate congratulations. “Do you know the man?”

Only by name, it turned out. A Mr. Isaacson, an importer, of London. Too busy to travel all the way to Edinburgh to meet his intended, he had agreed to come to Bellhurst, where the marriage would take place, all parties being agreeable.

I picked up the silver-backed hairbrush from the bed table and abstractedly began to tidy my hair. So, having failed to secure an alliance with the French nobility, the Duke was intending to sell his goddaughter to a wealthy Jew.

“I have a new trousseau,” Mary said, trying to smile. “Forty-three embroidered petticoats—two with g-gold thread.” She broke off, her lips pressed tight together, staring down sightlessly at her bare left hand. I put my own hand over it.

“Well.” I tried to be encouraging. “Perhaps he’ll be a kind man.”

“That’s what I’m af-fraid of.” Avoiding my questioning look, she glanced down, twisting her hands together in her lap.

“They didn’t tell Mr. Isaacson—about P-Paris. And they say I mustn’t, either.” Her face crumpled miserably. “They brought a horrible old woman to tell me how I must act on my w-w-wedding night, to—to pretend it’s the first time, but I…oh, Claire, how can I do it?” she wailed. “And Alex—I didn’t tell him; I couldn’t! I was such a coward, I d-didn’t even say goodbye!”

She threw herself into my arms, and I patted her back, losing a little of my own grief in the effort to comfort her. At length, she grew calmer, and sat up, hiccuping, to take a little water.

“Are you going to go through with it?” I asked. She looked up at me, her lashes spiked and wet.

“I haven’t any choice,” she said simply.

“But—” I started, and then stopped, helpless.

She was quite right. Young and female, with no resources, and no man who could come to her rescue, there was simply nothing to do but to accede to her father’s and godfather’s wishes, and marry the unknown Mr. Isaacson of London.

Heavyhearted, neither of us had any appetite for the food on the tray. We crawled under the covers to keep warm, and Mary, worn out with emotion, was sound asleep within minutes. No less exhausted, I found myself unable to sleep, grieving for Hugh, worried for Jamie, and curious about the Duke.

The sheets were chilly, and my feet seemed like chunks of ice. Avoiding the more distressful things on my mind, I turned my thoughts to Sandringham. What was his place in this affair?

To all appearances, the man was a Jacobite. He had, by his own admission, been willing to do murder—or pay for it, at least—in order to ensure that Charles got the backing he needed to launch his expedition to Scotland. And the evidence of the musical cipher made it all but certain that it was the Duke who had finally induced Charles to set sail in August, with his promise of help.

There were certainly men who took pains to conceal their Jacobite sympathies; given the penalties for treason, it was hardly peculiar. And the Duke had a good deal more to lose than some, should he back a failing cause.

Still, Sandringham hardly struck me as an enthusiastic supporter of the Stuart monarchy. Given his remarks about Danton, clearly he wouldn’t be in sympathy with a Catholic ruler. And why wait so long to provide support, when Charles was in desperate need of money now—and had been, in fact, ever since his arrival in Scotland?

I could think of two conceivable reasons for the Duke’s behavior, neither particularly creditable to the gentleman, but both well within the bounds of his character.

He could in fact be a Jacobite, willing to countenance an unpalatable Catholic king in return for the future benefits he might anticipate as chief backer of the restored Stuart monarchy. I could see that; “principle” wasn’t in the man’s vocabulary, whereas “self-interest” clearly was a term he knew well. He might wish to wait until Charles reached England, in order that the money not be wasted before the Highland army’s final, crucial push to London. Anyone familiar with Charles Stuart could see the common sense in not entrusting him with too much money at once.

Or, for that matter, he might have wished to ensure that the Stuarts did in fact have some substantial backing for their cause before becoming financially involved himself; after all, contributing to a rebellion is not the same thing as supporting an entire army single-handed.

Contrariwise, I could see a much more sinister reason for the conditions of the Duke’s offer. Making support conditional on the Jacobite army reaching English soil ensured that Charles would struggle on against the increasing opposition of his own leaders, dragging his reluctant, straggling army farther and farther south, away from the sheltering mountains in which they might find refuge.

If the Duke could expect benefits from the Stuarts for help in restoring them, what might he expect from the Hanovers, in return for luring Charles Stuart within their reach—and betraying him and his followers into the hands of the English army?

History had not been able to say what the Duke’s true leanings had been. That struck me as odd; surely he would have to reveal his true intent sooner or later. Of course, I mused, the Old Fox, Lord Lovat, had managed to play off both sides of the Jacobite Rising last time, simultaneously ingratiating himself with the Hanovers and retaining the favor of the Stuarts. And Jamie had done it himself, for a time. Maybe it wasn’t all that difficult to hide one’s loyalties, in the constantly shifting morass of Royal politics.

The chill was creeping up my feet, and I moved my legs restlessly, my skin seeming numb as I rubbed my calves together. Legs obviously generated much less friction than dry sticks; no perceptible warmth resulted from this activity.

Lying sleepless, restless and clammy, I suddenly became aware of a tiny, rhythmic popping noise next to me. I turned my head, listening, then raised up on one elbow and peered incredulously at my companion. She was curled on her side, delicate skin flushed with sleep, so that she looked like a hothouse flower in full bloom, thumb tucked securely in the soft pink recesses of her mouth. Her lower lip moved as I watched, in the faintest of sucking motions.

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. In the end, I did neither; merely pulled the thumb gently free and laid the limp hand curled upon her bosom. I blew out the candle and cuddled close to Mary.

Whether it was the innocence of that small gesture, with the far-off memories of trust and safety it provoked, the simple comfort of a warm body nearby, or only the exhaustion of fear and grief, my feet thawed, I relaxed at last, and fell asleep.

Wrapped in a warm cocoon of quilts, I slept deep and dreamlessly. It was all the greater a shock, then, when I was jerked abruptly from the soft, quiet dark of oblivion. It was still dark—black as a coachman’s hat, in fact, as the fire had gone out—but the surroundings were neither soft nor quiet. Something heavy had landed suddenly on the bed, striking my arm in the process, and was apparently in the process of murdering Mary.

The bed heaved and the mattress tilted sharply under me, the bedframe shuddering with the force of the struggle taking place next to me. Agonized grunts and whispered threats came from close at hand, and a flailing hand—Mary’s, I thought—struck me in the eye.

I rolled hastily out of bed, tripping on the step of the dais and falling flat on the floor. The sounds of struggle above me intensified, with a horrible, high-pitched squealing noise that I took to be Mary’s best effort at a scream while being strangled.

There was a sudden startled exclamation, in a deep male voice, then a further convulsion of bedclothes, and the squealing stopped abruptly. Moving hastily, I found the flint box on the table and struck a light for the candle. Its wavering flame strengthened and rose, revealing what I had suspected from the sound of that vigorous Gaelic expletive—Mary, invisible save for a pair of wildly scrabbling hands, face smothered under a pillow and body flattened by the prostrate form of my large and agitated husband, who despite his advantage of size, appeared to have his hands well and truly full.

Intent on subduing Mary, he hadn’t glanced up at the newly lit candle, but went on trying to capture her hands, while simultaneously holding the pillow over her face. Suppressing the urge to laugh hysterically at the spectacle, I instead set down the candle, leaned over the bed, and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Jamie?” I said.

“Jesus!” He leaped like a salmon, springing off the bed and coming to rest on the floor in a crouch, dirk half-drawn. He saw me then, and sagged in relief, closing his eyes for an instant.

“Jesus God, Sassenach! Never do that again, d’ye hear? Be quiet,” he said briefly to Mary, who had escaped from the pillow and was now sitting bolt upright in bed, bug-eyed and spluttering. “I didna mean ye harm; I thought ye were my wife.” He strode purposefully round the bed, took me by both shoulders and kissed me hard, as though to reassure himself that he’d got the right woman now. He had, and I kissed him back with considerable fervor, reveling in the scrape of his unshaven beard and the warm, pungent scent of him; damp linen and wool, with a strong hint of male sweat.

“Get dressed,” he said, letting go. “The damn house is crawling wi’ servants. It’s like an ant’s nest below.”

“How did you get in here?” I asked, looking around for my discarded gown.

“Through the door, of course,” he said impatiently. “Here.” He seized my gown from the back of a chair and tossed it at me. Sure enough, the massive door stood open, a great ring of keys protruding from the lock.

“But how…” I began.

“Later,” he said brusquely. He spotted Mary, out of bed and struggling into her nightrobe. “Best get back in bed, lassie,” he advised. “The floor’s cold.”

“I’m coming with you.” The words were muffled by the folds of cloth, but her determination was evident as her head popped through the neck of the robe and emerged, tousled-haired and defiant.

“The hell you are,” Jamie said. He glared at her, and I noticed the fresh, raw scratches down his cheek. Seeing the quiver of her lips, though, he mastered his temper with an effort, and spoke reassuringly. “Dinna mind, lassie. You’ll have no trouble over it. I’ll lock the door behind us, and ye can tell everyone in the morning what’s happened. No one shall hold ye to blame.”

Ignoring this, Mary thrust her feet hastily into her slippers and ran toward the door.

“Hey! Where d’ye think you’re going?” Startled, Jamie swung around after her, but not soon enough to stop her reaching the door. She stood in the hallway just outside, poised like a deer.

“I’m going with you!” she said fiercely. “If you don’t take me, I shall run down the corridor, screaming as loudly as I can. So there!”

Jamie stared at her, his hair gleaming copper in the candlelight and the blood rising in his face, obviously torn between the necessity for silence and the urge to kill her with his bare hands and damn the noise. Mary glared back, one hand holding up her skirts, ready to run. Now dressed and shod, I poked him in the ribs, breaking his concentration.

“Take her,” I said briefly. “Let’s go.”

He gave me a look that was twin to the one he’d been giving Mary, but hesitated no more than a moment. With a short nod, he took my arm and the three of us hurried out into the chill darkness of the corridor.

The house was at once deathly still and full of noises; boards squeaked loud beneath our feet and our garments rustled like leaves in a gale. The walls seemed to breathe with the settlings of wood, and small, half-heard sounds beyond the corridor suggested the secretive burrowings of animals underground. And over all was the deep and frightening silence of a great, dark house, sunk in a sleep that must not be broken.

Mary’s hand was tight on my arm, as we crept down the hall behind Jamie. He moved like a shadow, hugging the wall, but quickly, for all his silence.

As we passed one door, I heard the sound of soft footsteps on the other side. Jamie heard them, too, and flattened himself against the wall, motioning Mary and me ahead of him. The plaster of the wall was cold against the palms of my hands, as I tried to press backward into it.

The door opened cautiously, and a head in a puffy white mobcap poked out, peering down the hall in the direction away from us.

“Hullo?” it said in a whisper. “Is that you, Albert?” A tickle of cold sweat ran down my spine. A housemaid, apparently expecting a visitation from the Duke’s valet, who seemed to be keeping up the reputation of Frenchmen.

I didn’t think she was going to consider an armed Highlander an adequate substitute for her absent lover. I could feel Jamie tense beside me, trying to overcome his scruples against striking a woman. Another instant, and she would turn, see him, and scream the house down.

I stepped out from the wall.

“Er, no,” I said apologetically, “I’m afraid it’s only me.”

The maidservant started convulsively, and I took a swift step past, so that she was facing me, with Jamie still behind her.

“Sorry to alarm you,” I said, smiling cheerily. “I couldn’t sleep, you see. Thought I’d try a spot of hot milk. Tell me, am I headed right for the kitchens?”

“Eh?” The maid, a plump miss in her early twenties, gaped unbecomingly, exposing evidence of a distressing lack of concern for dental hygiene. Luckily, it wasn’t the same maid who had seen me to my room; she might not realize that I was a prisoner, not a guest.

“I’m a guest in the house,” I said, driving the point home. Continuing on the principle that the best defense is a good offense, I stared accusingly at her.

“Albert, eh? Does His Grace know that you are in the habit of entertaining men in your room at night?” I demanded. This seemed to hit a nerve, for the woman paled and dropped to her knees, clutching at my skirt. The prospect of exposure was so alarming that she didn’t pause to ask exactly why a guest should be wandering about the halls in the wee hours of the morning, wearing not only gown and shoes, but a traveling cloak as well.

“Oh, mum! Please, you won’t say nothing to His Grace, will you? I can see you’ve a kind face, mum, surely you’d not want to see me dismissed from my place? Have pity on me, my lady, I’ve six brothers and sisters still at home, and I…”

“Now, now,” I soothed, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t tell the Duke. You just go back to your bed, and…” Talking in the sort of voice one uses with children and mental patients, I eased her, still volubly protesting her innocence, back into the small closet of a room.

I shut the door on her and leaned against it for support. Jamie’s face loomed up from the shadows before me, grinning. He said nothing, but patted me on the head in congratulation, before taking my arm and urging me down the hall once more.

Mary was waiting under the window on the landing, her nightrobe glowing white in the moonlight that beamed momentarily through scudding clouds outside. A storm was gathering, from the looks of it, and I wondered whether this would help or hinder our escape.

Mary clutched at Jamie’s plaid as he stepped onto the landing.

“Shh!” she whispered. “Someone’s coming!”

Someone was; I could hear the faint thud of footsteps coming from below, and the pale wash of a candle lit the stairwell. Mary and I looked wildly about, but there was absolutely no place to hide. This was a back stair, meant for the servants’ use, and the landings were simple squares of flooring, totally unrelieved by furniture or convenient hangings.

Jamie sighed in resignation. Then, motioning me and Mary back into the hallway from which we had come, he drew his dirk and waited, poised in the shadowed corner of the landing.

Mary’s fingers clutched and twined with mine, squeezing tight in an agony of apprehension. Jamie had a pistol hanging from his belt, but plainly couldn’t use it within the house—and a servant would realize that, making it useless for threat. It would have to be the knife, and my stomach quivered with pity for the hapless servant who was just about to come face-to-face with fifteen stone of keyed-up Scot and the threat of black steel.

I was taking stock of my apparel, and thinking that I could spare one of my petticoats to be used for bindings, when the bowed head of the candle-bearer came in sight. The dark hair was parted down the middle and slicked with a stinkingly sweet pomade that at once brought back the memory of a dark Paris street and the curve of thin, cruel lips beneath a mask.

My gasp of recognition made Danton look up sharply, one step below the landing. The next instant, he was grasped by the neck and flung against the wall of the landing with a force that sent the candlestick flying through the air.

Mary had seen him too.

“That’s him!” she exclaimed, in her shock forgetting either to whisper or to stutter. “The man in Paris!”

Jamie had the feebly struggling valet squashed against the wall, held by one muscled forearm pressed across his chest. The man’s face, fading in and out as the light ebbed and flooded with the passing clouds, was ghastly pale. It grew paler in the next moment, as Jamie laid the edge of his blade against Danton’s throat.

I stepped onto the landing, not sure either what Jamie would do, or what I wanted him to do. Danton let out a strangled moan when he saw me, and made an abortive attempt to cross himself.

“La Dame Blanche!” he whispered, eyes starting in horror.

Jamie moved with sudden violence, grasping the man’s hair and jerking his head back so hard that it thumped against the paneling.

“Had I time, mo garhe, ye would die slow,” he whispered, and his voice lacked nothing in conviction, quiet as it was. “Count it God’s mercy I have not.” He yanked Danton’s head back even further, so I could see the bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed convulsively, his eyes fixed on me in fear.

“You call her ‘Dame Blanche,’ ” Jamie said, between his teeth. “I call her wife! Let her face be the last that ye see, then!”

The knife ripped across the man’s throat with a violence that made Jamie grunt with the effort, and a dark sheet of blood sprayed over his shirt. The stench of sudden death filled the landing, with a wheezing, gurgling sound from the crumpled heap on the floor that seemed to go on for a very long time.

The sounds behind me brought me finally to my senses: Mary, being violently sick in the hallway. My first coherent thought was that the servants were going to have the hell of a mess to clean up in the morning. My second was for Jamie, seen in a flash of the fleeting moon. His face was spattered and his hair matted with droplets of blood, and he was breathing heavily. He looked as though he might be going to be sick, too.

I turned toward Mary, and saw, far beyond her down the hall, the crack of light behind an opening door. Someone was coming to investigate the noise. I grabbed the hem of her nightrobe, wiped it roughly across her mouth, and seized her by the arm, tugging her toward the landing.

“Come on!” I said. “Let’s get out of here!” Starting from his dazed contemplation of Danton’s corpse, Jamie shook himself suddenly, and returning to his senses, turned to the stair.

He seemed to know where we were going, leading us through the darkened corridors without hesitation. Mary stumbled along beside me, puffing, her breath loud as an engine in my ear.

At the scullery door, Jamie came to a sudden halt, and gave a low whistle. This was returned immediately, and the door swung open on a darkness inhabited by indistinct forms. One of these detached itself from the murk and hastened forward. A few muttered words were exchanged, and the man—whichever it was—reached for Mary and pulled her into the shadows. A cold draft told me there was an open door somewhere ahead.

Jamie’s hand on my shoulder steered me through the obstacles of the darkened scullery and some smaller chamber that seemed to be a lumber room of some sort; I barked my shin against something, but bit back the exclamation of pain.

Out in the free night at last, the wind seized my cloak and whirled it out in a exuberant balloon. After the nerve-stretching trek through the darkened house, I felt as though I might take wing, and sail for the sky.

The men around me seemed to share the mood of relief; there was a small outbreak of whispered remarks and muffled laughter, quickly shushed by Jamie. One at a time, the men flitted across the open space before the house, no more than shadows under the dancing moon. At my side, Jamie watched as they disappeared into the woods of the park.

“Where’s Murtagh?” he muttered, as though to himself, frowning after the last of his men. “Gone to look for Hugh, I suppose,” he said, in answer to his own question. “D’ye ken where he might be, Sassenach?”

I swallowed, feeling the wind bite cold beneath my cloak, memory killing the sudden exhilaration of freedom.

“Yes,” I said, and told him the bad news, as briefly as I could. His expression darkened under its mask of blood, and by the time I had finished, his face was hard as stone.

“D’ye mean just to stand there all night,” inquired a voice behind us, “or ought we to sound an alarm, so they’ll know where to look first?”

Jamie’s expression lightened slightly as Murtagh appeared from the shadows beside us, quiet as a wraith. He had a cloth-wrapped bundle under one arm; a joint from the kitchens, I thought, seeing the blotch of dark blood on the cloth. This impression was borne out by the large ham he had tucked beneath the other arm, and the strings of sausages about his neck.

Jamie wrinkled his nose, with a faint smile.

“Ye smell like a butcher, man. Can ye no go anywhere without thinkin’ of your stomach?”

Murtagh cocked his head to one side, taking in Jamie’s blood-spattered appearance.

“Better to look like the butcher than his wares, lad,” he said. “Shall we go?”

The trip through the park was dark and frightening. The trees were tall and widely spaced here, but there were saplings left to grow between them that changed abruptly into the menacing shapes of gamekeepers in the uncertain light. The clouds were gathering thicker, at least, and the full moon made fewer appearances, which was something to be grateful for. As we reached the far side of the park, it began to rain.

Three men had been left with the horses. Mary was already mounted before one of Jamie’s men. Plainly embarrassed by the necessity of riding astride, she kept tucking the folds of her nightrobe under her thighs, in a vain attempt to hide the fact that she had legs.

More experienced, but still cursing the heavy folds of my skirt, I plucked them up and set a foot in Jamie’s offered hand, swinging aboard with a practiced thump. The horse snorted at the impact and set his ears back.

“Sorry, cully,” I said without sympathy. “If you think that’s bad, just wait ’til he gets back on.”

Glancing around for the “he” in question, I found him under one of the trees, hand on the shoulder of a strange boy of about fourteen.

“Who’s that?” I asked, leaning over to attract the attention of Geordie Paul Fraser, who was busy tightening his girth next to me.

“Eh? Oh, him.” He glanced at the boy, then back at his reluctant girth, frowning. “His name’s Ewan Gibson. Hugh Munro’s eldest stepson. He was wi’ his da, seemingly, when the Duke’s keepers came on ’em. The lad got awa’, and we found him near the edge o’ the moor. He brought us here.” With a final unnecessary tug, he glared at the girth as though daring it to say something, then looked up at me.

“D’ye ken where the lad’s da is?” he asked abruptly.

I nodded, and the answer must have been plain in my face, for he turned to look at the boy. Jamie was holding the boy, hugged hard against his chest, and patting his back. As we watched, he held the boy away from him, both hands on his shoulders, and said something, looking down intently into his face. I couldn’t hear what it was, but after a moment, the boy straightened himself and nodded. Jamie nodded as well, and with a final clap on the shoulder, turned the lad toward one of the horses, where George McClure was already reaching down a hand to him. Jamie strode toward us, head down, and the end of his plaid fluttering free behind him, despite the cold wind and the spattering rain.

Geordie spat on the ground. “Poor bugger,” he said, without specifying whom he meant, and swung into his own saddle.

Near the southeast corner of the park we halted, the horses stamping and twitching, while two of the men disappeared back into the trees. It cannot have been more than twenty minutes, but it seemed twice as long before they came back.

The men rode double now, and the second horse bore a long, hunched shape bound across its saddle, wrapped in a Fraser plaid. The horses didn’t like it; mine jerked its head, nostrils flaring, as the horse bearing Hugh’s corpse came alongside. Jamie yanked the rein and said something angrily in Gaelic, though, and the beast desisted.

I could feel Jamie rise in the stirrups behind me, looking backward as though counting the remaining members of his band. Then his arm came around my waist, and we set off, on our way north.

We rode all night, with only brief stops for rest. During one of these, sheltering under a horse-chestnut tree, Jamie reached to embrace me, then suddenly stopped.

“What is it?” I said, smiling. “Afraid to kiss your wife in front of your men?”

“No,” he said, proving it, then stepped back, smiling. “No, I was afraid for a moment ye were going to scream and claw my face.” He dabbed gingerly at the marks Mary had left on his cheek.

“Poor thing,” I said, laughing. “Not the welcome you expected, was it?”

“Well, by that time, actually it was,” he said, grinning. He had taken two sausages from one of Murtagh’s strings, and now handed me one. I couldn’t remember when I had last eaten, but it must have been quite some time, for not even my fears of botulism kept the fatty, spiced meat from being delicious.

“What do you mean by that? You thought I wouldn’t recognize you after only a week?”

He shook his head, still smiling, and swallowed the bite of sausage.

“Nay. It’s only, when I got in the house to start, I kent where ye were, more or less, because of the bars on your windows.” He arched one brow. “From the looks of them, ye must have made one hell of an impression on His Grace.”

“I did,” I said shortly, not wanting to think about the Duke. “Go on.”

“Well,” he said, taking another bite and shifting it expertly to his cheek while he talked, “I kent the room, but I needed the key, didn’t I?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “You were going to tell me about that.”

He chewed briefly and swallowed.

“I got it from the housekeeper, but not without trouble.” He rubbed himself tenderly, a few inches below the belt. “From appearances, I’d say the woman’s been waked in her bed a few times before—and didna care for the experience.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, entertained by the mental picture this provoked. “Well, I daresay you came as rare and refreshing fruit to her.”

“I doubt it extremely, Sassenach. She screeched like a banshee and kneed me in the stones, then came altogether too near to braining me wi’ a candle-stick whilst I was doubled up groaning.”

“What did you do?”

“Thumped her a good one—I wasna feeling verra chivalrous just at the moment—and tied her up wi’ the strings to her nightcap. Then I put a towel in her mouth to put a stop to the things she was callin’ me, and searched her room ’til I found the keys.”

“Good work,” I said, something occurring to me, “but how did you know where the housekeeper slept?”

“I didn’t,” he said calmly. “The laundress told me—after I told her who I was, and threatened to gut her and roast her on a spit if she didna tell me what I wanted to know.” He gave me a wry smile. “Like I told ye, Sassenach, sometimes it’s an advantage to be thought a barbarian. I reckon they’ve all heard of Red Jamie Fraser by now.”

“Well, if they hadn’t, they will,” I said. I looked him over, as well as I could in the dim light. “What, didn’t the laundress get a lick in?”

“She pulled my hair,” he said reflectively. “Took a clump of it out by the roots. I’ll tell ye, Sassenach; if ever I feel the need to change my manner of employment, I dinna think I’ll take up attacking women—it’s a bloody hard way to make a living.”

It was beginning to sleet heavily near dawn, but we rode for some time before Ewan Gibson dragged his pony uncertainly to a stop, rose up clumsily in the stirrups to look around, then motioned up the hillside that rose to the left.

Dark as it was, it was impossible to ride the horses uphill. We had to descend to the ground and lead them, foot by muddy, slogging foot, along the nearly invisible track that zigzagged through heather and granite. Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky as we paused for breath at the crest of the hill. The horizon was hidden, thick with clouds, but a dull gray of no apparent source began to replace the darker gray of the night. Now I could at least see the cold streamlets that I sank in, ankle-deep, and avoid the worst of the foot-twisting snags of rock and bramble that we encountered on the way down the hill.

At the bottom was a small corrie, with six houses—though “house” was an overdignified word for the rude structures crouched beneath the larch trees there. The thatched roofs came down within a few feet of the ground, leaving only a bit of the stone walls showing.

Outside one bothy, we came to a halt. Ewan looked at Jamie, hesitating as though lost for direction, then at his nod, ducked and disappeared beneath the low rooftree of the hut. I drew closer to Jamie, putting my hand on his arm.

“This is Hugh Munro’s house,” he said to me, low-voiced. “I’ve brought him home to his wife. The lad’s gone in to tell her.”

I glanced from the dark, low doorway of the hut to the limp, plaid-draped bundle that two of the men were now unstrapping from the horse. I felt a small tremor run through Jamie’s arm. He closed his eyes for a moment, and I saw his lips move; then he stepped forward and held out his arms for the burden. I drew a deep breath, brushed my hair back from my face, and followed him, stooping below the lintel of the door.

It wasn’t as bad as I had feared it might be, though bad enough. The woman, Hugh’s widow, was quiet, accepting Jamie’s soft Gaelic speech of condolence with bowed head, the tears slipping down her face like rain. She reached tentatively for the covering plaid, as though meaning to draw it down, but then her nerve failed, and she stood, one hand resting awkwardly on the curve of the shroud, while the other drew a small child close against her thigh.

There were several children huddled near the fire—Hugh’s stepchildren—and a swaddled mass in the rough cradle nearest the hearth. I felt some small comfort, looking at the baby; at least this much of Hugh was left. Then the comfort was overwhelmed with a cold fear as I looked at the children, grimy faces blending with the shadows. Hugh had been their main support. Ewan was brave and willing, but he was no more than fourteen, and the next eldest child was a girl of twelve or so. How would they manage?

The woman’s face was worn and lined, nearly toothless. I realized with a shock that she could be only a few years older than I was. She nodded toward the single bed, and Jamie laid the body gently on it. He spoke to her again in Gaelic; she shook her head hopelessly, still staring down at the long shape upon her bed.

Jamie knelt down by the bed; bowed his head, and placed one hand on the corpse. His words were soft, but clearly spoken, and even my limited Gaelic could follow them.

“I swear to thee, friend, and may God Almighty bear me witness. For the sake of your love to me, never shall those that are yours go wanting, while I have aught to give.” He knelt unmoving for a long moment, and there was no sound in the cottage but the crackle of the peat on the hearth and the soft patter of rain on the thatch. The wet had darkened Jamie’s bowed head; droplets of moisture shone jewel-like in the folds of his plaid. Then his hand tightened once in final farewell, and he rose.

Jamie bowed to Mrs. Munro and turned to take my arm. Before we could leave, though, the cowhide that hung across the low doorway was thrust aside, and I stood back to make way for Mary Hawkins, followed by Murtagh.

Mary looked both bedraggled and bewildered, a damp plaid clasped around her shoulders and her muddy bedroom slippers protruding under the sodden hem of her nightrobe. Spotting me, she pressed close to me as though grateful for my presence.

“I didn’t w-want to come in,” she whispered to me, glancing shyly at Hugh Munro’s widow, “but Mr. Murtagh insisted.”

Jamie’s brows were raised in inquiry, as Murtagh nodded respectfully to Mrs. Munro and said something to her in Gaelic. The little clansman looked just as he always did, dour and competent, but I thought there was an extra hint of dignity in his demeanor. He carried one of the saddlebags before him, bulging heavily with something. Perhaps a parting gift for Mrs. Munro, I thought.

Murtagh laid the bag on the floor at my feet, then straightened up and looked from me to Mary, to Hugh Munro’s widow, and at last to Jamie, who looked as puzzled as I felt. Having thus assured himself of his audience, Murtagh bowed formally to me, a lock of wet dark hair falling free over his brow.

“I bring ye your vengeance, lady,” he said, as quietly as I’d ever heard him speak. He straightened and inclined his head in turn to Mary and Mrs. Munro. “And justice for the wrong done to ye.”

Mary sneezed, and wiped her nose hastily with a fold of her plaid. She stared at Murtagh, eyes wide and baffled. I gazed down at the bulging saddle-bag, feeling a sudden deep chill that owed nothing to the weather outside. But it was Hugh Munro’s widow who sank to her knees, and with steady hands opened the bag and drew out the head of the Duke of Sandringham.