Page 67 of Highland Crown
She hadn’t planned to mention her husband’s name. She had no obligation to explain anything, but the words had simply poured out.
“How much older was he?”
“He was fifty-four. I was eight and twenty.”
The difference in their ages was wide and, in many ways, impassable. Suddenly, she realized how wrong it was to talk about him, to mention his age, to think about him even, as she lay in bed with another man. But she couldn’t stop herself.
“He was a good man. A talented doctor. Dedicated and gentle. True to his ideals. He truly did me and my sister a favor when he offered…”
Isabella hadn’t realized she was crying until Cinaed wiped away the tears that had slipped from the corners of her eyes.
“He had to be all of those things and more,” he said softly. “Or you wouldn’t have married him.”
Isabella pinched the top of her nose, but the tears wouldn’t stop. Guilt had a tight grip on her throat.
She’d never had the chance to say good-bye. He had dedicated his life to making people’s lives better. He’d given his life for his ideals. But she’d never understood. Until now.
And later, after an English bullet had cut him down, his body had been disrespected by Hudson and his barbarous soldiers. Archibald had deserved better.
Cinaed pulled her to his chest as a sob escaped her throat. Then the tears flowed, hot and unstoppable.
Since before she’d left Edinburgh, she’d never had a chance to mourn her husband. But the time had come, and her grief for him now poured out of her.
Finally, Isabella was saying good-bye.
CHAPTER19
I’ll listen, till my fancy hears
The clang of swords, the crash of spears!
These grates, these walls, shall vanish then
For the fair field of fighting men,
And my free spirit burst away,
As if it soar’d from battle fray.
—Sir Walter Scott, “Lady of the Lake,” Canto VI, stanza 14
Tomorrow, the strikes would shut down Inverness. Tomorrow, he was going after John Gordon.
Word had come yesterday through Blair Mackintosh that the men from the third longboat had joined the rest of his crew in Nairn, but he wasn’t thinking about them now.
Six people had gathered to finalize the preparations for the strikes—two of the weavers’ organizing committee, Searc, and two of the men from his gang who’d be in the fields assuring the safety of the protestors. And the surgeon, Mr. Carmichael, explaining the measures he’d taken to set up a temporary hospital in an empty book warehouse overlooking the fields. He turned and thanked Cinaed for Isabella’s offer to join him tomorrow.
Cinaed stood by the door, trying to control his risinganger. It wouldn’t do. He wouldn’t allow it. And he’d put a stop to it right now.
He stalked from the room, passing through a blur of corridors and rooms. What the devil was she thinking? Someone jumped out of his way as he stormed past. All he kept seeing was Isabella, cornered by Hudson and his weasel of a sergeant, in the private dining room at Stoneyfield House. If he hadn’t shown up to rescue her, she would have been arrested, tortured, used, and molested. Bloody hell!
Since that day, word had continued to come back to Inverness of Hudson’s rampages through the countryside. Davidson had died from Cinaed’s bullet, and every Highlander knew the British military rarely shied away from savage reprisals, especially when it suited them. Hudson’s Hussars, temporarily stationed at Fort George, had been carving a swath through the area, using violence, coercion, and arrests in their drive to find the “treacherous murderers.”
The lieutenant, however, was more single-minded, and he let it be known in every village and farmhouse that Isabella Drummond—an outsider in these Highlands—was an enemy of the people and the cause of their present misery. Three days ago, the bounty on Isabella’s head had been doubled—a fortune for any man or woman who would provide information leading to her arrest—and this time the British would take her aliveordead.
Cinaed hadn’t wanted to worry her with any of this news, so he’d kept it from her. But now he saw he’d been a fool to do so.
Taking the stairs three at a time, he felt his head beginning to pound. He’d like nothing better than to get hishands on that filthy dog Hudson, drag him out of Fort George, and finish him, as he should have done that day on the coach road.
