Page 58 of Highland Jewel
He’d finally arrived. The end was near.
Sitting on his horse outside an abandoned hunting lodge with his two companions beside him, Niall gazed out at the landscape with a feeling in his heart that wandered in the murky space between wistful and bitter.
The blue sky was dotted with wisps of clouds, the mountain peaks aglow with the sun, and the breeze sweet and full with the smell of earth and forest. In spite of his simmering resentment, the beauty of it all tugged at Niall’s heart, for he too was a Highlander, no matter how far he traveled. As he gazed down the meadow across the glen at the crystalline waters of the river, lines from Robert Burns came to him, and his thoughts turned to Maisie.
Till all the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt with the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands of life shall run.
He wondered where she was right now. Edinburgh, most likely, and leading her troops of women in marches across the city. He ran a tired hand down his face, not able to quiet the worry. He hoped she was smart about it. He prayed that she was safe. How he missed her.
If only they’d been able to escape before the mess started. If only they thought to take shelter in a faraway place like this. He never stopped thinking of the life that they could have had. But as it was, Niall’s life wasn’t his own. And Maisie would never be his.
“What a shit hole.” Owen Woelk stared at the moss-covered stone hunting lodge. Queen Caroline’s kinsman had complained about every inn and tavern from Edinburgh to Inverness. “Is this the best that I’m to expect here in these bloody Highlands?”
Neither Niall nor Lewis Rainey answered, and Woelk got down from his horse and walked through the high grass to a stone wall to relieve himself. The lodge had an empty, desolate look, shuttered and moldering away for years. But Niall saw the value of meeting the three of them here. Security.
No one had been here to greet them, but they’d been told as much before they left Inverness. Rainey had assured them that no one entered Mackintosh land without the clan’s notice. The instructions from the laird were to wait at the lodge. They would send men down to escort them the rest of the way to Dalmigavie.
More waiting. Niall tried to let it go, but waiting had become the bane of his existence. The two endless months of travel from Duns Castle to Dalmigavie could have been easily accomplished in little more than a fortnight if they hadn’t been plagued with so many damned delays.
In the Borders, they’d waited days before that blasted Woelk had prepared himself for departure. And thenthey’d needed to go west of Edinburgh to avoid road blocks and patrols of militia that had been deployed because of the growing trouble in the cities. Keeping to back roads and open fields, they’d moved at a snail’s pace. In Fife, they’d lost ten days when Woelk had fallen ill and languished with a fever in a backwater country inn, and another five waiting for him to regain his strength. Upon reaching Aberdeen, Rainey had spent a day at the docks before returning to tell them there was no point in hurrying—Niall was ready to wring his scrawny neck when he heard that—because theHighland Crownhad not yet completed the ocean crossing. So onward they crawled to the north until they eventually reached Rainey’s estate near Inverness, where they waited until he received word to come ahead to Dalmigavie.
One thing Niall had learned before leaving the Borders was the name of the master of theHighland Crown. Cinaed Mackintosh. The son of Scotland.
And now, after a journey more excruciating than the winter march across the Peninsula during the war against Napoleon, they were finally on Mackintosh land. Niall prayed it was almost over.
“I am relieved the queen won’t be coming here,” Woelk said, poking the overgrown grass as he walked back to them. “That hovel must be one large nest of adders.”
“This is the Highlands,” Rainey retorted hotly. “She knows it’s no place for weak, court-softened milksops.”
Woelk scoffed and motioned toward the lodge. “I wouldn’t keep my horses in there.”
A pair of disagreeable scoundrels. One, an upper-crust peacock. The other, a sea rat, to be sure. For the entire trip, a day hadn’t passed when the two hadn’t been baiting each other. And when they tired of that game, one of them would turn his sights on Niall. To them,he was simply a strong arm hired to see them safely to Dalmigavie. He fought the urge to knock their heads together only because his sister’s life depended on him doing what he’d set out to do.
“How long must we wait?” Woelk climbed onto his mount.
“Damn me, but I’ve told you a dozen times.” Rainey spat on the ground. “You’re not trusted to come up to the castle. You’ll be…”
The Highlander stopped as a group of eight armed riders came down the trail into the clearing around the lodge. Mackintosh fighters. Strong and dangerous. Known to every regiment for the speed with which they struck. After the Jacobite rebellion had been all but crushed at Culloden, clan fighters like these had been the reason Highland regiments such as the Black Watch had been established, to rein in the clans. Niall knew of very few Mackintosh men who joined the regiments. They wouldn’t help the British government control their own people.
Unlike Niall, these Highlanders had remained true to their native land and their blood. It had taken years for Niall to learn what they already knew, but he was a different man now from the naive boy who’d joined when Napoleon’s armies were rolling across the continent. Now he knew all too well the cost of a man’s soul.
Two men nudged their horses ahead of the others. One of them was a cool-eyed fighter with a battered face and a hunting knife the length of his forearm strapped to his leg. The other was short and stocky and, from the way he ordered everyone about, it was obvious that he was in charge.
There was no greeting. No welcome. The two men said nothing, eyeing the visitors. All of them remainedon their horses, and the other fighters sat silent and wary a few paces off.
“Searc,” Rainey said with a nod before introducing Woelk.
Searc Mackintosh. Niall studied the compactly built man. He’d heard a great deal about Searc along the way. The organizer, the deal maker, the man who’d been a vital cog in bringing about the hoped-for meeting with the queen. He exuded the same confidence that Niall had seen in a few great military leaders. Size made no difference. They thought they were ten feet tall. Men like Searc would lead a regiment into battle at any time and fight with his bare hands if the situation called for it.
Searc turned to Niall. “And you?”
Rainey waved a hand dismissively. “Lieutenant Campbell served as our escort from the Borders. The lawyer Brougham sent him.”
