Page 44 of Highland Sword
“You may not see it, but it’s true nonetheless.” Morrigan thought of Maisie’s articles. “I can bring you newspaper accounts.”
“And you think reading pathetic stories will change my mind?”
“I’m certain of it. I know when you see the truth, you’ll have no difficulty deciding which side is more deserving of your talent.”
Madame Laborde looked past her in the direction of the house. “Perhaps you’d have no objection to including this gentleman in our conversation?”
Morrigan turned and looked across the gardens. A wiry man with a pinched face and carrying a stout walking stick approached with a nimbleness that belied his middle age. Four bruisers trailed behind him.
“Have you met Sir Rupert Burney?” the artist asked, a note of amusement in her voice.
Morrigan couldn’t breathe.
“I’m certain he’ll be delighted to make your acquaintance and hear all you have to say.”
CHAPTER14
CINAED
A crowd gathered in greeting as the travelers rode through Dalmigavie’s gate, and Cinaed had never been so glad to see their welcoming faces. It had been an eventful month on the road, to say the least.
He’d set out to see the leaders and the folk of the great Highland clans. With every stop and from every clan chief, he heard the same thing. The Highlanders were unhappy, fearful, angry. And everywhere, the same complaint rang out. Their lads had not come home.
To fight the French, armies needed to be raised. Now, every regiment composed of Scots and Highlanders was being moved to Ireland and to the farthest corners of the expanding empire. And militias from the south, as well as English regulars, were moving in to fill their places at Fort William and Fort George.
The rising was at hand, and the Crown didn’t trust the Scottish soldiers’ allegiance.
Whispers of coming war in the Highlands had been drifting northward. The Home Office was campaigning for it. English commanders in Edinburgh and the Borders were hoping for it. The rumored visit of the queen was being taken as an open threat in Westminster. Many believed it was far easier to crush out the sparks rather than wait and fight the inferno. But no consensus existed. There were other voices in Parliament who were against it. They feared the dire economic conditions of the country could turn a regional rebellion into a devastating civil war. A revolution like the one that toppled the monarchy in France just a few decades ago.
Before Queen Caroline returned to London, she’d told Cinaed what her own agents had reported. All opposition to war in the Highlands would be swept away if Whitehall were given a legitimate reason to attack. If the Scots organized and threatened England the way Bonnie Prince Charlie had done, the British military would leave a trail of blood that hadn’t been seen since Culloden and the days that followed.
The Home Office needed a reason for war. One that would further divide the rich from the poor in Scotland, the aristocrat from the commoner, the Highlands from the Lowlands.
In his life Cinaed had done plenty to annoy the Crown. But there was an enormous difference between those nuisances and an action that would bring the entire British army down on the necks of unarmed people of the Highlands.
The English were trained and ready. The Peninsular War. Waterloo. The Gurkha War. The Pindari War. Those military campaigns had prepared the enemy. The navy would level every port from Stornoway in the Western Isles to Aberdeen. With the Caledonian Canal linking Oban to Inverness almost fully operational, the Highlands were cut in two. If all-out war were to come now, untold lives would be lost. Cinaed was determined not to give them the excuse they were looking for.
How to handle an unprovoked attack, however, was another matter entirely. No clan liked to see a laird wounded without retribution.
“Lachlan’s leg is broken,” Cinaed told Isabella as he dismounted.
As the men carried the laird to his chambers, Cinaed and Isabella followed. “A half-dozen dragoons appeared to be waiting for us by Loch Laggan. Niall thinks they were from Fort William. Lachlan’s horse was shot from under him and rolled on his leg.”
“Was anyone else hurt?” Isabella asked.
Cinaed shook his head. The attack had been little more than a glancing blow. The Mackintosh men had outnumbered the dragoons, who had fired on them and then dashed off as quickly as they’d come. Niall had been quick to say it was an old military tactic to lure them into a trap. These raiders were the bait.
After doing what they could for Lachlan, they’d brought him back here with the hope that his leg could be saved.
“When did this happen?” Isabella asked after sending Auld Jean to the medical room for what she’d need.
“Two days ago. We rode straight here. Lachlan is a tough old bird, but this nearly killed him. Where is Searc?”
“He and Blair went to Inverness early today. They’re planning on returning tonight. Morrigan went with them.”
Cinaed nodded, but as they passed a window on a landing, she stopped him.
“You have blood on your coat.”
