A Kiss for a Highlander (17 page)

“No.” She sat up straighter and looked out of the window in the direction of Drumossie. “You get yourself back here and call me crabbit again, Scotsman.”

Rising and shaking out her skirts, she made her way down to Rosie’s room. She found her cousin lying face down on her bed, her pretty face swollen with tears. With a little cry of sympathy, Martha ran to Rosie and drew her into her arms.

“I can’t bear it,” Rosie sobbed, pressing her face into Martha’s shoulder. “I may never see Jack again.”

There were no words of comfort Martha could offer, so she rocked Rosie in her arms as she had done when Rosie was a child, and in consoling her cousin, Martha found a small measure of relief from her own pain.

“But, Martha, I know I am not alone in feeling this way,” Rosie said, when her tears had subsided and they had made their way down to the great hall to hear the news from the battlefield. “You love Fraser, do you not?”

Martha nodded. There was no reason to deny it now. “It is not the same between us, however. If Fraser returns, he does not return to me.”

“I am not so sure.” Rosie took and clasped her hand firmly. “I have thought of late that he cares for you very much.”

“He does, I think.” She felt a smile tug at her lips as she recalled Fraser’s comments likening her to a thistle. “But love is a different matter.”

Rosie lowered her eyes. “Martha, I went to Jack’s room before he left…”

“I know. I saw you.”

“Oh.” Rosie was silent for a long time. “I’m not sorry,” she said at last, with a toss of her curls.

“Nor should you be,” Martha replied, returning the clasp of her hand.

Reports began to come thick and fast from the battlefield then and throughout the course of the day. Rab came straight to Martha with any information, somehow sensing, without a word being spoken, that she was in a position of authority. None of the news was good. The highlanders were maintaining their reputation for fierce bravery in battle. Martha smiled as she thought of Fraser. Nothing would daunt him, she knew. The Jacobite technique was to fire a volley from their muskets then charge into the foe with broadswords drawn. This struck fear into the hearts of the redcoats, who were used to more formal warfare, and in the past, they had tended to flee in the face of the charging Scotsmen. The highlanders had expected to use this tried and trusted technique again. The prince, however, had chosen to ignore the advice of the chieftains, including Fraser, and his more experienced generals. Instead, he had lined the highlanders up on the boggiest ground of Drumossie Muir.

“In Gaelic Drumossie means Stinking Ridge. ’Twas a place well named, my lady. ’Tis a foul moor. Nought but fetid bogwater. And, in his wisdom, this fine, proud prince of ours has positioned our brave clansmen right in the middle of it. Their feet sank right into the bog, trapping them there.”

“Why did the prince choose that position, Rab? He must have given a reason,” Martha said.

“Och, aye, he did indeed. He said ’twould protect them from a cavalry charge by the Duke of Cumberland’s men. And it did, of course. It also protected Cumberland from our charge. It trapped the highlanders there in the bog. They could’nae make their way out of the boggy ground, so they were sitting targets for Cumberland’s shells. ’Twas one in the afternoon when the battle began in earnest, with our Jacobite cannons firing the first shots. These were the only shots fired by the highland artillery, because the rest of our ammunition had been left in Inverness.”

“Rab, this incompetence by the Jacobite commanders is truly staggering. It is little short of murder.” Martha covered her mouth with her hand.

“Aye, my lady, there are some questions will need answering about this day. But I fear there will be few men remaining to give those answers. The redcoats opened up then with their cannons. It was, as our own laird predicted, a carnage. No command was given to the highlanders to charge. After thirty minutes of enduring the bombardment, during which our men fell like dogs in the filthy ground, small groups of Jacobites began to break ranks and charge anyway. They fell, stumbled, tripped and got stuck as they fought to make their way across the wide bog which is Drumossie Muir. Will I away and see what more I can discover?”

“Yes, of course, Rab.” Martha nodded.

“They may already be dead.” Rosie’s lips were white. Martha automatically reached for Fraser’s precious decanter of whisky and poured them each a dram.

“Drink it, Rosie,” she said, as the girl shuddered at the smell. A memory came to her of Fraser, and she quickly dashed back her own measure of the amber liquid. “It will warm you, and it is insulting to a Scot if you do not.”

When Rab returned again some hours later, they stood together on the battlements, looking out over the loch. Even though Drumossie was too far distant to see anything, Martha almost imagined she saw the smoke rising in the distance.

“So they were brave to the end?” Martha asked. Rosie slid a cold hand into hers.

“Och, can ye doubt it?” The old man’s face was proud. “When our highlanders finally reached the bayonets of the redcoats, that devil Cumberland decided to deploy new tactics. If the Jacobites did cut through the front line, they were wiped out by a new, second line. While ferocious hand-to-hand fighting took place, a regiment of redcoats came up on the extreme left and poured a murderous volley of fire into our Jacobite right flank. Our brave lads began to fall back. The retreat became a rout as panic took over our fleeing troops. The king’s dragoons chased after any stragglers and killed those in their path.”

“No!” Martha placed a shaking hand over her mouth. “Rab, they cannot have killed men who were retreating. Even Cumberland would not conscience such slaughter. Surely not?” Martha was aghast at the thought of behaviour which was contrary to everything that was humane and decent. Not for the first time in recent months, she felt shame at her English heritage.

Rab had tears in his eyes as he nodded. “Aye, my lady. This was at the orders of the Duke of Cumberland himself. His words were that none should be spared. The redcoats then walked the whole length of the battlefield. Their mission was the systematic butchery of those wounded on the field. Cumberland had told them they must take no prisoners. There was to be, in his words, ‘no quarter’ for the Jacobites. The only useful highlander was a dead one. They butchered them, my lady.”

“All?” She looked out across the Great Glen. She could not bring herself to ask the other question that burned itself into her heart. Rosie made a choking sound, and Martha slid her arm around her, drawing her trembling body close against her side.

“Aye, my lady. All. Every last one.”

The three of them were silent for a long time, each of them thinking of the brave men who had set off that morning only to be led to their deaths. Martha couldn’t get her own thoughts to move beyond a series of images of Fraser that persisted in playing through her imagination. Strangely, she had no difficulty now in seeing his face in her mind. Every memory was imprinted there in detail. The frown she’d seen when they first met, the smile that lit his hazel eye with golden lights, the way he could ignite her to helpless, quivering passion with a single look. How could he be dead?
How can I keep this torment inside me and not cry out his name in anguish?

“What of the prince?” Martha asked at last.

“He fought bravely, my lady. ’Twas not his wish to leave the field, but when it could be seen how it was going to end, his generals insisted. He escaped the battle, but there is a price now on his head. We must hope he can get away safe to the continent. Whatever his failings this day, he is the last hope, after all, for the true bloodline of the Stuarts. ’Tis said that Butcher Cumberland now plans a campaign of subjugation that will completely eradicate the highland threat. A very dark time is to come for the clans, my lady. Highlanders are to be forbidden to carry swords, knives, or any weapon or instrument of war under pain of death. The tartan is to be banned, as is the language of the Gael and the bagpipes.”

“He may not find it so easy,” Martha said. “There are places such as this—” her gesture encompassed the glen and loch before them, “—that are too strategically important for the king to ignore. Subjugation by force will not be the way to ensure compliance from men such as those of the Lachlan clan.”
I sound like a true highlander
, she thought.
That is what Fraser has made of me.
A fierce pride swept through her, making her lift her chin a little higher.
And we have made more than that together.

“Jack…” It was as if realisation had finally dawned on Rosie. She slid from Martha’s grasp and onto the stone floor in a dead faint.

It was almost a relief for Martha to have to tend to her cousin. It meant she did not have time to dwell on anything else. There would be time enough to look at her hands and remember them tracing the muscles of his chest, or touch her own lips and recall the feel of his upon them. There would be long, lonely years of renewed spinsterhood in which to plant thistles in the garden of the old dower house, and now and then, when the mood took her, to sing an old Scots ballad in her off-key voice. And there would be nights without number in which to lie alone and dream of the hard length of his body next to hers as the wild beating of his heart slowed gradually back to normality after loving her.

Martha gave orders for Rosie to be carried to her bedchamber. Then, drawing a breath that calmed the tremor in her limbs, she looked out across the glen once more. It would soon be night. Once darkness fell, it would be too late. There was one final thing she could do for Fraser. She turned back to face Rab.

“You said that Cumberland gave the Jacobites no quarter. That may be so, but he may not have been quite as clever as he thought. Take a party of our lads, the ones who were too young to join the battle, out to Drumossie, Rab, and check every body on that foul field for signs of life, no matter how small. If they are breathing, bring them back here to me to be nursed. If we can save just one brave highlander, we will have gained a victory over the king this day.”

Chapter Seventeen

The stench of the bog and of death was overwhelming. Dead men and horses, and discarded and broken weapons lay strewn around him. The weight of the bodies pinning Fraser to the ground was too great to shift, and it was tempting to simply close his eyes and let death take him. The fog of memory cleared, and he remembered bellowing at his men to break ranks and charge, for the love of God and Scotland! He had swung his claymore left and right, just as he had practised on the ramparts of Castle Lachlan only days before. Blood had filled his vision, stinging his eyes and burning his nostrils. Sweat had soaked his skin. He had roared and howled while lunging and thrusting at the oncoming redcoats. He had been closing the distance, moving ever closer to the hated figure of the Duke of Cumberland when, on the periphery of his vision, Lord Jack, clad in the Lachlan tartan of his clansmen, fell beneath the outstretched sword of a red-coated dragoon.

The memory was enough to bring Fraser to his feet again. Clutching his side where the redcoat’s sword had pierced deep into his own flesh, he thrust aside the dead Jacobite who lay on top of him and staggered over the uneven ground. Blood ran in rivulets down his forehead, and he had no energy left with which to wipe it away. He used his sword as a crutch, leaning heavily on it while trying to breathe through lungs that burned with every indrawn breath. His vision was fading then clearing as though he walked through a low highland mist. The big, strong body that had always served him so well was failing now. Weak and shaking from a combination of loss of blood and grief, he stumbled to his knees at the point where he had seen Lord Jack fall. His friend was not there. Dark spots crowded Fraser’s vision once more, and the hateful, noxious ground of Drumossie Muir rose up to meet him.

Rough hands grabbed him, turning him face up and refusing to allow him the welcome release of unconsciousness. He tried to cry out at them to leave him be, but no sound left his lips. A shout went up, and a group of youths clustered around him. He felt himself being hoisted unceremoniously up and then carried on some sort of makeshift stretcher. It was too much trouble to tell them to stop jolting him, so he closed his eyes and let peace envelop him.

Dark images of battle came back to Fraser through a disjointed fog. Tantalising rays of brightness briefly encroached, dispelling the horror of his thoughts. He tried to reach for the light, grasping on to the shining beams. Some instinct told him there was that within the light that he needed. The face of a young woman intruded into his memories of the battle, soothing him and causing the terror to recede. Her hair fell in shining curls about her shoulders. Fraser tried to smile at her. For some reason he needed to tell her he liked her hair that way, but he couldn’t remember why it should matter so much. Concern shone in the luminous depths of her light-blue eyes as she studied his face. This vision—the one that was preventing him from sinking back into the embrace of the darkness—had porcelain-pale skin with a dusting of freckles. She pushed her spectacles further up her upturned nose, and he tried to lift his hand to tell her to stop doing that, but the movement was too much effort. Even in his dream, the delicate, soothing scent of flowers hung about her. He could not hear the words she spoke, but her calm voice unaccountably reassured him. She wanted him to do something, but he was not sure what it was. He knew only that he must wake from his nightmare of violence, pain and fear so that he could find out.

“Praise be to God, my lady.” Cora’s lips trembled as she studied the battered and bloodstained body on the bed. She had finally been induced to stop weeping and lamenting so that she could help Martha to clean the wounded man. Martha, in contrast to the emotion of those around her, felt oddly serene and detached from the scene. When they had carried him over the threshold, when she had seen that it was really him, a curious sort of calm had descended upon her. At first, she assumed he was dead. That they were bringing him home for a chieftain’s burial. There were no signs of life, and there did not seem to be any part of his body that wasn’t a beaten and bloodied pulp.

“He was in a ditch, to one side of where the front rank of the king’s men had lined up,” Rab said, as Martha knelt beside the stretcher. “As if he was going after Cumberland himself.”

“Knowing you, my Scotsman, that is exactly what your plan was,” she murmured, low enough that no-one else could hear words. Beneath its mask of mud and gore, Fraser’s face was marble-still. Like the effigies in the church at Bamburgh where her family had worshipped when she was a child. At the sound of her voice, however, his eyelids twitched, and for the briefest of moments, she glimpsed the hazel gleam of his eyes.

“Don’t leave me, my love.” At her whispered plea, his hand lifted very slightly toward her and then dropped back to his side. It was signal enough. He had heard. He had come back to her.

“He is alive.” She took a moment to blink back the tears that stung her eyelids. “Take him up to his room. I will tend his wounds there.”

“Was the laird the only one you found?” Rosie’s voice held a pathetic little note of hope.

“The only one alive, my lady,” Rab said and his rough voice was oddly gentle.

“And Lord Jack?”

“We could’nae even find his body to bring back to you for burial, my lady.” He shook his head regretfully. “I scoured every inch of the battlefield myself in search of him. But some of the clansmen had already set fires on the battlefield, and many of the bodies were burned to save them from looters or Cumberland’s atrocities.”

With a sob, Rosie clasped her hands over her mouth and whirled away. Martha watched her for a moment, torn briefly between her needs and Fraser’s.

“I have a recipe for a potion that will heal his wounds, my lady,” Cora said, becoming alarmingly brisk now that her initial tears were dried. “Firstly, we must crush together juniper berries with the wild heather that grows on the high moors. These must be mixed with extract of wormwood and heated together in a cup of whisky, to be taken twice daily.”

Martha pursed her lips. She couldn’t see anything in Cora’s suggestion to cause Fraser any harm, nor could she perceive anything in the proposed potion that might conceivably help to cure him. “While you gather and prepare those items, send Rab to me so that we can remove his clothing and bathe him. And, Cora—” the little woman paused in the doorway, “—while you are about it, take a dram to Miss Rosie and tell her I will wait on her shortly.” It was going to be a long night.

“There is an Englishman at the castle entrance.” Rab seemed to have conferred upon Martha the status of honorary Scot, but his expression betrayed, in no uncertain terms, his feelings toward unannounced Englishmen.

Martha was only mildly distracted by this information. It had been three days since the battle of Drumossie Muir. Three long days and nights during which she and death had fought tirelessly for possession of Fraser. She was winning at last…but only just. When they had finally finished cleaning Fraser and Martha had been able to examine his injuries, she had felt sick with shock and fear. In addition to the fact that every inch of his flesh appeared to have been beaten, he had a deep gash across his forehead, and his left wrist was broken. It was the wound in his left side, however, that caused the world to swim out of focus when Martha first saw it. It was a ragged gash that ran in a line from beneath Fraser’s arm to just above his hipbone. It looked deep enough for Martha to have slid her hand inside. She could tell, from the shocked expressions on their faces, that Cora and Rab shared her fears. How could he survive this?

“You must,” she had told his unconscious form firmly. “You have to.” She then set about giving instructions for the gathering of the herbs she would need.

There had followed a treadmill of nursing so intensive that each hour blended seamlessly into the next. Cora and Rab had done what they could to help—even Rosie, in spite of her grief, had offered her help—but Martha would not leave Fraser’s side. It was as if her presence was a talisman, that she could somehow will him, through her very determination, to live. She had snatched a few short hours’ sleep in the chair next to his bed, dashing away to bathe and change her clothes and dash back again within minutes. She must have eaten but could not remember what or when.

Her constant vigilance and attention were paying off. He was improving. It wasn’t just her imagination. Fraser’s wounds were beginning to look better. Once or twice he had opened his eyes and looked directly at her. This morning, she had been sure she had even seen a hint of a smile in his eyes.

“Who is this Englishman?” she asked now, raising her eyes from Fraser’s face with an effort.

“Name of Tom Drury, or so he says. He asked for Mistress Rosie—” Rab broke off in surprise as Martha jumped up.

“Stay here. See if you can get him to take some water. I will be no more than ten minutes.”

Martha lightly descended the staircase, pausing halfway down the last flight to study the familiar figure in the great hall below her. It was indeed Tom Drury. He was standing with his back to her, prodding the logs in the fireplace with one booted foot.

“Good day, Tom,” Martha said, coming forward into the room.

Tom swung around at the sound of her voice, surprise settling over his features as he studied her face. “Martha, I barely recognised you. Scotland has been kind to you, I think. Although the tales I have heard of events over the past few days would suggest otherwise.”

“I have bad news on that score.” She gestured for him to be seated. “Jack was killed in the battle at Drumossie Muir.”

“Ah, no!” Tom shook his head. “He was a fine man. And Fraser?”

“So badly injured he may as well have been dead. But there is hope for him yet.”

“With you nursing him, Martha, he stands a better chance than most. Miss Rosie will have taken Jack’s death hard.”

“Very hard,” Martha agreed. “They were very much in love. It is good to see you again, Tom. Your arrival will cheer her.”

“I doubt you will say so when you know the reason for my coming,” he said, his expression serious once more. “I bring bad tidings. Mr. Delacourt is unwell. It is his heart, I am afraid. It appears he sustained a severe shock, but he has not been able to relay the nature of what happened to anyone, so sickly has he been.”

“Was it to do with the battle here? It must have been a shock to have learned of it.”

“We had not learned of the battle when he was taken ill. I only heard the news myself when I arrived at Inverness. No, he was taken ill immediately after a visit from Sir Clive Sheridan. After Sir Clive departed, I found Mr. Delacourt in a state of collapse in his study. I have a suspicion that Harry may know more about what has happened than he is letting on. The lad has been uncharacteristically quiet and looks like a rabbit caught in the light of a hunter’s torch of late. I have left Mr. Delacourt in his and Mrs. Glover’s care, but I confess I made this journey in the hope that I might find Miss Rosie already wed and you able to return to Delacourt Grange to be able to nurse him. ’Tis long-term care he needs, I fear.” Tom sighed. “But I see that events here have overtaken me.”

“Yes, indeed.” Martha filled him in on some of the detail of the battle and its aftermath, including just how serious Fraser’s injuries were. He listened in silence. In turn, he told her that upon their departure from Derbyshire, Fraser’s plan had worked. Although the young sergeant had continued to insist that Captain Overton had been shot by a woman, the family’s story that neither Rosie nor Martha had been at home at the time and that a fierce highlander had been holding them hostage had won the day. The local magistrate had pronounced that the captain had been murdered by this desperate rogue who had then fled back across the border. Both women would be safe to return home to Delacourt Grange with no fear of reprisals for the events of that night.

“And how fares Miss Rosie in all of this?” Tom asked.

“Not good, as you would expect,” Martha said. “And I am caught up in caring for Fraser so that I feel I have not enough time to spare for her.”

“Perhaps it would be as well if I took her back to Derbyshire with me so that
she
can undertake the care of her father? ’Twould occupy her mind and get her away from this place which must hold only bad memories for her now.”

When this plan was put to Rosie later, she nodded her agreement, her eyes brightening with a rush of tears. “Yes, I would like to go home. To be with my father and Harry again and have my familiar things around me.” Martha thought sadly that she had grown up too suddenly. The carefree girl was gone—probably for good—and a solemn young woman had, overnight, taken her place. “But what of you, Martha? If we leave you here alone, how will you find your way back to us again once Fraser is fully recovered?”

“From what Tom has said, it seems that your father’s health must be our first priority. You must go to him without delay,” Martha said. “But there is no-one here who has any inkling about how to care for their injured laird. If I leave him to them, they will no doubt attempt to boil him in oil or apply bat droppings to his head by the light of a full moon. I will stay until he is out of danger and then I will make some plans.” She was deliberately vague, but she saw understanding in Rosie’s eyes. Drumossie had changed all their lives. Martha’s plans would be whatever Fraser wanted of her.

When she returned to the laird’s bedchamber, Rab hailed her with something that, in another man, might almost have been called pleasure. “Even though he did’nae open his eyes, he’s been muttering and moaning the whole time ye were away.”

“’Twas as if he sensed ye’d gone, my lady,” Cora added.

Martha sat on the bed next to Fraser, taking one of his hands in hers. With her other palm, she felt his brow. It was cool, and she allowed herself a sigh of relief. In his enfeebled state, a fever would be the worst thing. He immediately became calm under her touch.

“’Tis like a miracle,” Cora sighed.

“Whist now, woman. ’Tis nought of the kind,” Rab said. “The laird knows his lady.”