Amanda Scott (56 page)

She looked no more than seventeen, and since girls of her class aged quickly, she was probably younger. He had not asked her age because he had not wanted to show too much undue interest. MacTause was no particular friend of the Duke of Argyll’s, but he might find occasion for comment, and Argyll’s temper being uncertain at best, Rory had no wish to annoy him more than he already had.

He had tried his late father’s first cousin enough by disagreeing with him about keeping Lady Maclean in prison. As the duke had pointed out, furiously, Rory did not know her and Argyll did. But Rory’s duties included administering Highland estates that had been forfeited to the Crown, and he believed the Highlanders would prove easier to rule if the English and his Campbell kinsmen would stop persecuting the few remaining Jacobites for no greater crime than believing a Stewart had more right to the throne than the man they called the second German George.

Unfortunately, the Highlands were humming again with rumors of another uprising, just as they had two years before when the young Pretender—the upstart they called Bonnie Prince Charlie—had ordered 26,000 muskets, then slipped across the Channel from Antwerp to confer with supporters in London. Obsessed with his dream of restoring the Stewart monarchy, he had visited the Tower, looked over its defenses, and had been overheard to say that the gates could be blown in by a petard. Naught had come of that visit, but rumors were rife again, and if trouble came, the task Rory faced would prove uncommonly difficult to accomplish.

As youngest baron of the Scottish Court of Exchequer, he believed he could accomplish his duties more easily if previous owners of the lands he administered would cooperate with his factors and bailies instead of trying to block them at every turn. The best course seemed obvious, but Argyll disagreed and, as chief of Clan Campbell—not to mention Lord Justice General of Scotland, Privy Councilor, and Keeper of the Great Seal—the duke deserved and demanded Rory’s obedience and respect. Still, Rory knew no one would be less amazed than Argyll to learn that he had come to meet Lady Maclean and judge for himself just how dangerous she was.

“Will you stay the night, my lord?”

MacTause’s question jerked him from his reverie. They had been walking silently back toward the governor’s house, and lost in his thoughts as he had been, Rory had paid little heed to his surroundings and none to his companion.

Realizing that to make an unnecessary enemy was foolish, he smiled and said, “I must get back to Perthshire, sir. My plate is full these days, and much as I’d like to accept your offer, I cannot.” When the older man bit his lip, looking worried, he added matter-of-factly, “What comes of today’s event is more important than the event itself, you know. I’ll tell his grace you took quick action to see that such an escape cannot occur again.”

“You may be sure of that, my lord.”

Rory took his leave, hoping MacTause would heed his warning with regard to the turnkey. To flog him would do no good. To show mercy would be much wiser, for the man would take good care never to let a pretty face sway him again.

As he settled into his comfortable carriage, he felt a twinge of pity for the golden-eyed laundress. Though he had saved her from whipping or worse, he feared she would soon find herself destitute or forced into the stews to survive. Since she was attractive enough to make him wish he were the sort to take such women to his bed, she would not starve on her back, but such a life would be sadly short.

He put her firmly out of mind then but found to his surprise that her image frequently intruded upon his thoughts in the days and weeks that followed. Busy as he was, he could not forget her. Thus, when administrative duties for the Exchequer took him into the western Highlands six weeks later, he was pleasantly surprised, albeit astonished, to find her employed as a maidservant at Castle Stalker, island fortress of the Lords of Lorne and presently the strongest and most impenetrable of the many Campbell strongholds in the Highlands.

His first thought was that her Jacobite friends must have helped her find work after she lost her livelihood, but he rejected that thought the moment it entered his mind. Not only had MacTause discovered that her name was MacKissock, which was nearly as good as being a Campbell born and bred, but no Jacobite had access to Stalker. Moreover, he doubted that respectable Highlanders of any political persuasion would encourage an innocent young female to work there. Located half a mile from the mainland on a sea-girt rock, guarding the strategic point where Loch Linnhe met the Lynn of Lorne, Stalker’s purpose was strictly military and its primary occupants were rough Campbell men-at-arms.

Rory decided then, logically, that Mab MacKissock must have grown up in Argyll, which was strongly Campbell country, and was perhaps kin to Stalker’s captain. However, he was able to indulge himself in that comfortable conclusion only until his host informed him that a dangerous Jacobite prisoner had escaped the previous night from a high tower room previously believed to be escape proof.

W
HILE DIANA HELPED SERVE
the guardsmen their supper in the hall, she kept an eye out for Patrick Campbell, captain of Stalker’s garrison. Slapping a roving hand absent-mindedly, she moved to serve the next man, chuckling when he made a joke but maintaining a careful mix of levity and distance. The last thing she wanted was to draw too much unwanted notice. She had been lucky to find a position in the castle. She did not want to cast herself into the suds through stupidity.

Since Patrick Campbell’s wife occasionally visited him at Stalker, he had, over time, hired several maidservants to accommodate her needs, and he retained them even in her absence to cook and serve meals. Patrick’s wife being a lady of uncertain temper, the maidservants were safer under his eye than one might expect in a castle full of soldiers, but Diana knew that she must stay alert.

Nothing less than her present mission would have drawn her to Castle Stalker, the Campbell stronghold that presented such a menacing presence in that part of Argyll known as Appin country, long controlled by the Stewarts of Appin. She had been there for less than a week, but even in that short time two incidents had occurred that made her wish she could carry a dirk to defend herself. She dared not, however. Since Culloden, the battle that had ended the Jacobite rebellion six years before, British law had forbidden Highlanders to carry weapons, and penalties were severe if one were caught. Many folks still carried them, of course, although most had made a great show of turning theirs in at Stalker when first bidden to do so, exchanging them for receipts from Patrick Campbell’s elderly predecessor. To a man they had kept these official documents, and many displayed them prominently to prove their law-abiding nature, while storing the rest of their weapons in places unlikely to draw notice from nosy Campbells or their ilk.

The garrison’s responsibility during the rebellion had been to protect and care for the military supplies stored there and to transmit intelligence, for which armed boats from Fort William called every other day. Somewhat cramped within Stalker’s walls, the garrison had once numbered a sergeant, a corporal, and twenty men, all under the command of their own captain. Since the end of the rebellion, however, the number had fallen to twelve men and a sergeant, and Captain Patrick Campbell was responsible as well for Castle Dunstaffnage, overlooking the south end of the Lynn of Lorne.

Two other maids served in the castle, as well as a female cook. Diana knew that the two girls bestowed favors as well as food upon the soldiers, but she liked them and was uncritical of their behavior. They were friendly, and when she had explained that she lacked sexual experience and did not wish to submit to any man before marriage, they cheerfully helped divert any soldier who showed interest in her. The men themselves were cautious, knowing their captain would take a dim view of anyone forcing himself on a maidservant.

Patrick Campbell had been out of the castle most of the day with a party searching nearby woods and glens, but Allan Breck remained free. Had they caught him, the news would have spread even faster than had the news of his escape.

The problem now was to get herself away. She had hoped to do so as soon as she learned his whereabouts in the castle and had given him the means to signal Neil, Bardie, and the others. But she had reckoned without Patrick Campbell’s strong sense of duty to the maids under his protection. When she had tried to leave, the ferryman had told her firmly that lassies were not allowed to go across the water without permission, even on their half days out, and certainly not at night when they might meet with wildcats in the mainland woods, or worse.

Having recognized the man as a Bethune of Craignure from her childhood home on the Island of Mull, she had dared to press him a little, admitting that she, too, was a Craignure Maclean, and glibly explaining that her granny was sick. Her effort went unrewarded, however, despite his recognition of her as one of his clan.

“For ’tis an unco resemblance ye bear tae the young Mistress Diana,” he told her, “but still, I dassn’t take ye, lass. Yon vexsome Campbells would have me head. Moreover, how will ye be getting back after? I canna sit on a rock and wait for ye.”

Since the last point was unanswerable, she had pressed him no more, though she felt sorely tempted to tell him that she was Mistress Diana herself, and demand the help to which her rank entitled her from any loyal clan member. But since she had not wanted him to lose either his head or his position in such distressed times, and since he assured her he would tell no one she had even hinted at a wish to leave, she decided to say no more. That she was still free indicated that he had kept his word, and she hoped he would stay silent if someone questioned him more closely once they began to investigate the details of Allan’s escape.

Nearly twenty-four hours before, she had made her way to her cousin’s cell high in the tower and had given him her white scarf. No one had seen her do so, for at the time, one of the other maids had been entertaining the guard at the foot of the steps. Diana was certain that neither man nor maid would admit the interlude and that the former would insist he had never taken his eyes off the steps, so she felt confident they would do her no harm. There had been a good deal of upset that morning when the guard discovered Allan’s escape, but since he had escaped through a once-barred window, using a rope that the guard swore must have flown up to him by magic, they were still trying to figure out how he had done it.

She knew his secret, but knowledge did not lessen her amazement at its success. That Bardie was strong enough and clever enough to climb the tower in pitch dark was not so amazing, because the little man had more muscle and sinew in his shoulders and arms than most men of greater size had in their whole bodies. The amazing part was that he had done so with a coiled rope slung around him, using a pair of dirks as handholds by plunging first one, then the other into the wall as he ascended. She had seen him practice on a rock cliff in Lettermore Woods, but she had not believed him when he had said it would be just as easy to climb the tower.

The thought of the Campbells’ expressions upon discovering that their captive had flown, apparently by pushing the bars out of his window and weaving a rope out of air, made Diana smile. The expression froze, however, when she glanced up as she served the next man and saw Lord Calder on the threshold of the great hall, looking right at her. She had no idea how long he had been there.

The heat flooding her cheeks warned her that her face had reddened. Thus, when the lad she was serving reached up and pinched her breast, she did not hesitate to twitch away and snap, “If ye dinna want tae wear this stew, ye misbegotten maggot, keep your hands tae yourself. One more finger on me bubbies or me arse, and I’ll upend this entire potful over your head.”

“Aye, Mab, that’s telling him!”

While the men around them roared with laughter, she shot a sidelong glance at the doorway. Calder still stood there, but he was no longer alone or looking her way, for Patrick had returned, and the two were talking. Another man joined them, who was clearly Calder’s servant, and the interplay between the three told her that Patrick also considered Calder his superior. She wondered if Patrick would tell him of the escape, and for the first time she questioned her wisdom in using the name MacKissock. The first time, in Edinburgh, it had been simply a whim, a wish to cast what blame she could on the traitorous Campbells. But now, awareness that Calder might easily have learned what name she had given brought a surge of dismay.

Feeling trapped, she racked her brain, trying to think what to do. She could not turn tail and run. That much was certain, for there was no easy way off the islet. The current between it and the shore flowed swiftly whenever the tides were running, and although she could swim, she was not a strong enough swimmer to make such an attempt other than foolhardy. The ferryman would not take her either, she was sure, even if she were to confess her true identity. Loyalty or not, he had made it clear the night before that he thought any female going into the woods at night was a fool. He would never allow the daughter of his late chieftain to do so.

Glancing at the doorway, she saw with relief that Calder was still talking to Patrick and seemed to take no more interest in her. When his servant departed toward the upper regions and Patrick shouted to one of the other maids to bring them supper at a table by the fire, Diana breathed more easily. Calder had not looked her way again. If he had not recognized her, even if he were to learn about Allan Breck’s escape, he would have no cause to wonder at her presence unless through some incredible mischance Patrick Campbell mentioned her name and Calder both recognized and remembered it.

Careful not to look at him again, she moved about, collecting empty platters for the scullions to clean. Then, by finding a string of tasks to do in the scullery, she managed to stay out of Calder’s sight for the next half hour, and when she returned to the hall, he and Patrick Campbell had gone elsewhere. Feeling lighter of heart, she turned her mind again to escape. With Calder near at hand, she dared not wait until her half day. That much was certain.