Armadale, Isle of Skye, April 19, 1746

Marion MacDonald sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap, her countenance knitted in thought. "Well then. Did the prince proclaim his father James VIII of Scotland only, or James III of Britain as well?"

"Does it matter?" Allan asked. Cleaned, rested, and in a new suit of clothes-Flora's stepfather's shirt and breeks fit him tolerably well-he had reclaimed some of his usual ease of manner. Still, Flora sensed that her spirited cousin writhed beneath the unaccustomed mantle of defeat.

"Aye, it does matter," her mother said. "James might well overreach himself if he claims the throne of Britain entire."

"The Stuarts have never hesitated to overreach themselves. But perhaps the prince learned by his swiftly aborted incursion into England that he has little support outwith our own Highlands."

"Indeed, the present ruling family, of Hanoverian origins or no, has the possession of the united Crown and with it, perhaps, as much right as the deposed Stuarts. But this issue has been decided. It no longer concerns us." Marion's maternal eye moved from one to the other of the young people before her. "Now. Allan, I spoke with your parents at Kingsburgh…"

Flora's ear caught the sound of hoofbeats and voices from outside. Quickly she put down her sewing and went to the door.

Unlike yesterday's tender spring evening, this evening was coming on dark and swift. A cold chill wind churned the sea. White gulls looked like flecks of paper swirling up against the clouds massed in the northwest, clouds colored the deep purplish-black of a bruise.

One last fragile ray of sun illuminated the approaching party, a lad from the village walking before three men on horseback. All three wore red coats like Allan's, save these were decorated with bits of gilt braid. And the heavy-set man in the middle was bedecked with medals. "… the edge of the world," he was muttering, his face set in a supercilious scowl. "Beastly country, savage mountain passes, not a decent inn to be found…"

Allan's hand grasped Flora's shoulder and his voice whispered in her ear, "I'll be damned-I beg your pardon, Cousin, but it's the duke himself."

"Come here? To us? He must find himself in dire straits, then, and in need of succor."

Behind them both Marion gasped. "The beds need airing and the best china washing…" Her footsteps receded into the house.

His errand completed, the lad sidled toward the gate in the wall surrounding the house. Then he took to his heels and disappeared toward the village. Flora rendered her best curtsey and Allan his best bow. "Allow me to make introduction. I am Allan MacDonald and this lady is Flora, my cousin of the same name. Your Grace is welcome in my uncle's house."

"Fort Augustus fallen to the rebels," grumbled the duke, "and Fort William as well, garrisons incompetent, should have hanged the lot of them…" He clumped loudly to the ground. Again Donald came forward and led the horses away, their hanging heads and rough foam-flecked coats making of them a pitiable sight.

The men appeared in little better health, their hats and the wigs beneath battered and worn, their chins unshaven, their clothing soiled-surely those were bits of heather clinging to the scarlet cloth. The taller of the two aides introduced himself as Felix Scott, the smaller as Neil Campbell. He added, "Are my kinsman Argyll's troop of men in the area, Mr. MacDonald? We must send a message to them as soon as possible."

Flora supposed Campbell of Argyll's militia was in the vicinity. It had been patrolling Skye for the government for some time now. So had His Majesty's ships been patrolling the Minch and the Inner Sound. She did not expect them to withdraw now, not when Prince Charles's victory would spur the French to even greater threats against the island of Britain.

Before she could answer Allan said, "I'll send the ghillie to make enquiries."

Flora contented herself by saying, "Your Grace, Captain Campbell, and Lieutenant Scott, please come inside and warm yourselves by the fire."

The young officers bowed politely and walked into the house. The duke eyed Flora in what she could only describe as an insolent manner. And yet the greenish tint of his jowls indicated that the crossing from the mainland had been rough. How indeed, had the mighty fallen, a king's son sleeping rough in the heather, his enemies pressing close behind. With a pang of pity she curtsied again.

The Duke of Cumberland thumped into the parlor, threw himself into Marion's best chair, and called loudly for brandy.

Flora and her mother hurried back and forth, bringing biscuits, brandy, and whiskey, and by and by serving a supper of roasted turkey, collops of venison, vegetables, bread, cheese, rum, and porter.

Allan played the host, and Scott and Campbell were as deferential to the ladies as to the duke himself. But as night fell, the candles were lit, and the claret and punch went round the table, Cumberland's face grew redder and more truculent. Even after Flora and Marion retired to the parlor and sat down with their sewing, they could hear his every blustering word.

"We faced genuine soldiers at Fontenoy and Dettingen. The Pretender's vaunted clansmen are but savages. I am told they live an idle sauntering life among their acquaintances and relations, and are supported by their bounty. Others get a livelihood by blackmail, receiving moneys from people of substance to abstain from stealing their cattle. The last class of them gain their expenses by robbing and committing depredations. And they have the uncommon gall to rise up against the hand that seeks to civilize them!"

"Better you should ask why our relations must live in such an unhappy state." Allan said. Her cousin was well into his cups, Flora realized with a sinking heart.

Cumberland asked nothing. "And the Young Pretender himself, what unmitigated cheek to place a price upon my head! Why your barbarian countrymen staged ambuscades from every hilltop!"

"King George placed a high price on Prince Charles's head," said Allan. "The very poverty that you deride, Your Grace, makes such a reward desirable, and therefore places your life in danger."

Flora frowned at her mending. Cumberland was also in peril from those who resented the heavy hand of allies such as Argyll, not to mention from those who would curry the favor of the new regime. By now half the island would know he was lodged at her stepfather's house.

Allan chuckled, but there was little humor in his voice. "You would have done better to have surrendered yourself to Prince Charles, who would have treated with you honorably and sent you home alive and whole."

"Surrender my sword to the Old Pretender's whelp, a puking boy barely out of the nursery?" Cumberland bellowed, overlooking the fact that he and the prince were the same age. "The Young Pretender is under petticoat patronage, I hear, his supporters stirred up by their women, wanton Jacobitesses. Like the lovely Miss Flora, perhaps? A pretty little chit, ripe for the taking, eh, MacDonald? Have you had the use of her?"

The needle stabbed deep. Flora thrust her wounded forefinger into her mouth and looked in horror at her mother. Marion was already on her feet. But before she could take a step toward the dining room came the sound of a chair crashing back and a glass breaking.

Allan's voice trembled with rage. "My family and I offer Your Grace hospitality, and this is how he repays it?"

Campbell's voice murmured of misunderstandings, Scott's of unwitting slurs and apologies on offer.

Another chair scraped. Cumberland snarled, "You call this hovel, this swill, hospitality? Why, I have banqueted with kings, you boor."

"You pile insult upon injury," said Allan coldly. "I have no choice but to demand satisfaction according to the Code Duello. Name your second, Your Grace."

Flora tasted blood. Her stomach went hollow. Marion sank back into her chair, her complexion milk-white. "Oh, Allan, no."

"So the bumpkin plays at being a gentleman?" sneered Cumberland.

"My father is factor to Lord MacDonald, Your Grace. I have but lately served in His Majesty's militia. I am a gentleman."

"Then Captain Campbell will second me. And I offer you the services of Lieutenant Scott. They will provide us with their pistols."

More soothing murmurs came from Scott and Campbell, along with the clink of glass on glass. Flora suspected that additional punch and claret would not assist a peaceful resolution of the situation, but she had no idea what might do so. Should she try to persuade Allan out of his rash enterprise? Hardly. He'd look at her as though she'd lapsed into a tongue that he did not recognize. He could rightly claim that whilst he played the host here, this was not his house and he was not bound by hospitality to overlook such an infamous slur.

He was not bound by common sense, either, Flora told herself.

"As to duelling," Marion said weakly, "there is no case where one or other must die. If you have overcome your adversary by disarming him, your honor or the honor of your family is restored."

"Will either of these men stop at disarming the other?" returned Flora. "There is no rationality in dueling. Nor legality, come to that."

"No." Marion looked into her sewing basket, as though the answer were concealed there.

"For all his recklessness," Flora went on, "I do not wish Allan dead. But either the duke will kill him or he will kill the duke. And if he kills the king's son here, within reach of Argyll and the Royal Navy, then he is as good as dead. If the matter were tried in a Scottish court, with feelings running as they are now, he might be acquitted of the charge of murder. But not in an English court. They would inflict upon Allan the penalities they have been thwarted of inflicting upon the prince himself."

In the dining room Cumberland and Allan were still exchanging insults, somewhat slurred now but no less bellicose. Campbell's voice said something about dawn. Scott expanded upon the issue. "The wind may be in the man's face-he may fall-many such things may decide the superiority. In the daylight, though, such a matter of honor…"

Flora had little hope that in the morning the men would have forgotten the words exchanged in their alcoholic fever. "We must spirit His Grace away before he brings disaster upon us, unwittingly or no."

"He might be recognized upon the road by someone who has taken up the prince's cause," protested Marion. "Unless he is returned safely to his countrymen, we can expect reprisal. Better to have him wait here, and send his aides to Argyll asking for a troop of men."

"But then he would insist on settling his matter of honor with Allan, as Allan would with him…" Faintly but distinctly Flora heard shouts and the sharp discharges of firearms. She rose to her feet, but before she could peer cautiously out between the window shutters the rotund figure of Betty appeared in the doorway.

"What is happening?" asked Marion.

"A wedding party in the village."

"No one has married this week."

"Aye," said Betty, her voice dropping into a husky whisper and her eyes glancing toward the dining room. "I'm knowing that, and you're knowing that, but he's not knowing that, is he now?"

Flora had to smile, if half-heartedly. The villagers wished to celebrate the Pretender's-the prince's-victory without attracting the attention of Cumberland or any other Hanoverian supporters. How clever, to themselves pretend… Suddenly she knew the answer. Looking from Marion's sewing basket to Betty's furrowed countenance, she asked, "Has Donald returned from making his enquiries?"

"Oh aye. Argyll and his men are not to be found in these airts, but an English ship is sheltering in Loch Eishort."

"There you are, then!" Flora knotted her hands into fists. "Mother, I will convey the duke to that ship."

"How?" Marion demanded.

"To begin with, there are many ways of interpreting shouts and the discharge of weapons in the night. I imagine the villagers have a bonfire as well?"

"Aye, that they do," said Betty.

"Then this must be our strategy."

Mistress and maid shared a long speculative glance as Flora spoke, and offered more than a few words of dissent, but in the end they had to agree that of all their choices, Flora's plan was the only possible one.

The voices in the dining room rose. Chairs scraped. "I shall linger in this company no longer," said Allan. "Good night, Your Grace. Until the dawn." Uneven footsteps crossed the hall and mounted the stairs.

"Good," Flora said. "Allan has gone to his bed. May he sleep the deepest sleep of his life."

"Leave him to me." Marion slipped catfooted up the stairs, her passage marked only by the swish of her skirts.

Betty sat down, opened Marion's sewing basket, and threaded a needle. Squaring her shoulders, Flora marched into the dining room.

The three men stood together at the end of the table, inspecting a brace of pistols. The air was thick with the scents of food and sweat. Spilled claret stained the table linens, red as blood. That would be a difficult stain to eradicate, Flora told herself with a weary sigh. But first things first. "Listen," she said.

The three faces turned abruptly toward her. Scott's and Campbell's were tight and pale, Cumberland's swollen with self-righteousness. "Listen," Flora said again, and walked across to the window.

Another ragged volley of gunfire drew a similarly ragged response from the nesting seabirds. Now that they were silent the men also heard the sounds. They exchanged looks of apprehension.

Flora opened one of the shutters. A distant fire tinted the night orange. Praying silently that God would forgive her her lies-they were for the greater good, after all-she said, "Cameron's clansmen have braved the Sound, Your Grace, and are hot upon your heels. As yet they are contenting themselves with sacking the village, but soon…"

"Barbarian rabble," stated Cumberland.

Allan would know that Cameron of Lochiel would never allow his men to plunder-at least not until their mission had been completed. But Allan was not here to say so. Flora said, "Before long someone will tell them that you are within these walls, Your Grace. A ship of the Royal Navy is only a few hours' walk away. I will take you there. But we must leave now."

"I shall only leave after I teach your impudent puppy of a cousin his lesson."

Flora made a demure curtsey. "The truth of the matter, Your Grace, is that Allan is no cousin of mine. He is one of our servants. I beg your pardon on behalf of my family, but surely you will understand our predicament, three women alone in the house and brigands abroad."

Cumberland gobbled indignantly. "He is no gentleman? And I shared my repast with him!"

"Under such circumstances, Your Grace need have no scruple about abandoning this affair of honor."

Outside a single shot was followed by the concerted shout of several voices. Flora clung to her bashful mien even as her mind raced ahead. What if men from the village, encouraged by liquor, decided to raid the house and drag Cumberland away? She hoped they did not know about the reward.

"Your Grace," Campbell said, "I beg of you, heed this young lady, your loyal subject, and leave this place forthwith. In disguise, if at all possible, as we were seen arriving here. Miss MacDonald…"

Flora never thought she'd find cause to bless a Campbell, but she did so now. "An excellent idea, Captain." She heard Marion walking back down the stairs and edged toward the door.

"Disguise?" demanded Cumberland. "Infamy!"

"Greater infamy," Scott said, "to be taken by such a rabble. They are not even regular soldiers! Why, they might return us to Edinburgh, there to kneel before the Pretender."

Flora spared a blessing for Scott as well. "I should think these… irregular soldiers would care less for your sword, Your Grace, than your person. Imagine the smile upon the Young Pretender's face when he sees your head spiked above the gates of Edinburgh Castle. He would not then regret losing the opportunity to accept your sword in surrender, for you would have made an even more profound surrender to him and his house."

From the village came the brave skirl of bagpipes. The scarlet hue drained from Cumberland's porcine face.

"I know you find your own safety of little moment, Your Grace," Flora went on in her meekest voice, "but as a prince of the blood surely you will grant this house protection from reprisals by wearing a disguise."

"Very well then," said His Grace, with little grace indeed. "What is this disguise you have settled upon?

"Come with me," Flora said. And to the two aides, "You must hide your weapons away. Just now we cannot afford to call attention to ourselves."

She shooed the duke toward the parlor as though he were a particularly difficult sheep.

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