Annabel reached slowly for the table knife. She’d never felt such hatred for anyone until now. The English captain surveyed those in the hall with the same manner of disgust as when she’d first met him. Her hand itched to slap his arrogant face and embed the knife deep in his black heart.
She whispered to Angus, ‘Roderick said the captain was weel clear of clan lands. That he nae longer posed a threat to us.’
‘Aye,’ said Angus. ‘He did.’ His words held a trace of fear. He stood and projected his voice down the length of the hall. ‘The laird is not here, Captain. I suggest ye return another time.’
‘I’m not here to speak with your laird, or you, old man.’
Angus braced both fists on the tabletop and leaned forwards. His knuckles turned white. ‘Then for what reason do ye so boldly enter Finvreck?’
The captain’s beady eyes homed in on Annabel. Resolute and unafraid of him, she rose from her chair, lifted her chin and challenged his direct stare.
His cold smile morphed into a sneer. ‘I’m here to arrest the laird’s lady.’
Clansmen surged forwards, merging to obstruct the path between the captain and Annabel. Simultaneously, the Redcoats raised and aimed their muskets against the human barricade.
In the commotion, Annabel discreetly pocketed the knife in her skirt and yelled over their heads, ‘Stop!’ She was moved beyond words to see Roderick’s clansmen so quick to defend her.
Angus stayed her with a hand on her arm when she attempted to leave the dais. ‘I’ll deal with this.’
‘Nae. I willnae have yer people risk their lives for me. I will deal with the captain.’
Angus limped after her. The crowd stood their ground, reluctant to let Annabel pass, but at a nod from Angus, clansmen parted and let her through. Their watchful eyes gave her determined reason to walk with confidence, and to face her foe. Tension in the room mounted with her every step. She caught sight of Gillis and Darach pushing their way through the crowd to fall in beside her. She stopped but a matter of feet in front of the unwelcome Sassenachs.
‘We outnumber ye, Captain. Even if yer men each fired a shot, they’d be set upon before given a chance to reload. I suggest they lower their weapons.’
The captain’s eyes narrowed to thin slits. Clearly, he resented being told what to do. Especially by a woman. A click of his fingers, and his men obeyed.
Annabel stood taller than he and took pleasure in looking down on him. ‘Ye say ye’ve come to arrest me. On what charge?’
His face held a certain pleasurable anticipation. ‘Of sympathising with Jacobite rebels. You’re guilty of treason and stand outside the protection of the law.’
Annabel pretended, what she hoped, was believable shock. She took a breath and let it catch in her throat. ‘Treason? Jacobite rebels?’ She widened her eyes and feigned a shaky, disbelieving voice. ‘And who is it that accuses me of this crime?’
‘I do.’
‘Based on what?’
He reached into his coat pocket. Foreboding dread unsettled Annabel when he produced and unfolded a blood-spattered parchment for her perusal. She immediately recognised the drawings and symbols on it. A sudden coldness hit her bone deep.
Raibeart! Was he alive, or dead? She should have taken the parchment from him and destroyed it.
Now she fought to hide her guilt, knowing the captain studied every nuance in her shifting expression.
Her gaze lifted to his. ‘Ye accuse me of treason based on what looks to be bloodstained parchment with a sketch of a woman, a castle and coastline?’
‘This woman is a redhead. As are you.’
‘’Tis a common trait among Highland women. Is it yer intention to round up and arrest us all?’
The facetious remark merited a laugh from the clan, causing the captain’s face to redden with heated anger.
His finger flicked the parchment. ‘This woman, drawn in your likeness, is marked with the Jacobite rose. I stand in the same godforsaken stone fortress as the one implicated here’—he flicked the parchment a second time— ‘and on this particular stretch of coastline. Do you believe these facts to be a coincidence?’
‘Facts? I believe, Captain, that anyone could have drawn this. Even ye.’
His lips compressed into a thin line. Annabel looked down to see his hand curl into a tight fist, as though he meant to strike her. To her surprise, he laughed.
‘Such a convincing game you play, lass.’ He looked around the hall. ‘Together with such loyal subjects. How very amusing. Before I leave …’
Annabel exhaled a slow breath for the length of his pause, thinking she’d successfully escaped persecution. Until that smug smile settled back into place.
‘I wish to show you something of interest in the courtyard. Come. Follow.’ He and his men about-faced and vacated the great hall.
Annabel leaned close to Angus. ‘Stay and settle the clan. Gillis and Darach will accompany me.’
‘I dinnae trust him,’ warned Angus in a harsh whisper.
Darach and Gillis agreed.
‘Nor do I,’ said Annabel. ‘But paper and sketches are nae enough to arrest me. I’ll follow, if only to humour him. I want him gone from here. The sooner the better.’
Angus opened his mouth to protest but Annabel spoke first. ‘I need ye here to reassure and settle the clan. Please.’
She pretended a brave face and smiled to the assembly at large. ‘A simple misunderstanding. Go back to yer meals, good people.’
Angus reluctantly did as she’d asked. Annabel walked with Gillis and Darach to the keep’s entrance. The two warriors at her side muttered curses, condemning the captain to hell.
In the courtyard, clan folk stared with disdain at the Sassenach invasion, wisely keeping their distance from Hubert Stokes. Grey clouds gathered overhead, casting an even gloomier shadow on the captain’s presence. Annabel counted ten Redcoats in all, including the captain, the same as when she’d first encountered them on the road. Four sat astride their horses, muskets raised at the ready. The remainder stood in a cluster behind their captain.
He stood at ease. His cold eyes and calculating smirk induced a shiver in Annabel. ‘What is it ye want me to see?’
Yellowed teeth showed through a thin smile. ‘Your treasonous accomplice.’
Stokes stepped aside. The men at his back parted and thrust forth to the muddied ground a man whose hands were tied behind his back. The man struggled to his knees, slow to lift his head.
Raibeart!
The sight of his badly battered face and swollen eyes turned Annabel’s stomach. Anger soared. She threw the captain a damning look before going to Raibeart and assisting him to his feet.
He rasped in her ear, ‘I’ve told him nothing. Deny ye ken me.’
‘You go to the aid of a traitor?’ said the captain.
Annabel retaliated. ‘I go to the aid of a clansman.’
‘And he is guilty as charged. Your laird may have led me astray but my scouts found the wretch skulking in a nearby cave.’ Stokes waved the bloodied parchment in the air. ‘This was found on his person. Do you know him?’
‘Nae.’
‘I say you do.’
‘I’m nae yet acquainted with the entire MacLeod clan, and ’tis nae crime to seek refuge inside a cave. Even I have had cause to do so.’
Stokes raised a brow. ‘I can’t imagine for what reason a laird’s daughter would hide inside a cave.’
‘Inclement weather.’ She spread her arms wide, palms facing up to catch raindrops that had begun to fall. ‘I enjoy long walks. Highland weather is unpredictable.’
Stokes drew his lips back in a snarl. ‘And how do you explain this damning evidence found on his person?’
‘Found? Or intentionally planted on him?’
Stokes took a step towards her. His jaw ticked. ‘You accuse me of being corrupt?’
Corrupt, dishonest, and all that is considered reprehensible. ’Nae,’ she lied, placing herself between the captain and Raibeart, ‘but yer treatment of this man is unwarranted—’
‘You, a treasonous Jacobite bitch dare preach to me about unwarranted?’
‘Ye accuse me and this man of crimes for which ye have nae convincing proof.’
Stokes waved the parchment in her face. ‘This is evidence enough to arrest you both. The London courts will determine whether you swing from the gibbet or not, or perhaps that’s too good a death for one with a tongue so sharp as yours.’
He swung round to his men. ‘Seize her!’
In a flurry of movement, Gillis and Darach faced multiple muskets, preventing them from snatching Annabel from the clutches of two soldiers. Two more soldiers pointed their muskets at her, defying anyone to call their bluff.
The captain barked an order to the clansmen at large. ‘Bring me three of your sturdiest horses. Now. And strap to one as much whisky as it can carry. I know you heathens are good for it.’
Gillis pressed his broad chest against the musket’s barrel. In so doing, his brute strength forced the soldier back two steps. ‘Ye’ve nae right to take her,’ he yelled at the captain. ‘The laird will have yer head!’
Stokes pointed a long finger at Gillis and swept it in an arc around the courtyard. ‘And I’ll have yours and anyone else’s who attempts to interfere with my orders.’
‘Get back,’ warned Annabel to clansmen who’d stepped forward with any thought to protect her.
‘Mistress!’ The high-pitched scream came from Jessie, who ran from the castle’s entrance. She came to a scudding halt and gasped, confronted by a soldier pointing his weapon at her.
A reassuring smile from Annabel did nothing to settle the maid’s distress. Instead, Annabel gave her something to focus on. ‘My cloak, Jessie. Fetch it.’
The maid lingered, wringing her hands before turning on her heels and disappearing back inside the castle.
Like ancient stones, Sassenachs and Scots stood still, each one watching the other. One false move from either side and tensions would flare. The silence filled with customary courtyard sounds of clucking chickens, the snuffles and snorts of penned pigs, the whinny of a horse and distant rumblings overhead.
The air was thick with rising fear, mixed with the scent of rain falling steady and light.
The farrier led three horses into the courtyard. He handed the reins of one to Annabel and discreetly whispered a warning in her ear. Dinnae drink the uisge-beatha! She glanced at the horse burdened with the cargo of whisky. The water of life had been contaminated. With poison? She could only hope.
On orders from Stokes, Annabel mounted her horse. She watched as a soldier claimed the third horse, a replacement for his. He ranted over how it had fallen lame when Roderick led them a merry chase in search of the fugitive.
The remaining soldiers on foot swung up into their saddles and trained wary eyes and weapons on those who looked set to challenge them.
Annabel twisted around in the saddle, her gaze searching the courtyard. If it was the captain’s intention to arrest Raibeart, then which horse was he to ride? Surely not the lame one?
Jessie’s reappearance distracted Annabel from this concern. The maid carried with her the hooded cloak, but with Stokes standing in her way she hesitated in her attempt to pass him.
‘’Tis all right,’ beckoned Annabel. ‘If I’m to endure the long and arduous journey to London, I’m sure the captain will not deny me the warmth of my cloak.’
Stokes waved Jessie on, only to then catch her by the arm and leer at her. The petrified maid looked no more hopeful of release than a mouse caught in the hooked beak of an eagle.
‘She’s right,’ said Stokes. ‘We’ve a long journey ahead of us and you look the perfect little whore to warm and amuse us men at night.’
‘Unhand her, Captain!’ Annabel came quickly to her maid’s defence. ‘Unless ye and yer men wish to be infected with the pox.’
A quick flush stained Jessie’s cheeks. Stokes recoiled from her. He spat on his hand and wiped it on his coat. ‘Heathen slut!’
Jessie ran to Annabel and passed her the cloak.
Annabel took it and leaned down to whisper an apology. ‘’Tis the only way I could think to save ye. Now go! Return to the safety of the castle.’
Jessie’s bottom lip trembled, her eyes wet. ‘The laird. He will come for ye.’
‘For his unborn child, perhaps,’ whispered Annabel. ‘But not for me. Now do as I say. Go!’
With a sob, Jessie sprinted towards Finvreck’s entrance just as Angus and Morag stepped outside. Their faces drained of colour when confronted with the events unfolding in the courtyard.
Angus swung his gaze from Raibeart to Annabel and back to the captain. ‘What’s the meaning of this?
‘This?’ Stokes sidled up to Raibeart. ‘This here is the Jacobite rebel your laird hoped I wouldn’t find.’
‘Roderick kens nothing of this man.’
Stokes exaggerated a sigh. ‘And I imagined your laird possessed some degree of intelligence. Not the smartest heathen in the Highlands then, is he?’
To the clan’s horror, Stokes unsheathed the sword at his side and thrust it deep into Raibeart’s chest.
The sudden act of violence, together with the sickening sound of slushy, punctured flesh, drew a collective gasp. Without thought, Annabel cried her conspirator’s name.
Stokes stared at his victim still skewered by the sword, seemingly fascinated by the dying man coughing up blood. ‘So. The bitch knows you after all?’
He braced the sole of his military boot against Raibeart’s groin and withdrew his sword from the body. Raibeart collapsed in a lifeless heap. Crimson blood stained the earth, there to mix with mud and steadily increasing rain.
Stokes wiped the bloodied blade on the dead man’s jacket. He put the metal tip inside the throat of the scabbard and leisurely sheathed his sword.
His gaze slid to Angus. ‘No need to thank me.’
Angus wore the face of fury. ‘Why?’ he demanded, clenched fists shaking at his side. ‘Why are ye doing this? Why kill him?’
‘He is of no use to me.’ Stokes stole a glance at Annabel. ‘She is.’ He rolled his shoulders back and laughed. ‘Haven’t I bagged a trophy? The traitorous daughter of one laird, and wife to another! Delivering such a prize to the Crown is a golden feather in my retirement cap.’
Annabel’s heart pumped with rage. Raibeart’s cold-blooded murder added fuel to her desire for vengeance. She drew comfort from the weight of the knife hidden in the folds of her skirt. She’d use it to take the captain’s life before she drew her last breath.
Angus raised his voice and a fist. ‘I’ll kill ye!’ He managed one step forwards before Morag held him back.
‘With that limp, old man, you’ve as much fight in you as my soldier’s lame horse.’
Enraged, Angus wrenched free of Morag.
‘Nae, Angus!’ shouted Annabel. ‘There’ll be nae more violence here today.’
She looked at Gillis and Darach with steady resolve, then swept her gaze around the courtyard. ‘I go willingly with the captain. I’m nae afraid to face the charges held against me, nor do I fear my fate. Ye all have been kind to me. For that, I thank ye.’
The rain began to hammer down. Annabel threw the cloak about her and snapped the hood over her head. She was mindful of getting the unpredictable captain away from the clan and said to him, ‘If ye’re not quick about it, I’ll lead yer men to London.’
Stokes swung up onto his horse. He settled in the saddle with an air of cruel superiority. ‘Jacobites are not destined to lead. They’re destined to die.’