Chapter Twenty-Six
Mara stood holding her breath while she watched Diarmad Ramsay scale the wall of their prison. The place, not long ago a cupboard or storeroom, now contained little besides a narrow cot and a slop bucket, but the shelving gave Diarmad enough purchase to climb up and seize the window frame. That being done, he then pulled himself up by his arms in a show of easy strength.
The window, far too small to permit escape, let in only limited light and offered a narrow view of the inn yard. Mara waited while Diarmad surveyed it and descended once more.
He shook his head. “I can see little save soldiers stationed all about the inn. The commotion must be out front.”
Mara paced in the cramped space. “What do you suppose has occurred?”
“It could be aught, from the arrival of a messenger to another troop coming in. We shall have to wait and see.”
Wait they did. The time drew out, while the light coming through the window shifted and Mara’s terror faded into a persistent sickness in her gut that competed strangely with hunger and thirst. No one came near them to offer news or refreshment. At last she sank to the edge of the cot, even her nervous energy worn down.
“Surely,” she spoke after an interminable length of time, “if the king’s agent meant to drag us off to England, he would have begun the journey by now.”
“Aye,” Ramsay agreed.
“Waiting is so very hard.” To Mara’s dismay, tears flooded her eyes. She made a point of seldom weeping foolish tears. And in her opinion she’d already wept enough in Ramsay’s presence.
The last time, he’d kissed her tears away. For some reason that memory only made her weep harder now.
“Ah, lass.” He came and sat on the cot beside her, his warmth a balm. Before she could think to long for it, he gathered her into his arms and onto his knee.
Mara tucked her head beneath his chin and hung on tight. Was this the last time they would ever hold one another? All at once she could not breathe for fear of it.
“What if they separate us?” she whispered.
His arms clenched her spasmodically before they eased again. “I hope they do.”
“Eh?” She tipped her head so she could meet his eyes. “Why?”
His lips twisted in a grim smile. “If they drag me away to the south, I pray they leave you behind. I will do my best to argue for that, if given another chance.”
“But nay, we are in this together. Why should you pay the price alone?”
“Because my one comfort, should I face the block, would lie in knowing you still run free wi’ all your beautiful, wild courage.”
“Beautiful?” Mara repeated, plucking that word from the others. He had said that once before, but did he truly think her so? Her sister, Janet, had always been the bonny one. Mara’s flaming hair and freckles demoted her to what folks usually described as “spirited.”
“Och, aye,” he whispered, and ran his lips along her brow. “If the worst comes, Mara MacIvor, I will carry with me an image of you taking on that king’s agent with naught but a dirk in your hand.”
Ah, her nakedness: that explained it. But would she quibble? Nay—she would take any compliments that fell from this man’s lips, warm, soft, and winsome as those lips were.
She had just drawn breath to press her mouth against his when there came a jingle of keys from outside the door, which almost instantly flew open.
Ramsay leaped to his feet with Mara still clutched in his arms. The breath she had drawn suddenly scorched her throat.
Four guards stood clustered in the hallway outside. The foremost of them spoke. “Come.”
Ramsay stiffened. “I will come with you, but pray, leave my wife here.”
“Both of you!” The fierce brandishing of a sword accompanied the order. Ramsay set Mara down carefully and caught her hand.
Her heart thudded to her feet as they went, surrounded by guards. The soldiers’ grim expressions indicated she walked not to her release.
I was right; that was my last time in his arms. If only I might have had that kiss for comfort.
The main room of the inn, where they had been before, teemed with people and confusion. Mara saw Dwight with a number of his men gathered around him, along with a fellow she took to be the innkeeper and two additional men who stood under close guard.
Her breath caught in her lungs again, painfully, for one of those two looked remarkably like Prince Charles Edward Stuart.
Ramsay’s fingers contracted on Mara’s so hard it hurt. The soldiers herded them to the table where Dwight stood facing the other captives. They all stared at one another for a moment suspended in time.
And then, slowly, Ramsay sank to one knee. Startled, Mara followed.
****
He must be the Prince, the true Prince. Mara’s heart drummed in her chest even as her mind struggled over it. Given, she had seen Charles Edward only once, and that from a distance. But this man looked enough like the remembered face and form to be him, or his twin. And Ramsay had seen him more than once during the battle. If Ramsay knelt to him now, this must be the true Prince, indeed.
“Ah.” The word came from Dwight on a note of satisfaction. “So you acknowledge your Pretender!”
“Get up!” Charles Edward cried at almost the same moment. “Fools—I am not the Prince.”
Ramsay arose, dragging Mara with him, but kept his head bowed. “Of course you are not, my liege.”
Dwight grunted. “Is this not an interesting set of circumstances? I appear to have netted not one prince but two in these fecund western waters.”
Mara lifted bemused eyes to the pair, both males, who stood under guard. One wore the rough garb of a clansman in Gordon tartan. The other, quite resplendent, caused her eyes to narrow.
Was he or was he not? At second glance she could not be certain. Much of his glamour was lent by the clothes he wore—finer even than those given to Ramsay and blazing with the royal Stuart plaid.
His face, quite handsome beneath a head of well-dressed hair, now bore an expression of extreme consternation.
Dwight went on drawling in his hateful southern dialect. “I need only discover which prince I should haul away to Windsor and, undoubtedly, the block.”
“I have told you from the first,” Diarmad argued, “I am no prince. I am on my—”
“Wedding journey, yes,” Dwight finished it for him, “with a bride to boot. Our other royal guest has no such ready story and was apprehended attempting to board a boat some distance south of here. Bound for France, sir? Or just leading us on another merry dance among the islands?”
The Prince pressed his lips together and looked desperate. What, Mara wondered, would the true Prince say in these circumstances? Surely once caught he would own up to his identity and in all honor keep from letting blame fall on those who served him, would he not?
Then again, this might not be the true Prince. Mara had not laid eyes on the other decoys sent off to play their game. If this were one of them, would he not be sworn as were she and Ramsay to protect the Prince at any cost? Her head spun.
Ramsay squeezed her hand. He, clearly, had chosen his course and abandoned his role as Prince. Mara could not quite decide how she felt about that. It bent his honor, aye—yet he did it for her sake.
“I demand you let me and my wife go,” he said to Dwight, “as you now have your quarry.”
“You do a lot of demanding,” Dwight spat. “There is still the small matter of the arms you bear and the fact that your wife bloodied me.”
Ramsay lifted his head. “My wife is a woman of spirit and, er, her passions were enflamed at the time. I am that certain you will no’ wish to bother wi’ us,” he nodded at the other captives, “now that you ha’ bigger fish to fry.”
“But,” the Prince spoke, his honor apparently no brighter than theirs, “I have been telling you all afternoon, I am not the true Prince. There was a scheme—decoys were sent out. For all I know, these two are part of that.”
“Eh?” Ramsay stiffened in apparent outrage. Mara realized with some shock that their lives now rested on his talents as an actor. “Would you accuse me of such treason?”
“He accused you and himself,” Dwight said thoughtfully, and the Prince bit down on his own tongue. “It seems,” Dwight went on, “I am faced with a choice. Drag all of you to Windsor or just the most likely pair.”