Lord of the Highlands

Page 31

“Dead. A dead Wallace,” he mused. “Your father . . . was a Royalist, I think.”
“I . . .”
“He was,” Robertson shouted triumphantly. “I can see it on your face. Listen well, girl. Royalists find no ally in my parish. Though I am more . . . discreet than others. Your death, should it come, won’t be some tedious political commentary.” His gaze grew fever bright. “My dear, your destiny will be a spectacle greeted by a cheering crowd.”
He stroked her cheek with his thumb once more, and this time the grip of his hand held her in place. “I will not tell you twice. One way or another, Felicity Wallace, you shall submit to me. Or you shall perish in flames.”
Chapter 21
Will stooped over the desk, weighing his words. He’d found both paper and his father in the library.
He needed to make haste now. He would turn to the Sealed Knot, that secret society of men dedicated to the restoration of the King. Though he’d sworn never again to get pulled into their intrigues, never before had he something so precious to lose.
He would leave a letter, in the usual spot. And he’d wait.
He folded his note, tucked it in his sporran. His eyes lingered briefly over the velvet-wrapped bundle tucked there. Felicity’s gift. He’d see it in her hands if it killed him.
And kill him it might.
He looked to his father, and found the man had been watching him. A chill shivered over his skin. The thought that his father was trapped in his body was too much to bear.
“Da,” he rasped. “Would that you had some words of wisdom for your youngest son. I’d give the use of my good leg to hear your voice once more.”
Shuffling closer, Rollo pulled a chair before his father and sat.
“I must go.” He looked deeply into the man’s eyes. They were the hazel color of Will’s own, yet rheumy. The eyes of an old man. And Will too felt like an old man. Had become an old man on his seventh birthday, so many years past.
“I hate . . .” Rollo’s voice cracked. Would these be the last words he spoke to his father? He needed to weigh them carefully. “I hate to leave you. But I must go. They took her. Jamie had men come and take Felicity. Would that you could—”
“Aye,” the older man croaked, and Will startled at the sound.
“Och, Da, you speak to me.” A pang struck his heart, happiness and grief both.
The man blinked rapidly.
“Have you more to say?” Will sat on the edge of his chair, his heart hammering in his chest. His father—speaking.
The older man shut his eyes once, slowly and deliberately.
“Tell it,” he said urgently. “Do you know something?”
“K . . .” Trying desperately to make a sound, the man’s tongue flexed grotesquely, and spittle flew from his mouth.
“What?” Rollo gripped his hand. “Where? Do you know where they’ve taken her?”
“Kkkk . . .” The sound scudded along the back of his tongue.
“To the kirk?” Will asked eagerly. “Back to the church at Saint Serf’s?”
“Mmm . . .” A despairing sound echoed in the man’s throat. He shut his eyes. Opened them, trying again, his face red with the effort. “Kkkk . . . Kelt . . .”
“Kelt. Keltie?” Will asked suddenly. “They’ve taken her to Keltie Castle?”
His father blinked once, saw his son had understood, then shut his eyes from exertion.
“Thank you, Da,” he said quietly. He hesitated a moment, then clapped a hand on his father’s shoulder. Never had he shown his father affection. At least, not since the accident, which in some ways was the only measurable span of Will’s life. He leaned down now, kissed the older man on the head. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see.”
He straightened, overwhelmed by gratitude, love, and some other, indistinct feeling. Will thought perhaps it might be grief. For his own self.
“Keltie Castle,” he muttered, picturing at once the granite specter and its famed dungeon with walls nine feet thick.
He patted his sporran one last time, hoping Ormonde was out there somewhere. His friend was the only one Rollo trusted to help Felicity find her way home.
For Will would be of no help. Because, he vowed, he’d be giving his own life to save hers.
Ormonde came, finally, as Will knew he would. To place a note under a stone at Dupplin Cross was as good as putting correspondence directly into the Sealed Knot’s hands.
He’d had too much time to think, though, while he waited among the Forteviot castle ruins. Rollo had decided it only fitting that it was some ancient Pictish landmark that bore witness to his despair.
Resting his back against the cold stone, he fingered his gift to Felicity, marveling at what a wretch he’d become in so short a time.
For he knew what he must do. He would save her. He prayed he’d have the chance to give her this one gift.
And then Rollo would say good-bye.
For, even if he survived—and he doubted he would—she needed to return to her own home, her own time. It was far too dangerous for her to stay.
Fool. That strange and colorful card had been right. He’d been a fool. A fool to let himself get close to her. A fool to feel the warm flicker of hope in his chest. A fool to love her.
And now he was a wretched fool.
“Och, man,” Ormonde scolded. “Put that thing back in your sporran.”
“Aye.” Will tucked the velvet pouch away, then scrubbed his face with his hands. “We need a plan.”
“A plan. Yes.” Ormonde sat cross- legged across from Will in the grass and placed his hands on his knees in an exaggerated gesture of focus. “Let us assess. We are a cripple and a redheaded fugitive, come to secret a helpless waif from a castle full of religious zealots.” He gave a sage nod. “No, Will, I can’t see how storming this wee castle will pose a problem at all.”
“I need solutions, not sarcasm.” Even so, Rollo felt a glimmer of humor pierce his melancholy, and he welcomed it. He wondered if that weren’t the real reason he’d called on Ormonde above all others. The man had a way of cracking Will’s grim shell. “Don’t forget it was this cripple who pulled your arse from the Tower.”
“I’ll never forget it,” Ormonde said, and instead of laughing at Rollo’s momentary humor, he grew serious. “But you know what this means, Will.”
He gave a tight nod. He’d seen it coming. “Your letter. I’ll deliver it to the King.”
“You know the risk you take,” Ormonde said quietly. “Cromwell’s spies troll the English Channel. Many of our men have already been captured. Hanged.”
“Aye.” Will’s voice was tight, his face hardened to planes of steel. “My life matters not. It’s Felicity we must save now.”
“We shall try. But you need to be realistic. We are grossly outnumbered.”
“There must be something we can use against them,” Rollo said. “Some way to outmaneuver them.”
His friend snapped his fingers in mock excitement. “I know,” he said sarcastically, “how about we set off a flurry of fireworks . . . Chinese fireworks! A display so grand as to convince our God-fearing witch-hunters that the wrath of the Almighty is upon them. Apocalypse is nigh, etcetera.”
“Enough,” Will said sharply. He paused a moment, then, “Well . . . maybe.”
“Off to the Orient, are we?” Ormonde rolled his eyes.
“Quit your jesting,” Will told him. “Listen. We won’t storm the castle. We’ll bring the guardsmen to us. Blast our way in, perhaps, with black powder.”
“Impossible,” Ormonde replied at once.
“And that is precisely why they won’t expect it.”
“Bloody hell, Will. They won’t expect it because it’s impossible. You’ll bring the whole damned building down right atop your Felicity’s bonny head.”
“All right then,” Rollo said. “Smoke. We smoke them out, like rabbits from a hole. Create some sort of device that releases smoke, not fire.”
Ormonde stared blankly, then asked, “Where, pray tell, do you plan to find these grand stores of . . . what would we even use for that . . . saltpeter?”
“I’ll let your Sealed Knot men handle that. They owe me.”
“Aye, Will.” His friend grew somber. “As you will owe them, and tenfold.”
Chapter 22
It was the musket loops that finally convinced Ormonde. Keltie Castle was small, more a grand home than any traditional notion of a castle. Small holes called musket loops lined the front of the building, along the base, located in what would be the guardroom, from which guardsmen could point their muskets, shooting any who dared to attempt forced entry.
Will hoped Ormonde would provide enough of a distraction so that there’d be no gun barrels pointing through those loops, waiting to greet Rollo when the time came for him to toss his wee candles through.
“Hopefully we’ll not blow ourselves up,” Ormonde whispered, watching Rollo pour a measure of saltpeter into one of the makeshift vessels they’d fashioned from paraffin.
“It won’t explode.” Will tucked a strip of touchpaper in the powder, like a wick resting in lantern oil. The paper had been soaked in saltpeter and would burn slowly enough to allow Rollo to get away before his creation could quite literally backfire. “Though I’d not look askance at a good, rousing boom. Perfect,” he muttered, smoothing softened paraffin over the top to finish. “A perfect wee candle.”
“Are you certain this will be enough?” Ormonde asked him. “These will make enough smoke?”
“It’s not of your concern. You know what you have to do,” Rollo added, referring to Ormonde’s preposterous disguise, and the men’s low laughter broke the tension.
There had been much discussion over who would be forced to dress up and create a distraction. Will claimed it was his friend’s histrionic nature that awarded him the hon ors, but really it was that he’d not put Ormonde in any danger above and beyond what he was already being exposed to.