Lord of the Highlands

Page 48

Because, Felicity decided, she’d stay by Will’s side. No matter what.
Chapter 37
London, 1659
“Massey has been captured,” Ormonde said, scanning the pub nervously. His voice was hushed, even though they sat in what was the primary Royalist outpost in Croydon.
Though in the shadows, Will saw the intent clear in his friend’s eyes. “I see where this leads. But I fulfilled my promise. I delivered your letter. I bore tidings of Cromwell’s death, returned the King’s own correspondence back to you. My debt is paid, to you, to the Sealed Knot.”
“And a fine job you did,” Ormonde replied smoothly. “I hear the King is fond of you.”
“Mm-hm.” Will was too jaded to take the bait.
“It seems Charles took a liking to you from the very first,” Ormonde continued. “You met years ago, when he was first crowned at Scone Palace.”
Will gave a cynical shake of his head, remembering. “He says he’s fond of Perthshire.”
“Is that so?” Ormonde laughed and poured himself a finger more whisky. “And an honor it will be for you to attend Charles when he returns once more.”
“I care naught for court. I’ll not be there.”
Ormonde leaned back in his chair. Crossing his arms, he studied his friend. “So morbid you are, William.” Realization narrowed his eyes. “It’s that woman.”
“Aye,” Will replied, a challenge in his voice.
“She’s a strange bird.”
He swung his cane, quick as a musket flash, touching it to Ormonde’s throat. “I am not in the mood, friend.”
“Easy.” The redheaded man leaned away from the tip of Rollo’s cane. “I meant nothing by it. Such a puzzle you are.” Ormonde raised his glass to his lips, took a thoughtful sip. “So just summon her. You can both come to court. Lord knows it’s well past time for you to take a wife.”
“She’s gone . . . to a place from which she cannot return.”
“How terribly gloomy.” Ormonde leaned onto the table, steepling his fingers. “Fine, then. I’ll bite. Why not simply go to her?”
Will was silent for a moment. He decided there was no harm in telling the truth, a partial truth at least. “She’s too far away. In America.”
Ormonde spat the whisky from his mouth. “You jest.”
“When have you known me to jest?”
“When have I known you to brood over a blonde?”
“That’s enough.” Will saw what his friend was about. Ormonde was trying to take his mind from the issue at hand. But he wouldn’t be diverted. “I’ll speak no more about Felicity this night.”
His friend pretended to nose his drink, but Will saw the machinations at work. “Say it, Ormonde. Tell me your real purpose. Why am I sitting here with a belly full of whisky?”
“Massey,” Ormonde conceded. “He was captured in Gloucester, by the militia. It seems he planned a wee uprising that didn’t sit well.”
“That makes how many arrests for the man?” Will asked dismissively. “He’s been taken more times than a South Bank whore.”
“This is serious, Will. They plan to bring him to the Tower.”
“I’ve pulled my last man from the Tower,” Will snapped. When Ormonde didn’t reply, Rollo shook his head, in disbelief of what he saw coming. “Surely you have men closer to Gloucester than we are here. What of Oxford? Doesn’t the Sealed Knot have men in Oxford who could rescue him?”
“None as good as you, Will. And Massey’s not in the Tower yet. He’s still held in Gloucester. Child’s play for a man of your talents.”
“Your flattery may amuse, but it does naught to convince.”
Ormonde remained deathly silent, clearly thinking his uncharacteristic gravity would be the thing to convince Will.
“Massey will be fine,” Rollo said. “I’ve not enough fingers to count the times that man has escaped imprisonment.”
“This is different.” Ormonde raised his glass to drink, then put it down, thinking better of it. “Our enemies have become aware of his value. Massey joined Charles in exile. Became his pet.”
“I thought the King preferred spaniels,” Will replied dryly, referring to Charles’s famous hounds.
“Aye,” Ormonde laughed, unable to maintain his somber mask for long. “A nasty wee rat of a creature.”
Rollo ignored the jest. “Why didn’t the man just stay with Charles in exile?”
“We all have work to do here. We’re close, Will. So close.” Shoving glasses aside, Ormonde leaned in, elbows on the table. “England is in chaos. The army despises Richard Cromwell, they rally against him, call him Tumbledown Dick.”
“I heard it was Queen Dick,” Will muttered. “So, if you foment enough unrest . . .”
“The people will see the need to reinstate their king,” Ormonde finished for him. “Tumbledown Dick”—Ormonde gave a sly smile—“is close to resigning.”
“Because the army won’t follow him?”
“Precisely. And while Parliament and the army argue . . .”
“The King shall make his glorious return,” Will concluded. He spun his glass around and around on the table. “And Massey is key to this unrest.”
“Aye. Massey is a key player. We have momentum, Will. There are few men I’d entrust with such a mission. We need you. Just once more.”
Rollo nodded somberly, thinking he’d heard that line before. He studied his friend across the table. Wild red hair and the bright eyes of a boy. His friend needed him.
Will had nothing but his friends now. Felicity was never coming back. His love, gone from him forever. Without her, he had nothing left to live for.
“We need you, Will. Please, help us this one last time. And then you can go to her. Go to America.”
“I cannot.”
“Why not?”
“It’s impossible.”
“Impossible for you?” Ormonde raised his brows, confounded. “Why?”
Why indeed? Will tried to formulate an answer.
His father’s words came to him. Go to her.
And why not try? He’d likely not make it. He could die in the attempt. But death would be preferable to this grieving that choked him day and night.
“It’s not as though you’d be the first Scotsman to cross an ocean. Or . . .” Ormonde’s eyes lit. “Is it that you’re afraid of the sailing?”
“I am not afraid of sailing.”
“Good then.” The redheaded man smiled. “Then you’ll not be minding our plan.”
Will’s eyes narrowed.
“To save Massey,” Ormonde clarified.
“You’ve a plan already?” He canted his head in disbelief. “I’ve been taken.”
His friend chuckled. “We sail around. To the mouth of the Severn.”
“No boats,” Will snapped. “I will help you, but there will be no boats.”
“We ease along the passage,” Ormonde continued, ignoring him, “like the Viking ships of old. Come, now.” He shot Rollo a broad and challenging grin. “Your woman did call you a Viking, did she not?”
Chapter 38
The small fishing boat was cold, wet, and dark, and Will regretted that nobody was there to witness the scowl he wore openly on his face.
He despised boats.
“Far cry from a Viking,” he muttered. He sat on the floor of the hull, his back against the hard bench. The position did much to conceal him from view, but it did naught to soothe the ache from his bones.
The militia held Massey on a modest, twelve-oar birlinn. They’d boarded and would surely launch soon, and Will wondered just what was taking Ormonde so long.
The wait was interminable, and unfortunately it was giving him way too much time to think. Already his mind drifted to the future. Will kept reminding himself that anything less than total focus on the task at hand was dangerous, but thoughts of Felicity were irresistible.
Because he was going to find her.
Now that the notion had taken root, he was a man determined. As unlikely as it seemed, he would see her again. He adjusted his sporran in the darkness, thinking of the tattered star chart he still carried there. He’d return to the maze, go through himself, and he didn’t care if it killed him in the effort. Because if he couldn’t be with Felicity, he’d rather be dead.
Will had once thought it’d be the errand he ran for the Sealed Knot men that would kill him. But his father’s words resonated. Go to her. And the possibility would have to keep him alive, through just one more intrigue.
He wondered where she was. Wondered if he’d be successful, and where, or when, he would land. Would she have had their baby? Would he come upon her moments after she’d traveled back, or would he discover Felicity as an old woman?
He cared not. He simply wanted her.
Which meant he needed to survive the night.
And, curse it, Ormonde had convinced him of the damned boat. The Gloucester militia was shorthanded, and so transported their captive to the Parliamentary soldiers by water. A rescue by boat only made sense.
Which is why he found himself bobbing like some dour, godforsaken seabird in the waters just beyond Sharpness Dock.
Ormonde was ashore, where Rollo wished he were. The plan, for his friend to create a diversion, drawing the militiamen from the water. Will would’ve liked to join him on land, but the choice of roles was clear.
If they chase me, I can run. Ormonde’s words echoed in his head. His friend was fleet of foot, and without the aid of a horse, Will wasn’t fleet of anything.
His friend had spoken the words, then sensing the gaffe, had played it off. Said he’d taken the part of a crazed monk in their last outing, and now it was Will’s turn to have the more distasteful of jobs.
But Will knew. Though he could create a diversion, he was a cripple. The militia would run him to ground as surely as hounds did a fox.