CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 27

Alan was much safer in Morar than Niall and the prince were on the Long Island, but he too was looking for ways to escape.

"I must get a ship to France," he told Van a week after his arrival. "I cannot hide here in Morar forever."

"It isn't safe for you, Alan," Van said wretchedly. "And I don't know where to tell you to go."

"I'll go north, toward Skye," he returned. "The French must know the prince is in the Isles. There is a good chance of a ship in the Sound of Sleat."

"I wish you would stay here." Van looked at him worriedly. He had put on weight this past week, and he was clean and shaved once more. Why could he not stay in Morar?

"I am of no use to anyone skulking here in Rory's cottage," he answered when she expressed this sentiment. "And I may well be a danger to you when your husband returns. He will not like it, if you continue to shelter a government fugitive."

Van said nothing.

"I must go." They were walking together in a field of heather about a quarter of a mile from Rory MacIan's cottage. It was one of the rare days that June when the sun was actually shining. Alan stopped now and Van stopped also, "I must go," he repeated. "And you must stay here with your husband." His face was unutterably bleak.

"Alan." Van made a gesture with her hands and dropped her eyes. She could not bear to see him look so.

"It is not thus that I dreamed once of you and me," he said.

"I know." Her head was bent, her voice muffled. "I am so sorry, Alan."

"It is not your fault."

She looked up, her thin nostrils flaring. "When will you go?"

"Tonight." He forced a smile at her expression. "I will be all right, Van. I'm a dandy hand for skulking in the heather."

She laughed shakily. "The birthright of a Highlander."

"Aye." His mouth was smiling but his eyes were grave.

She drew a long breath. "I think you will be safe, so long as the prince is still in the Isles. The hunt is concentrated there."

"Aye. If the luck is with us, we will all get a ship together."

"Oh, God, Alan, I hope so!"

At that he reached out and took her hands. "I know I have no right to ask this of you, Van," he said intensely. "But will you kiss me good-bye?"

"Of course I will, Alan," she said immediately, and raised her face to his.

She knew, as soon as he touched her, that she had made a mistake. He kissed her passionately, intensely, with the hunger of a man long denied water who is finally brought to drink. And she felt nothing.

She smiled bravely when he stepped away from her. "May God keep you in the palm of his hand," she said.

"Farewell," he answered. "My love.". And she turned and walked away, walked over the mountains and did not look back.

She saw Alan Ruadh as she came by the vegetable garden. Edward was back.

She did not want to see him. She was afraid to see him. She went straight to her room and, thankfully, found it empty. She wished she could lock the door. Morag told her the earl was out, however, and she thought she was safe for a while.

She would change her clothes, she thought. She would change her clothes and after she had composed herself, she would go to sit in the drawing room. That was the best place to meet him.

She almost made it. One of the housemaids was fastening the hooks on her dress when the door opened and Edward came into the bedroom. Her head jerked up like a startled colt's and she stared at him out of dilated eyes. She could say nothing.

"Aren't you going to welcome me home?" His voice was pleasant but distinctly cool.

"Welcome home," she said. Her heart was plunging; she felt close to fainting. She made a tremendous effort and added, "I hope the weather did not catch you out too badly."

He shrugged and leaned his shoulders against the wall by the window. He was looking at the housemaid, not at her.

"Thank you, Fionna," Van said reluctantly. "You may go."

As the door closed behind the girl, Van turned slowly to look at Edward's silent figure. In the light from the window she could see the golden stubble of beard on his face. His eyes were as blue as sapphires— and as hard. Blue and gold he was; Saxon, with no trace of Celt about him.

And she loved him. Alan's kiss this afternoon had told her that with painful clarity. She had not married Edward to save Morar. It was no longer possible to hide behind that convenient excuse.

He looked so tall as he stood there next to the window watching her. So unyielding. "Did you see Mac Cailein Mhor?" she asked in a clear, steady voice that was forced out with all her remaining self-control.

"Yes."

"And what did you go to see him about, Edward?" Her heart was beating heavily still. She wondered that he could not see.

"I have been planning for some weeks to import food from Ireland in order to feed Morar," he answered. "I went to see the duke about the feasibility of getting food into Lochaber and Badenoch as well." His eyes were unfathomable as he watched her face. "The Duke of Argyll may be a Campbell, but he is also a Highlander and a Scot. He has no wish to see the innocent suffer for this unhappy rebellion. He has agreed that the Campbell militia will help get food into the areas that need it."

The room was filled with an intense silence. Van stared at her husband, her slender hands opening and closing on the folds of her yellow silk gown. Finally, "You have been planning to import food for some time? You never said anything to me."

"You must know that I have been visiting all the clan and checking the food supplies," he answered. He had not moved from his post by the window.

"Aye, but..." Her voice trailed off. She had not wanted to know what he was doing, had tried to avoid him as much as possible, had been so busy hiding from the knowledge forced on her today by Alan's kiss... "I suppose I was too concerned about my mother to take much notice," she said faintly.

"So I had thought. That was before I realized you were simply staying as far away from the 'lord conqueror' as you decently could."

It was a moment before she realized he was quoting her own words back at her. She had called him a lord conqueror, she remembered. She looked now at the flinty expression on his face and understood that she had hurt him deeply.

Oh, God. What a stinking, rotten, disgusting mess she was making of this marriage.

She turned her back. She could not bear to look at him, could not bear to see that expression on his face.* She closed her eyes. "I wish we were at Staplehurst," she said. "I wish none of this had ever happened."

She heard the sudden sharp intake of his breath. "Do you mean that?" he asked.

At the note in his voice she opened her eyes. "Of course I do. The prince has brought us nothing but sorrow."

"Not that." His voice told her he was coming closer and she turned to face him. He was looking impatient. "Do you mean what you said about wishing to be at Staplehurst?" *

She thought of the beautiful golden stone house, the green fields, the horses in their pastures, the peace... to be there with Edward, to be able to love him in rightness, with a whole heart. To be able make music again. "Oh, yes," she cried in an aching voice. "Oh, yes, Edward, I do!"

He was looming over her, the golden stubble on his cheeks very evident now he was so close.

"Christ." Then he was holding her against him, holding her so tightly that her ribs ached. She didn't care, but flung her own arms around his neck and blindly lifted her face to his. She kissed him passionately and saw in his narrowed, concentrated eyes what was in his mind. The strength gave way in her knees and she swayed against him. Everything in her gave way. He might do with her as he liked. She didn't care about herself anymore, could not bear to be only herself, alone. So lonely. It was so lonely without him. Edward. She quivered all over as he unhooked the gown Fionna had just fastened, and reached up eagerly to draw him to her when he came to her on the bed.

He slid into her slowly and they lay very still for a long time, holding each other, scarcely breathing, afraid to move because that would trigger passion and they did not want passion just yet, only this quiet, this blissful, quiet union. Finally, however, the male in Edward could take no more, and he stirred and moved, and very shortly had brought them both to a familiar precipice from which they plunged wildly to earth, together.

"I will send the Sea Queen to Dublin as soon as she returns from France," Edward said to Van as they sat together in the office the following morning going over lists.

"There will be an influx of refugees into Morar once word gets out what you are doing," Van said.

He was looking at a paper, a very faint frown between his brows. "I don't care about that," he said absently.

Van's eyes were troubled. "What will the government say?"

His frown deepened very faintly. "I don't care about that, either." His eyes looked steadily into hers. She was seated on the opposite side of the desk, directly across from him. "I will give no shelter to Charles Stuart, though. Van. I promised the duke and I mean to keep that promise. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." It was the greatest effort of her life to sustain that blue gaze.

"I don't care about these other wretched souls," he went on. "Shelter as many old friends as you wish. But not the prince." There was a long silence as their eyes held. Then, "Do I have your promise on that, Van?"

Her face was bloodless. The skin under her eyes looked bruised. He knew what he was forcing on her but he felt it was necessary. "Do I have your promise, Van?" he asked again.

Her pale lips moved. "Yes," she said. "I promise."

It was the night of June 21, the shortest night of the year, when Niall and Charles Stuart walked over the moor to the summer shieling in South Uist, where Flora MacDonald was tending her brother's cattle. Neil MacEachain hid them in a barn while he went to talk to Flora. The moon was bright as Niall and Charles watched the schoolmaster cross the yard and enter the small house.

"If we do not get off this island very shortly, MacIan," the prince said somberly, "we are done for."

Niall knew he was right. The hounds were yapping at their heels and escape across the sea was their only hope. In the semidarkness of the barn the two pairs of eyes, one light and one dark, met and held. "I shall never forget you, my friend," said Charles Stuart.

Niall's teeth flashed white in the blackness of his beard. "I will hold your highness to that promise when you are come into your own." After a moment the prince grinned back. "Here is MacEachain," Niall said, his eyes swinging over Charles's shoulder to the man approaching them from across the yard.

"Come with me," said the schoolmaster, and the two figures followed him to the shieling, where they entered through the low door, ducking their heads in similar gestures. They were greeted by a grave-faced girl in her early twenties, who curtsied to Charles.

"Mistress MacDonald's stepfather is Hugh MacDonald of Armadale in Skye, your highness," MacEachain explained. "He is an officer in the militia and could certainly issue Flora a passport to cross to Skye to see her mother." MacEachain looked at the girl. "And, Flora, could you not also get a passport for a servant to accompany you?"

Flora MacDonald's serious young eyes looked troubled. She looked at the prince. "I would like to help you, your highness, but my stepfather is a captain in Sir Alexander MacDonald's regiment. It would go hard with him should Sir Alexander find out that I had assisted in this deception."

"Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat is one of the two great lairds of Skye, sir," Niall explained in a brief aside to the prince.

"Aye," said Flora. "And he is for the government."

"Sir Alexander is at Fort Augustus, Flora," Neil MacEachain said persuasively. "And you have good cause to go to Skye to visit your mother. There is no reason for anyone to know of your part in this affair."

Still the girl hesitated. Niall held his breath. If this chance should fail, they were doomed. He felt it in his bones. The hunt was too close for them to escape it much longer.

The prince smiled at Flora, training on her all of the legendary Stuart charm. Ragged and bearded though he was, the charm was still potent. Thousands of men had gone to their graves during the last one hundred years because of the Stuart charisma. "I beg you, Mistress Flora," he said. "Will you not help your prince?"

Flora was no more proof against that plea than Alasdair MacIan had been. She wavered visibly and then, against her better judgment as well, she said, "Yes, your highness. I will help you."

It was only then that Niall discovered that he had been holding his breath.

Flora agreed to leave for Benbecula immediately to secure the passports to cross to Skye. Niall, the prince, and MacEachain made for the hill of Hekla, where they could look across the shining water-patched lowlands of South Uist to the ford that led across to Benbecula. They settled themselves under a large rock and tried to get some sleep.

They waited for the entire day of the twenty-second. There was no word from Flora. By nightfall they were restless, as well as extremely hungry. MacEachain volunteered to go to Benbecula to try to discover what had happened to Flora.

Charles and Niall spent a very long night under their rock. Niall dozed fitfully, dreaming of Jean. He fell into a deeper sleep close to morning and, as happened too often, the nightmares moved in. He woke from the horrors of Culloden to find the prince's hand on his shoulder, shaking him roughly. He opened his eyes fully and saw Neil MacEachain approaching their rock. Niall sat up, fully alert.

"What has happened?" Charles demanded as soon as the schoolmaster was within earshot.

"Flora was detained at the ford by the militia the other night, and they arrested me as well," MacEachain explained breathlessly. "However, all is well now. MacDonald of Armadale, Flora's stepfather, arrived in Benbecula and he will issue passports for Skye. We are to meet Mistress MacDonald at Rossinish to make the crossing."

The trip to Rossinish, through closely guarded country, to a shore under constant patrol, was a new chapter to be added to Niall's collection of nightmares. It had begun to rain again, heavy and merciless, and they sheltered under rocks as best they could, dodging the militia, getting thoroughly drenched and bitten by the midges that had come out with the warmer weather. At last they reached the bothy near Rossinish where they were to wait for news from Flora. Wrapped in their plaids, a weary Niall and Charles lay down in front of a smoky peat fire and slept like schoolboys.

In the morning they were visited by two young MacDonald militia men, who told the prince that a boat had been made ready and they were to be the crew.

"God bless the MacDonalds," Charles said with a laugh when the two youngsters had gone out into the yard.

"The MacDonalds are not traitors, whatever the service they may be forced to join," said Niall of the militiamen.

For a brief, glorious moment, it seemed that Benbecula was free of the hunters. Lady Clanranald arrived at the bothy during the course of the afternoon, along with Flora and her brother Angus. They found Niall, the prince, and the two young MacDonald militiamen cooking dinner. There was a great deal of laughter as the whole group sat down to eat, particularly when Lady Clanranald disclosed the news that they had decided to disguise Charles as a woman servant in order to throw off suspicion. His name was to be Betty Burke.

It was Niall, who had gone to the door for a breath of air, who first saw the man running toward the bothy. The runner brought fearful news. General Campbell had just landed on Benbecula with a force of fifteen hundred men.

The merry party immediately broke up and, on the advice of Lady Clanranald, moved hastily to another bothy on the shore of Loch Uskavagh. The news at the loch, however, was no better. Captain Fergusson, leading an advance party of General Campbell's men, was at Lady Clanranald's home at Nunton. Further news was that the hated Captain Scott was also approaching the area with another large company of men. According to the scout, the government forces in the area amounted to about twenty-three hundred men.

Lady Clanranald departed immediately for home to try to save her roof from burning. Left in the bothy, Flora and the men made their plans. Flora's passport was for herself, a maid, and a manservant. Charles was to be the maid and Niall the manservant, and the prince, with numerous curses, donned the women's clothes Lady Clanranald had supplied.

The boat was in the loch, a small shallop of less than eighteen feet, and they waited until the sky darkened to board. They had to row for the first four hours, but then the wind came up and they raised the sail.

At two o'clock the following afternoon they landed on a beach near Kilbride. They were in Skye.

Lady Margaret MacDonald, wife of Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat, was entertaining Lieutenant MacLeod of the local militia in her dining room when word was passed to her that the prince had landed on her beach. Sir Alexander was a staunch government supporter and Lady Margaret was a Jacobite. She had no wish to see the prince taken, but neither did she wish to compromise her husband's position. Lady Margaret was in a quandary. In desperation she sent for her factor, MacDonald of Kingsburgh, and the two quickly made their plans.

Niall, who had been the one to bring the news of their landing to Lady Margaret, was dispatched back to the beach to send Flora to the house to talk to Lieutenant MacLeod. The militia had orders to search all ships coming from the Long Island. Flora must show her passports and convince the young man that it was not necessary for him to physically inspect the boat's passengers.

Kingsburgh, the prince, and Niall conferred on the beach and it was decided the fugitives should spend the night at Kingsburgh's house. Niall was dispatched back to Sir Alexander's to fetch Flora and bring her as well. Flora bade farewell to a charmed and well-fed Lieutenant MacLeod and a nervous Lady Margaret, who provided them with horses, and set off with Niall for the house of Kingsburgh, some seven miles distant. About halfway there they caught up with the prince and Kingsburgh, who were on foot.

It was Sunday evening and there were people on the road coming home from church. Niall saw immediately the astonished looks directed at Kingsburgh and his odd, gawky companion. As Niall and Flora came up behind them, Charles waded across a small stream, lifting his skirts immodesty high. The sight would have been funny, Niall thought, had it not been so dangerous. He spoke to Charles in a low, urgent tone. "For God's sake, sir, take care what you are doing or you will certainly discover yourself."

Charles looked around, startled, and then he grinned. At the next stream he deliberately let his skirt hang so long it trailed in the water.

It was nearing eleven o'clock when they finally reached Kingsburgh's house. They fell into bed, exhausted. Niall felt as if he were in heaven; it was the first time in months that he had slept between sheets. But the morning brought no further comfort. Militia units were stationed all over the shores of Skye.

"You are not safe here," Kingsburgh said. "You must get away from Skye."

"And go where, for God's sake?" Charles demanded angrily. He too had enjoyed his night in a comfortable bed and was loath to leave.

It was Niall who answered. "We must get across to the mainland, sir." Niall looked at Kingsburgh. "Is that possible?"

"I can get you to Raasay, I think," Kingsburgh returned, frowning. "The Laird of Raasay's eldest son, young Rona, will help. Raasay was with your highness's army, you will remember, but young Rona was left at home to fabricate an appearance of government loyalty and so save the estate from confiscation. From Raasay you may be able to cross to the mainland."

"But where on the mainland are we to go?" Charles asked impatiently. "There are government troops all over the west."

"Not in Morar," said Niall. "Morar is presently under the protection of the Earl of Linton, who is married to my sister."

"Linton!" said Charles, clearly surprised. "The Romneys of Linton are Whigs, MacIan, and no friends to the Stuarts."

"And that is why no one will look for you in Morar, sir." Niall's light eyes were glowing. "My sister will help us. There is a cave we both know of that is perfectly hidden. If we can go to ground for long enough, the hunt may go elsewhere. Then, with the seas clear, the French will be able to send us a ship."

Charles looked thoughtful. Then he said slowly, "Very well." He gave Niall a weary smile. "It is a destination, at least. Let us go to Morar."