Chapter 1

Scotland

July 1746

I'm giving you a command, Colonel, one almost as vital as your mission. Stamp out this damnable insurrection. Execute every one of those miscreants if you must, but deliver the Highlands to me in peace.

The Duke of Cumberland's words echoed in Alec Landers's mind as he neared Fort William. Behind him rode five handpicked men who'd accompanied him from Inverness. Their conversation mingled with the jangle of harness, the clop of horses' hooves on the thick grass, and the moan of wind, forming a backdrop for his thoughts.

On the crest of a hill not far from his new post, he stopped and raised his hand. His men halted, remaining in position. Not one of them questioned his delay or why he dismounted and walked a few feet to the edge of the road. It would never have occurred to them to do so.

He stood staring down at the scene before him, memory furnishing the quiet moment with details.

For six years, from the time he was five until his eleventh birthday, their coach had stopped in exactly the same place. His mother would lean out of the window beside him in order to view her childhood home. Gilmuir sat like a welcoming beacon, a wondrous world that might have been created solely to grant her every wish. She would begin to smile in a different way than she did in England, as if she, too, threw off all constraints.

What would his mother think now, all these years later, to discover that Fate, or a vengeful God, had sent him back to her native country? A foolish question to ask because he'd never know the answer.

For most of the year this land was covered by a stark, inhospitable grayness, a monochromatic hue that announced it was Scotland. But now heather and thistles and wildflowers bloomed riotously over the hillsides, casting shadows among the green grass and clover. Loch Euliss was deeply blue, surface waves stirred by the sudden fierce wind.

A storm loomed, as if to greet him. The sunlight, diffused through the curtain of clouds, bathed the castle in an otherworldly light. It was a strange welcome to this place of memory.

The promontory was a place ideally suited to repel invaders. But the builders of the castle had not been prescient about English cannon or the anger of the Empire as they extracted revenge against the recalcitrant and rebellious Scots. Gilmuir had evidently been bombarded into submission and now nothing more than a roofless shell.

Will Gilmuir last forever, Grandfather?

As long as the sea, Ian. As long as the sea.

But it hadn't. Instead, it had fallen and now lay broken and shattered, a skeletal companion to the newly constructed Fort William.

Cumberland himself had chosen Alec among the cadre of officers in Flanders to accompany him back to Scotland to quell the rebellion. For his ability to stay alive in battle and for his greater capacity to remain silent and obedient, Alec had been given command of Fort William.

He'd wanted to protest, to give the duke some rational refusal of the post, but it would not be wise to tell Cumberland of either his heritage or his reluctance. The first could get him hanged; the second would only result in the duke's displeasure.

A mist was blurring the horizon, tinting the mountains blue. The glen was heavily forested on the western side, but on the east was cropped as cleanly as if sheep grazed on the grass. Below him, in a secluded corner of the glen, was the village he knew almost as well as Gilmuir. A clachan, the Scots called it. He had been a visitor to many of those houses, almost a third son in the place Fergus and James called home.

The stones of the cottages were tinged with green, moss having added its own hue over the years. Each was alike, a long rectangular structure intersected in the middle by a door and flanked by two tall windows. The thatching on the roofs had matted over the years until they appeared like crisp brown crusts on freshly baked bread loaves.

Yet another place of memory, one he would do well to avoid.

He mounted again, gave the signal, and began to ride toward Gilmuir, banishing all thoughts of the past. It was easier to concentrate upon his task, and the duty given him.

The sky was darkening even as the wind increased, the gusts blowing bits of leaves and grasses past the open door of her cottage. Leitis glanced outside. A beam of light suddenly speared a menacing cloud, brushing its outline in gold as if announcing the presence of God in the oncoming storm. Sadness seemed to linger in the air as if the earth prepared to weep.

Leitis closed her eyes, hearing the murmur of the threads beneath her fingers. The sounds became, in her longing mind, teasing conversation between her brothers. The wind, laden with the scent of rain, was not unlike the subdued laughter between her parents. The gentle kiss near her ear was not the air brushing a tendril of her hair, but a touch from Marcus as he bent close and whispered endearments.

Above the sound of the oncoming storm she could almost hear the music of the pipes. The tune pierced her heart, reminding her of times of welcome. In her mind, her younger brother Fergus waved to her from a nearby hill. Beside him, her older brother James grinned, glad to be home once more. Marcus, the man she was to marry this spring, walked with them, as did her father. He made a jest and all four men laughed, their heads tipped back, the sound of their merriment lost in the sound of the wailing pipes.

Spirits. All of them nothing more than spirits, summoned to her on this storm-filled summer day to wet her eyes once more.

The loom was a comfort. She had learned this skill when she'd been barely tall enough to sit on the carved bench. All of the memories of her life were entwined with the acts of her fingers and the touch of the threads. She'd been weaving when news had come of the prince landing at Loch nan Uamh. She'd finished a plaid just in time to drape over her father's shoulders as he led his sons off to bring Scotland's rightful king to the throne. Here, too, she'd been occupied when word had come of Culloden and the loss of life there.

The cottage had never seemed as large as it had this past year. The interior rock walls had been whitewashed years ago, the earthen floor tamped down by generations of feet until it was smooth as stone. The furniture was simple but built for wear—a large table of oaken boards surrounded by six chairs, a tall bureau that held her mother's treasure, a fine porcelain ewer, and a basin adorned with a pattern of purple flowers. In the corner, beyond the two partitions built by her father, was her parents' bed, and farther still her own. Her brothers had slept in the space above, reached by a ladder propped in the corner.

She was the only occupant of the cottage now. Her father, Fergus, James, Marcus, all gone. Her mother had died almost in relief only weeks after her sons and her husband had been lost.

The sound of the pipes grew, punctuating the far-off sound of the thunder. The MacRae Lament swelled, the music seeping into her bones and her very soul. She blinked open her eyes, suddenly realizing that the melody was too clear to be a memory. Too dangerous to be anything but foolish.

Not Hamish again.

She abruptly stood, pushing the bench beneath the loom. Walking to the open door of her cottage, she stopped for a moment, one hand upon the frame, the other tightened into a fist and resting in the folds of her skirt. The sound was not a dream, nor a fancy, but her uncle daring the English.

Perhaps the soldiers had not heard, and the people of Gilmuir would be safe from the consequences of Hamish's defiance. Even as she had the thought, she chided herself for the foolishness of it. The music of the pipes carried well over glen and hill.

Reaching for the shawl hung on a peg by the door, she covered her head and walked quickly from the cottage, cutting in front of Malcolm's puny garden and up the cleft created between two gentle mounds of earth. A well-worn footpath led to the hills above her, a journey she knew well.

The wind pressed her dress against her body and blew her hair back. Nature was a lover in that moment, caressing her ankles and wrists and throat, bathing her in a kiss that tasted of moisture and sunlight in one.

A flash of lightning taunted her, reminding her that it was not the wisest thing to be climbing a hill in a thunderstorm. Still, there was less to fear from nature when mankind was loose on the earth. A lesson she had learned this past year.

She climbed up the rolling earth, past the gathering of flowers. The primrose with its yellow center and bright pink blossoms bobbed in the gusting breeze as if welcoming her. The thistles were proud things, tall and spiky, their large-headed blooms a bright yellow or purple. The harebell had a delicate stem and pale blue nodding blooms and was her favorite of all the flowers. It was hardy and thrived despite its fragile appearance.

The glen was bordered on one side by dense forests, thick pines crowning a knoll that provided a commanding view of the countryside. It was there she sought out her uncle, knowing that it was a favorite spot of his. She followed the path upward, ducking beneath low-hanging limbs and pushing her way through the undergrowth.

The hillock was bared of trees like a bald man's pate. Once, a giant pine had stood here, sentinel for the forest. But it had been struck by lightning years before and had fallen to the ground so hard that the earth had shuddered.

To her right was Gilmuir. Veiled in the morning mist, it looked whole again, and if she squinted, she could almost pretend that smoke emerged from its four chimneys and the courtyard was filled with people all going about their business. Lively ghosts crafted by her wishes.

The squat fort beside it could not be ignored, no matter how much she wished it away.

To her left the forest stretched up over rounded hills, then undulated down into a neighboring glen. Ahead was the loch, and beyond it the firth leading to the sea. A vast place, she'd been told, where a ship might travel for weeks without viewing land. But the reward was the sight of places that sounded mystical and almost frightening—Constantinople, China, Marseilles.

She pushed a few branches out of the way to see Hamish standing there defiantly, dressed in his kilt. Nestled in his armpit was the deflated bladder of his bagpipes. His back was to the newly constructed Fort William. A mischievous breeze blew the rear of his kilt up, but he didn't appear at all concerned that he bared his arse to the English.

"It is a foolishness you do, Uncle," she said with asperity.

He frowned at her, his fierce expression reinforced by the fact that his brows, white and furry like overfed caterpillars, grew together over the bridge of his nose.

"I'll not be scolded by a slip of a girl," he said fiercely. "Especially not about the pipes."

"I've not been a slip of a girl all these many years, Uncle, and you know it," she said. Placing her fists on her hips, she glared at him. "And playing the pipes is outlawed now, or have you forgotten that?"

"An English law. Not mine." He drew himself up to his full height and stared up at her.

It was difficult to see him at that moment. Once a broad bull of a man, he'd shrunk in the last two years. His beard had whitened to match his hair. But he still bore a look of stubbornness about him.

"There are young ones in the clachan, Uncle, who do not deserve to suffer." The English would enforce their laws despite Hamish's defiance and bluster. The soldiers at Fort William were never going away, a fact she regrettably understood, but one Hamish did not yet comprehend.

"Come away," she said kindly, reaching out for his arm. But he had ceased to listen to her. Instead, he had turned and begun to play his pipes again. She glanced at him, then beyond to Fort William. The soldiers spilled out of the fortress like a determined column of red ants. A foolish wish, indeed, to hope that he had not been heard.

"The English are coming," she said, resigned to another visit from Major Sedgewick. Another threat, another act of cruelty. What would he do today? Take away their livestock? It was gone, all the cattle and sheep. Trample their crops? Already done. Take their possessions? He'd already stripped the village of all those valuables not concealed in the neighboring caves.

"You should hide the pipes," she said, biting back a more severe retort. It was worthless to be angry with him. In some ways he still lived in the past, when the MacRaes had been kings of this land. "Hide yourself as well, Hamish," she cautioned.

She left him without turning to see if he took her advice. Hamish would do as he wished, regardless of what she said.

By the time she'd descended the hill, the English soldiers had reached the village. Those people who were not quick enough to gather were roughly pulled from their cottages. Twenty-seven of them left, where once there had been over three hundred. But that had been in her youth, when the only English troops in Scotland had been General Wade with his eternal road-building.

She walked swiftly to the gathering place in the middle of the village. Major Sedgewick sat upon his horse, his officers similarly mounted and surrounding him. He was dressed in his usual fashion in a square-cut red coat, the lapels pinned back. His breeches were blue, his boots and belt of buff leather. His hair, golden and clubbed in the back, was lit by a last gleam of sunlight spearing through dark, boiling clouds.

She reached up with one hand and gripped her shawl tightly, engaging in a tug-of-war with the fierce wind, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Instead, it was the look in Sedgewick's eyes as his gaze rested on her.

"What will they do, Leitis?" Dora asked from beside her. The older woman's face was tight with worry. Leitis only shook her head, uncertain.

"What else can they do?" Angus asked. He leaned heavily on his cane and frowned at the English soldiers.

The major reminded her of a rat, with his narrow face and pointed teeth. He had carried out his orders with great zeal. A lesson, then, about the English notion of victory. Keep people hungry and they will have no will to rebel. Watch as they bury first the old and then the young, and soon enough they will obey without question.

She kept her gaze upon the ground, wishing that he would look away. She took care to avoid the attention of the English. Every woman in the clan knew the danger that faced her with one hundred soldiers at Fort William.

"One of you is guilty of disobeying the Disarming Act again," the major announced. At their silence, he smiled thinly. "Where is your piper?" he demanded.

It was not the first time Hamish had angered the English. Nor, she suspected, would his defiance end today. But not one person spoke up to betray him. Despite their common knowledge that it would cost them all, they remained mute.

The major dismounted, stood before them, his face twisted by anger.

"Have you nothing to say?" he asked, coming up to Angus. "If I promised you a full meal and a pint of ale, old man, would you speak?"

"I'm an old man, Major," Angus wheezed. "My hearing is not as good as yours is. I heard nothing."

Sedgewick studied the old man's face for a long moment before he moved on, stopping in front of Mary. She cradled her child, born after her husband's death. "And you, madam?"

Mary shook her head, then pressed her cheek against Robbie's downy hair. "I was tending to my child," she said softly. "And heard nothing."

Sedgewick strode through their group, studying each face, his expression growing increasingly angrier when no one spoke up to denounce Hamish.

Leitis saw his boots as he approached her. "What about you? Were you occupied with other duties?" he asked in a low tone.

She said nothing, only shook her head, wishing he would move away.

"Where is the piper?" Sedgewick demanded, turning and addressing the clan.

No one spoke.

"Bring me a torch," he said. One of the soldiers hurried to obey him, returning with a length of thatch torn from a nearby roof and twisted into a sheaf. Sedgewick waited until it was lit, then grabbed it and held it aloft.

"How much is your loyalty worth?" he asked them. "Your homes? Your lives? We shall have to see."

He moved to the nearest cottage and put the torch to the low-hanging roof. It immediately burst into flame, the fire fueled by the winds of the coming storm.

The cottage was blessedly empty, its occupant having died the summer before.

Sedgewick moved on to the next structure. Leitis watched in silence as her own home was set ablaze.

Her thoughts were her own, and as long as she held them tight within, she could not be punished for them. She stared at the ground, unable to witness the destruction of her home. At that moment her hatred of all things English grew so strong that it threatened to choke her. But her anger would not aid Hamish and it would not stop Sedgewick.

The major moved on to the next cottage, watching with some satisfaction as another roof erupted in a blaze. His intent was all too obvious. He would not stop until their entire village was on fire.

It wasn't enough that she had lost her loved ones. But now all her memories were to be destroyed, too. The pottery her mother loved with the faint blue pattern upon it, the plaid she'd hidden below a mattress, the loom that occupied her days.

The black storm clouds mimicked her mood, crowding out the last hint of blue sky and rendering the day nearly dark.

"Tell me where he is," Major Sedgewick said, approaching Leitis once more.

"You English will not be happy until there is no trace of a Scot in Scotland, will you?" she asked unwisely. But she was suddenly weary of remaining docile when it brought nothing but more cruelty. "Are we not dying fast enough for you?"

He struck her, so hard that she fell to her knees. He stood above her, waiting for her to stand, no doubt, so that he could strike her again.

"I would rid this place of its vermin," he bit out. "Perhaps you will be the first."

Lightning answered him, streaking suddenly from cloud to earth, the flash so brilliant that it blinded her for a moment. The thunder following a second later was loud enough to be the voice of God. In that next moment, all Leitis could hear was emptiness, an echo of her own heartbeat, fast and panicked.

She pressed her hands against her eyes, then blinked rapidly in order to regain her sight. The air smelled like fire, as if the earth had opened up in that moment and the creature she saw emerging from the white glare had ascended to earth on Satan's mission.

He was outlined in the next flash of lightning, an image limned in black. His black hair, like the other men's, was tied back with a ribbon. His coat was crimson, his waistcoat beige and bearing an ornate badge on one lapel and an insignia on the other. His breeches were also beige, topped with a white shirt ruffled on the chest and cuffs.

He wasn't an illusion or a demon after all, only an Englishman. A red-coated officer not as richly outfitted as the major. There were fewer buttons on his waistcoat, and they appeared to be made of bone, not gold.

She wished, improvidently, that she might see his face.

He ignored the lightning flashing around him as if it were no more than a minor inconvenience. His left hand rose and the men who followed him slowed. A man accustomed to authority, if the way he controlled his restive horse was any indication. He held the reins loosely in his right hand, his left hand now resting on a muscled thigh.

Major Sedgewick cursed softly, moved away from her.

"Colonel," he said, standing stiffly at attention. "I did not expect you until next week."

The other man said nothing, his gaze fixed sternly on Sedgewick. Leitis had the sudden thought that she would not like to be the focus of his anger. As if he heard her, the stranger looked over at her. Her breath was captured on an indrawn gasp.

His face was square, his jaw accentuated by the tightness of his expression. The look in his eyes was so direct that Leitis felt as if he stripped her bare in that moment, learned her secrets, and divined her silent rebellion. His cheekbones were high and well defined, his mouth now thinned by rage.

A dangerous man.

She took one step back, away from Sedgewick. A moment later the stranger granted her unspoken wish by looking away. Only then did she dare to breathe.