Page 23 of The Wild Rose of Kilgannon (Kilgannon #2)

I thanked him as he ushered me to the door.

At the threshold, Captain Jeffers took my hand.

“Madam,” he said earnestly, “I was once able to thank your husband for a service he rendered for the Duke in France. I stand ready now to repay his kindness in any manner I can. If there is anything you desire that is in my power to deliver, you have only to speak and it shall be yours.”

I looked at him and smiled sadly. “Sir, I wish my husband to be released and allowed to go home. Is that within your power?”

His kind expression clouded. “Alas, no, dear lady,” he said. “But I will send a letter to Edinburgh commending him and I will do the same in person when I arrive. Perhaps it will help.”

“You are very generous, sir.”

“It is nothing,” the captain said. “I only wish I could have offered you safe passage to England.” A vision of Louisa and London, with all its comforts and safety, rose in my mind, but hard on its heels came the image of Alex in a jail cell in Edinburgh.

“I thank you for your kindness, sir,” I said, “but my husband is in Edinburgh and my place is with him.” The captain nodded and bowed. Over his head Robert met my look with a somber expression.

In the morning we were mounted on fine English horses.

Fifty armed men traveled with us, Robert at their head.

Each boy was seated on a horse with a soldier, for which I was grateful, since they were far too young to handle a horse on their own in such country.

The land quickly turned into bogs and moors interspersed with lovely meadows, or what had been lovely meadows, for we began to see signs of the reprisals.

The journey branded pictures into my memory.

Each mile that brought us closer to Alex showed us more of the devastation.

We passed house after house that had been burnt out, some months ago, some still smoldering, some with bodies still in the yard.

Men in plaids lay dead at the side of the road, their corpses long ago food for the crows.

I took Jamie onto the horse with me and tried to answer his questions.

Robert took Ian with him and I wondered what he was saying to Alex’s son.

Women were rarely seen, and when they were, they usually were hurrying away from us in their tattered and filthy clothing, their expressions haunted, their children’s frightened eyes huge as they watched us pass.

I remembered Robert saying “Scotland is bleeding” to me.

He had not said the half of it. Scotland was hemorrhaging and there was no one to staunch the flow.

For the first time in my life I was ashamed of my English blood.

How could soldiers who had been raised on the same prayers as these people butcher them and burn them out?

This, then, was what Alex had feared for Kilgannon and why he had sacrificed himself.

He had been correct in fearing this for his own.

My mind became numb as we rode, mile after mile, passing the ravages of defeat.

How could this country ever recover? Robert, his expression remote, watched me silently.

Our first night after Fort William was spent in a moldy tent on a rainy hill, but we were so tired that it did not matter.

I answered the boys’ questions the best I could and calmed their fears before they fell asleep in their clothes, the dogs piled on top of us.

Ian had nightmares and I held him to me, my tears falling for this little boy and the thousands of others whose sleep would always be haunted by the images of war.

When at last I slept myself, I dreamed that the boys and I were one of the families running through the mud from the soldiers, me with a baby in my arms, wrapped in his father’s torn plaid.

The rest of the trip melded together in misery.

It rained constantly and the horses slowed as they picked their way carefully through the mud.

The only comfortable night was in a Campbell castle owned by one of Robert’s cousins, and it was there, tucked in a featherbed with the boys asleep next to me, that I felt Alex’s third child move under my hand.

I looked up at the carved panels of the ceiling and cried.

“Alex, my love,” I said to the comfortable room.

“Alex, where are you?” But there was no answer and I had to find my own consolation.

Edinburgh was the filthiest city I’d ever seen and I was horrified by it.

The contents of chamber pots and all manner of garbage lay in the street.

I quickly learned to be leery of the cry from above which meant someone’s refuse, or worse, was about to be thrown upon the unwary from a window.

The more prosperous lived in separate houses or on the upper floors where the smells and sounds from below were muted.

We were soon ensconced in Robert’s comfortable town house, the top three floors of a tenement on a quiet street.

Robert left us there without a word of explanation, simply telling us to rest. We spent the first night getting clean and fending off the questions of Robert’s inquisitive aunt, who kept house for him.

She was quite relentless in her quest to discover exactly what my relationship to Robert was until I made it very clear that there was no relationship.

She was, however, also a source of ready information, and I quickly discovered that there were two places that Alex might be imprisoned, in the castle itself with its extensive walls or at a temporary outpost holding Jacobites just outside the city.

For the next three days, on the pretense of seeing the city, the boys and I combed the streets searching for information.

And for Angus and Matthew. If we were visible enough, I reasoned, they would find us.

We were, however, accompanied at all times by at least two of Robert’s men, Highland Campbells, who tolerated us silently, and I knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, to be approached with them there.

Still, I felt I must try, and anything was preferable to sitting within walls and waiting while Robert’s kind but witless aunt presided over us and the Campbell men waited below.

The men barely spoke to me, although they were always polite and never interfered with my roamings.

I did my best to get what information I could from the few people who would talk with me.

Robert himself I did not see, for he did not live in the house and I knew nothing of his whereabouts.

I wrapped my anger and my sorrow around me like a plaid and withdrew into my own world, peopled only by the boys and Alex.

On the fourth day of my stay in Edinburgh I was in a foul temper.

I had not found Angus or the others, and I was out of patience with waiting for men to do my bidding.

I wanted to see Alex. Now. I bundled up a change of clothing for Alex and dressed the boys in their finest. Then, to the horror of our Campbell guards, I marched the three of us to the castle, demanding a visit with my husband.

The soldiers at the gate did not know what to do with me and put us aside.

We waited for thirty minutes while my anger grew.

At last, with a deep breath, I walked boldly through the gate, the spluttering guard at my heels.

After ten feet another guard stopped my progress by blocking my way.

I summoned a goddess look and imperiously demanded to see someone of authority.

At once. We were led into a small room off the gate, where we waited yet again.

I was about to find someone else to take my message when the door opened and a uniformed man entered.

He stood, watching us, and I gave him an icy look. And then recognized him.

“Captain Jeffers,” I said, rising. “Thank God. I thought perhaps no one here spoke English.” He bowed over my hand and met my eyes with a warmth that surprised me.

I felt my restraint melting before this greeting and willed myself to be icy again but it was too late.

I could meet disdain and confusion with aplomb, but friendliness disarmed me.

I felt dangerously close to tears. He smiled sadly and gestured to the walls that surrounded us.

“I am not surprised to find you here, madam,” he said.

“I did not expect you to be here already, sir.”

“Nor I, madam. I have only just arrived. I will be stationed here until provisions can be made for all the prisoners.”

“I see,” I said. Provisions for the prisoners , I thought. What exactly did that mean?

“You wish, I understand, to see your husband,” Jeffers said.

“Yes, Captain. I have been told that he is here.”

“He is indeed, madam. But”—he looked at the boys—“I am sorry to tell you that he is allowed no visitors.” His warm manner and unwelcome message undid me.

I could think of nothing to say and sat down on the bench.

And burst into tears, alarming every male in the room.

I had not planned it, but it certainly had the effect I desired.

The boys hovered over me and the Campbells shot worried looks at each other.

Captain Jeffers looked at me with consternation, offered me his handkerchief, then ran out of the room, muttering something about seeing what he could do .

We waited another hour. At last Captain Jeffers returned with the news that I could see his superior, but the boys must stay here. I paused, afraid to leave them behind. Captain Jeffers assured me that they would be watched by one of his men, but one of the Campbells stepped forward.

“We’ll be with them, Lady Mary,” he said kindly, quite astonishing me. “We willna leave them for a minute.” The other Campbell nodded.

“We’ll be fine, Mama,” said Ian with dignity, taking his brother’s hand. Jamie echoed him and I smiled.