Highland Sunset Read online

  Pain caught suddenly at her heart and she bowed her head to hide her face. Next to her Van reached out and put a comforting hand over hers.

  CHAPTER 17

  All the MacIans went to spend the evening at Lochiel's, tactfully leaving the newly married couple alone. There was no time for a traditional honeymoon. In two days' time they were leaving for England.

  It was a strange feeling for Niall as he went up the stairs toward the bedroom where his young wife was waiting for him. Niall had had his first sexual experience when he was even younger than Jean, sixteen in fact. He had come to Edinburgh with his father, but Alasdair had been busy and had left his son to entertain himself. Niall had been looking at the gravestones in Greyfriars churchyard when he met Alison Scott. She was fifteen years older than he, a widow, and she had taken him home with her that afternoon.

  Alison was uncomplicatedly sexual and their relationship had always been based on a pure and mutual lust. There had been women in France, as well, all of them as frankly bent on pleasure as he. But now it was Jeannie waiting for him in that big bed in his room. He couldn't come at her like a bull. He would hurt and frighten her. He drew a deep, steadying breath and opened the door.

  She was sitting up against the pillows, her soft hair falling like rain down her back. She wore a white nightdress with little pearl buttons. He went over to stand beside the bed. He was still dressed in shirt and kilt, although the shirt was open at the throat. He sat down next to her.

  "Jeannie," he said. He touched the delicate line of her cheek. She was so beautiful.

  She gazed up at him. Her eyes had dilated into great brown peat pools full of reflected light from the fire. She rested her cheek against his fingers.

  "Are you afraid?" he asked softly.

  "Of you?" She shook her head. "No." But he thought he saw a flicker in her eyes.

  He cradled her face in his hands. "I think it hurts the first time."

  "That's all right." Her voice was a small whisper. He leaned forward to kiss her and her arms came up around his neck.

  His young male body was instantly aroused, but he disciplined himself sternly. He held her and touched her and caressed her and all the time he fought a battle with himself. When finally he had her naked beneath him he thought it had been worth it. She was reaching for him, wanting him, and there was no trace at all of fear.

  He entered slowly, carefully, but, inevitably, he had to hurt her. When she cried out and tried to pull away, he held her with hard hands and gave his straining body its own release.

  "I'm sorry, m'eudail," he said contritely as they lay together. "I'm sorry I hurt you. But it couldn't be helped."

  She nestled against him in a trusting movement that caused his heart to swell. "I love you," she whispered. He kissed the top of her hair. "I love you too."

  Later in the evening Van returned home with her mother, father, and Alan. As she moved toward the stairs to go to her bedroom, Alan said, "Van, may I talk to you for a moment?"

  She was worn out emotionally from the last few days, from seeing Edward again, from the wedding. She opened her mouth to plead fatigue, looked into Alan's face, and said instead, "Of course. If it is all right with you, Father?"

  "I think we may safely leave you alone with Alan," Alasdair replied gravely. He and her mother went on up the stairs and Van sat down on the hard sofa and folded her hands in her lap. She could not avoid this interview forever. It would be best to get it over with now, she thought.

  The room was cold. There was no fire in the chimney. Alan's face was shadowed; his gold-flecked green eyes watched her steadily. "Before you left for England I asked you a question," he began. "You said we would talk about it when you returned." He smiled a little wryly. "You have been back for some time, Van, but we have had very little opportunity to discuss anything between us."

  She looked down at her folded, ringless hands, then up again. "We have been almost constantly together these last weeks," she reminded him.

  He made an impatient gesture. "A man does not like to be flat on his back when he asks a girl to marry him." He crossed the room and dropped to one knee in front of her. "You know that is what I wanted to say."

  She nodded. This was even more painful than she had imagined. "Alan," she said in a constricted voice, "I never meant to hurt you."

  He seemed to stop breathing. Their faces were almost on a level with each other and she could clearly see his eyes. "Does that mean no?" he asked carefully.

  "Niall should have told you," she said. "When I was in England, I was going to marry the Earl of Linton."

  The green eyes widened. "The Earl of Linton," he repeated. "The man you were visiting?"

  Her own eyes fell. "I was visiting his mother."

  Slowly he rose to his feet and looked down at her for a moment before he went to lean his shoulders against the chimneypiece. "And are you still going to marry him?"

  She did not look up. "No. He is a Whig, Alan. I cannot marry him now."

  She heard the faint release of his breath. "You're right," he said. "Niall should have told me. You should have told me."

  At that she looked up. "I know." Her light eyes were shadowed but they met his unflinchingly. "It was cowardice on my part, I suppose. As I said earlier, I did not want to hurt you."

  "I love you, Van," he said tightly.

  "I love you too," she replied, "but not in the way you want me to, Alan."

  "What happened in England?" he asked abruptly. Van drew a breath. He deserved to know, she supposed. And so she told him about Edward, but she did not tell him of the earl's recent visit to Edinburgh.

  "Under the circumstances, I could not possibly stay in England, of course," she concluded. "So I came home with Niall." She had been staring into the empty grate while she was speaking, and now she looked up into his face. It had lightened considerably during the last few minutes.

  Alan's thoughts matched his face. Van was a loyal Jacobite to the very marrow of her bones. She would never marry the Earl of Linton now, he thought. Blood, training, conscience, everything in her was against such a match. The chances were she would never see Linton again.

  She had said she cared for him. That was a start. And he was here, while Linton was not. She was looking at him, her lovely face was somber. He smiled and crossed the room to sit next to her on the sofa. He took her hands into his and bent his head to kiss them. She remembered Edward's bright head bent over them only two days ago. "My poor little love," Alan said softly. "What a time you have been having."

  It was not what she had expected. To her horror, Van felt her eyes fill with tears. Alan was so kind, so good. She did not deserve such kindness from him. "I'm sorry, Alan," she said in an unsteady voice.

  "Do not fret yourself over me," he replied. He smiled down at her. "I am willing to give you all the time you want, m'eudail. I have not given up hope, you see. With you, I am prepared to be very patient."

  Van looked up into his hazel eyes. I don't mind waiting, Edward had said. She would never feel for Alan what she felt for Edward. But he was going into England in a few days, into what might be mortal danger. She could not tell him that now. And he was very dear to her. These last weeks had forged a bond between them that had not been there before. So she smiled back at him and said, "I am not ready to marry anyone right now, Alan."

  He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "I understand." She was close enough to him to sense the change in him and, being no longer innocent, she knew what it meant. But he made no move to pull her into his arms. Instead he said, "Go on up to bed, Van. It's cold down here."

  He was so good, Van thought again. She didn't deserve him. She stood up and said good night and went upstairs. It was of Alan she was thinking that night as she finally fell asleep.

  On November 3, 1745, the army of Charles Edward Stuart marched out of Edinburgh and along the road that led past Arthur's Seat to the village of Dalkeith. At Dalkeith they split into two columns, the main part of the army heading south
west, toward Cumberland, while a picked number of regiments under the dukes of Perth and Atholl followed the more direct southern route toward Newcastle. The purpose of the two dukes' command was to decoy Marshal Wade, still at Newcastle with a very large army, into remaining there.

  Niall was in high spirits as he marched beside his father at the head of his clan. Brought up since birth to believe in the Tightness of his cause, he looked forward with soaring confidence to the successful accomplishment of all his dreams. Every step he took brought him closer to London, and he whistled the clan's battle song under his breath as he strode along.

  Alasdair was silent. They passed through the hills of the border country, through Lauder, Kelso, and Jedburgh, and at every mile a few more clansmen slipped away and headed home. The Highlanders, as Alasdair had known, did not want to enter England. By the time the border was reached, more than a thousand clansmen had melted away.

  The River Tweed ran between the two countries, and as the army halted briefly on its banks, Niall turned to his father. "The Rubicon!" he said, teeth flashing in his dark face. His eyes blazed with laughter and he drew his sword and waded in. As he reached the other side, he turned back toward Scotland and saluted.

  The army was silent, but as each man stepped into the river he drew his sword and, as he reached the other side, whirled to the left to once more face Scotland.

  They reached the English border capital of Carlisle and on November 17 the town surrendered to them. The Jacobite army at Carlisle numbered about five thousand foot and five hundred horse. The prince entered the city mounted on a white stallion with a procession of a hundred pipers to precede him. No one from Carlisle joined the prince's standard.

  Charles was not daunted. He was quite sure that large numbers of recruits would join him in Preston and Manchester. It was common knowledge that those towns were sympathetic to the Jacobite cause. The army continued its march southward.

  Three recruits joined them at Preston. At Manchester, where the Jacobite leadership had been hoping for fifteen hundred recruits, two hundred signed up.

  Niall was undaunted. The lack of recruits only confirmed his feelings about the Sassenach. They had no faith, no courage. When word came that the Duke of Cumberland was in the vicinity with a government army of 2,200 horse and 8,250 foot, Lord George Murray deftly maneuvered so the king's son thought the Highland army was heading for Wales. Cumberland hastily moved his own army west and left the way to Derby open. On the clansmen came, to Derby, one hundred and fifty miles from their destination of London.

  In London there was panic. People withdrew their money from the banks. The royal yacht was ordered prepared to evacuate George II and his family if it should prove necessary. The populace, terrified they would be descended upon by a ravaging army of savage Highlanders, began to assemble a citizens' army to defend the capital.

  The Earl of Linton, meeting with other members of the government, was extremely short-tempered.

  "There is no cause for all this alarm," he said irritably as discussion flowed on what were the proper measures to take.

  "Well, I'm glad you can be sanguine, Linton," Lord Newcastle snapped. "The rest of us, however, cannot feel easy knowing there is an army of barbarians virtually at our front gates."

  "Barbarians?" Edward raised a golden eyebrow. "They are the most well-behaved army imaginable, my lord. There has been no looting in any of the cities they have occupied, no rape, no murder. These ridiculous rumors that Highlanders eat babies are simply that—ridiculous rumors."

  "The London populace does not know that," said Lord Pelham. "The newspapers say that the Highlanders are monsters with claws for hands."

  "I heard today that they have dogs trained to tear a man to pieces," said a man down the table.

  Edward looked sardonic. "Quite frankly, I think the rabble army that is assembling at Finchley is far more dangerous than the Jacobites," he said. "Good God, every rogue and vagabond in the city has joined it!"

  "I know," Pelham said gloomily. "But both Wade and Cumberland are too far away to protect us. What are we to do?"

  "Nothing," Edward said calmly.

  "Nothing?" They stared at him in stunned horror.

  "Nothing. Let them take London, although I agree the king must be got away. There are five thousand of them, my lords. Five thousand clansmen who will shortly be extremely homesick. Marshal Wade's and the Duke of Cumberland's armies are six times their size. The pretender will not maintain his tenure here for long."

  "I don't know..." said Lord Newcastle.

  "What if the French should send an army to assist the pretender?" It was the prime minister, Lord Pelham, speaking.

  Edward looked soberly around the table. "The French worry me more than the clans. It is the French we cannot allow to reach London. If they should land, they must be beaten back. It is on the Channel that our closest watch should be kept. On the Channel and on the French coast."

  "The navy is patrolling, my lord," he was assured by Lord Newcastle. "But I cannot agree with you in this matter of turning London over to the pretender!"

  "Nor I. Nor I. Nor I," came from voices all around the table.

  Despite Edward's protest, it was agreed to call up the militias of London and Middlesex and to keep the rabble at Finchley in arms. Double watches were to be posted at all the city gates.

  Edward was very gloomy as he walked back to Linton House late that night. It was clear to him that the populace weren't the only ones panicking before the Highland threat. The government was genuinely frightened as well.

  "When we finally get the upper hand, and we will," he said out loud as he stood looking into the fire that was burning in his bedroom chimney, "God help poor Scotland."

  He lay awake for a long time trying to decide if it would be worse for the Highlanders to retreat or to advance. Either way, he foresaw nothing but disaster. They should have stayed in Scotland. "But I knew he wouldn't," Edward muttered. "The bastard. I knew he would want it all." It was almost dawn before he finally got to sleep.

  At Derby the Highland High Command decided on retreat. The prince protested. He wanted to continue on to London, which he was certain would open its gates to welcome him, but Lord George Murray and the chiefs voted to return. Faced with such unified opposition, the prince acquiesced. On Friday morning, December 6, the Jacobite army began its retreat to Scotland.

  Niall was outraged. "How can you do this, Father?" he cried to Alasdair in stunned protest. "You are leading the prince back like a dog on a string! He wants to go on. We should go on. We are but one hundred and fifty miles from London!"

  "Yes," Alasdair returned grimly. "And there are two large armies under Wade and Cumberland dogging our tracks. There is no sign of a French invasion. And—most of all—there has been no Jacobite uprising among the English."

  Niall's eyes flashed. "We don't need them!"

  "Yes we do," Alasdair contradicted him. "Think, my son. Suppose we do get to London. Suppose we take London. Then what are we to do? Garrison it indefinitely with the clans? They will not tolerate that. They are not a professional army. Dhé. They will all want to be going home for the spring planting!"

  Niall stared at his father mutinously. "Once we have shown what we can do, others will join us."

  "Do not count on it." His father's voice was flat. "We got no support from the northwestern counties, which we were told abounded with wealthy squires and hardy yeomen devoted to the cause. Where were those wealthy Tories, Niall?"

  Niall's nostrils flared.

  "In every town where we have proclaimed King James, the reaction has been the same," Alasdair continued relentlessly. "The mob stands and listens, heartless, stupefied, dull. Van had the right of it. England does not want the Stuarts."

  "Well, what are we to do then?" Niall asked despairingly.

  "Return to Scotland, where we can join with Lord John Drummond. He has brought us some French troops—not an army, but still..." Alasdair straightened his back and forced h
imself to smile. "All is not lost, Niall." He put a brief hand on his son's shoulder. "Take heart. In Scotland we are on our own ground. We will prevail."

  Niall tried to smile back. "We came so close, Father."

  "I know." Alasdair looked around at the encamped army behind them. "I know, my son." His voice was unusually gentle. "Get some sleep, Niall. We march early tomorrow morning."

  As he watched Niall move off, Alasdair's face settled into very grim lines. This retreat—they had had no alternative. But he knew in his bones that it was the beginning of the end for them all.

  CHAPTER 18

  Air throughout early December, in particularly vile winter weather, the Highland army retraced its steps northward. The Duke of Cumberland set out in pursuit, and at Clifton, in the north of England, his advance guard finally caught up with the Jacobite rear guard. There was a brief skirmish in which the government forces got much the worse beating, and Cumberland gave up trying to pursue the returning Highlanders.

  On December 20, 1745, the Jacobite army reentered Scotland.

  Van, Frances, and Jean remained in Edinburgh throughout November and December, living from one report to the next on the progress of their army.

  Van hated the waiting. "I wish I were a man!" she raged to her mother. "I was not made for sitting at home."

  "Thank God you are not a man," Frances retorted quickly. "It's enough that I have your father and brother to worry about without adding you to the list."

  "I'm sorry, Mother." Van put a hand on Frances' arm.

  Frances smiled at her. "I know this is hard on you, darling. It's hard on all of us. They are so far away... so vulnerable..." Her voice died away and Van's hand tightened.