We arrived late in the afternoon at the house of Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh. He himself received us most courteously, and after shaking hands supported Mr. Johnson into the house.
Kingsburgh was quite the figure of a gallant Highlander. He wore his tartan plaid thrown about him, a vest with gold buttons and gold buttonholes, and tartan hose. He had jet-black hair tied behind, covered by a large blue bonnet with a knot of black ribbon like a cockade.
He conducted us into a comfortable parlor with a good fire, and a dram of admirable Holland's gin went round.
By and by supper came, and there appeared his spouse, the celebrated Miss Flora. She was a little woman, of a mild and genteel appearance. To see Mr. Samuel Johnson salute Miss Flora MacDonald was a wonderful romantic scene to me. Indeed, as indicated by Kingsburgh's garb, which was quite à la mode, time has healed the enmities between the kingdoms of Britain. In time I imagine the infant Prince of Wales will assume both thrones, as did his ancestor James VI of Scotland when he became also James I of England.
Mr. Johnson spoke to Mrs. MacDonald of the Duke of Cumberland's visit to Skye in 1746. "Who was with the duke? We were told in England there was one Miss Flora MacDonald with him."
Said she with a secret smile, "They were very right."
Hearing the slow approach of hoofbeats to her stepfather's house, Flora threw her shawl around her shoulders and went out. Donald, the ghillie, was already waiting outside the stable door.
Sea birds called raucously above the Sound of Sleat. To the east the mountainous mainland faded into a pale spring twilight. The horse and man who appeared from the gloaming seemed so worn and weary they might have served as figments of nightmare. It was Allan, Flora saw. She stepped forward and held the bridle as he slid from the saddle with a groan.
There had been talk between their families, distant relations, that they should marry. As yet Flora evaded this notion, thinking Allan a man of great charm but little judgment. Now, though, she took note of the grave sobriety lining his features and raised her hand to his shoulder. "What of the rebellion, Allan? Is it over?"
"Aye," he said, "'tis over. Six days ago we made the crossing of the River Spey just beyond Ruthven, intending to catch Prince Charles before he gained the sanctuary of Inverness. But he turned, and the Highlanders came down upon us from the heights beyond the river before we'd had the opportunity to form up, let alone bring our artillery to bear."
Flora could see the scene: the flood of screaming men, unbreeked, unwashed, undeterred, armed with swords as tall as themselves. No surprise they overwhelmed soldiers bought by pay, not principle. Soldiers who had only the one shot before their muskets were rendered nothing more than props for bayonets. That tactic had defeated Generals Cope at Prestonpans and Hawley at Falkirk. Now it defeated William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, King George II's third son and a general who had proved himself in the Continental wars.
"If only the prince had delayed his attack until we reached smoother ground near Inverness. If only he had refused in his pride to take the advice of Lord George Murray, who is by far the superior strategist. If only two French ships had not slipped through the blockade and landed money and supplies . . ." Allan shook his head. "Well, such exercises in supposition are best left to historians."
With that Flora could only agree. "Cumberland and his army are retreating toward England, I suppose."
Allan's laugh was edged with bitterness. "The MacPherson levies denied His Grace the river crossing and the road south. He has fled west into the mountains, running like a rabbit rather than honorably surrender his sword to the victor."
"Perhaps he feared for his life."
"His life is hardly in so much danger as the prince's life would have been, had the situation been reversed. Charles has put a price on Cumberland's head, in a fit of mordant humor, I wager, but still he ordered his men to spare the wounded and release the captives. And so you see me here, at your mercy, cousin."
How have the mighty fallen, Flora told herself, thinking more of her crestfallen cousin than the English duke. Handing the reins of the horse to Donald, she guided Allan inside and sat him down before the aromatic warmth of the peat fire in the parlor. To the maid waiting in the hall she said, "Betty, bring bread, cheese, and porter."
Then Flora took the coat, its brave scarlet stained and torn, from Allan's shoulders. He folded his long, lean limbs into a chair and rested his head against its back. "The Pretender—the Prince Regent, I should say—has entered Edinburgh, to even greater applause than last year's acclamation. Strange, is it not, how many who kept back a welcome then are now flocking forward with one?"
"Is it so strange that few would commit themselves to Charles's rash enterprise until that enterprise became victory?" And rash it was, Flora told herself. Even if during the forty years since the Union England had dealt with Scotland as though it were a backward colony, to go to war seemed far from sensible. "Even supposing Prince Charles to have the right, it might have been very generous for one to support him at every risk, but it was not wise. Not until now."
"And now he has received the surrender of the castle, had his father proclaimed king at the Mercat Cross, and called a parliament. That will not last, he and his kind, they have little use for parliaments. Soon the old days will be back again, tyranny at home and a hostile neighbor assuring our poverty."
Betty brought food and drink. For several minutes Allan refreshed himself, whilst Flora admired the play of the firelight on his unshaven cheeks and the lock of black hair that hung forlorn over his brow. At last he set aside the empty cup, wiped his mouth, and asked, "Where are your mother and her husband?"
"He is commanding the government militia on Uist. She has gone to visit Lady MacDonald at Monkstadt and your mother at Kingsburgh and intends to return tomorrow."
"Ah." Allan summoned a smile, less radiant than his usual one, tense and uncertain.
She let him hold her small, clean hand in his large, rough, dirty one. It seemed the least she could do for a warrior so grievously disappointed.
Marion MacDonald sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap, her countenance knitted in thought. "Well then. Did the prince proclaim his father James VIII of Scotland only, or James III of Britain as well?"
"Does it matter?" Allan asked. Cleaned, rested, and in a new suit of clothes—Flora's stepfather's shirt and breeks fit him tolerably well—he had reclaimed some of his usual ease of manner. Still, Flora sensed that her spirited cousin writhed beneath the unaccustomed mantle of defeat.
"Aye, it does matter," her mother said. "James might well overreach himself if he claims the throne of Britain entire."
"The Stuarts have never hesitated to overreach themselves. But perhaps the prince learned by his swiftly aborted incursion into England that he has little support outwith our own Highlands."
"Indeed, the present ruling family, of Hanoverian origins or no, has the possession of the united Crown and with it, perhaps, as much right as the deposed Stuarts. But this issue has been decided. It no longer concerns us." Marion's maternal eye moved from one to the other of the young people before her. "Now. Allan, I spoke with your parents at Kingsburgh . . ."
Flora's ear caught the sound of hoofbeats and voices from outside. Quickly she put down her sewing and went to the door.
Unlike yesterday's tender spring evening, this evening was coming on dark and swift. A cold chill wind churned the sea. White gulls looked like flecks of paper swirling up against the clouds massed in the northwest, clouds colored the deep purplish-black of a bruise.
One last fragile ray of sun illuminated the approaching party, a lad from the village walking before three men on horseback. All three wore red coats like Allan's, save these were decorated with bits of gilt braid. And the heavy-set man in the middle was bedecked with medals. " . . . the edge of the world," he was muttering, his face set in a supercilious scowl. "Beastly country, savage mountain passes, not a decent inn to be found . . ."
Allan's hand grasped Flora's shoulder and his voice whispered in her ear, "I'll be damned—I beg your pardon, Cousin, but it's the duke himself."
"Come here? To us? He must find himself in dire straits, then, and in need of succor."
Behind them both Marion gasped. "The beds need airing and the best china washing . . ." Her footsteps receded into the house.
His errand completed, the lad sidled toward the gate in the wall surrounding the house. Then he took to his heels and disappeared toward the village. Flora rendered her best curtsey and Allan his best bow. "Allow me to make introduction. I am Allan MacDonald and this lady is Flora, my cousin of the same name. Your Grace is welcome in my uncle's house."
"Fort Augustus fallen to the rebels," grumbled the duke, "and Fort William as well, garrisons incompetent, should have hanged the lot of them . . ." He clumped loudly to the ground. Again Donald came forward and led the horses away, their hanging heads and rough foam-flecked coats making of them a pitiable sight.
The men appeared in little better health, their hats and the wigs beneath battered and worn, their chins unshaven, their clothing soiled—surely those were bits of heather clinging to the scarlet cloth. The taller of the two aides introduced himself as Felix Scott, the smaller as Neil Campbell. He added, "Are my kinsman Argyll's troop of men in the area, Mr. MacDonald? We must send a message to them as soon as possible."
Flora supposed Campbell of Argyll's militia was in the vicinity. It had been patrolling Skye for the government for some time now. So had His Majesty's ships been patrolling the Minch and the Inner Sound. She did not expect them to withdraw now, not when Prince Charles's victory would spur the French to even greater threats against the island of Britain.
Before she could answer Allan said, "I'll send the ghillie to make enquiries."
Flora contented herself by saying, "Your Grace, Captain Campbell, and Lieutenant Scott, please come inside and warm yourselves by the fire."
The young officers bowed politely and walked into the house. The duke eyed Flora in what she could only describe as an insolent manner. And yet the greenish tint of his jowls indicated that the crossing from the mainland had been rough. How indeed, had the mighty fallen, a king's son sleeping rough in the heather, his enemies pressing close behind. With a pang of pity she curtsied again.
The Duke of Cumberland thumped into the parlor, threw himself into Marion's best chair, and called loudly for brandy.
Flora and her mother hurried back and forth, bringing biscuits, brandy, and whiskey, and by and by serving a supper of roasted turkey, collops of venison, vegetables, bread, cheese, rum, and porter.
Allan played the host, and Scott and Campbell were as deferential to the ladies as to the duke himself. But as night fell, the candles were lit, and the claret and punch went round the table, Cumberland's face grew redder and more truculent. Even after Flora and Marion retired to the parlor and sat down with their sewing, they could hear his every blustering word.
"We faced genuine soldiers at Fontenoy and Dettingen. The Pretender's vaunted clansmen are but savages. I am told they live an idle sauntering life among their acquaintances and relations, and are supported by their bounty. Others get a livelihood by blackmail, receiving moneys from people of substance to abstain from stealing their cattle. The last class of them gain their expenses by robbing and committing depredations. And they have the uncommon gall to rise up against the hand that seeks to civilize them!"
"Better you should ask why our relations must live in such an unhappy state." Allan said. Her cousin was well into his cups, Flora realized with a sinking heart.
Cumberland asked nothing. "And the Young Pretender himself, what unmitigated cheek to place a price upon my head! Why your barbarian countrymen staged ambuscades from every hilltop!"
"King George placed a high price on Prince Charles's head," said Allan. "The very poverty that you deride, Your Grace, makes such a reward desirable, and therefore places your life in danger."
Flora frowned at her mending. Cumberland was also in peril from those who resented the heavy hand of allies such as Argyll, not to mention from those who would curry the favor of the new regime. By now half the island would know he was lodged at her stepfather's house.
Allan chuckled, but there was little humor in his voice. "You would have done better to have surrendered yourself to Prince Charles, who would have treated with you honorably and sent you home alive and whole."
"Surrender my sword to the Old Pretender's whelp, a puking boy barely out of the nursery?" Cumberland bellowed, overlooking the fact that he and the prince were the same age. "The Young Pretender is under petticoat patronage, I hear, his supporters stirred up by their women, wanton Jacobitesses. Like the lovely Miss Flora, perhaps? A pretty little chit, ripe for the taking, eh, MacDonald? Have you had the use of her?"
The needle stabbed deep. Flora thrust her wounded forefinger into her mouth and looked in horror at her mother. Marion was already on her feet. But before she could take a step toward the dining room came the sound of a chair crashing back and a glass breaking.
Allan's voice trembled with rage. "My family and I offer Your Grace hospitality, and this is how he repays it?"
Campbell's voice murmured of misunderstandings, Scott's of unwitting slurs and apologies on offer.
Another chair scraped. Cumberland snarled, "You call this hovel, this swill, hospitality? Why, I have banqueted with kings, you boor."
"You pile insult upon injury," said Allan coldly. "I have no choice but to demand satisfaction according to the Code Duello. Name your second, Your Grace."
Flora tasted blood. Her stomach went hollow. Marion sank back into her chair, her complexion milk-white. "Oh, Allan, no."
"So the bumpkin plays at being a gentleman?" sneered Cumberland.
"My father is factor to Lord MacDonald, Your Grace. I have but lately served in His Majesty's militia. I am a gentleman."
"Then Captain Campbell will second me. And I offer you the services of Lieutenant Scott. They will provide us with their pistols."
More soothing murmurs came from Scott and Campbell, along with the clink of glass on glass. Flora suspected that additional punch and claret would not assist a peaceful resolution of the situation, but she had no idea what might do so. Should she try to persuade Allan out of his rash enterprise? Hardly. He'd look at her as though she'd lapsed into a tongue that he did not recognize. He could rightly claim that whilst he played the host here, this was not his house and he was not bound by hospitality to overlook such an infamous slur.
He was not bound by common sense, either, Flora told herself.
"As to duelling," Marion said weakly, "there is no case where one or other must die. If you have overcome your adversary by disarming him, your honor or the honor of your family is restored."
"Will either of these men stop at disarming the other?" returned Flora. "There is no rationality in dueling. Nor legality, come to that."
"No." Marion looked into her sewing basket, as though the answer were concealed there.
"For all his recklessness," Flora went on, "I do not wish Allan dead. But either the duke will kill him or he will kill the duke. And if he kills the king's son here, within reach of Argyll and the Royal Navy, then he is as good as dead. If the matter were tried in a Scottish court, with feelings running as they are now, he might be acquitted of the charge of murder. But not in an English court. They would inflict upon Allan the penalities they have been thwarted of inflicting upon the prince himself."
In the dining room Cumberland and Allan were still exchanging insults, somewhat slurred now but no less bellicose. Campbell's voice said something about dawn. Scott expanded upon the issue. "The wind may be in the man's face—he may fall—many such things may decide the superiority. In the daylight, though, such a matter of honor . . ."
Flora had little hope that in the morning the men would have forgotten the words exchanged in their alcoholic fever. "We must spirit His Grace away before he brings disaster upon us, unwittingly or no."
"He might be recognized upon the road by someone who has taken up the prince's cause," protested Marion. "Unless he is returned safely to his countrymen, we can expect reprisal. Better to have him wait here, and send his aides to Argyll asking for a troop of men."
"But then he would insist on settling his matter of honor with Allan, as Allan would with him . . ." Faintly but distinctly Flora heard shouts and the sharp discharges of firearms. She rose to her feet, but before she could peer cautiously out between the window shutters the rotund figure of Betty appeared in the doorway.
"What is happening?" asked Marion.
"A wedding party in the village."
"No one has married this week."
"Aye," said Betty, her voice dropping into a husky whisper and her eyes glancing toward the dining room. "I'm knowing that, and you're knowing that, but he's not knowing that, is he now?"
Flora had to smile, if half-heartedly. The villagers wished to celebrate the Pretender's—the prince's—victory without attracting the attention of Cumberland or any other Hanoverian supporters. How clever, to themselves pretend . . . Suddenly she knew the answer. Looking from Marion's sewing basket to Betty's furrowed countenance, she asked, "Has Donald returned from making his enquiries?"
"Oh aye. Argyll and his men are not to be found in these airts, but an English ship is sheltering in Loch Eishort."
"There you are, then!" Flora knotted her hands into fists. "Mother, I will convey the duke to that ship."
"How?" Marion demanded.
"To begin with, there are many ways of interpreting shouts and the discharge of weapons in the night. I imagine the villagers have a bonfire as well?"
"Aye, that they do," said Betty.
"Then this must be our strategy."
Mistress and maid shared a long speculative glance as Flora spoke, and offered more than a few words of dissent, but in the end they had to agree that of all their choices, Flora's plan was the only possible one.
The voices in the dining room rose. Chairs scraped. "I shall linger in this company no longer," said Allan. "Good night, Your Grace. Until the dawn." Uneven footsteps crossed the hall and mounted the stairs.
"Good," Flora said. "Allan has gone to his bed. May he sleep the deepest sleep of his life."
"Leave him to me." Marion slipped catfooted up the stairs, her passage marked only by the swish of her skirts.
Betty sat down, opened Marion's sewing basket, and threaded a needle. Squaring her shoulders, Flora marched into the dining room.
The three men stood together at the end of the table, inspecting a brace of pistols. The air was thick with the scents of food and sweat. Spilled claret stained the table linens, red as blood. That would be a difficult stain to eradicate, Flora told herself with a weary sigh. But first things first. "Listen," she said.
The three faces turned abruptly toward her. Scott's and Campbell's were tight and pale, Cumberland's swollen with self-righteousness. "Listen," Flora said again, and walked across to the window.
Another ragged volley of gunfire drew a similarly ragged response from the nesting seabirds. Now that they were silent the men also heard the sounds. They exchanged looks of apprehension.
Flora opened one of the shutters. A distant fire tinted the night orange. Praying silently that God would forgive her her lies—they were for the greater good, after all—she said, "Cameron's clansmen have braved the Sound, Your Grace, and are hot upon your heels. As yet they are contenting themselves with sacking the village, but soon . . ."
"Barbarian rabble," stated Cumberland.
Allan would know that Cameron of Lochiel would never allow his men to plunder—at least not until their mission had been completed. But Allan was not here to say so. Flora said, "Before long someone will tell them that you are within these walls, Your Grace. A ship of the Royal Navy is only a few hours' walk away. I will take you there. But we must leave now."
"I shall only leave after I teach your impudent puppy of a cousin his lesson."
Flora made a demure curtsey. "The truth of the matter, Your Grace, is that Allan is no cousin of mine. He is one of our servants. I beg your pardon on behalf of my family, but surely you will understand our predicament, three women alone in the house and brigands abroad."
Cumberland gobbled indignantly. "He is no gentleman? And I shared my repast with him!"
"Under such circumstances, Your Grace need have no scruple about abandoning this affair of honor."
Outside a single shot was followed by the concerted shout of several voices. Flora clung to her bashful mien even as her mind raced ahead. What if men from the village, encouraged by liquor, decided to raid the house and drag Cumberland away? She hoped they did not know about the reward.
"Your Grace," Campbell said, "I beg of you, heed this young lady, your loyal subject, and leave this place forthwith. In disguise, if at all possible, as we were seen arriving here. Miss MacDonald . . ."
Flora never thought she'd find cause to bless a Campbell, but she did so now. "An excellent idea, Captain." She heard Marion walking back down the stairs and edged toward the door.
"Disguise?" demanded Cumberland. "Infamy!"
"Greater infamy," Scott said, "to be taken by such a rabble. They are not even regular soldiers! Why, they might return us to Edinburgh, there to kneel before the Pretender."
Flora spared a blessing for Scott as well. "I should think these . . . irregular soldiers would care less for your sword, Your Grace, than your person. Imagine the smile upon the Young Pretender's face when he sees your head spiked above the gates of Edinburgh Castle. He would not then regret losing the opportunity to accept your sword in surrender, for you would have made an even more profound surrender to him and his house."
From the village came the brave skirl of bagpipes. The scarlet hue drained from Cumberland's porcine face.
"I know you find your own safety of little moment, Your Grace," Flora went on in her meekest voice, "but as a prince of the blood surely you will grant this house protection from reprisals by wearing a disguise."
"Very well then," said His Grace, with little grace indeed. "What is this disguise you have settled upon?
"Come with me," Flora said. And to the two aides, "You must hide your weapons away. Just now we cannot afford to call attention to ourselves."
She shooed the duke toward the parlor as though he were a particularly difficult sheep.
The chill morning seemed as uncertain as the night, the light of the rising sun masked by cloud and murk. Flora leaned forward, half dozing in her saddle, then jerked awake at the sudden call of a flock of oyster catchers flying up from a field beside the road.
Several people dressed in their best walked by, no doubt on their way to Sunday services. "Good morning," said the patriarch with a tip of his hat.
Flora returned the greeting. Her maid, walking beside her as was the custom, did not.
Several steps farther on the man murmured, "Upon my word, that's the ugliest lass I have ever seen." His wife shushed him.
Flora tried not to smile. William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, was not particularly handsome as a man. As a woman, his face would sink a thousand ships. It had not abandoned its scowl since they left Armadale. Now it creased even deeper, his constant complaints of a sore head from the previous night's intake of liquor and lack of sleep overwhelmed by mutterings of dignity denied and position perverted. Flora pretended not to hear.
She, Betty, and Marion had sewed an extra length of cloth onto the lower hem of Betty's old calico gown and added a quilted petticoat on top, to camouflage the change from one sprigged flowery pattern to another. A large cloak and hood after the Irish fashion helped to conceal the Duke's petulant features. Nothing could disguise his stride. His legs and feet, clothed in stockings, garters, and suitable shoes, moved in long ponderous steps, as though he wanted to proclaim to the world that he was not actually a woman.
If they were stopped and searched the pistols beneath his dress would give the game away. But he had refused to leave the house without them, coming so close to an inconvenient fit of rage that Flora at last acceded to his demand. She could only suppose that if he were searched thoroughly enough to reveal the pistols the fraud would be revealed in any event. She glanced around, her saddle creaking.
Campbell and Scott walked several paces behind, wearing Donald's and her stepfather's cast-off clothes covered by loose plaids. She had told them more than once to walk proudly, as members of the clan, not humbly, prepared at any moment to knuckle their foreheads. Still the young men slouched along in the manner that they no doubt expected of their own tenants.
Flora looked ahead. There, the Cuillins were appearing through the murk. Their dark stone seemed more storm cloud than rock, save for the line of razor-edged peaks which etched the sullen sky.
Below the mountains lay Loch Eishort. And yes, thank the Good Lord, an English ship rose and fell to slow leaden surge of the waves. From a mast fluttered the Union Jack, the emblem created by combining England's flag with those of Wales, Scotland, and Ireland—the latter as much a thorn in the English side as Scotland itself. Now, Flora wondered, would the Scottish saltire be removed from the brave red, white, and blue banner?
The party made its way down a steep, muddy slope to a rocky beach. The horse slipped and scrambled. So did Cumberland. At one sloppy patch he went sprawling, his skirts riding up to his plump, breeks-clad thighs. Cursing, he gained the beach, splashed through a tidal pool, and clambered upon a rock. His emphatic gestures earned no response from the ship's crew, although Flora caught the dull gleam of a telescope trained upon them from the quarterdeck.
Campbell and Scott waved their plaids up and down. Cumberland hitched up cloak and dress, produced a pistol, and fired it into the air.
Flora's horse started at the sudden report. She reined him in and peered toward the ship, hoping that the men's actions would not be interpreted as provincial insolence and thereby attract a cannonade.
Many men were now gazing over the ship's gunwales. Officers gestured. Sailors lowered a boat. Others pointed weapons toward the shore.
"You have returned to your own," Flora told the duke. "I shall take my leave."
Captain Campbell stepped forward with a bow. "Please make our compliments to all those to whom we have given trouble."
"Indeed," added Lieutenant Scott, with a bow of his own.
Cumberland laid his meaty hand on Flora's knee. His wig had been left behind, and his hair hung lank around his face. His eyes, half concealed in folds of flesh, gleamed up at her. "If you should happen to find yourself in London, Miss MacDonald, I should provide you with a small establishment of your own and as fine an assortment of gowns as any female could wish."
She opened her mouth to offer a polite response, realized just what he was offering, and shut it again. A tug on the reins and she was free of his presumptuous hand, with the bonus that her horse's hoof pressed Cumberland's foot into the sand—not, alas, against a rock. He jerked back with a vicious oath.
"You are very welcome," she said to the other officers, and to the Duke of Cumberland she said, "I hope, Your Grace, that you will never find cause to appear in this part of the world again."
"God forbid, woman, God forbid."
Amen, Flora added to herself.
He turned toward the approaching boat, favoring his foot, but shook away Campbell's supportive hand. Ripping off his outer clothing, the duke stamped them in disgust into the sand and seaweed. No hope of returning the dress to Betty, then.
Flora urged her horse toward the path. Behind her she heard the boat's keel scrape against the sand, and the voices of Campbell and Scott identifying themselves and their superior. In return came the greetings of the ship's officer, and then something she had not expected to hear at all, laughter, quickly shouted down.
She gained the top of the hill, prodded her horse into a trot, and did not look back.
Her mother greeted Flora at the door, the candle in her hand guttering in the wind. "Come sit yourself down by the fire. I'll tell Betty to bring bread, cheese, and porter."
In the parlor Flora found Allan waiting. Politely he stood up and offered her his chair. She folded her aching limbs into it and extended her icy hands toward the fire burning hot and fragrant above the stack of peats.
"I'm pleased to see you returned safely," he said.
"I fell in with a troop of MacLeods, and they escorted me home."
"Our—guest is now safely aboard ship?"
"Aye. He is that."
"And not grateful for our help, I daresay."
"Not especially." She did not tell Allan about the duke's last offer, or else her cousin would have hunted him down and shot him where he stood. "And you? I trust you slept well?"
"Much too well. When I awoke the dawn was past. But when I hurried to make my appointment on the field of honor I found the door locked. Your mother would only open it when I gave her my word not to follow you." Allan shook his head. "There was no need to lock me in, Flora. If Cumberland chose to flee this battle, just as he fled the battle at the Spey, it is no reflection upon me."
"Very true."
"However, it would be better if we never told anyone that part of the story."
Flora considered the leaping flames reflected in Allan's eyes. Please God he would never realize that her entire plan had been intended to protect him from himself, even to denying his rank to the duke and his men. If she could hardly bear to see her dashing cousin humiliated, neither could she tolerate his anger. And he would be irrational enough to be angry, not grateful. "I shall never speak a word of it. Although I daresay no one will have enough interest in the story for me to speak at all."
"Like as not," Allan conceded. "Cumberland, I suppose, will return to the war on the Continent. A pity he proved unsuccessful in performing the task for which he was recalled to Britain. An enemy on its northern border will distract England from its task in Europe, to quell the power of France. But that need not concern us." Allan laid his fingertips gently on side of her face. "Now, Flora, I have been speaking with your mother . . ."
She leaned into his touch with a sigh as much resigned as relaxed. In time she would marry him. He was quite the handsome fellow, with ample charm of manner and speech. But, more important, he needed her.
Last night's jovial bout disturbed me somewhat, but not long. The room where we lay was a room indeed. Each bed had tartan curtains, and Mr. Johnson's was the very bed in which the duke was to have lain in Armadale, but which he abandoned in his flight.
At breakfast we spoke to Miss Flora of her acclamation in Edinburgh, where the prince jested with her, chiding her for helping his enemy. She told him, she said, that she would have done the same thing for him had she found him in distress.
It was not the escape that had destroyed Cumberland's reputation, Mr. Johnson opined, but his abandonment of the field, both at the Spey and at Armadale, where the field was but a village wedding. And his appearance before his sailors attired in women's clothing had only added insult to eclipse. "'Billy the Lily' Cumberland," said he with a chuckle. "I hear that during his retirement in Bath, where he confined his strategizing to the game of whist, wags were given to presenting him with lilies. He would then rant and rain curses down upon all present, until he was at last carried away by a burst blood vessel."
"If not for his royal connections he'd have faced court-martial, as did Cope," Kingsburgh suggested, whilst his wife sat demurely refreshing our teacups.
"The war upon the Continent might have been won had Cumberland returned there," I said, "instead of leaving France even stronger for the next conflict. It was in that struggle that young General Wolfe did well enough to save Hanover itself from France's grasp, even though he himself died in the hour of his victory. Just as well he never knew how his victory contributed to our present stalemate."
Mr. Johnson shook his head gravely, having always been of the opinion that had the English army been able to return from Germany then Charles would never had retained his separate throne. But, conversely, if England had been able to abandon the Scottish frontier, and its garrisons in Hanover, and those in Ireland as well—which, encouraged by Prince Charles's Catholic Emancipation act, took the opportunity to rise—then perhaps the Continental wars of the last decades could have been won.
Still, Mr. Johnson went on to speak of the present political situation, which meets with his approval: how the French ship bringing Prince Charles' father and brother to Scotland most conveniently—by English measures, at the least—sank in a storm, leaving the prince to take up the crown of Scotland as Charles III. How, finding himself with no heirs acceptable to any British person save for his rivals the Hanoverians, he wed the minor Austrian princess who became mother to his daughter, Charlotte, the Princess of Albany, who has recently wed in turn young George III of England.
I have heard that Charles himself, disappointed in his hopes of the British throne, now contents himself with drunken rages. Perhaps all his victory at the Spey wrought for Scotland was to spare it the reprisals of a victorious Cumberland—who can say? For now the same economic forces which worked to unite our two countries almost seventy years since are now working to unite them once again. Why, I myself was drawn to London to seek my fortune, as Mr. Johnson never fails to remind me, saying that the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to another country.
My heart was sore to recollect that Kingsburgh had fallen sorely back in his affairs, was under a load of debt, and intended to go to America. I pleased myself in thinking that so fine a fellow and his strapping sons would be well everywhere.
The MacDonalds could easily find occupation in the British Highland regiment lately raised by Lord North upon Queen Charlotte's entreaty, eager as she is to find employment for her countrymen. And eager as he is to remove her countrymen, doughty fighters as they are, from the borderlands. Such a regiment, Mr.
Charles Edward Stuart did not listen to Lord George Murray. He chose the worst possible stretch of ground for his battle with Cumberland, Culloden Moor near Inverness. His exhausted troops were massacred. The Bonnie Prince fled, becoming "the prince in the heather" of many a romantic tale, among them the story of Flora MacDonald disguising him in the clothes of her (nonexistent) maid Betty and conducting him over the sea from Uist to Skye.
William, Duke of Cumberland, earned his sobriquet of "Butcher" by enthusiastically pursuing an ethnic cleansing policy against the Scots. He returned to the Continental wars, but in 1757 was dismissed for making a deal with France which compromised Hanover. France was ultimately defeated, both in Europe and in North America, where after Wolfe's victory at Quebec it ceded Canada to Britain. Without the pressure of French colonies to the north and west, and with increased taxation to help pay for the war, the English colonies began to grow restive.
In the ensuing Revolution, Allan MacDonald and his sons fought for the Crown, just as Allan had done during 1745–46.