‘King Louis sent funds,’ she said, ‘but the ship was captured.’
‘How interesting,’ Elizabeth said, with complete indifference. ‘Why don’t you send them all home to be fed.’ She was seated by the fire, stitching white-ribbon cockades for the troops. Jessie brought logs in for the fire.
‘Some went home,’ Anne said, ‘but the Lowlanders can’t.’ She frowned at Jessie, busy stacking the bundle of wood in the hearth. ‘Jessie, Will could do that.’
‘I wouldn’t trust him near anything that sparks.’ Jessie pushed a fresh log into the fireplace. ‘Is there something I can fetch you, a pot of your tea?’
Elizabeth shook her head.
‘No,’ Anne said. ‘Thanks. Go put your feet up.’
Jessie left. Elizabeth looked up from her stitching. ‘Is she all right? She looks a bit pale, and I’m sure I heard her being sick earlier.’
‘She’s fine,’ Anne grinned. ‘Just a little something she got from Will.’
‘I’m glad you’re all right,’ Elizabeth burst out.
‘It’s not catching.’
‘Not that, the other week. With the troops.’
Anne had never been so wet, not with her clothes on, but their nerve-wracking adventure that stormy night had delivered Inverness. Everyone called her a heroine. Yet she did not want to talk about that evening. Too much had changed during it, her certainties shaken.
‘Forget it, Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘We were lucky, all of us.’ She closed the tocher box. ‘I’ll do this later. You need a hand with those.’
‘I can’t forget. I’ve been very silly.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Anne said, teasing. ‘You’ve stitched that to your skirt?’
The front door opened and closed, bringing a cold blast and MacGillivray with it, into the hall. Anne was never more pleased to see him. She ran to him, threw her arms round his neck.
‘Oh, I’ve missed you,’ she said, covering his chilled mouth and icy cheeks with kisses. ‘Where’ve you been?’
He grabbed hold of her, put his mouth on hers and kissed her, hard, desperately and long, but as she returned it and the kiss grew gentle, he broke it off and held her tight to him, murmuring her name into her hair as if he had been gone for ever.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked but got no answer. ‘Look, you’re frozen.’ She tugged his arm. ‘Come over by the fire.’
He winced in pain, his right hand going to the arm she’d touched.
‘You’re hurt.’
‘No, I’m fine,’ he denied. He straightened up, as if something in him shut off, looking past, not at her. ‘I’ve come with an order from the Prince.’
‘An order?’
Elizabeth had ducked her head down over her stitching to avoid seeing them embrace, but his sudden formal tone drew her full attention.
‘Last week, we captured a troop of Black Watch. They all chose to join us, except their officer. He also refused parole. I’m to place him in your custody.’ He held out a document. Anne didn’t take it. He laid it on the table.
‘
Ciod e?
What is this, Alexander?’ She smiled. ‘Are you playing a joke?’
He looked at her then, his eyes bleak.
‘The Prince believes you’re best suited to have charge of him.’ He took a step back and called over his shoulder. ‘Bring in the prisoner!’
‘Prisoner?’ Elizabeth perked up as MacBean opened the door and nodded his charge to step inside.
Aeneas walked in through the door. The sight of him punched into Anne’s heart, knocking the breath out of her. She stared in disbelief as he came towards her and stopped level with MacGillivray, flesh and blood, solid, the same easy, muscular swing, hair black as ever, brows furrowed. He stood, looking at her, his gaze steady and unwavering, the strangest of looks, cold as the ice that had frozen the loch hard during the snow weeks, but with anger burning in it. He said nothing. It was her place to speak.
Anne’s wits scattered. Behind her, Elizabeth had gasped when she saw who it was. Fixated by the trio, she could only gawp. Anne’s spine was rigid. MacGillivray was unreadable, his eyes still fixed on the wall behind Elizabeth’s head.
Like a front-line volley, a thousand thoughts and feelings shot through Anne. She had not seen him since the day Ewan hanged, eleven weeks in which her life had turned around. She hadn’t spoken to him since the day she left to raise the clan, six months and so much played out without him. Now he stood before her, distant, cold but angry, not wanting to be here, rebellious. He was her prisoner. She tilted her head to one side, the slightest of smiles curving her mouth. When all else failed, there was always manners.
‘Your servant, Captain,’ she said.
The brief flare in his eyes was rewarding, though quickly extinguished, before he nodded, curtly, in response.
‘Your servant, Colonel,’ he replied.
A moment long enough for the intake of breath passed, then MacGillivray turned abruptly and strode for the door.
‘Alexander,
fuirich!
Wait!’ Anne called.
He didn’t stop. In two strides he would be out and gone. She gathered up her skirts, brushed past Aeneas, and ran after him, pulling the great double doors open again at his back, following him outside.
As soon as she was out of earshot, Elizabeth hurried over to Aeneas.
‘Please don’t tell Anne, about Louden. She doesn’t know it was me.’
He looked at her with something like distaste.
‘Then she should, when she can’t trust those closest to her.’
‘I was stupid, I didn’t think.’ She had to convince him. ‘All I wanted was MacGillivray and for that silly Prince to be captured. We’re on the same side, you and I.’
‘Are we, indeed?’
In the yard, MacGillivray was already on his horse when Anne reached him.
‘Where are you going?’ she demanded. ‘You can’t leave like this.’
‘I can’t stay now,’ he said. His eyes were bright, too bright.
‘Then I’ll come with you.’ The defiance in her voice was meant to compel him, but they both knew he would go and she would stay.
‘If you need me, I’ll be around Inverness.’ He tugged the horse’s head round.
‘What am I to do with him?’ she wailed.
MacGillivray shook his head, slapped the reins and rode off, his troop of warriors falling in behind. Anne wanted to drag him back, furious that he could leave her, and that he’d done so in front of Aeneas. Her eyes stung with the prickle of tears. She watched him go, down the avenue, over the rise, even after he was just a dark speck vanishing out of sight. The lump in her throat was hard, painful. So he loved her, without condition, but he was gone just the same.
Aeneas had only to appear and MacGillivray deferred to him. The man she turned to, the man she clung to when everything else proved
false, the man who’d always been at her side, had ridden away from her when she needed him most, and Aeneas was the cause. Neutered, defeated and a prisoner, he could still cause her pain. She turned abruptly and hurried back inside.
Elizabeth served mulled wine and looked pleased with herself. Aeneas stood by the fire, glass in hand, a wary look on his face. No doubt warned by Will about their guest, Jessie had brought food in and was just leaving for the kitchens again, beaming.
‘The chief’s home,’ she said, superfluously, to Anne as she passed.
‘What is going on?’ Anne demanded of Elizabeth. ‘He’s a prisoner, not a guest!’
‘I’m only being hospitable,’ Elizabeth protested.
‘Then don’t,’ Anne snapped. She glared at Aeneas. He seemed almost amused now, that quirky smile she had near forgotten playing on his mouth. ‘I want an explanation. You sent your aunt here with a warning. Why did you do that?’
‘Does it trouble you?’
She had also forgotten how his voice sounded, that deep, throaty lilt like a caress. ‘If I’m beholden to an enemy, yes.’
‘I doubt you accept debt to an adversary,’ his eyes glittered, hard and angry, ‘when you owe nothing to a husband.’
‘Anne,’ Elizabeth butted in, hastily, ‘he was trying to be helpful.’
‘To help himself,’ Anne snorted, ‘by currying favour with the Prince before it’s too late!’
Aeneas flinched at that, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
‘Nothing so devious,’ he said, tersely. ‘I protected my home.’
So it wasn’t to save her. Why on earth had she hoped it would be?
‘And now it’s your prison,’ she said, drawing a deep breath to ease the ache in her chest. It was her own weakness she must guard against. ‘Confine yourself to your study and sleep in the boxroom.’ She consigned him to the smallest room in the house. ‘Jessie will bring up your meals.’
‘Anne, you can’t do that,’ Elizabeth interjected. ‘He’s your husband.’
‘No,’ Anne snapped. ‘He’s my prisoner, and I can do as I please.’
‘That arrangement suits me fine,’ Aeneas snapped back.
‘Then get out of my sight,’ she ordered, turning her back as he put down his wine glass and left the room.
There was silence between the sisters until he’d vanished up the stairs and the door at the top shut behind him.
‘What are you playing at?’ Elizabeth asked.
‘I don’t want him here.’
‘But it’s his house, his place is here.’
‘The house belongs to the clan, who are with me,’ Anne corrected. ‘And his place is in the wrong. It’s time he learned that.’
‘I’m sure he’ll love you for it.’
‘I don’t want his love. But I will have his respect.’
‘Not if you belittle him, you won’t,’ Elizabeth sighed. She poured a glass of the warm wine and handed it to her sister. ‘You should be magnanimous.’
‘He dishonoured me,’ Anne snorted, ‘before everyone. He joined the enemy without even asking my advice.’
‘If he was anyone else, you’d be gracious.’ Elizabeth sat, leant back, and made herself appear relaxed. ‘You’d know, if you win and rub your opponent’s face in it, then you haven’t won.’
‘Except this isn’t a game.’ Anne sat down too, leaning forward earnestly. ‘We’re at war, and I’m the only woman without my husband by my side. He shames me.’
‘All the more reason to treat him well. He will have shamed himself then. Besides, you can’t be disdainful of him while he’s shut away.’
‘Then what should I do with him?’
Elizabeth bent to pour more wine and fought to keep the smile from her face.
‘Let him eat with us?’ she suggested, as if she’d had to think about it.
‘Not a chance,’ Anne said. ‘I can’t bear to look at him.’
‘He’ll think you don’t dare to.’
‘
’s coma leam
. I don’t care.’
Elizabeth considered. Aeneas was an unexpected reward for her betrayal of the Prince. Already he had separated MacGillivray from Anne just by being here. There had to be some way to ensure husband and wife couldn’t completely ignore each other.
‘He’ll be cramped in those rooms. The boxroom is a cupboard and six paces is all anyone can take in the study.’ She shrugged. ‘You could allow him a walk outside every day.’
‘So he can escape?’
‘Oh, come on. He won’t dishonour a favour, and you have guards out now.’ Another pause. ‘Tell you what, I’ll go with him.’ She giggled. ‘How would that do, your little sister having to walk with your husband, as if he was a naughty child?’
‘But you hate walking.’
‘I don’t mind if it makes you look good. It would be better than sewing these interminable cockades.’
Once she had Aeneas out of the house, Elizabeth worked on him.
‘You could be kinder to my sister,’ she began. They were walking round the loch, the early March air crisp and dry. A frosting of ice coated the fallen leaves so they crunched underfoot.
‘Are you meant to persuade me?’ he asked.
‘You’re so suspicious, Aeneas,’ Elizabeth smiled. ‘It’s boring without company, that’s all. If you two were speaking, Anne might let you join us in the evenings.’
‘I’m perfectly happy in the study,’ he said. ‘I doubt if I could keep my temper otherwise.’
Elizabeth stopped walking and put her hand on his arm, sympathetically.
‘I understand that, I do. You must feel she let you down.’
‘Let down is the smallest part of what I feel.’
Elizabeth patted his arm and walked on.
‘It would be easier,’ she said, casually, ‘if you didn’t care so much for each other.’
‘I’ve seen how Anne cares for me. My opinions are discounted, my reasons not sought. She makes war against my wishes and a public mockery of my manhood. She assumes I’m foolish and vindictive, then uses that as excuse to go against me. An enemy couldn’t care less well than she does!’
Elizabeth let the tirade wash over her. He hadn’t denied that he cared for Anne and his anger was better out than in. Greylag geese paddled about in the water, fewer of them every night. In a month or so, those that hadn’t been shot and eaten would be gone back to Iceland. Winter would be over. War would return. She had to move this on.
‘Anne’s such a proud person,’ she said. ‘Could never say sorry, even when we were small. Broke my finger on the training field once, said it was my fault.’
‘I remember a crack on the shins she gave me, the day your father died, when I was trying to help.’
‘Didn’t appreciate it?’
‘Not one bit. I ended up having to spank her.’
‘And she appreciated that?’
He chuckled, he actually chuckled.
‘Got even angrier,’ he said. ‘I think she expected the clan to rush to her defence.’
Elizabeth skirted that one quickly, before he noticed how that situation had reversed and returned to anger.
‘Probably wanted you carved up and fed to the dogs,’ she smiled. ‘Fight and she’ll fight back. But apologize and she’s struck with remorse. Acquiesce and she falls over herself to do you favours. Cajole and she’s eating out of your hand in no time.’
‘Really?’ Aeneas smiled.
‘Really,’ Elizabeth agreed. He was taking the bait better than she’d hoped. ‘The light’s going, shall we go back?’
If Anne noticed that her sister always returned with Aeneas just as she’d settled down in the hall to do some paperwork, she didn’t comment. At first, she studiously ignored them coming in, Aeneas helping Elizabeth divest her cloak and gloves, him walking past without a word, each footstep on the stair returning to his rooms. She kept her head down, answered letters from Margaret, Greta, George Murray. The news was not always good. Jenny Cameron was captured while visiting her wounded from Falkirk and taken to Edinburgh. Anne hoped Provost Stewart and their other friends there would keep her spirits up until they could secure her release. She dealt with the estate, kept the household accounts up to date and let Elizabeth and Aeneas proceed with their daily walks.