Sarah Gabriel (24 page)

“Kate, you would not even tell me your whole name,” Alec told her. “I was not certain who you were working with or against. I am a cautious man by nature.”

“I know that,” Kate replied.

“My instincts say we can trust you, Fraser,” Rob said, looking somber. “I will take the chance. I think these lads will, too. If Kate loves you, that is all the recommendation we need.”

“Thank you,” Alec murmured.

“You say you’ve worked with Keppoch?” Connor asked, his slight frown revealing his sense of caution in the matter.

“Aye, most often, since he’s my mother’s brother. I’m a Writer to the Signet, and as an officer I review documents for the military, and sometimes for Jacobite allies, including Blair of Atholl and Cameron of Locheil.” He paused. “I have learned elaborate secret codes and alphabets, I’ve used the trick of writing in lemon juice and oil to be held before a candle flame, and I’ve carried packets and notes between Sleat and MacDonald of Keppoch, between Lovat and Lochiel. I keep clear of the Earl of Mar, who reports regularly to Westminster now. And I’ve carried messages for Fraser of Lovat,
though of late he cannot make up his mind where he stands.”

“You’re of Lovat’s ilk?” Connor still seemed wary.

“He’s my father’s half brother. I trust his loyalty to family, but I know how far trust goes with him, and so I am careful,” Alec replied. “I am Laird of Kilburnie, near Inverness, though for many years my family has also been based in Edinburgh to maintain the business that my grandfather and great-uncle started.”

“Fraser’s Fancies,” Kate supplied.

Connor gave a curt laugh. “The chocolate powder? Interesting,” he added.

“A good business, which my uncle manages very well in my stead,” Alec said. “They are loyal Jacobites themselves, though they are very careful who knows it. The place is located very near the courts on the High Street. Have you heard of the Chocolate House in Edinburgh?”

“Near Castlehill? I’ve been in the shop myself,” Connor said. “I’ve heard that the owners might be sympathetic to the cause. The word is carefully guarded among Jacobites.”

“You could have told me all this,” Kate murmured.

“Interesting indeed,” Rob said. “What do you propose, Captain Fraser?”

“It’s Alec, please. I propose we find those Spanish weapons and do what we can for Ian Cameron and for your kinsmen, who may be with him in Edinburgh dungeons.”

Connor nodded grimly. “Do you know where this cache of weaponry might be hidden?”

“I do not,” Alec said, “but I suspect Kate knows something that may help us.”

“I spoke to Ian Cameron,” Kate offered. “He did not know exactly where the weapons are hidden, but he has some idea.”

“A few of them have been found, apparently,” Rob said, directing his remark to Alec. “Some of the Camerons got hold of a few from the original cache—Ian said his father had them. He gave some to our lot, and said he would find the rest and get back to me when he discovered where they were stashed.”

“Andrew and Donald were given a couple of arms from one of the Camerons,” Allan said. “But no one seems to know exactly who found them or where the weapons are now. Ian had that news.”

“He told me that a hermit has them,” Kate said. “A hermit somewhere near Glen Carran.”

“There are no hermits in this area, and there hasn’t been for hundreds of years.” Rob frowned.

“Hermit…could he mean hermitage?” Connor asked.

“Aye, that might be,” Rob said.

“What hermitage?” Kate asked. “I haven’t heard of it.”

“The old name for what’s now called Ossian’s Hall,” Connor explained. “It’s a small, hidden spot not far from the old ruined tower where I lived for a long while. There’s a waterfall near there, and a wee building, a sort of folly that Blair of Atholl partly built on his property, and left unfinished. It’s quite remote, and there are caves behind the waterfall. I wonder—”

“The caves! Of course!” Kate brightened. “I should have thought of it earlier. When we were children, we heard stories about a saint who lived in that area. A hermit.”

Rob nodded. “Right. The lads and I will go see if there’s anything hidden away.” He glanced at Connor. “When we return, we’d best be off to Edinburgh to see to the lads there.”

“Fraser, will you be with us in that?” Connor asked. “We will not spring them free of that dungeon through legal means.”

“I’m with you. You’ll do better with an officer along,” Alec said grimly. He pulled Kate close, and she felt the tension in him. “Kate should stay here.”

“After all that, I’m going with you,” she protested.

“We intend to get those lads out of the dungeon, not see you put in there,” Alec said. “If you were to appear in Edinburgh with me, you would be expected to report to the Court of Justiciary. I am not unknown in Edinburgh, Kate. Your presence would be noted, so there’s no avoiding your appointment.”

“Did you not say the Lord Advocate was one of your uncles?”

“Aye,” he growled. “The meanest of the lot.”

She smiled, despite the anxious feeling in her stomach. She had a strong urge to be with Alec, no matter the danger to her. What he and her kinsmen had decided to do was genuinely dangerous, and she would not stay home worrying about all of them. “Perhaps he can be charmed,” she said brightly.

“I doubt it,” Alec said, sending her a sober glance.

“W
atch your step,” Connor said, leading the way into the shadowy cave. “It’s slippery through here.”

Following behind him, Alec took Kate’s hand and ducked his head to enter the narrow cleft in the rock face, just above and to one side of the rushing waterfall. After one of Neill’s sons had run back to Duncrieff with news of a find, Alec was anxious to see it for himself, and Kate went with him. Despite its precarious location, he would never have suggested that she wait at home. She was as good as or better than on this terrain as he was, and she had every right to see what her kinsmen had found.

“Look there,” Connor said, his quiet voice echoing.

Attaining the top of the inclined cavern floor, Alec stepped into a clearing in a narrow cathedral-like space, dark but for the lanternlight that reflected the slick dark stone of the interior walls. Just ahead, he saw Rob and Neill standing beside two large wooden chests.

Rob flipped the lid of one as Alec and Kate came forward. Nearby, Neill raised the lantern high.

“My God,” Alec said, gripping Kate’s hand more tightly.

“Guns, aye—but I did not expect to see gold,” Kate whispered in the echoing silence.

Golden coins gleamed, sending a sunny glow upward to illuminate Kate’s face as she knelt to peer into the chest. Thousands of coins were scattered among hundreds of weapons, the coins spilling around the pistols, muskets, bayonets, and swords as if they were wood shavings.

Alec dropped down to one knee beside Kate, reaching out to run his fingers lightly over the upper layer of the contents of the chest. With a sweep of his hand, he touched the cold steel and wooden-and-brass fittings of a hundred flintlock pistols, and his fingers rippled over the faces and edges of silver and gold coins that filled the spaces between.

“How many weapons are there?” Kate asked. She glanced up at her brother. “And how much do you think is here in coin?”

“We do not yet know. It will take some time to count all of this out, and it cannot be managed here.” He gestured
toward the other chest. “That one holds broadswords and blades in particular, and more coins, too.”

Allan lifted the lid of the other chest, while Alec scrutinized the deadly gleam of the blades within. “Good Toledo steel. And those pistols in the other one are of the best Spanish make. I’ve seen those insigne before,” he said, indicating the engraved maker’s marks on the butts of some of the weapons.

“We’ll have to move these out of here before we can safely assess what we’ve got here and decide what the devil to do with all of this,” Connor said.

“But can Spanish coin be used here in Scotland?” Kate picked up a silver piece, then a gold coin to look more closely at them.

“Easily,” Alec said. He sifted through the coins. “Silver reales and escudos…pieces of eight—that means it’s worth eight reales,” he told her, choosing a silver piece and dropping it again with a gentle
chink.
“Gold doubloons…aye, it can all be used as currency. Spanish coins are highly desirable and useful everywhere because they are made of pure silver, and pure gold. These coins can be traded for their value, or melted down to be used for their pure precious metals.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

“I’m a lawyer and a merchant, both,” he answered, then glanced at Rob and the others. “The Spaniards had their own reasons for wanting to see the English out of power in Scotland, and so the weapons and money were obviously intended to support the uprising of 1719. But someone hid it well after that rebellion failed.”

“Aye, a pity, too, for that uprising was the most likely to succeed of any we’ve seen so far,” Connor said.

“How did these chests come to be here?” Kate asked.

“I suspect they were secretly brought by our father, along with Connor’s father,” Rob said.

“Your fathers were in the ’Nineteen?” Alec asked.

“Aye. They escaped the northern Highlands after the attempt floundered up there and came back this way with Cameron of Lochiel,” Connor said. “I remember my father spoke of it at the time, but he said nothing of this cache. Too terrible a secret to let out to anyone, I suppose, until he and the others knew what they would do. But they never had the chance.”

“Cameron must have hidden away a stash of his own,” Alec said. “Some of his men have been found with weapons like these, and Ian gave a few over to you lads. Lochiel has been eager to know where the rest of it was hidden. He must have suspected that MacCarran and MacPherson had possession of some of it, but he had to wait until the time was right. The last few years have not seen many rumors or attempts at another uprising, but the rumbles are beginning again. Weapons and coin are sorely needed.”

“This looks like the bulk of the Spanish hoard,” Neill said.

“But my father and yours were never able to do anything about getting this to Locheil when the time was right,” Connor said. “MacCarran of Duncrieff was exiled to France, and my own father was executed.” He shook his head. “How did Ian find out?”

“We’ll have to ask the lad,” Rob said. “First we’ll find
a better spot to hide this, then it’s off to Edinburgh as fast as we can, before the military has a chance to break Ian for the information.”

“Oh, he’d never tell,” Kate said. “He teased me that he would, and that I should say nothing of your business to him. But he’d never say what he knew except to us.”

“He would indeed say,” Rob countered. “You don’t know Ian as we do. He’d talk, if they pressed him hard enough. He’s a fine man, but he has a wife and child to think about, and if he perceived a real threat to them, I think the man would speak.”

“With the amount of coin here, and the weaponry, there’s more at stake than I thought,” Alec said. “If the crown learns that this is here, they will do anything to take it and claim it, and they’ll quickly punish anyone who knew of it.”

“Aye,” Connor agreed. “We’d best move these chests somewhere else before we go east to the city.”

Kate stood. “Why not leave them here, where they’ve been safely hidden for years?”

Rising to his feet beside her, Alec shook his head. “If Wade’s soldiers discover anything from Ian, they’ll come here as fast as they can. The chests should be moved quickly.”

Allan closed the heavy lid, shutting out the gleam of the gold like shutting a second lantern. “What should we do with the hoard itself? We cannot let it sit untouched when it could be of use to the Jacobite cause.”

“It should be distributed somehow among loyal Highlanders,” Alec said. “Though to whom, and how, is a difficult problem.”

“Should we give it to the Jacobite council?” Kate’s eyes looked luminous and unsettled as she turned to look at him.

“Some of it, certainly,” Alec said. “But I’m thinking about the scores of Highlanders who consigned their weapons to the government. Most of them have little thought of rebellion. They are simple men who need weapons to protect their homes and to use in hunting to provide for their families. Those men deserve these arms more than war-minded Jacobite leaders.”

“I knew you were a good man,” Kate said, smiling up at him.

“That makes sense—the arms to those who need them and the coin to the Jacobite council,” Rob said.

“Cameron of Lochiel can convey the money to the council,” Connor said. “We’ll let him know. Alec can do that, since Lochiel is waiting to hear from him on this matter. As for the weapons, we’ll have to spread the word somehow, but slowly and carefully.”

“Some of the weapons could be transported in cartloads and on the backs of garron ponies,” Neill suggested, “and some can be handed out secretly from here. Word will spread among the rebels. One by one, the Highlanders will be armed again, and they will have a measure of safety they’ve not known for years.”

Allan nodded. “For now, where should we store the chests?”

“Up at Glendoon,” Connor suggested. “My ruined tower up in the hills is a perfect spot to hide these away again and a good place from which to distribute weapons to those who are given the discreet word. No
one will come up there to search. It’s said to be haunted.”

“
Tcha!
” Neill waved a hand. “I will not carry these heavy chests up that devil of a hill, Kinnoull.”

“Then we’ll get your strapping young sons to help. Either way,” Connor said, “by afternoon, we’ll have this tucked away and be on our way to Edinburgh.”

Kate looked at Alec, and he saw uncertainty in her eyes.

“Stay here, Kate my love,” he murmured. “You will be safe at Duncrieff.”

“I’ll feel safer with you—and I have to know that you are safe as well.” She leaned against him. “Where you go, I will go.”

“Too much risk,” he said, putting an arm around her. “You did all you could to keep from going there with me, and now the tables have turned. I want you to stay here.”

“We’ve each changed our stance on the matter.” Her glance grew stormy, stubborn.

“And changed in other ways. I did not know then what I know now, Kate,” he whispered, bending to kiss her hair.

“Neither of us did. And that is why I must go with you now.” She gazed up at him. “No need to say that I am your prisoner…just say I am your wife.”