General Hawley snorted with derision. “Your humanitarian effort has cost the Crown a great deal of money replacing the food supplies continually stolen by this blackguard.” He waved his horsewhip toward the burning cottages. “If I’d done this a month ago as I had planned—before Colonel Wolfe interfered, Black Jack and her men” —he spat— “would have hanged by and saved us quite a bit of trouble.” He leaned forward in his saddle. “Not to mention the soldiers who’ve been shot by these six bastards. I should have swept through this valley with fire and bayonet until these Highlanders served up Black Jack on a silver platter!”
Garrett had no response to this long tirade, which seemed to irritate General Hawley all the more.
“Does this woman…this Black Jack, have a name?” he asked, staring at Madeleine with evident distaste.
“Madeleine Fraser, mistress of Farraline,” he answered. “Her father was a baronet, Sir Hugh Fraser, who died at Culloden.”
“How fascinating,” General Hawley said. “A baronet’s daughter. Then she must have lands, an estate nearby? They will be forfeited to the Crown, of course, for her vicious acts of treason. That should put some gold coin back into the king’s coffers.”
Garrett bit his tongue. It enraged him to hear General Hawley accuse Madeleine of vicious acts! “Yes,” he replied. “She has an estate, Mhor Manor, where my men and I have been billeting since our arrival in Strathherrick.”
There was an ominous silence, broken only by the crackling flames in the distance. When General Hawley finally spoke, his fleshy face was bright red with anger.
“Do you mean to say, Captain Marshall, that while you were quartered under her roof, Mistress Fraser continued to carry out her raids with no interference from you or your men?”
Garrett stared back at him stonily. “Certainly we would have captured her sooner, general, if we had detected her activities.” He chose his next words with care, aware that Madeleine’s kinsmen were within earshot. Madeleine would learn of Glenis’s assistance from his lips alone. “I have discovered there is a secret tunnel beneath Mhor Manor. That was how Mistress Fraser was able to pass unnoticed from the house and continue her raids despite our presence.”
“A secret tunnel!” General Hawley snorted. “These Highlanders are the craftiest lot.” He flicked his horsewhip impatiently. “I would see this Mhor Manor,” he stated. “I assume it will adequately accommodate my commanding officers and myself? Most of the manor houses still standing in the Highlands are hollow shells, not fit for beasts.”
Garrett felt bile rising in his throat. To think that Hawley might sleep in the bed where only last night he and Madeleine had slept. “The house is well appointed,” he heard himself answer woodenly.
“Good. I assume there is a stable where the prisoners may be housed?”
Garrett stared at him incredulously. He glanced at Madeleine, still unconscious in his arms, and back to the general. “Mistress Fraser has been injured,” he said. “She needs care, as does one of her kinsmen, who was shot during the ambush. The stable is drafty and it leaks, hardly the place—”
“Captain Marshall!” General Hawley roared, cutting him off. “If I did not know better, I might accuse you of harboring some affection for these Jacobite dogs. Surely you don’t expect me to sleep under the same roof with them.” He abruptly turned his attention to the stiffly erect soldier at Garrett’s side. “Your name, sergeant,” he demanded.
“Sergeant Fletcher, sir!” he answered briskly.
“Well, Sergeant Fletcher. Take this prisoner from Captain Marshall and see that she and her surly kinsmen are locked up in the stable under full guard,” he commanded, then added dryly, “I’ll have one of my surgeons sent over to attend to their wounds. I’d like a full complement of criminals to face the king’s justice, if possible.” His eyes shifted to Garrett. “Meanwhile, the good captain will kindly accompany my officers and myself to Mhor Manor where we’ll discuss his notable accomplishment over a glass of wine or two.”
General Hawley kicked his horse with his brightly polished boots. The animal was clearly straining as it walked past them, then stopped once again in the road. “Captain Marshall?” the general said without turning his head.
Sergeant Fletcher turned to Garrett. “I should take her, captain,” he said anxiously. “I’ll see to it that she’s well tended, with warm blankets and the like. She did the same for you once…” His voice trailed off, and he looked momentarily flustered.
Garrett could empathize with his sergeant’s confusion. He reluctantly handed Madeleine over to him, his hand brushing against her cheek. “Thank you, Fletcher.”
He turned and mounted his bay, which had been brought to him by one of his soldiers. He drew up alongside General Hawley, who was staring toward the south end of the village, glints of fire reflected in his hooded eyes.
Garrett felt a chill cut through him at the pleased smile on the general’s face. “General Hawley, I took the liberty of ordering your men to stay their torches, seeing that I’ve captured Black Jack—”
“So I’ve just been informed,” General Hawley interrupted bluntly, without taking his gaze from the burning cottages. A long, uncomfortable silence settled between them until the general spoke up excitedly. “Look there.” He pointed with his horsewhip. “What a magnificent sight.”
Garrett followed his gaze to a cottage only fifty feet away, one of the last to have been torched before he called a halt to the destruction. A ball of flame shot up high into the inky black sky as the roof suddenly gave way, crashing into the fire-gutted interior with a roaring whoosh.
“I would like to see that happen to every cottage in the Highlands,” General Hawley said acidly. “These Jacobite bastards will never survive the winter without roofs over their treasonous heads. When they’re freezing and starving to death, they’ll wish a thousand times I hadn’t spared their miserable lives tonight.” He looked sharply at Garrett. “My order stands, Captain Marshall. Farraline is to be burned to the ground as a warning to any other villages in Strathherrick who might harbor an enemy of the Crown.” He dug his boots into his stallion’s flanks. “I’ve acquired quite a thirst from this night’s work, captain. Lead on.”
Garrett felt as if he had been slammed violently in the chest. He could scarcely breathe, and he could not think. He could only act.
Gripped by stark despair he urged his bay into a trot, riding side by side with a man from whom he could expect no pity.
Behind them the night once again resounded with screams as General Hawley’s soldiers set about their task with renewed vengeance, cottage after cottage falling to the twisting flames.
Chapter 23
It was almost noon the next day when Garrett and his soldiers prepared to leave Mhor Manor, ordered by General Hawley to rejoin Colonel Wolfe’s regiment at Fort Augustus.
“Your mission is completed to the satisfaction of your superiors. You are dismissed, Major Marshall!” General Hawley’s second-in-command shouted, with a final salute after the brief promotion ceremony.
