The redcoat leader issued an unintelligible order, and for a second, she thought the dragoon was staring right at her. Would he order his men into the forest? Her lungs burned for air, but she couldn’t risk even the tiniest sound be heard by these bloodthirsty monsters.
She touched her pistol, prepared to shoot if needed, but then he was pointing and shouting for his men to continue down the road. Jenny watched them kick their horses into a gallop, clouds of dust following in their wake.
Only once the dust settled did Jenny allow herself a moment to exhale. Despite the risk she was taking every time she came out here, there was no way she’d stop her nightly missions. The fate of the entire Mackintosh clan was now Jenny’s responsibility. She would not let her brother’s betrayal destroy her clan.
Which was exactly why, on this night—while her brother was busy with his nose up an Englishman’s arse—she found herself a few miles from an English garrison and several hours from home.
For three generations, her people had been trying to reclaim their country. Jenny, along with all the other Jacobites, had a restless need to do something to aid in bringing the rightful heir home to Scotland. Soon there would be a war, and she knew on which side she’d stand—with Bonnie Prince Charlie, the regent of Scotland. She’d made a vow a lifetime ago, it seemed, to support the Stuart line, and she planned to keep it—to follow in her father’s and grandfather’s footsteps and honor the warriors who had died for the Jacobite cause. Even if it meant going sword to sword with her brother in battle, a notion that made her stomach sour. At least she was faster and more agile than he was and had bested him more than once in the past because of that.
“We should turn back, my lady.”
Jenny glowered at the shadowy figure on the mount beside her. Her cousin Dirk was always with her on these nightly raids. “What did I tell ye about calling me my lady when we’re out?” She glanced back at the road, her hand on her pistol, ready to strike should a redcoat suddenly leap out in front of her.
“Apologies, Mistress J.”
Jenny couldn’t help but smile at the affectionate moniker her people had given her. It took away her title of lady and also didn’t give away her given name, keeping her identity shrouded in secrecy. It’d only been a few months since she’d taken up her most sacred duty, and in that time, she’d gained a reputation as a leader.
“We canna go back now,” Jenny said. “My brother will return any day now, and there is every chance Hamish will allow the English to billet at Cnàmhan Broch. That’ll be a death sentence for me, for ye, and for all loyal to the true and rightful Scottish king.” Jenny shuddered at the thought of dozens of redcoats flooding her family’s castle.
The bastards had already done enough damage.
Dirk shifted uneasily in his seat. “Aye, but—”
“Cousin, ye grew up with me,” Jenny interrupted, running her fingertips over the initials carved into the hilt of her broadsword: JM—Jon Mackintosh. Her voice grew hoarse with emotion. “Ye were beside me listening to all the tales of our clansmen fighting for the Jacobites.” Both her father and her uncle had joined the rebellion some thirty years before. Labeled traitors, they had been hunted down and eventually executed by English loyalists and their Scottish supporters when she was still a young lass. “We have to honor them.”
Dirk sighed, his shoulders slumping slightly. It was the same conversation they’d had many times. “But not by getting yourself killed. Ye ken the danger of being so near the Sassenach garrison.” Dirk grumbled something that sounded a lot like he was warding off the devil, a sentiment echoed by the four men grumbling behind him.
Jenny couldn’t blame them. The English dragoons were known for their brutality. Raping, pillaging, and destroying anything on a whim. That was precisely why she had to stand against her brother. How could she wait idly by and let him consign his people to a lifetime of terror? He might have pledged his loyalty to the King George loyalists, but that didn’t mean the bloody devils would ever treat them as equals.
“If we’re caught, Mistress, they’ll not hesitate to shoot us.”
Jenny inhaled deeply through her nose. The dragoons had been searching for her for going on two years now, and what Dirk said was true. Even still, she put on a confident front. “We’ll just pretend we’re looking for a wee one gone missing. They canna fault us for being out late in search of a bairn.” They’d used that tactic before.
Dirk nodded, but the air was thick with unspoken words. She knew he wanted tonight’s recruitment to come to an end, but she was the leader of these warriors, and she would make that call when she was ready. And something in her gut told her it was not yet the right moment.
“One more village.” Dirk rubbed his fingers over his jaw. “But if there is any danger…”
“We’ll turn back, I promise.”
“We trust ye, Jenny. And we believe in the cause as much as ye do,” Dirk reassured her.
If her brother had any idea what she was doing, at best she’d be locked in a dungeon, and at worst she’d be hanging from the ramparts for the crows to eat. The soldiers would suffer certain death, and her mother would be devastated. Already her son’s betrayal was enough to have her mother take to her bed and rarely come out.
“I’ll never be able to thank ye enough.” She reached over and patted Dirk on the shoulder and then eyed the men behind them. “And when the regent is on the throne, we’ll see that every risk was worth it.”
“Ye needna thank us for being loyal Scots,” Dirk said.
“Aye,” the four men murmured in unison.
Jenny straightened in her saddle, the creak of the leather mingling with the sounds of insects and the distant birds of prey. “All the same, I’m grateful to have ye by my side. The prince regent will land in Scotland in less than a month. The more soldiers we can gather, the more coin and weapons we present him, the better.”
She glanced at Dirk and then the men behind him. In addition to the other two Mackintosh warriors, tonight they’d only gathered two new recruits—the lowest number of any night since she’d started a few months before. And the coin they’d gathered was barely enough to buy a meat pie and ale at the local tavern.
The last village she wanted to visit tonight happened to be closest to the English garrison. Most of the men and women who lived there had been treated cruelly by the soldiers. There had to be at least half a dozen men she could sway to the cause, if for no other reason than the fresh rounds of arrests that had taken place just that morning.
Jenny returned her attention to the road. Not a single redcoat had passed in at least a half hour. “Are ye ready?”
“Lead the way, Mistress.”