back, then stayed behind to cover their retreat.
“I was firing at the soldiers on the walls and didna see him get hit. But I saw him fall. I ran out to fetch him, but the French had opened their gates and…” The captain closed his eyes, a look of anguish on his face. “He said he was already lost and ordered me to retreat wi’ the men. And, curse me, I did !”
“Your actions are commendable, Captain. You—”
“He was my brother, and I left him to die !” The captain shouted the words in William’s face, his eyes dark with rage, his jaw covered with thick stubble, his clothes stained with sweat and dirt from his buckskin breeches to the homespun of his blue checked shirt. “The French raised him over their heads and carried him inside the fort like a great bloody prize!”
Then, as if his outburst had cost him the last of his strength, the captain sank into the same chair he’d refused to accept not five minutes before, burying his face in his hands.
“Lieutenant, pour Captain MacKinnon a cognac.”
The lieutenant’s eyebrows shot up, almost disappearing beneath his wig. William had never offered any of the Rangers a drink from his private stores before. But Cooke was a disciplined officer and did as William had ordered without question.
It was surely a measure of Captain MacKinnon’s misery that he accepted the glass and drank. Under normal circumstances, none of the MacKinnon brothers would have taken so much as a farthing from him. They hated him as they hated no one, except perhaps his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland—or his grandsire, their noble sovereign, King George.
William rose, turned, and faced the window, his hand slipping out of habit inside his pocket to feel the familiar outline of the cracked black king he’d saved as a memento of Lady Anne. She’d broken the marble chess piece in a fit of temper after he’d refused to release her husband, Iain MacKinnon, from His Majesty’s service. He’d since had a new king made, but he’d kept this one—a token of the only woman ever to wound him.
“Major MacKinnon is a prize. If he was still alive when they captured him, I can only assume Bourlamaque asked his personal surgeons to tend him in the hopes that the major would survive to be interrogated.”
For four years, the MacKinnon brothers had harried the French relentlessly, helping to turn the tide of the war. The French had been trying for most of that time to kill or capture them and had placed a bounty on their scalps that was roughly the equivalent of two thousand British pounds. But the brothers had evaded every trap set for them—until now.
“Interrogated?” Glass shattered. “You mean tortured! They’ll do all they can to break him, and when they’re done, they’ll turn him, battered and bleedin’, over to the Abenaki, who will burn him alive !”
William turned slowly to face the captain and found him on his feet again, shards of crystal scattered across the polished wooden floor. He ignored the mess. “ That is the price of capture, Captain. Your brother knew it when he ordered you to leave him. But I’m afraid we must consider more than your brother lost. All of your supply caches, your hideouts and rendezvous points, your favorite paths, your passwords, the Rules—you must act now as if the French have knowledge of them all—”
The captain’s voice sank to a menacing growl. “Morgan would never betray us or our secrets! Dinnae you dishonor him! You are no’ fit to clean his boots!”
“I meant no disrespect, of course.” William sat and reached for pen and parchment, finding something oddly reassuring in the captain’s blatant hostility. “It is simply a fact that prolonged pain can loose even the most stalwart of tongues. But do not lose hope yet. If your brother is alive, it will take weeks for him to heal. I shall send a dispatch this very evening, offering Bourlamaque a prisoner exchange—the four French officers you captured last week for
“I was firing at the soldiers on the walls and didna see him get hit. But I saw him fall. I ran out to fetch him, but the French had opened their gates and…” The captain closed his eyes, a look of anguish on his face. “He said he was already lost and ordered me to retreat wi’ the men. And, curse me, I did !”
“Your actions are commendable, Captain. You—”
“He was my brother, and I left him to die !” The captain shouted the words in William’s face, his eyes dark with rage, his jaw covered with thick stubble, his clothes stained with sweat and dirt from his buckskin breeches to the homespun of his blue checked shirt. “The French raised him over their heads and carried him inside the fort like a great bloody prize!”
Then, as if his outburst had cost him the last of his strength, the captain sank into the same chair he’d refused to accept not five minutes before, burying his face in his hands.
“Lieutenant, pour Captain MacKinnon a cognac.”
The lieutenant’s eyebrows shot up, almost disappearing beneath his wig. William had never offered any of the Rangers a drink from his private stores before. But Cooke was a disciplined officer and did as William had ordered without question.
It was surely a measure of Captain MacKinnon’s misery that he accepted the glass and drank. Under normal circumstances, none of the MacKinnon brothers would have taken so much as a farthing from him. They hated him as they hated no one, except perhaps his uncle, the Duke of Cumberland—or his grandsire, their noble sovereign, King George.
William rose, turned, and faced the window, his hand slipping out of habit inside his pocket to feel the familiar outline of the cracked black king he’d saved as a memento of Lady Anne. She’d broken the marble chess piece in a fit of temper after he’d refused to release her husband, Iain MacKinnon, from His Majesty’s service. He’d since had a new king made, but he’d kept this one—a token of the only woman ever to wound him.
“Major MacKinnon is a prize. If he was still alive when they captured him, I can only assume Bourlamaque asked his personal surgeons to tend him in the hopes that the major would survive to be interrogated.”
For four years, the MacKinnon brothers had harried the French relentlessly, helping to turn the tide of the war. The French had been trying for most of that time to kill or capture them and had placed a bounty on their scalps that was roughly the equivalent of two thousand British pounds. But the brothers had evaded every trap set for them—until now.
“Interrogated?” Glass shattered. “You mean tortured! They’ll do all they can to break him, and when they’re done, they’ll turn him, battered and bleedin’, over to the Abenaki, who will burn him alive !”
William turned slowly to face the captain and found him on his feet again, shards of crystal scattered across the polished wooden floor. He ignored the mess. “ That is the price of capture, Captain. Your brother knew it when he ordered you to leave him. But I’m afraid we must consider more than your brother lost. All of your supply caches, your hideouts and rendezvous points, your favorite paths, your passwords, the Rules—you must act now as if the French have knowledge of them all—”
The captain’s voice sank to a menacing growl. “Morgan would never betray us or our secrets! Dinnae you dishonor him! You are no’ fit to clean his boots!”
“I meant no disrespect, of course.” William sat and reached for pen and parchment, finding something oddly reassuring in the captain’s blatant hostility. “It is simply a fact that prolonged pain can loose even the most stalwart of tongues. But do not lose hope yet. If your brother is alive, it will take weeks for him to heal. I shall send a dispatch this very evening, offering Bourlamaque a prisoner exchange—the four French officers you captured last week for
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