who support Prince Charles will be branded as rebels and as traitors to the English Crown.’
‘It will be nothing to what our fellow Catholics have already endured. If they have been safe for a time, it is only because they—we—have learned to be silent. You, Simon, rebel in the name of the Stuarts, I in the name of the Catholic martyrs. We have suffered for over two hundred years. This will be just one more test of our resolve—I pray it will be the last.’
‘I agree, but I cannot imagine that Prince Charles’s arrival after so many years of darkness and despair for the Jacobites is about to allow the sun to break through the clouds.’
Realising her curiosity had unwittingly placed her in danger, Henrietta followed this exchange with amazed disbelief. Beyond a doubt, everything that had happened to her in the past few hours had the incoherence of a bad dream. She was shaken, for in this day of Jacobites, of plots and counterplots, imprisonment and treason, it would seem she had stumbled across a nest of Jacobite conspirators. Somewhere in the dark chambers of her mind a memory stirred—not a pleasant memory—and her father’s tortured face flickered for a moment in her mind’s eye, which she quickly shoved away. A cold shiver travelled down her spine.
As a Catholic, she had followed the Jacobite cause with reluctant interest. James Stuart’s court, the exiled king of Scotland—or the Pretender to the throne, depending on one’s loyalties—was in Rome. He had mounted an abortive attempt to regain his throne in 1715 and had failed through lack of support. Since then he had worked ceaselessly at trying to gain support from fellow monarchs, reiterating his son Charles’s legitimacy to the throne of Scotland and England.
What she had just overheard suggested that Charles Edward Stuart had come to claim his father’s throne, prepared to resort to armed rebellion to restore the Stuart monarchy. As she adjusted her position her cloak brushed against the wall, dislodging a loose stone, which fell at her feet with a soft thud. It alerted the men and they fell silent. She stood stock-still, her heart drumming in her chest, and cold sweat trickled along the side of her face and down her spine. She knew that her breathing must be deafening—she was certain that she could be seen and heard in spite of the darkness.
A long moment passed. Hearing the men exhaling ragged oaths, she also heard footsteps coming closer. She shuddered and swayed slightly to keep her balance. She was sure that they would find her. She had to get away. Cautiously she began to retreat backwards. A man stepped round the corner of the building—a formidable silhouette bent on bloody murder. He stood motionless, staring at her. The moon chose that moment to slip from behind a cloud, haloing his tall, powerfully muscled form with its brilliance. His hat was slung low over his face, shadowing his features, but she thought she saw his eyes, and ironic ones they were. His gauntlets were made of fine leather, with gold thread trimming the edges. While she wore one of her old cloaks, this man wore a cloak of fine black cloth interfaced in gold. He said not a word as their eyes clashed across the distance.
Like the prey entranced by the predator, Henrietta was momentarily transfixed. She remembered then of the harm he might do to her. He did not speak, but the second he moved towards her, she whirled around and fled in the direction of her horse. She raced with all the stealth at her command, but when her foot caught in a hole she nearly tumbled headlong. Recovering her balance, she rushed on. She could sense the man coming after her, feel him gaining on her, and then he reached for her, but in the blink of an eye, she ducked under his arm and fled.
‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ he growled. Pivoting round, he reached out and grabbed her, wrenching her arm up her back. ‘I wouldn’t struggle, if I were you, boy. Stay put,’ he coolly ordered.
Letting out a cry Henrietta struggled to free herself, but she was no match for his strength. With one hand he grasped her arm, and with the other resting on the hilt of his sword he hauled her back to the others.
‘Keep still, you little savage. It will do you no good. Lower your weapons,’ he said to his comrades. ‘’Tis naught but a youth.’
The sound of his voice sent a thrill down Henrietta’s spine, and she trembled for some unknown reason. Glancing at the men, the one called Jack brandishing a dagger, told Henrietta that they wanted blood. Suffering the painful grip, she began to fear for her life. When she had come to live on the edge of the heath, one of the old grooms, who loved to tell stories, had told her a host of gruesome tales about the fearsome things that had happened to people who had been on the heath after dark. She would never have believed that such things could happen to her. But one cannot be confronted by four dangerous men and not fear for one’s life.
Little by little, she was learning the hard way that most cruel of all lessons—that if she were to survive, she would have to use all her wits to do so. But she guessed she was not going to be good at deception. It did not come naturally to her. She had no experience of it and had never had reason to resort to dishonesty.
Though she held her chin high and glared in a show of grand defiance, she knew she was defenceless. But when she glanced at her captor, big, black and fierce and for all the world like some fearsome being from Hades itself, a strange, murderously tranquil smile on his face, she blanched and, when he released his hold on her arm, she spun around, seeking any escape route. Unable to see a way past the men who had formed a ring around her, there was nowhere to flee. Her heart pounded. The man called Jack reached out to try to grab her, and Henrietta reacted in self-defence, reaching for the knife in her belt, the blade flashing wickedly in the moonlight. Jack fell back with a garbled curse.
‘Why, you young pup, I’ll gut you for that.’
‘Try it if you want my blade in your own,’ she replied with admirable self-possession, pitching her voice low, while inside she was trembling with terror, knowing she would never have the courage to use the weapon.
Simon looked her over. It was clear the lad could take care of himself, but he was insane if he thought he could take on the lot of them. He held out his hand. ‘That’s a nasty blade you have there, lad. Hand it over.’
Henrietta’s eyes were wide, filled with fright. She swept the surrounding men with a nervous glance. ‘And get myself killed?’
‘You’re already in trouble and you can see you can’t escape. Don’t make this any worse for yourself than it already is.’
She wetted her lips with a nervous flick of her tongue and again eyed the men. ‘But they—’
‘I’m the one you’d better worry about,’ he warned in a low voice. ‘Give me the knife,’ he coolly ordered. ‘And do that very slowly, for I am not at all amused.’
Henrietta grimaced at the man’s unintentional pun, but she did not relinquish her weapon.
He waited immovably, the men looking on in palpable tension as the fierce youth dared refuse Simon’s order.
Simon flicked his fingers impatiently, beckoning her to hand the knife over—he stretched out his waiting palm, watching her intently. ‘Hand it over,’ he said in a hard tone. ‘You’ve got no choice.’
Henrietta agonised over the decision, the war of emotions transparent on her face, but after a long moment, she slowly yielded, handing it over.
Simon clasped the weapon and thrust it into his belt. ‘There. That wasn’t so difficult, was it? Take my advice, my fine bandit, and study your craft more. You are a most inferior footpad.’
Henrietta found herself meeting dark eyes set in a face of leanly fleshed cheekbones. There was a cleft in his strong chin, his nose was thin and well formed, slightly aquiline, and beneath it were generous, but at the moment unsmiling, lips. There was an air of the professional soldier about him, a quality that displayed itself in his crisp manner and rather austere mien. The handsome features bore the look of good breeding and those eyes, glinting with a sardonic expression and blue, she thought, seemed capable of piercing to her innermost secrets, causing a chill of fear to go through her.
‘For pity’s sake! Do not kill me,’ she pleaded, having no idea of the kind of men she was dealing with.
An evil laugh was