The Redcoat's Honour Preview

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Scotland, 1816

 

All Hamish MacLeod had to his name was a medal and a limp. Even his clothes were borrowed. After so long wearing the regiment’s kilt, he felt constrained in these ill-fitting trousers.

“At least they’re clean,” he roughly told himself.

Winds scraped damp curls against his cheek. He grimaced, remembering the sweat and mud-streaked battlefield.

No matter Hamish’s hopes, the past was stitched into his marrow. Another man walked the path home. One who expected everything to be hollowed out just like Waterloo.

Five brothers had set out, yet only one returned.

They’d left behind a father. In Hamish’s case, he had run to escape him. Now the old brute was all he had left.

It was tempting to start anew. A wife by his side and a child to protect. To do things better than his father had done.

A crofter’s son was denied such freedoms. Instead, his life was mapped out by his laird, though the title was steadily being replaced by landlord.

Dark smudges coated Hamish’s eyes. He feared he carried something with him from the war – a hunger to keep fighting, no matter who the enemy was.

~

“My brother might have been killed by Highlanders,” Tabitha Wynmere shouted, “and you didn’t think to tell me?”

Her father’s study was once a place of apprehension. As a girl, if she ever tore her skirts from exploring, her mother would threaten, “You stop that smirk or I’ll send you to Papa.”

Everything in the room once loomed over. The marble fireplace with its bellyful of spitting flames. The leather-bound books gleaming with gold lettering like a crowd come to watch her execution. Then there was the clock, its ticking painfully thudding alongside her heartbeat.

Now, at twenty-five, Tabitha stood eyelevel with the clock. She was no longer that lanky child defiantly thrusting out her chin to mask her trembling.

A puce colour spread across her father’s jowls.

“You swore you’d not mention that boy again.”

Tabitha bore the Wynmere features, the rigid beauty of a statue untainted by the drink and wickedness that marred her ancestors. Her dark eyes carried little light, only a gleam like a well shined musket ball.

She was breathless. A tremor thrummed in her throat. The hurried letter about her brother had sent her rushing out of bed.

“I held my tongue for Will’s sake,” Tabitha admitted, “but I’ll not keep quiet any longer. If you do not tell me what has happened, I’ll traipse across Tombland shouting about my illegitimate brother –”

“Enough of this shameful wilfulness!”

“How can you be so heartless?”

William Stone was Tabitha’s younger brother. His mother had been one of the maids. Most men accepted their illegitimate children in some way, just as farmers tended to their fields.

Lord Wynmere linked his fingers. “The boy is missing. One night he went on patrol and did not return. Deserted, most likely.”

“No!”

Tabitha had been so proud when Will turned up wearing a uniform as red as a robin’s breast. His shako had slid over his eyes and she had flicked it back up with a laugh.

“I don’t believe it,” she said. “We’ll send someone to look for him. Thomas could help.”

“If you breathe a word of this, he’ll not marry you. The Fairfax family won’t have scandal.”

Thomas, Tabitha’s fiancé, was far from her reach after being stationed in India. All she had to keep her content was the memory of a stolen kiss in the gardens.

“Then I’ll go by myself,” she decided.

“Absolutely not. The Highlands are no place for English women. They’re agitating again.”

“Father –”

“I’ll speak no more of this. Perhaps the boy will return, but it’ll only be to a flogging.”

Tabitha gripped her hands behind her back. She resisted mockingly bowing like one of the servants and strode out of the room.

“Mistress Wynmere, what did the master say?”

Lucy, her maid, waited outside. Tabitha could not stop or even slow down, so frustrated was she. The much shorter girl panted as she tried to keep up.

“The usual drivel,” Tabitha seethed.

“What about William?”

Lucy lived in the same village as Will. They had been playfellows long before Tabitha even knew her brother existed.

“Left for dead.” Tabitha shut her eyes at Lucy’s gasp, finally stopping to grasp her hands. “I wish I could tell you something else, but you know my father.”

“So, all we can do is wait?”

“No. I’ll not sit here doing nothing. I’ll find him, Lucy. I swear.”

“How?”

From the sash window, Tabitha gazed at their gardens with its delicate beds of red and white roses. Upon a flower a butterfly rested. In the bushes was the rapid flutter of sparrows bickering, yet even their song was cheerful.

She had read about the Highlands: a vast wilderness people adapted to rather than tamed. When she imagined it, she saw no sunlight but bracken woodland and strange, almost fey shadows.

A chill went through her. Rather than reveal her troubled thoughts, Tabitha smiled down at her friend.

“Pack me a bag, Lucy. My winter cloaks and food from the storeroom.”

“Your dresses, mistress?”

“I shall choose my clothes.”

Tabitha was dearly tempted to contact Thomas, never mind what Father threatened. She missed his calm assuredness. The warmth of his arms.

A letter would take too long. She needed to act now.

~

“I was thinking the green spencer jacket would be best, as it’ll keep you warm,” Lucy suggested as she and Tabitha packed.

“No, it won’t do. Take out what’s hidden at the back.”

Confused, Lucy searched. Her eyes widened as she pulled out a red long skirted coat, white trousers, a shako and boots.

“These are –”

“A redcoat’s uniform. Will’s birthday was – is – next month. I wanted to replace his old clothes with this, so he didn’t have to use up his wages.”

“You cannot wear this!” Lucy exclaimed. “What about your stays?”

“Nothing will drop out if I forgo them. I’ll be safer on the road. Other soldiers will be more likely to speak with me.”

“And then? If you go near a fort, they’ll think you one of them,” the maid panicked. “What will they do if they find out? What about the Highlanders?”

“Calm down. I don’t know, but I won’t worry and fret until it happens. I’ll need my hair cutting.”

Lucy let out a moan of dismay, but sat Tabitha before the dressing table mirror and cut her hair. Dark locks tumbled and pooled like ribbons.

There was an expanding, slightly heavy sensation as the wraparound sleeping stays were removed. Tabitha’s arms moved more freely.

She slid the shirt and coat over her chemise. Lucy looked away as Tabitha pulled on the trousers, only peeking when the other woman bent over to tug on her boots.

“I almost want to chase you out. You look like a stranger.”

Tabitha grinned. “Good.” However, it was too forced.

Desperately within, she prayed her brother still lived.

~

William Stone felt a stabbing pain in his side first. Next came the pounding in his head, a papery feeling in his throat alongside his wheezing lungs. Shifting, trying to get to his feet, he found his hands and ankles were bound.

Will struggled to recall what led to this. He wasn’t certain how many days had passed.

He had been out on patrol with Carruthers, checking a recently cleared croft in case the tenants had returned. His friend had cried out, there’d been a shot, and then…

His face twisted in grief. Carruthers had gone down and not got up again.

Will had lifted his flintlock, searching for the enemy. Before he could fight back, someone put a sack over his head and jabbed a knife into his side.

Now he was here. Luckily not dead, but not much else to be thankful for.

Dark shapes loomed over, monsters deciding how best to cook him. Will bared his teeth.

“I’ll not bend to you, no matter what you torture me with!”

He swore he heard the rough rumble of thunder, then realised it was laughter.

Light shone, a candle was lit, but none of his captors were caught in its glow. Will squinted as his eyes adjusted.

Wooden walls. A strand of straw. Was he in a barn?

A bowl of pottage was thrown at his feet. It was discoloured and lumpen, dribbling to splatter on his boot. He thought someone might untie him. They did not.

Instead, their footsteps faded. While Will’s stomach warred between pain and hunger, he was forced to watch his food congeal.

~

It had taken Tabitha a week to reach Scotland. Even though her horse Minerva was only used for cantering in the gardens, she’d kept an even pace and not flagged.

Life was vastly different travelling as a lone soldier. What surprised Tabitha most was the sudden freedom.

Once, when staying at an inn with cousins, laughing as they dried off the April shower they had been caught in, the owner had demanded if their husbands would soon be collecting them. As a soldier, none paid her any attention.

The closer she got to Scotland, the smaller her savings became. Tabitha was forced to sleep beneath the stars.

Under an oak as tall and wide as a church, she struck a fire and settled. She dragged a blanket over her horse, wrapping some of it around her shoulders.

It had been a cursed year. The sky had put on a yellowed cloak and fields festered. Her boots were clotted with mud and splintered twigs. The tree’s brittle leaves offered scant protection.

The fire was meagre, spitting almost like water. A shiver rattled her.

Stubbornness made Tabitha think of everything but how foolish she had been. Too busy snatching up every little noise and turning it into something worse.

An owl’s hoot was the scrape of a blade. A fox creeping past became heavier and more like a man’s tread.

Tabitha drew her knees to her chest, tucking in her chin. The taste of adventure was beginning to sour.

At some point she must have dozed. When the sudden snap of a threat came, she jolted and knocked her cup. Water splashed over the fire, dousing it and thrusting her into darkness.

Minerva stirred, whickering nervously as Tabitha stumbled to her feet. She had all the pomp and splendour of a redcoat, but no sword or pistol. No weapon at all. She should have stolen a knife from the kitchens!

“I know you’re out there,” she called with false bravado. “I’m armed. Better you leave like a spirit, unless you fancy joining –”

The touch of something cool against her throat silenced her. Heat soaked into her back. Lips brushed her ear.

“Funny that, laddie,” a rough voice thick with humour whispered. “I see no blade at your waist, unless you count that quivering tongue of yours as a weapon?”

To be continued...

The Redcoat’s Honour is an enemies to lovers romance adventure set during the Highland Clearances in 1816, the clearances being one of the main reasons why so many Scots men and women emigrated to America and Canada.

It was previously published under the title The Rogue Redcoat for The People’s Friend pocket novel series, which had a limited print run, and as a Linford Romance large print edition which can only be found in UK libraries. The Redcoat's Honour is the author’s original version, featuring Kitty-Lydia Dye’s evocative descriptions, a sizzling clean romance and high paced action.

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