You've Got Plaid, page 1
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Books. Change. Lives.
Copyright © 2021 by Eliza Knight
Cover and internal design © 2021 by Sourcebooks
Cover art © Craig White/Lott Reps
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Sourcebooks is not associated with any product or vendor in this book.
Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks
P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410
(630) 961-3900
sourcebooks.com
Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Excerpt from The Rebel Wears Plaid
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Cover
For my Disney princess crew.
You lassies mean the world to me.
Dear Reader,
When I first imagined the concept behind this series, I knew I wanted to create a cast of incredibly brave female heroines who would have to risk nearly everything for the good of their country and their future king. The Jacobite era of Great Britain’s history is the last civil war fought on the united soils of Scotland and England, ultimately coming to rest in a rather tragic ending for many. Throughout the tumultuous years were born many heroes—dozens of which were women.
I wanted to incorporate their bravery, tenacity, and enthusiasm for their cause and their loyalty to a prince they wanted to be king, so I used many of their stories when creating those within this series. In You’ve Got Plaid, you will find Fiona’s story to have a flavor of the lives of Flora Macdonald, Barbara Strachan, Anne Leith, and the countless unnamed women who risked their lives to deliver messages to their male Jacobite counterparts, mixed in with a generous helping of my imagination.
There is also a fun rumor that the Christmas carol “O Come, All Ye Faithful” was in fact a Jacobite call to arms, and that the line “come and behold Him, born the king of angels” was code for “come and behold him, born the king of the English”—who just so happened to be Bonnie Prince Charlie. Allegedly the Latin verse was actually a celebration of the prince’s birth rather than of Jesus’s, all connotation of which was lost when it was translated in the nineteenth century. Learning that his people were nicknamed angels, it seemed a fun theme to incorporate into the series: Prince Charlie’s Angels.
I do hope you enjoy reading this book and the rest of the series as much as I have enjoyed writing it!
Best wishes,
Eliza
Prologue
MacBean Lands
Highlands, Scotland
Summer 1725
“What are ye doing?”
Fiona MacBean, second of four children born to Chief MacBean and his stronghearted bride, turned around to see her three siblings standing obstinately in a line, hands on hips, feet tapping.
Her elder brother had a knowing smirk on his face, as though he’d caught her red-handed. Her younger brother, Ian, was emulating Gus to a T, and sweet Leanna, the youngest of the brood, waggled her brows at Fiona in a way that meant she had a secret and was having a hard time keeping it in.
Fiona pulled her hands away from the gap in the tree and tried to clear her expression of anything other than annoyance.
“I’m just looking for eggs in a quail’s nest.”
“Nay, ye were no’. Just tell us what ye found.” Gus narrowed his eyes, the same way their father often did.
“I told ye, the squirrel ran up the tree. He was running in a circle just here.” Fiona zigzagged in front of the tree, and then hurried behind it before coming around the front and pretending to scurry up the bark.
“We know what ye do when ye come out to the woods,” Ian said, looking up at Gus for approval.
“Aye, we know,” Leanna added, not wanting to be left out.
Fiona crossed her arms and scowled. “The lot of ye are a bunch of storytellers.”
“Och, who’s telling stories now?” Gus said, taking a step forward.
Fiona clenched her hands, forgetting she held the slip of paper that had been folded neatly and shoved into the nook in the tree.
“Who’s it from?” Ian asked.
“Read it to us,” Leanna added.
“Hand it over. If ye dinna, we’ll only be forced to take it from ye.” Gus held out his hand.
At twelve years old herself, Fiona didn’t often take orders from her brother, born just shy of eleven months before her. But if he were threatening to tackle her to the ground, that was something entirely different. Gus was bigger than her, having just shot up another four inches in the past summer. But she was faster…
Fiona took off at a run.
As a little girl, she’d spent a great deal of time running through the forest, her feet slipping on leaves, boots catching on roots. She’d hidden in the hollows of trees, leapt over fallen oaks, slid down embankments. There was no nook or cranny in the forest she’d not claimed as her own. And as much as her siblings tried to find her in every single one, they were not always successful.
Her father didn’t like her traipsing off alone in the forest, especially not with the uprising. The damned loyalists, who she assumed were the English when he said it, had been a nuisance to all their hides for as long as she could remember.
Fiona had been born just a couple of years before the first Jacobite rising in 1715, and in fact, on her second birthday, her da had been away meeting with a war council along with other prominent Scots and titled men from England. Had fought beside old King James, and proudly showed his battle scars whenever he was a bit too deep in his cups. He’d been a sprite man of about twenty-five back then. There’d been a few more battles since, but none won, as yet. That didn’t mean they were going to give up.
Every year, Fiona went with her father to a secret meeting of the lairds and earls and other warriors to discuss their latest plans. They thought she was off gallivanting with her friends and siblings, not paying attention. Which she mostly was, but she was also very good at spying, and so the children often had her listen in on the talks, then bring back the news of what she’d learned.
There was one particular lad who seemed keen on her skills. His name was Aeneas but he asked her to call him Aes, and he had a smile that could melt the heart of even a lass who spent more time than not irritated with lads, namely her brothers.
He’d caught her one of the days listening in on an important conversation.
She didn’t see him in the hall with any of the other children, nor did she see him accompany any of the lairds. Aes was just as much a mystery to her as anyone else.
When she talked with her friends Jenny and Annie about him, they couldn’t figure out who Aes was, either, so they spent their days and evenings searching out the boy with the soot-colored hair and a mischievous grin. But he only seemed to show up when Fiona least expected it, and when her friends weren’t around, to prove he wasn’t a ghost.
Every year she saw Aes, and their fondness for each other grew. Just this past spring, he’d told her he didn’t want to wait until next year to see her again. Fiona suggested he write to her instead, to which he wrinkled his nose. If he was writing her letters, her father would want to know who he was, and he’d want to read them.
Fiona had asked what was wrong with her da knowing who Aes was, but he said it was best no one knew, so they’d sketched a map of the wood surrounding her family’s small lands, and she’d drawn an X on the spot where there was a tree with a secret nook that she often hid pretty rocks in. If Aes could find it and leave her letters there, their friendship was meant to be.
She’d been checking that tree for months, and today was the first time she’d found anything—a piece of folded paper, and she’d be
The calls of her siblings sounded behind her, and she laughed as she ran, dodging this way and that. They would be lucky to catch even the barest hint of her. She slid down an embankment, putting her heel out in just the right spot to stop herself on a root, and then launched onto her feet once more.
Fiona ran fast, her feet barely touching the ground, until she could no longer hear Gus, Ian, and Leanna behind her. And still she ran, until she felt certain she was alone.
She sat on the ground, a tree at her back, knees tucked up to her chest, and carefully unfolded the letter. It was short, the script scratchy, reminding her quite a bit of the way her brothers put chalk to tablet during lessons with their tutor.
She and Leanna were very lucky their father insisted they learn to read and write. Many young ladies she met at various feasts and festivals were not so lucky. In fact, her friend Jenny had to sneak lessons, and Annie was told by her da that if he agreed to let her learn, she couldn’t tell anyone for fear it would make her less marriageable. Fiona thought that sounded awfully ridiculous. But what did she know? She was only twelve and didn’t think much about marrying anyway.
Biting her lip, Fiona read what Aes had written in three crooked lines.
Dear F,
Have I found the right tree? For I’ve left a note in thirty-three.
Your devoted friend, A
Thirty-three? Oh, what a fun game it would be to find all thirty-three trees!
Fiona rounded the tree only to jerk back behind it. On the other side, only a few paces away, were three dragoons on foot who didn’t seem aware yet of her presence. How had she not heard their approach? She must have been so engrossed in the letter.
Her breath caught. They’d looked to be grimy from weeks without bathing, their cheeks a bit hollowed from lack of food. They traversed the roads south of here, but never had she seen them in her wood.
Every cautionary word her father had given her tunneled back into her mind, and every argument she’d made to herself about how she would be fine mocked her.
I’m no’ alone. She straightened her shoulders, willing her siblings not to find her. Four children wouldn’t stand a chance against grown soldiers any more than she would, no matter how used up the men appeared.
Fiona chanced a glance. The men surveyed their surroundings, and the one in the center grinned, the cool blue of his eyes deadly. But it wasn’t a happy grin, or one she ever wanted to see on anyone’s face. The crimp of his mouth was vile, predatory, showing teeth that looked too big. He took a threatening step forward and she jerked back.
“You don’t need to hide from us.”
Fiona bit down hard on her tongue. They’d seen her. Every inch of her skin crawled to run, to hide, to fight.
“Ye’re no’ supposed to be here.”
Goodness, nay! It was Gus, his proud voice calling out over the trees as if in warning to his siblings.
“Haven’t you got a smart mouth,” said one of the dragoons. “Do you know what we do with lads like you?”
A hand on her arm stopped Fiona from whirling out of her hiding place to protect her brother.
Ian stood in front of her, finger to his lips. Fiona searched behind him for Leanna but he mouthed the word home.
“I’ve an idea,” Gus was saying. “But I’ll no’ be your sheep this night.”
The dragoons sputtered with outrage, and from her hiding place Fiona heard a scuffle, Gus’s cry of pain, and a guttural groan from one of the dragoons.
Ian pulled his slingshot from his belt and whipped a rock around the tree, hitting his mark by the sound of it. The distraction was enough to give Gus the extra seconds he needed to escape. The three of them took off like a shot, the dragoons shouting obscenities behind them as they gave chase.
In her peripheral vision, Fiona made out blood dripping from Gus’s nose, but other than that, he appeared no worse for the encounter. They ran as fast as they could, leaping over fallen logs, scuttling under low-hanging branches, until the sounds of the ruffians in hot pursuit were nothing more than a fleeting memory.
Still, they didn’t stop until they’d nearly reached home, met on the road by half a dozen of their father’s men and Da himself, fully armed and expecting a fight.
“Where are they?” Da demanded.
Gus hooked his thumb behind him. “Back in the woods.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
“What have I told ye about being so far from home?” Though the question was asked of all three of them, his gaze centered on Fiona, and she knew that he meant it for her.
Fiona raised her chin but didn’t argue.
“Get back to the castle with ye,” their da ordered.
One of the guards peeled off from the contingent to follow them home as they ran, fearing the wrath of their father, but also praying he’d use that ire to eradicate the dragoons who’d dare to trespass.
In the courtyard of Dòchas Keep, their ancestral home, rumors flew back and forth about an attack on two of the clanswomen who’d been doing laundry just that morning. A trio of dragoons—and one with stone-cold blue eyes that reminded them of the dead.
How close had she come to suffering the same fate?
One
Dòchas Keep
Scottish Highlands
April 1746
“Dinna leave the castle,” Ian MacBean, interim chief of the clan, demanded from the bailey, armed to the teeth for battle.
Fiona MacBean stared hard at her brother, taking in the way his lips were pressed so tight they were nearly white. His red hair, the same fiery color as her own, was tucked beneath his feathered cap which was set at a jaunty angle, softening the hard lines of his face and the determined furrow of his brow.
Fiona tossed her hair back with a slight shake of her head. There was no way in hell she was staying in the castle when there was vital information to be gathered and intelligence to be shared. Hell, the reason Ian was even headed off to war was because of her, which made her feel doubly guilty.
Ian’s departure and subsequent insistence she stay home were rooted in a message she’d delivered several months prior to her brother Gus. It’d informed them that their baby sister Leanna’s betrothed had hightailed it to the eastern shores of America with the dowry Gus had so graciously imparted on him early. A hefty amount of coin they couldn’t afford to lose. Bastard.
The news was so mortifying to their clan that they’d kept it mostly secret, telling those who needed to know that Gus had escorted Leanna at the summons of her betrothed so the two of them might settle somewhere in Maryland, rather than that she and Gus were chasing him down. Which meant that Ian was now in charge of everyone in their clan—including her.
“Fiona, I mean it. Gus entrusted your safety and that of the clan to me while he’s gone.”
Ian didn’t understand. He never had. And he’d spent entirely too much time looking up to Gus for answers rather than forming any of his own. Her work as a spy courier was as integral to their support of Prince Charlie as his work on the battlefield.
A shiver of fear raced down her spine. Her only consolation about Ian going to war was that he’d be with Jenny Mackintosh, Laird of Clan Mackintosh and charmingly named the Colonel by Bonnie Prince Charlie after she’d raised arms and her men succeeded in warding off the redcoats who wanted to take the prince’s head.
It wasn’t that Ian wasn’t skilled at fighting. If anything, he was a damned beast on the field, but Fiona would feel better knowing he was with people she trusted, not some fools that might turn tail and run when the going got tough.
“Fiona?” Ian let go of his horse’s reins and marched toward her. Too late, she realized how much she’d been in her own head rather than paying attention to her brother.
He reached her, pressing his hands to her shoulders, his deep-green eyes piercing into hers. “Please, for the love of all things holy, bloody well stay here. I canna have ye running about the countryside when I’m preoccupied with war.”
“I’ve already been running about the countryside, and ye know it.”
Fiona knew how to protect herself. Had made it her business to learn to fight against men bigger than her, so she’d not be made a victim. She was well versed in the use of daggers and knew which spots to hit to fell a man. The pins in her hair were also sturdy and sharp enough to inflict damage. More often than not, she could be found with daggers hidden horizontally in the layered leather of her belt, as well as in her boots. One could never be too prepared.
