Ghosts of Culloden Moor 24 - The Bugler Read online

  THE BUGLER

  The Ghosts of Culloden Moor (No. 24)

  By L.L. Muir

  AMAZON KDP EDITION

  PUBLISHED BY

  Lesli Muir Lytle

  www.llmuir.weebly.com

  The Bugler © 2016 L.Lytle

  The Ghosts of Culloden Moor Series © 2015 L.Lytle

  All rights reserved

  Amazon KDP Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  The Scots of yore…

  for giving me

  so much material

  to work with.

  The bucket never comes up empty.

  BOOKS IN THE SERIES

  The Ghosts of Culloden Moor

  by L.L. Muir

  1. The Gathering

  2. Lachlan

  3. Jamie

  4. Payton

  5. Gareth (Diane Darcy)

  6. Fraser

  7. Rabby

  8. Duncan (Jo Jones)

  9. Aiden (Diane Darcy)

  10. Macbeth

  11. Adam (Cathie MacRae)

  12. Dougal

  13. Kennedy

  14. Liam (Diane Darcy)

  15. Gerard

  16. Malcolm (Cathie MacRae)

  17. Cade (Diane Darcy)

  18. Watson

  19. Iain (Melissa Mayhue)

  20. Connor

  21. MacLeod (Cathie MacRae)

  22. Murdoch (Diane Darcy)

  23. Brodrick

  24. The Bugler

  You’ll find more books by L.L. Muir

  on the books page.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE GHOSTS

  The Gathering, a short introduction that sets everything in motion, should be read first to understand what’s going on between the Muir Witch and these Highland warriors from 1746.

  The names of Culloden’s 79 are historically accurate in that we have used only the clan or surnames of those who may have died on that fateful day. The given names have been changed out of respect for those brave men and their descendants. If a ghost happens to share the entire name of a fallen warrior, it is purely accidental.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  BOOKS IN THE SERIES

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  About the Author

  THE BUGLER

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dear Reader,

  Though this is not a romance like the others of this series, I hope you’ll love the story as much as I do. I can only promise three things herein—a beginning, a middle, and an end—not necessarily in that order.

  Castle Beaufort, Early September, 1745

  Late in the gloaming, with stars sharpening their blades in the skies above Beaufort Castle, Morey Fraser, of the Boll of Meal Frasers, wasted little attention on the flock of sheep under his protection. He was generally a miserable shepherd—not that it required much on his part—but the misery had more to do with his resentment for his assignment and not his lack of talent, for there was little talent required.

  Remain awake. Order the dogs about. Keep from losing an animal.

  The care and feeding of the wooly beasts fell to those who were lucky enough to sleep in their beds at night, so Morey knew his job was the more preferable of the two, but he couldn’t help feeling that the duty was beneath him.

  He’d spent every free moment honing his true skills, as a bugler and otherwise, and expected that someday he’d be appreciated for them. Unfortunately, there was only one thing he was allowed to practice while on duty, and it wasn’t bugling. His music—and yes, it was music, no matter what his cousins claimed—frightened the beasts day or night. And since the sound travelled a good three miles, he would be beaten soundly if he woke anyone important at the castle while practicing after dark.

  Thus, it was no fault of his own that he chose to spend his evening practicing his other true talent, an ability that also required a nimble set of lips—teaching a lass how to kiss properly. In truth, it might have been his greatest skill of all, but it was difficult to judge the two against each other.

  But a talent for tending sheep?

  Bah!

  Reclined in the soft grass, face to face with Milly MacGilles, he placed a finger under her jawline and gently pressed her opposite temple to demonstrate the optimum angle for tilting one’s head. But their tutoring session was interrupted by the huff and puff of someone hurrying up the hillside.

  Embarrassed, Milly pulled her feet beneath her, scurried headlong into the flock of sleeping sheep, and disappeared. Morey hoped that when she emerged, she wouldn’t be covered in dung. It might mean the end of the evening.

  “Morey Fraser!”

  Morey stood and faced the shadowed but unmistakable form of his taller, handsomer cousin, Sween. It was a trial to be friends with such a prime competitor for young female attention. Even his name meant sublime. But as far as cousins went, they got on well enough.

  For pity’s sake, stay where ye are, Molly.

  Morey started down the hill and hoped the lass wouldn’t recognize Sween’s voice. “What brings ye to me, cousin?”

  “The Fox Himself has sent for ye, Morey!” The handsome face was lit with more than just exertion. “Ye’re to bring yer horn, aye?”

  “My bugle?”

  “Aye, what else?” His cousin’s attention was drawn farther up the hill and he frowned. “Is that Milly MacGilles, then?”

  Morey glowered, but Sween wasn’t watching him. “Aye,” he hissed. “Who else?”

  His cousin lifted a brow at his tone. It was clear he didn’t believe Morey had any claim on the lass. After all, Sween had caught him kissing Agnes McNully in the larder just that morning.

  “Laird Lovat is waitin’,” Sween reminded. “But dinna fash. I’m to see to yer…flock.”

  Morey looked over his shoulder and found Molly hurrying down the slope with her lower lip caught between her teeth. Apparently, the lass wasn’t too humiliated to face his tall cousin.

  “Dinna fash on my account, Morey,” she said, panting. “I’m certain Sween will
be willing to help me.”

  Sween nodded and grinned. “Anythin’ ye need, Molly. Anythin’ at all.”

  The two were all but licking their lips before Morey had taken a dozen steps, but he took great solace in the sight of Sween’s bold hand moving toward Molly’s hip…where a thick, dark smear awaited.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The sight of Simon the Fox, the 11th Lord Lovat, was both exciting and terrifying. From a distance, he was impressively tall. Up close, he was terrifying. His greying eyebrows sat on his forehead like gnarled watchdogs that jumped about at every sound. His ears cocked smartly as his head turned this way and that, listening, assessing. A cannier man, Morey never expected to meet.

  Choosing the wrong words, if one was allowed to speak in his presence at all, could earn a man a month in the dungeon, or a swat to the ear that might leave him deaf for the rest of his days. For most of the clan, speaking to their laird would never be necessary. But for Morey, the test was at hand.

  “Morey Fraser!” announced Hartford, the laird’s man.

  The grizzled head swiveled toward the doorway where Morey stood quaking in his boots. “To me, laddie. Dinna be afeared.” The graying whiskers twisted into an unnatural smile that insinuated fear was surely the wiser choice. “Say ye brought yer horn along.”

  “I did, yer lairdship.” Morey held the bugle out between them as he neared the large seat with its tall back to the cold hearth. Though it might have looked as if he were using the instrument as a shield, it felt as though he was offering up his very heart for his laird to do with what he would.

  “Good lad.” The man’s huge hand clapped him on the shoulder and Morey had to hop to keep his balance. “Yer grandfather taught ye all the calls, I hear.”

  “Aye, sir. Every one.”

  Lovat took the horn from his hands and turned it over, this way and that, as if it were the holy grail itself. Morey glanced at the valet, to guess what might be coming next, but the man’s expression was as blank as a windless loch. Another man, not of their clan, stood off to the right, stiff and official. His fingers, hanging next to his trousers, fidgeted nervously.

  Lovat grunted, noticing Morey’s inattention. Wide-eyed and blushing, Morey faced the laird and those eyebrows again.

  “A scrawny lad like ye,” Lovat gestured toward his body. “I doubt ye can make much noise. Ye’re likely too young to have much talent at it, aye?”

  The moment was at hand. At last, he would be relieved of shepherd duties and he’d be appreciated for the skills he’d honed! Climbing all those hills in order to practice in peace will have been worth it after all.

  Morey lifted his chin slightly. “My grandfather was the finest trumpeter, my laird. As is my father—”

  “Yer father abandoned the clan, lad. To us, he is dead. Do not speak of the dead.” Lovat pulled his arm back as if he often punctuated his orders with a blow. But he hesitated, then scratched his shoulder as if he’d never meant to do anything else. The nervous visitor exhaled rather loudly in relief.

  “Forgive me, Laird. I meant to say…” Morey hoped Lovat would appreciate boldness. “I am as fine a bugler as my grandsire, sir. Perhaps better.”

  The bugle slapped against his stomach with just enough force to take his breath away. It took a few seconds to realize Lovat was merely handing it back to him.

  “That’ll do,” the man said. “I mean to give ye to Master General John Campbell, no doubt the future Duke of Argyll. And a good bugler,” he smirked, “let alone a fine one, is a boon Campbell cannae ignore. Ye’ll leave with this gentleman.” He gestured to the stranger. “Meet him at the gate in ten minutes.”

  “Ten… Ten minutes?” There were so many questions flying around inside his head he could not latch onto one. But Lovat leveled him with a fiery glare that might have lit up the hearth behind him whether or not a stick of wood had been laid. So Morey took a step backward, bowed, and hurried out the door, half expecting Simon the Fox to ride his heels for the next nine and a half minutes of his life!

  ~

  The road was as dark as the bottom of a loch on a stormy eve. The horses had to pick their way. Morey and his companion had to be patient.

  One of those questions that had been flying around in Morey’s head finally landed on his tongue and he turned to Argyll’s man, Sergeant Gregory Campbell, for the answer.

  “Is it true that the Duke of Argyll, and the Campbells will fight again for the English?”

  The man frowned in his best imitation of Lord Lovat, but fell well short. “Not with the English but with the British Government. Ye best try to remember we are all British. Life under Argyll will prove punishing if ye canna.”

  The man had been frowning long before they’d left Beaufort Castle behind them, grumbling over the lack of Fraser hospitality. And though it seemed Lovat was in a hurry to have Morey delivered to the duke, the man charged with that delivery wanted a meal and a bed. So they made it only as far as the Allarburn Coaching Inn before Sergeant Campbell insisted he had suffered the saddle long enough for one day.

  The rooms were well-appointed in spite of the slant walls. The stew was hot and plentiful, the beds well-stuffed, but Morey could not quiet his mind enough to sleep. As a virtual orphan and the sole son of a sole son, he’d said very few fare-thee-wells. And with so many already abed for the night, there had been nary a lass to shed a tear over his leaving. To ease his disappointment, however, he closed his eyes and imagined a long row of weeping females lined up in the morning, casting mournful glances out the castle gate.

  It stood to reason, however, that if they started exchanging tales about a certain sheep herder, he wouldn’t be missed for long…

  Well, best to look forward then, to his new life as a military musician, a life in which he would be afforded the respect he deserved. And if anyone asked if he knew much about sheep, he would admit only that he was not fond of mutton.

  A worrisome question niggled at him just as he was beginning to relax. To point, if Argyll fought for the British Government, and Lord Lovat refrained from choosing sides, as he had done thus far, Morey had little to worry over. He would perform his duty and in so doing, would bring honor to the Fraser name and clan. However…

  What if Lord Lovat were to be swayed to join the Jacobites? The man changed alliances with the shifting of the wind, the rising of the sun. If Prince Charles Stuart were favored to win the crown for his father, Simon the Fox would hurry to his side, no question. So, if Morey were to be found among the government troops in some battle, would that make him a traitor?

  He shook his head and fluffed his pillow, then conjured a scene in his mind to quiet his fears…

  Bonnie Prince Charlie sits on a throne. Morey kneels before an executioner with one cheek resting against the block. The blade lifts. Lord Lovat rushes in and demands Morey be released, that the bugler only followed orders and that he, Simon Fraser, had given him as a gift to the enemy. With a wave of a gold-laden hand, the prince frees Morey. Then he points to the block and waits for Simon to fill the vacancy.

  Morey pulled cool air deep into his lungs and let it out again, and decided, at least for that night, he would pretend Lord Lovat might care so much about the life of one possibly-fine bugler.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Though the Duke of Argyll’s name might have inspired awe, his home was far less impressive than Morey had expected. Instead of an imposing castle, Inveraray was a dilapidated tower house in the center of a sprawling village, and was in the process of being dismantled. Ramshackle houses, lining a small hill, looked like a trail of broken, whitewashed sticks poured slowly from a bucket. And to Morey’s disappointment, they turned out to be the barracks for Argyll’s growing army.

  “They’ll be laying the foundation of the new castle in a bit,” the sergeant said as they reached the outskirts of town late in the afternoon.

  Gravity pulled the sun toward an orange and pink horizon. The townsfolk appeared to move leisurely from boardwalk to boardwal
k, either because the rush of the day was behind them, or life in Inveraray was more peaceful than at Beaufort.

  “Though ye should be proud enough to be joinin’ the 21st Royal British Fusilier Regiment of Foot,” the man continued, “ye’ll be doubly proud once the castle is complete. I’ve seen the renderings.” The man’s chest inflated as if he’d been gifted with a rare treat.

  Morey couldn’t help but wonder if the renovations to Inveraray might have much to do with which side of the Jacobite Rising the duke had pledged his allegiance to, but he wasn’t foolish enough to mention it.

  Their destination was not the row of shacks along the hillside, however, but a long wooden structure that resembled a legendary Viking Hall with a traditional Scottish roof of weathered-gray heather. The pine walls still looked fresh, however, as if the hall might have been constructed in the past month—’round about the time Bonnie Prince Charlie arrived in the Western Isles.

  Inside the hall was dark and cool. And though Morey would have liked to clean up a wee bit before meeting Master General John Campbell, such was not the case. A large hatch in the roof was propped open by a twenty-foot long pike that stood beside Campbell’s chair like some sort of scepter. A bright, white ray of light lit the man from above along with hundreds of drifting motes of dust. Altogether, it gave the appearance that Heaven Itself was raining down blessings upon the man’s head.

  Five men shuffled back and forth between Campbell’s chair and a long table covered with papers and large maps. Every time a map was opened and presented for the man’s inspection, those dust motes danced.

  Morey was grateful when the sergeant seemed in no hurry to approach the assembly. If John Campbell was anything like Simon Fraser, their interruption wouldn’t be welcomed. Unfortunately, one of the men noticed Morey and tapped the master general on the arm. He looked up with a forbidding frown on his face, but his visage cleared immediately when he laid eyes on the sergeant.