in an effort to stay seated.
“Attack!” Jenny bellowed, continuing with the ruse, and fired from six more of her pistols, all toward the hooves of her brother’s horse.
When her brother was finally able to gain control of his mount, he sent it galloping at full speed down the road, the men in his unit racing after him either by horse or on foot. She and her men continued to shout and fire their weapons until the last of her brother’s men disappeared from sight. And still they waited, in hopes the men wouldn’t return when they realized the nature of the ruse.
She’d ordered her men to wait an hour for Hamish’s return, with weapons fully loaded. He’d not arrived with the full force of his army, after all, perhaps only a hundred. But her brother did not return. Jenny stared out at the road, at the dropped weapons and other accouterments, the blood of the wounded staining the ground. The few attackers who had been felled had been carried off by her brother’s men. At least they’d had the decency to care for their own wounded and dead.
Jenny emerged from her hiding place in the trees and picked up the pistol her brother had dropped, running her hand over the snow-chilled iron. The hilt was carved with the Mackintosh wildcat symbol and beneath it, JM. Their father’s weapon. How dare her brother use their father’s weapon against the very people it had been made to protect? Fitting, then, that he should drop it and she should pick it up.
Jenny tucked the pistol into her frock coat and then started to gather some of her guns and carry them back to the castle, passing wagons that had been hitched to retrieve the weapons they’d distributed as well as the discarded items from her brother’s routed force. The rush of battle still coursed through her veins, giving her energy to make several more trips to retrieve weapons before she felt exhaustion setting in.
Dirk approached her, dragging a man by the scruff of his neck. “I brought ye a present, Mistress, though I think ’tis more a gift Toran will enjoy.”
Simon.
Toran came from around a wagon he’d been loading and stared in disbelief. Then a slow grin filled his face. “And I’ve got just the plan for ye, dear Cousin.”
Simon muttered curses that fell on deaf ears until Dirk hit him over the head to silence him.
When they returned to the castle at last, the prince was waiting in the courtyard, a beaming smile on his face. Dirk took Simon off to the cell he’d made a home out of before, and Jenny curtsied to the prince with Toran beside her.
“You, Lady Jenny Mackintosh, are a hero. You saved my life this day, and that is a feat I will not forget,” the prince said.
She smiled, remembering her silly conversation with Annie and Fiona, naming themselves Prince Charlie’s Angels. Perhaps there was some truth to that nickname after all.
“I have merely done my duty, Your Highness. And it is no’ over yet. They will return when they realize it was nothing more than deception.”
“They may, but not before I have gone and not before the rest of Scotland has heard that your brother’s army was beaten by a few dozen men.”
Jenny felt a little light-headed and swayed on her feet, feeling the strength of Toran’s hand on her back to hold her steady. They’d done it. They were alive, and her brother was gone. Boyd had returned to the garrison. How much longer would she be able to keep her seat? She’d already fought against her enemies twice now and been lucky to come out of battle barely scathed.
She bowed her head, overcome with emotion and uncertain what to say. “I am honored to have served,” she said simply, for she was. She couldn’t think of any other way to have supported her prince than by fighting for him.
Still, her heart was heavy. She’d hoped, though only faintly, that she might be able to bring her brother around, to make peace with him. Yet the look in his eyes when she’d thought he might be staring right at her had been one of hatred.
Hamish was firmly on the side of their enemies, a King George supporter to his very marrow, and there would be no changing that. Not if she had a hundred years to try to convince him.
* * *
Toran felt Jenny tremble slightly beneath his hand, though from all outward appearances,