in her ear, and rather than her skin going pale as any damsel’s might, her face flushed red with anger. Boyd saw it too, his hands roaming over the front of her dress. He gripped her breasts, squeezing hard enough to elicit a hiss from her.
Anger boiled inside Toran, as he imagined that this was the same situation his own mother had been through, tossed to the bloody English wolves by her own rebel pack. A pack run by Mistress J. How could she claim to have never tossed anyone into the enemy’s hands? A very small part of him thought that perhaps this was Jenny’s just punishment, for she had to have borne witness to his mother’s demise. The better part of him knew that no woman should have to endure the unwanted touch of any man.
Toran pulled his pistol from his belt, where he’d tucked it after stealing it back from Dirk when he wasn’t paying attention. He only had one shot, and then he’d have to run like bloody hell. He cocked his pistol, aimed, ready to shoot Boyd in the center of his forehead, when someone touched him on the shoulder. Toran jerked around, coming face to face with Mac, who shook his head.
Glowering, Toran shook his head back.
Mac mouthed, “Let her be. She can handle herself.”
“Bugger off.”
But a second later, Boyd was laughing and Jenny was on the ground. The captain of the dragoons was climbing back onto his horse and shooing his men into the croft.
“Go,” Mac whispered. “I ken what ye were about.”
Toran hesitated, looking around the front of the croft at Jenny, still lying on the ground. A smart move on her part. Her hands were planted on the grass, her eyes cast down, but he could feel the hatred coming off her in waves. He had no ties to her, no reason to stay, and every reason to leave. Why did he feel guilty about turning his back now? She didn’t mean more to him than his own sister and brother, who would certainly suffer more than Jenny at Boyd’s hands.
Still, he wanted to knock every bastard off his feet and lift her back up to hers. To see the strong woman he knew she was—the one who’d just nearly killed him and his cousin—brought so low… It made him angrier than when he’d seen her knife at his cousin’s throat.
Mac shoved him in the back. “Get the hell out of here,” he muttered. “Else I push ye out front to meet your maker. And if ye so much as tell a soul about this croft, not only will ye have the rebel army to deal with but the Mackintosh clan too.”
The Mackintosh clan… Was that some kind of jest? Everyone knew them to be in favor of King George’s government. Toran only hesitated a fraction of a second before tucking his pistol back into place and running toward the woods as though the English had already seen him. As soon as he’d broken through the cover of trees, he jerked to a halt. He couldn’t push himself to leave just yet.
Something was pulling him back. Guilt.
But what did he have to feel guilty over? Archie? Jenny? Aye, maybe them both. But what was he to do? Camdyn and Isla needed him. They’d already lost both parents to the war with the English. He couldn’t risk losing them or them losing him. Remaining at the croft meant certain death not only for him or for his siblings but likely for everyone in that building as well.
Jenny couldn’t have gotten this far if she didn’t know how to handle the bloody English, and he had to trust that she knew perfectly well how to get out of this situation. The woman was strong, her conviction as formidable as any stone wall. He’d not deny being drawn to those qualities, to her. Wasn’t that what he’d wanted for himself all along? To be able to believe firmly in one thing? The notion that he might admire something about her unnerved him all the more, especially since he wanted to hate her.
She would not waver in her beliefs. But she’d not lost her mother to the war, either. Aye, she’d lost her da, but so had most of them.
He had to get to Dùnaidh Castle. He had to make sure that Boyd had not already gotten to his family. The lives of his younger siblings could be in peril.
Rebels be damned, along with the