certain we’ll cross paths again, Mrs. Mackintosh.”
“Why’s that?” She couldn’t help but ask, with an innocent cock of her head.
“My men like your bannocks.” But the way he leered, his eyes roving over her breasts, Jenny knew that the oatcakes were not what he was referring to.
She pasted a smile on her lips. “I shall bake extra next time.”
He raised a brow in challenge, and she feared for a moment he might demonstrate exactly what he’d meant by touching her again. Her breasts still ached from when he’d squeezed. There would be bruises.
Thankfully, he ordered his men to move out.
Dinna collapse. Dinna fall. Dinna move. Jenny remained in place until the last of their shadows had disappeared in the distance before she rushed back inside the croft. The dragoons had tossed a cot against the far wall, perhaps looking for someone underneath.
“They’ve gone,” she said to the air.
Several loud sighs could be heard from beneath her feet. Thanks be to the heavens, for if even one of the dragoons had decided to stick his sword through the floorboards to see how far the ground beneath went, they would have all been murdered.
“We’ll give it a half hour and then ye can come out,” she said. And then she could take off this awful gown. In the meantime, she prepared a soup for the men when they emerged. They’d be starving, no doubt, but not her. She still felt like vomiting.
Some months back, Jenny had lain in that same hole beneath the floorboards so she would know exactly what it felt like as the floor was put in place and the rushes spread over. Very little light crept in, and every footstep was loud, creaking on the wood, the dust from the walker’s boots falling into one’s eyes, and every sound echoed. If one were to sneeze, belch, or pass wind, it would be heard. That was perhaps the hardest part, holding in every bodily function when one’s instinct was to let it out.
Every man was made to endure pit training when brought to the croft. She certainly hoped that Archie had been able to endure it without the practice, and Toran, she hoped he had been tormented a bit by it. This was not the first time they’d been visited by dragoons, but it was the first time they’d been so unprepared. There was only one reason for that—Toran MacGillivray or Fraser, whoever he was. He’d distracted her, else she would have sent out scouts to search the area after having found that ax mark.
Still, she wasn’t so certain that the tree had been marked by dragoons. Why would they?
Blast it all, but Jenny could beat herself up with that question all day if she allowed herself the indulgence.
The scent of the cooking soup, normally pleasant, started to make her queasy, and she was glad for the need to step outside for fresh air. She paused a moment to inhale before heading to the coop to see if John had managed to snare a chicken to add to dinner. The sun overhead was shadowed by clouds rolling in, as if mirroring her mood. Jenny paused for a moment, staring up at the sky and watching as small white puffs of clouds blew with the gentle breeze. They’d come so close to being caught. Too close. She wrapped her arms around herself, letting out a ragged breath.
Not until that moment did she realize her heart was still pounding right out of her chest. How had Captain Boyd and his dragoons not heard it? How had he not felt it, with his hands on her? Or had he taken pleasure in her fear?
Away from the men, she sank to her knees, pressed her hands flat to the earth, and retched until there was nothing left in her stomach. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve and sat back on her heels. Her throat burned, head pounded. She closed her eyes briefly, dragging in clean air, before they popped back open in fear of the return of the English.
“We’re safe,” she whispered to no one. But she knew that whatever safety they might have at the moment, it would be fleeting.
In the coop, she found John holding a prepared chicken in one hand and his sword in the other.
“They’re gone,” she said and took the plucked chicken. “Thank ye.”
“I hate that ye make me hide.”
“I know.”
“Dirk will be furious.”
She rounded on him, snapping before she could stop herself. “Dirk is not in charge