here, I am, and ye’ll do well to remember it.”
Immediately she felt contrite. Her skin still tingled with anger and pent-up nerves from her encounter with the dragoons, with Boyd. And she was glad that John had been out of sight and hadn’t seen what was happening. He would have been waiting for her signal, a whistle, and she was glad he’d stayed put even when she’d screamed.
“Aye, Mistress,” John said. “We all respect ye as our leader. Ye’re braver than anyone I know. I just—”
“Dinna say it, John,” Jenny warned. The men so often felt the need to tell her they wanted to protect her. She understood their chivalrous need but wished her sex never came into play. “We protect each other.”
“Aye.”
“Now let’s go tell the men they can come out.”
As they crossed the muddy yard, made worse by the horses’ hooves, Jenny scanned the woods and road for any sign of dragoons. All was quiet. She shivered all the same. Mac appeared from around the corner of the croft, and one look from him said that while John hadn’t seen, Mac had observed all. He nodded in respect and held open the door for her.
Inside the croft, the herbs and vegetables were boiling, and she dropped the cleaned, plucked chicken into the pot to cook.
With enough time having passed that it seemed safe for the men to come out of hiding, she nodded to John, who pulled back the rush floor covering.
“Ye can come out now,” she said while he pulled up the floorboards, revealing the men below.
One by one they crawled out of the space, stretching the kinks from their bodies. Five. The three men who’d been in the loft, one of her other guards, and Archie MacGillivray-Fraser.
There was one person notably missing.
“Where is Toran?” she demanded of Archie.
The man hung his head for just a moment, before looking her in the eyes. “He left, Mistress.”
She narrowed her eyes. “And left ye to spy like any good Fraser?”
Archie’s face turned red at that, and his jaw muscle ticked. He clearly didn’t like being called a traitor.
“With all due respect, Mistress, I’m no’ one of those Frasers.”
“And Toran?”
Archie straightened. “His family is in danger. He saw an opportunity to go to them and took it.” She didn’t miss that Archie had not answered the question.
“Who and how?” she demanded. If he was really one of her men now, then he would answer the question.
“His wee brother and sister. Their mother was…” He paused, his throat bobbing, and his eyes narrowing. “She passed. And so has their father. With our escape from prison, the dragoons will retaliate.”
“They know he has a family?”
“Aye. They know a great deal about many.”
“They do seem to keep a good measure on all the people in the Highlands, do they no’?”
“Toran told me once they’ve had pictures drawn so they might recognize rebel leaders and arrest them should they ever be found.”
Jenny gritted her teeth. Did that mean they had pictures of her? Was that why Captain Boyd had so…boldly taunted her?
“Will he be returning?” Jenny had to ask, for whether Toran returned would determine his future.
“Not likely, Mistress.”
“Perhaps ye’d like to go with your cousin.”
“Nay, Mistress.”
“I canna trust ye.”
“I will endeavor to prove I’m loyal to the Jacobite cause.”
Jenny frowned. The man appeared sincere, but so had Toran. “I’ll allow ye to stay with us, but ye’re not to be alone. Any sign that ye’ve betrayed us and I will put a bullet in your head myself.”
Archie nodded. “Ye have my word.”
The dragoons had already forced her to make the choice to abandon their safe house come nightfall, but Toran’s departure solidified the need to move quickly. Dirk would want to send a search party after him, to bury Toran and all he knew before he could reach his destination. But if there truly were two young ones who needed him…she wasn’t so certain she could allow that. Damn the man for confounding her.
To one of the men who’d come from the hole, she gave orders to rush to the castle, unseen, and tell Dirk that poachers had been seen in the forest—their code for needing to vacate the croft.
“Prepare the wagons. We canna stay here.”
“Where will we go?” John asked.
Jenny studied each and every one of the men, thought of all those across the moors who were hiding in plain sight, eager to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie, eager to get the bloody English off their lands.
“We’re going home.”
Five
Crouched behind a tree,