looked to have a worse skill with a knife than wee Annie, and she lunged at him, but Craig was able to block her, grabbing her wrist and applying just enough pressure that she dropped the weapon. But then she tried using her fists. “Oh, for bloody hell’s sake.” He held her tight in his arms, staring down into her face.
“What have ye done to my mistress?” she demanded, wrestling against him.
“I was helping her, ye bloody fool. I ought to have ye whipped.”
Her face paled. “Please, I didna realize…”
Craig let her go, and she scrambled backward. “I’m no’ going to hurt ye any more than I was hurting her, ye pair of mad fools. I was only trying to help your mistress, who was outside getting ill against the side of the manor.”
“Oh no, she’s caught the prince’s ague.”
“Aye, and a bit of madness too.” Craig backed away, his thumb brushing at the fresh wound on his lip. “Take care of your mistress. And dinna attack anyone else with the damned blade. Either of ye.”
One
April 5, 1746
This was a mistake.
Every hair on the back of Lieutenant Craig MacLean’s neck stood on end, as though each one wielded its own sword against the enemy.
Without the protection of the fortress walls, they were sitting ducks tromping through the forest. An army with most of its men on foot would not be able to escape should a legion of redcoats cut off their path.
Winter had not stopped the sieges. Winter had not stopped death.
A vulture flew overhead, accompanied by two cronies as they cut a wide circular path in the graying sky. Were he and the men the dead meat they sought?
“We should go back,” he said to Graham MacPherson. “Your invitation was appreciated, but I’ve no’ got a good feeling about this.”
There was no telling when Cumberland’s men would make their move, and if the men were inebriated from drink and tired from too much celebrating, they’d not be ready for an attack.
Graham chuckled and tossed the end of a stick he’d been chewing at Craig. “Ye’re afraid of a few birds, are ye?”
“I’m no’ afraid of anything.”
“Let loose, MacLean. The men need to have some fun, and so do ye.”
The very last place that Craig wanted to be was riding toward Cullidunloch Castle. It wasn’t that he didn’t like castles or his host or the warm feast that Graham had promised or the ale that was certain to be flowing.
Craig liked all of those things quite a lot. More than a lot, if he were being honest. Toss in a bonnie wench or two to flirt with, and he’d be in his own version of heaven. But Cullidunloch Castle wasn’t only home to his best mate. It also happened to house a woman he’d been working hard to avoid for months. Graham’s sister Annie was very beautiful and very irksome. She was as brilliant as she was irritating, and despite that brilliance, the lass had conveniently forgotten the single encounter the two of them had shared.
He hadn’t forgotten. How could he? And now he was descending upon her home—her and Graham’s home—to partake of their hospitality. Her hospitality. If she was willing to give it.
Hospitality he would really like to have, considering he hadn’t had a warm bath in weeks. He’d only managed to keep himself from smelling like a chamber pot by swimming—when the lochs weren’t covered in a sheet of ice. His clothes were getting stiff from use, and he was fairly certain that his last good pair of hose now had a hole where his big toe was greedily trying to squeeze through.
At least right now they weren’t dealing with snow, though it was only early spring and another storm was inevitable in the Highlands. The temperatures had been rising steadily, enough so that the men in his regiment weren’t so fearful of freezing to death anymore. Unless of course it snowed tonight and Annie MacPherson tossed him out with the last of the evening’s rubbish. He wouldn’t put it past her.
Craig would have to make nice with her, though he found the very idea absurd. Graham didn’t need to know what a termagant his sister truly was. He’d never told his friend what had happened when he’d found Annie retching after battle.
To everyone else she encountered, Annie was sweet as sunshine. Even the men she had to stitch up while they writhed in pain called her their angel—men in his own regiment, men he’d trained and