A Very Highland Holiday - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,70
man had the sharp blue eyes and fair hair of a Highlander, his accent putting him from the north and east. “What lady, and what shelter?”
“This lady.” Gair jerked his thumb at Fiona. “Whatever shelter we can find. Any houses the way you’ve come?”
“Only burned ones.” The man smiled a little over the barrel of his rifle.
Fiona lost her temper. These were Scotsmen who’d turned on their own people, burning homes of those suspected of hiding Jacobites, throwing entire families out with nowhere to go.
She dragged her scarf from her mouth, letting the cold burn her lips. “I see you there, Iver MacGregor,” she said to another of the Black Watch who hovered behind the man with the rifle. He was thinner than the others, with brown hair under his bonnet, and scraggly whiskers on his face to match. “What would your mother say about that beard? Ye should grow it out or cut it off entirely.”
Padruig remained stoic, but Gair shot Fiona an alarmed look, trying to silence her. The Englishman and the soldier who hadn’t spoken struggled to hide grins.
“Fiona?” Iver bleated. “I mean … Miss Macdonald? What are you doing out here in the weather?”
“Trying to get out of the weather. But you and your friends are blocking my way.”
Iver’s mouth popped open, which was its usual position. Iver MacGregor lived in the next glen from Fiona’s family home, and he and Broc had played together as children. Iver looked perpetually bewildered, had even when he’d come out of his shell enough to dance with Fiona one Hogmanay, before he’d joined the Black Watch.
“We can’t let none pass,” Iver explained as though Fiona hadn’t heard about the Uprising. “Rebels about.”
The Black Watch leader lowered his rifle but didn’t move, seeming happy to let Iver speak for all of them.
Fiona made a show of looking around. “I see no Highlanders here. Only these men I hired to see me through. You know them. Gair Murray and Padruig.”
Iver flushed, and the others shuffled, uncomfortable. Most people in the Highlands had bought smuggled goods from Gair and Padruig. The minute Gair was arrested, he could reveal what he’d sold not only to every soldier whose duty it was to stamp out smuggling, but to their superiors as well, all the way up the chain of command.
Iver stepped closer to the horse, on the side opposite Padruig, and peered up at Fiona. “Ye trust them?”
“I do to lead me true until they receive their pay at the end of the road. I’m only going home. My brother is ill, as you might have heard.”
Iver nodded, brow furrowing. “Aye, he took injury at Falkirk, I recall. Give him me best.”
“I will. Now, shall you let me pass?”
The Black Watch leader roused to life. “Sorry, ma’am. Orders. Everyone on the road is to be searched.”
“Very well.” Fiona nodded to Una, who started to slide down. Padruig caught Una and set her on her feet, but Fiona swung off herself, not waiting for assistance. “Be quick about it. I’d like to be indoors before nightfall.”
Thank heavens for Stuart. She could be serene, knowing the soldiers wouldn’t find the extra clothes and food she carried, would never realize what she intended to do with them.
Gair was less sanguine. “Ye can see I’m not carrying guns or a casket of gold, can’t ye? Will ye rob me of the few coins I have? I’m reduced to escorting a woman across the Highlands for pay. Take pity on me.”
Iver winced. “Sorry, Gair. I’ll make it quick.”
Iver found four knives, two flasks of whisky, and a few English gold sovereigns in Gair’s pockets, but nothing that seemed to alarm anyone. Padruig had one knife and a flask and that was all.
With Iver’s persuasion, they allowed Una and Fiona to turn out their own pockets, showing they carried only dried meat, bread, and cheese for the journey.
The leader clicked Gair’s two gold coins together. “We might have to confiscate this. Could be the spoils of smuggling.”
“Now, hang on—” Gair blustered.
“Give them to him, Gair.” Fiona kept up her air of an inconvenienced highborn lady as she turned back to her horse. “I’ll give you the cost at journey’s end.”
She allowed Padruig to give her a leg-up into the saddle, settling herself and paying no more attention to the men, as Una was lifted on behind her.
The leader grinned, and the coins disappeared. Gair snarled. Padruig stepped to Gair and simply looked at him. Gair subsided.