by Susan King
MacGregor caught her around the waist, and she fell against him, off balance. He felt so solid and sure that for an instant she leaned against him, breathing hard. Then she straightened quickly. Once again he pulled her along again over hillocks and stones, stopping quickly once more. This time she bumped into his back. He put out a hand to stop her from falling on the incline.
“Hush now.” He looked around warily, his fingers finding and tightening on her wrist. Sensing danger, she moved closer to him, feeling blinded in the deeper fog on this part of the hill.
To the left, she heard the rumble of the cart, which then came into view—a boxy wagon stacked with hay, pulled by a sturdy brown horse. Two men sat on the crossbench, one in a wrapped plaid, one in trousers, both in nondescript jackets with dark, flat bonnets pulled low on their brows. The driver in plaid was a lean young man, his passenger robust and older.
“Farmers?” Fiona murmured. “Or smugglers with a load of illicit spirits?”
“Riding along the main road? Going home to supper, most like.”
“They say that smugglers go about quite openly. And it is getting dark.” She glanced at the fading light through the fog, wishing again that she had gone with Patrick. “Are they dangerous, do you think?”
He huffed. “They are my kinsmen. Farmers and herders like me, and most of the glen folk.”
“Not dangerous, then?”
“Not they, not to you. But these other fellows might be.”
He was looking in the opposite direction, and Fiona glanced there. Coming along the loch road, two men emerged on foot out of the fog. They wore dark jackets and trousers and stiff brimmed hats. One had a pistol, the other a cudgel, she saw.
“Smugglers!” She edged closer to MacGregor. He exuded reliable strength, despite all, and strange as it seemed, she felt safe near him, though she was not sure he was who he claimed to be.
“The men along the road? Gaugers.”
“Revenue officers? Oh, then we have nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, aye, not a thing,” he drawled. Taking her arm in a fresh grip, he led her down the slope. Seeing the cart approaching from one direction and the king’s officers from the other, Fiona angled her steps toward the officers. They would know her brother and escort her to safety.
But MacGregor tugged her in the other direction. He gave a low whistle and hurried on, half-dragging Fiona with him.
Then, with a sinking feeling, she knew—just knew—that the laird of Kinloch was not simply the landowner and farmer he claimed, but the smuggler Patrick and Mrs. MacIan had warned her about. This man was avoiding the excise officers.
Whenever the Laird walks the mountainside, Mrs. MacIan had said, step aside.
The Laird. Fiona stared at him.
Chapter 3
Dougal stopped short, and the girl bumped into his shoulder again. He set his hand firmly on her arm to let her know that he did not intend to release her. Not yet.
Narrowing his eyes, he estimated the king’s revenue men to be a mile or so away along the loch road. From the slope’s angle, he could see them, although the mist and angle of the hill and its jutting rocks would obscure the gaugers’ view of the man and girl on the hill. Nor would they have seen the cart yet, although they would soon hear its creaking progress.
Holding the girl’s arm, he ran with her toward the road and the coming cart.
“Let go,” she said breathlessly. “The officers will take me to Mrs. MacIan’s home.”
“Mrs. MacIan? Is that where you belong?” Could she be the teacher, then? He would soon find out. “I will take you there myself. You would not be safe with the gaugers.”
“I am hardly safe with you,” she pointed out.
He gave another whistle, a soft trill like a curlew’s call. The squeak of wheels slowed, for the driver knew his signal. Dougal hurried down the slope with the girl in tow and headed for the cart.
“I do not need a ride, I can walk—”
“Hush now,” Dougal said. The road curved around the base of the hill. From here, he could not see the gaugers, but they would not see him or the cart either. Soon, though. He hurried.
The vehicle rolled to a halt a few yards away. Dougal waved to the driver and the older man with him, all the while half-dragging the girl with him. She was not eager to go. Not that he could blame her, but there was no time to explain or debate.
“Miss, this is Ranald MacGregor and his son Andrew. My uncle and cousin,” he told her. “And this is—ah—” He did not know her name.
“Miss Fiona MacCarran.” She turned to his uncle and cousin and smiled so warmly that Dougal suddenly, sharply, wished she would bless him with a smile like that. She sent him a furious side glare instead.
“Miss MacCarran,” he said. “Into the cart. Now,” he added, low and fierce.
She blinked. He had not noticed how blue her eyes were, like a sparkling lake. He felt something intangible within him shift, become a need, a craving. He frowned at himself, not her, as he offered his hand.
She ignored it and extended her gloved hand to his kinsmen. “Gentlemen, I am pleased to meet you. I am Fiona MacCarran, come from Edinburgh to Glen Kinloch to teach at the glen school.”
She had not introduced herself to him so sweetly as that, Dougal thought, scowling. So she was the teacher. He had not even asked, he reminded himself.
“Ah, our new dominie! And such a pretty lass too. Not like the last one, hey.” Ranald’s big paw closed over her slim hand.
Beside him on the crossbench, Andrew nodded. At fourteen, swathed in plaid like a Highlander and trousered like a Lowlander, intent on acting like a man, he was easily dumbstruck by a pretty lass. “We thought you’d be old and ugly,” he croaked, blushing.
“Young or old, she’s still a problem,” Dougal snapped. “Hurry!” He took the girl by the waist, his hands neatly fitting her taut curves. “In you go.”
“No,” she said, as he dumped her over the side into the hay.
Dougal tossed her knapsack after her, set one foot to the hub of the wheel and leaped inside. His kinsmen gaped at him. “Gaugers on the road,” he explained. “Two, coming this way. Hurry, lads.”
“Och!” Ranald said. “Hide, then! Cover yourselves with that old plaid back there. If they see the new teacher in our cart, they will want to know why.”
Dougal snatched a rumpled plaid lying in a corner of the cart and tossed it over himself and the girl. She gasped in surprise as he pushed her down beside him in the hay, pulling her close under the musty tartan covering.
She shoved at his chest. “What are you doing! Let me go!”
“Soon. You are safer with us than with those gaugers.”
“Even if one of them is my brother?” She pulled away.
Just as he thought. “So your brother is the new gauger down the loch.”
“Aye, and you will regret holding me against my will.” She shoved at him. Dougal caught both her hands in one of his. He peered out from under the blanket.
“Do either of you know the gaugers up ahead?” he hissed at his kinsmen.
“Too far away,” Andrew answered. “Does it matter who?”
“Her brother is the new excise officer.”
“Och, that’s trouble then,” his uncle growled.
“What sort of trouble?” the girl asked in Gaelic, the language the MacGregors had used, a quick and fluent mix of Gaelic and English. Dougal sighed. He should have known that the teacher would understand every word they said.
“Hush,” the men said in unison.
“Hide her, and yourself as well,” Ranald said. “I see them now. Andrew, take the reins.” Dougal felt the cart lurch as the horse stepped forward.
He yanked the blanket over his head and over the girl’s too, settling beside her under its darkness. “Hush,” he reminded her again, his face close to hers in the shadow of the woven covering.
“I will not hide from my brother or his men.” She began to struggle, and the blanket sl
ipped from their heads.
Click. Hearing a gun latch, Dougal glanced up to see a glinting barrel poke through an opening in the folds of the plaid. Ranald held the pistol. “No word from you, lass. Do as the laird says.”
“What the devil, Ranald,” Dougal muttered.
“Mr. MacGregor,” Miss MacCarran said crisply in Gaelic, “put that pistol away.” She reminded Dougal of a teacher he once had: a stern and handsome woman whom he, a small boy, had unabashedly adored.
His big, beefy, fearless uncle hesitated. “Begging pardon, Miss, but you must do as the laird says, or we will have trouble.”
“I need not hide. Those officers of the law are colleagues of my brother. And you, I now realize, are scoundrels,” she added.
Dougal sensed the snap of anger in her voice, saw indignation spark in her eyes. Impressed with her ire—and her deft command of Gaelic—he was not going to debate the worth of gaugers versus smugglers with her. She was disposed to like one and not the other. And his idiot uncle waving a pistol about did not help. “Ranald, set that thing away,” he snarled.
Just then, Miss MacCarran grabbed her knapsack and swung it hard enough to knock the weapon out of Ranald’s hand. Snatching the bag, Dougal fell across her and held her down, losing the plaid in the process. Ranald was swearing a fair storm, shaking his hand. Andrew leaped out of the cart to grab the fallen pistol and jumped back to the bench to take the reins, while the horses sidestepped uneasily.
“Och, that’s an excellent lass!” Ranald crowed. He stashed the gun under his jacket. “Go, Andrew—go!” His son slapped the reins and the cart rumbled onward.
“Are you mad, both of you?” Dougal pressed the girl beneath him, throwing one leg over both of hers, while she writhed and he tried to pull the plaid over both of them again. He flipped down its edge. “Uncle, what in all hell was that about?”
“Sorry, Kinloch. I thought to keep her quiet or she might make trouble.”
“And she did,” Dougal said, while the girl pushed hard against him. “Stop,” he told her. “That pistol could have gone off and killed someone.”
“Then he should not have pointed it at me. Get off!” She shoved hard.
Sighing, he shifted his weight off of her, keeping his leg over hers, and pinning her down with one arm over her chest. Her breath heaved under his entrapment. He regretted using his strength, should apologize, but it could not be helped for now. He closed his eyes for a moment—she was soft, curvy, and fit, and she was damned distracting.
“What do smugglers care if someone is killed?” she asked. “Kidnapping and murder, smuggling and breaking the king’s law—it is nothing to such as you.”
“Ruthless, we are,” Dougal drawled. “Blackguards, we three.”
“Wretches,” she agreed. “Scoundrels.”
“Och, we are not so bad,” Ranald called back. “Not so bad as gaugers.”
“Some might say the opposite,” she rasped out, nearly breathless.
“Whisky smugglers are not all bad sorts,” Dougal said. “Often they are decent men driven to correct bad governmental regulations.”
“You mean driven to blatantly ignore the law.”
“Highland whisky makers have the born right to do as they please with their own damned barley.”
“The new regulations—“
“The English crown has no right to tax any product a Scotsman makes from barley grown on his own land. Yet they do.”
“You cannot argue with that, lassie,” Ranald called back over the rolling rhythm of the cart in motion.
“Revenue men earn an honest living upholding the law,” she answered.
“Hah!” Ranald grunted. “Dougal, the lass is Scots, is she not? She speaks the tongue of the Gaels, but defends English law. Does she understand Highlanders?”
“I do,” she said in Gaelic. “I appreciate and respect the Highland nature.”
“If so,” Dougal said, “you would feel safe with Highland men of good character, and unsafe with gaugers who would take a life for one bottle of the barley brew.”
“You are smugglers,” she said.
“I never said no or so. But I promise you we are no friends to customs men who profit from the extra fees the government pays them for whisky taken from Highland men.”
“My brother is a fine officer, interested in bringing criminals to justice.”
“He is green still, but he will learn. And if I were you,” Dougal said, “I would not be telling Highland folk about that brother.”
“Keep it quiet in these hills,” Ranald agreed. “I, for one, do not want to hear it again.”
“Ranald, keep quiet yourself, or you will be heard,” Dougal said.
“Kinloch, the king’s men are just ahead,” Andrew said then.
Yanking the blanket securely over his head and the girl’s, Dougal slid down.
“Oof,” said the girl.
“Stay still,” he told her tersely, and lay flat in the straw, pressing her tightly against him. Like lovers, he thought, bundled and courting. He suppressed the thought.
“Beast,” she hissed. “Rascal.”
“This is for your good as well as ours,” he murmured. “We must get past those men, and we cannot do that if they see you.”
“I shall scream,” she said fervently, and opened her mouth to do so.
He set a hand over her lips, over smooth, creamy skin, and leaned close to whisper in her ear. “Aye, do you dare?”
She looked at him—eyes widening in the dim light filtering through the tartan weave—and drew a breath. His hand prevented the sound she would make.
“Hush. Please, lass.” He did not want to frighten her.
She bit his hand. He yelped, broke his hold, clamped down again.
“Listen to me, my lass,” he hissed. “We will pass this road without incident. It is for the sake of many, not just us. Do you understand?”
She nodded, finally. Dougal kept his hand over her mouth, unwilling to trust her, though wary of being bitten again. He tucked her into his arms to keep her from writhing. A glimpse showed quick fear in her eyes, and he felt such remorse he could barely look at her.
“I am sorry,” he whispered, not sure she even heard in the commotion of the approaching horses and the rattling cart.
“You there! Stop in the name of the king!” A man called out harshly.
The cart drew to a halt. Dougal lay still, holding the girl against him. Warmth generated between them under the plaid. His cheek rested against her hair, her hand curled on his chest. He could feel her breathing quickly, air warmed by her nostrils. Her body trembled against his.
She smelled like rain, roses, a bit of earth and rock dust. Closing his eyes, he took in her scent. A long while had passed since he had held a woman in his arms. This one smelled like heaven and felt like a perfect fit for his very soul. He sighed.
Then her elbow jammed into his ribs, and he grunted. She mumbled under his confining hand, and he shifted his fingers away. Her lips were lightly moist. “Do not scream,” he whispered.
“Let me go,” she whispered. “I will not tell them you are smugglers. You have my word, I swear.”
“A fairy’s bargain,” he said.
“A what?”
“Never trust a stranger, especially a beautiful, charming woman who holds a man in her thrall. A fairy’s bargain is not to be trusted.” He moved his fingers over her mouth, but she pushed at them.
“What do you know of fairies?” she asked quickly.
“Some. Shh, now,” he murmured, covering her mouth with his hand.
“Stop in the name of the king!” The shout echoed closer this time.
Dougal froze, felt Miss MacCarran do the same. He held her tight, improperly so, his leg wedged between hers, her skirts wadded between their bodies. He waited, sensed she did too. The plaid covered them well, but he rolled over her just enough to hide her, risking his own shape being noticed.
“Who are you, and what is in the wagon?”
one of the revenue men called out.
“MacGregors from north of the glen,” Andrew replied.
“Kin to the MacGregors who carry illicit whisky about these hills?” one man demanded.
“I do not know who you mean.”
“We are looking for them,” one revenue man said. “A slippery lot.”
“There are many MacGregors in this glen, and all around the loch,” Andrew said. “We are bringing a kinsman to the healing woman in the hills above Drumcairn. Old Hector MacGregor from up the glen side is in the back. He is very ill, sir.”
Dougal would have to be a convincing Hector, an elderly cousin who lived at the other end of the glen. He groaned and coughed.
“Don’t believe them,” one revenue officer said to the other. “Rascals, the lot of them. Search the cart. You two sit there, and do not move.”
“My father does not speak much English,” Andrew said. “I will have to explain to him what is going on here.” He began to speak Gaelic in a loud, distracting voice.
Hearing footfalls, Dougal knew the revenue men had moved to the cart bed now, no doubt staring at the blanketed form in the hay. The girl tensed beneath him, and he lay motionless, his breath brushing the soft curls along her brow.
“Aye, there’s a man there under the plaid,” one of them said. “See his boot.”
Dougal coughed, adding an ugly groan at the end.
“Damn, that sounds bad,” the second man said. Thumps sounded, and then the rustling of straw as the gaugers poked dangerously close to Dougal, pulling at the plaid. Moaning again, he made a sort of retching sound. Beneath him, the girl was moving—crying? Panicking? He patted her shoulder awkwardly.
“Ill? Drunk on his own peat reek, more like,” one of the men growled. “What else do you carry besides an old drunken rascal? Kegs of whisky to be confiscated?”
Ranald growled in Gaelic to Andrew, who turned to the officers. “Not everyone moves peat reek about, sir. My father takes offense to be so accused.”
“Insulted until we find crocks and kegs under the straw, eh?”
“We’re carrying hay, and a very sick old man,” Andrew answered. “Hector is not drunk. He’s ill, and we need to get him to a healer who lives in these hills.”
