The Rebel Wears Plaid

by Eliza Knight

  Toran still hesitated until, with his good arm, Archie tugged at the back of his shirt. “Let her up. She’s no’ the enemy.”

  Toran did slowly pull himself off her then, and she rose, resisting the urge to punch him in the mouth.

  “Dinna move,” she warned.

  Her guards would have continued about their duties outside as if nothing was happening, as they had been trained. But the closer the sounds of marching men drew, the harder her heart pounded.

  Jenny shoved the dagger back into her sleeve, eyeing Toran suspiciously, but he stood cautiously to the side. “Ye’d better not get us all killed,” she muttered, lifting an easily donned gown from a hook. She tossed it over her head and tied the belt into place. The gown was a simple and plain working dress, not at all the fashion, all the better to help her remain unnoticed. She picked up a basket, tucking the pistol underneath a layer of cloth.

  “What do ye expect to do with that?” Toran waved his hand toward the basket.

  “Save your wastrel life. Stay here.” Why was she even bothering? Toran would have slit her throat if the bloody dragoons hadn’t happened upon them.

  It wasn’t just his miserable life she was saving but all of their lives.

  Heart pounding, Jenny stepped outside and called to John about a chicken for the stew. As practiced, he called back that he’d get one ready for her, and she headed to the garden to pick a few herbs. Mac would be hidden somewhere from view but readying a crossbow to silently take out any attackers, should she give the signal.

  The dragoons were well within sight now, and though she felt like running, she remained where she was. Archie and Toran weren’t the only men recovering or hiding inside the croft, and she wouldn’t leave her men to suffer at the hands of the English. Down on her knees, she snatched at herbs and carrots and anything else she could grab and shove into her basket until the cloth was covered, concealing any lumps her weapon left behind.

  “Ho, there, wench.”

  Jenny bristled, leaning back on her heels. She held her hands to her eyes to shield them from a sun that was not at all impairing her vision.

  She acted startled, as if she’d not seen them coming or expected them to stop, then stood slowly with her basket in hand.

  “Good morn, sirs, can I help ye?” She tried to keep her voice as cordial as possible but not so friendly as to raise suspicions.

  “What are ye doing?”

  “Picking herbs.” She cocked her head as if that were obvious. “For stew.”

  “We’re looking for two men. They’ve escaped the garrison. Very dangerous.”

  “Oh,” she gasped. Feigning fear, she allowed her hands to shake slightly as she raised one of them to her chest.

  The leader of this pack of wolves shifted his horse forward several steps. The horse’s nostrils flared, his dark eye scanning over her as though even the animals had been trained to despise Scots. Jenny took a step back, partly as an act and partly because she genuinely wondered if the redcoat would order his horse to trample her for the fun of it. She’d heard a tale of this happening only the month before, near Perth.

  “Allow us entry into your home,” he demanded.

  “What? Why? Ye dinna think they are inside, do ye?” She laughed, stalling for time. “I assure ye, ’tis small enough I’d have noticed.”

  They did not laugh back. The one who seemed to be in charge made a grunting sound and pointed at the entrance to the croft. Two dragoons dismounted, peeled off from the group, and started for the door.

  “Please,” Jenny said, her face feeling like it might crack from her smile. “My house is not suitable for guests.”

  They ignored her, which she’d guessed they would, slogging through the damp earth toward the croft. She hurried forward, reaching the dragoons before they reached the building. As she’d done countless times before, she pretended to trip in their path, effortlessly maintaining the balance of her basket so as not to spill its contents. Her fingers itched to grab the pistol, but she was outnumbered by many, and doing so would not aid in their cause.

  Jenny let out an “oof” as her body slammed against the earth, blocking their way.

  “Foolish wench, get up,” shouted the man in charge of the dragoons.

  Jenny reached her hand up, keeping her face from showing any revulsion at the touch of a Sassenach, but it was hardly necessary. Neither of them offered to help her up in the first place. Bastards.

  When she made a great show of trying to stand, her feet getting caught in her skirts, the captain shouted again, this time dismounting as he did so. “Get out of their way. I’ll not hesitate to have you whipped.”

  Jenny bristled, keeping her head tucked down, and managed to get to her feet. The dragoons shoved past her, and all she could do was pray that she’d bought the men inside enough time to get into their hiding spots in the trenches beneath the floorboards. If not, this moment could be their last.

  Four

  When Jenny had ordered Toran to stay put, her pistol pointed at him as she donned her costume and exited the croft, he’d been quite truly speechless. The lass thought to protect them? Shouldn’t she be tossing him to the wolves as she’d surely done to his mother? Or dispatching him, as she’d promised when he’d tackled her to the ground?

  Her words came back to haunt him… As much as I’d like to toss your arse out there, I’d never willingly give up anyone to the redcoats, even if they are my enemy. They’d been spoken with a truthful vehemence, and he couldn’t help but question his own belief in her involvement. Was it possible that his uncle, that Boyd, had fed him the wrong information about his mother’s death?

  Now was not the time for questioning.

  He was still in shock that she’d actually had the ballocks to aim her pistol at him and press her knife to Archie’s neck. It was damned impressive, the kind of strength he’d rarely seen in a man, let alone in a woman. In fact, today was the first.

  It was a day for firsts too. Because never before in his life had he disarmed a woman and pinned her to the ground. Guilt riddled him at having further injured his cousin in the process, but the edge of her dagger had been pressed too closely to Archie’s neck.

  He’d not saved his cousin only to have someone else kill him. Every muscle in his body was still taut, his chest pulsing with anger, and Archie was eyeing him from across the room as though he’d gone mad.

  Why the hell had he let her leave? The answer to that was twofold. One, he didn’t have a choice; that lass was going to do whatever the hell she wanted. And two, if she had a plan, it was the only thing that might not get them all killed.

  When she’d pulled on the ridiculous and unflattering gown, tucking her bloody weapon into her basket as though she were going bullet picking instead of berry picking, his first instinct had been to tell her she was addled, take her pistol as he’d already done once, and go out to face the bastards himself.

  But it made more sense for her to do it, dressed as a crofter, and doubtless whoever stood on the other side of the door would recognize him instantly.

  And so he’d watched through the slim opening in the window shutter as she carefully rushed toward the garden to pretend that she was working. It struck him how very practiced the movements were. Not unlike his own actions, having to work with both the English and Scots.

  As the dragoons grew closer, he expected her to run. To tremble, at least, but she did none of that, save for what he now could see was a show she put on. He might not have known her long, but he could read the fierceness in her shoulders, the anger in her eyes. He hoped she didn’t look at any one of them directly, or they’d see it too.

  Toran’s chest constricted when he recognized Captain Boyd at the head of the red-coated caravan. An Diabhal fhéin! The bloody devil himself looked so smug.

  The men in the loft above him scrambled into action, sliding down the l
adder. They pulled back a carpet covering the wood-planked floor. One yanked open a hatch showing a shallowly dug pit, which looked unnervingly like a grave. None of them spoke, but they gestured for him and Archie to get inside.

  Toran shook his head and pointed toward the window. They were leaving. This was the first opportunity they’d had without a pistol or a dagger threatening to end their life or a guard riding their backs.

  Archie frowned and shook his head in turn, jamming his finger toward the hole. There wasn’t time to argue. The bastards would shove open the door to the croft any moment and would find them both there. They’d recognize Toran right away and would run him through—not without a fight, of course, but either way, today would be his last. And it would be a bloody painful end, if Boyd had anything to do with it. Toran would be labeled a traitor and die a horrendous traitor’s death.

  Toran gripped his cousin by the front of his shirt and hauled him forward. Barely audible, he said, “I saved ye once. I’ll no’ be coming back for ye.”

  “I owe ye a debt of gratitude, Cousin. And I’ll best serve that here by not telling them who ye really are.”

  Toran gritted his teeth with irritation but let go of Archie’s shirt. His cousin might think he could serve their country better buried beneath a croft, but Toran didn’t. He had to get back to his people, his younger siblings. Though they shared the same parents, Camdyn and Isla were significantly younger than Toran, who’d just entered his twenty-ninth year. His wee brother was seventeen years old and Isla but thirteen. Between the three of them had been two others—a wee bairn sister who’d died just a month after birth and another lad who’d made it to ten before falling ill with measles. Now they were all that was left, and they counted on Toran.

  Captain Boyd was certain to take his anger out on anyone with the name Fraser, if he hadn’t already. Enough time had been wasted.

  “I need to save my brother and sister,” Toran whispered.

  “Go then, afore ’tis too late. If ye dinna make it, I vow to keep them safe,” Archie said, as he made his way into the pit.

  “I’ll haunt ye if ye dinna.”

  Archie smirked but said nothing, pulling the false floor into place.

  Toran made quick work of removing any evidence that either he or his cousin had been there and then peered once more out the front window to see Jenny arguing with the dragoons. The lass had ballocks of steel. In two quick steps, Toran was at the back of the croft and squinting through the window, seeing no evidence of the English in that direction. He hauled himself up and out but stopped cold on the other side, feet just hitting the ground, when Jenny let out a cry of pain.

  Mo chreach! What the bloody hell was Boyd doing to her?

  Toran edged around the side of the building, catching only a slight glimpse of the crowd in the courtyard. Boyd had his hands in Jenny’s hair, her head wrenched back.

  Toran gritted his teeth, and some tiny part of him that wasn’t entirely certain she was responsible for his mother’s death cut a ding into his conscience. She’d willingly gone out there to save their arses, knowing the risks. Boyd was leaning close, whispering something in her ear, and rather than her skin going pale as any damsel’s might, her face flushed red with anger. Boyd saw it too, his hands roaming over the front of her dress. He gripped her breasts, squeezing hard enough to elicit a hiss from her.

  Anger boiled inside Toran, as he imagined that this was the same situation his own mother had been through, tossed to the bloody English wolves by her own rebel pack. A pack run by Mistress J. How could she claim to have never tossed anyone into the enemy’s hands? A very small part of him thought that perhaps this was Jenny’s just punishment, for she had to have borne witness to his mother’s demise. The better part of him knew that no woman should have to endure the unwanted touch of any man.

  Toran pulled his pistol from his belt, where he’d tucked it after stealing it back from Dirk when he wasn’t paying attention. He only had one shot, and then he’d have to run like bloody hell. He cocked his pistol, aimed, ready to shoot Boyd in the center of his forehead, when someone touched him on the shoulder. Toran jerked around, coming face to face with Mac, who shook his head.

  Glowering, Toran shook his head back.

  Mac mouthed, “Let her be. She can handle herself.”

  “Bugger off.”

  But a second later, Boyd was laughing and Jenny was on the ground. The captain of the dragoons was climbing back onto his horse and shooing his men into the croft.

  “Go,” Mac whispered. “I ken what ye were about.”

  Toran hesitated, looking around the front of the croft at Jenny, still lying on the ground. A smart move on her part. Her hands were planted on the grass, her eyes cast down, but he could feel the hatred coming off her in waves. He had no ties to her, no reason to stay, and every reason to leave. Why did he feel guilty about turning his back now? She didn’t mean more to him than his own sister and brother, who would certainly suffer more than Jenny at Boyd’s hands.

  Still, he wanted to knock every bastard off his feet and lift her back up to hers. To see the strong woman he knew she was—the one who’d just nearly killed him and his cousin—brought so low… It made him angrier than when he’d seen her knife at his cousin’s throat.

  Mac shoved him in the back. “Get the hell out of here,” he muttered. “Else I push ye out front to meet your maker. And if ye so much as tell a soul about this croft, not only will ye have the rebel army to deal with but the Mackintosh clan too.”

  The Mackintosh clan… Was that some kind of jest? Everyone knew them to be in favor of King George’s government. Toran only hesitated a fraction of a second before tucking his pistol back into place and running toward the woods as though the English had already seen him. As soon as he’d broken through the cover of trees, he jerked to a halt. He couldn’t push himself to leave just yet.

  Something was pulling him back. Guilt.

  But what did he have to feel guilty over? Archie? Jenny? Aye, maybe them both. But what was he to do? Camdyn and Isla needed him. They’d already lost both parents to the war with the English. He couldn’t risk losing them or them losing him. Remaining at the croft meant certain death not only for him or for his siblings but likely for everyone in that building as well.

  Jenny couldn’t have gotten this far if she didn’t know how to handle the bloody English, and he had to trust that she knew perfectly well how to get out of this situation. The woman was strong, her conviction as formidable as any stone wall. He’d not deny being drawn to those qualities, to her. Wasn’t that what he’d wanted for himself all along? To be able to believe firmly in one thing? The notion that he might admire something about her unnerved him all the more, especially since he wanted to hate her.

  She would not waver in her beliefs. But she’d not lost her mother to the war, either. Aye, she’d lost her da, but so had most of them.

  He had to get to Dùnaidh Castle. He had to make sure that Boyd had not already gotten to his family. The lives of his younger siblings could be in peril.

  Rebels be damned, along with the bloody English.

  He picked up his pace once more, running at a full sprint. He’d have to steal a horse, or he’d never make it home in time.

  * * *

  She wanted to close her eyes, not to watch, but to look away was tantamount to turning her back on her men. So Jenny pushed to her feet and watched the redcoats walk into the croft, prayers on her mind but not her lips. She waited a beat, counting in her head.

  Silence.

  “Who is your laird?” the dragoon who’d just assaulted her said from behind. She could still feel his breath on her neck, his hands gripping her body, smell the fetid stink of his mouth. Oh, how she wanted to cut those hands from his limbs.

  The hair on the back of her neck prickled as she realized that he could pull a weapon and put a bullet in her skull
right now if he so chose. She’d not be the first rebel to have that punishment exacted on her. She clutched her basket closer, wishing she could pull out the pistol, that she had enough shot to silence them all. When she didn’t answer right away, he shoved her to the ground. She was desperately glad she’d had the forethought to keep the basket from tumbling away. Unfortunately at the expense of her chin, which smarted from colliding with the ground.

  The answer to his question was easy and true and might very well gain her some favor. “Mackintosh,” she said. “He’s no’ a Jacobite. He’s loyal to King George.”

  The man was silent behind her, but neither did he shoot her nor assault her once more. Ironic that the name of the brother by whom she felt so betrayed would be what saved her from rape and murder.

  Anger prickled just beneath her skin, begging to be let out. She dragged in a deep breath, blew it out. Again. And again. It didn’t help. Jenny itched to unleash her rage on this man. She made a promise to herself that if she ever faced him on a dark road, just the two of them, she’d put a bullet in his head.

  Thankfully the two dragoons who’d entered her croft came back out, arms loaded with the food she and her men had stored for the week.

  “You’ve a lot of provisions,” the man behind her said.

  “I’ve a hearty appetite. As does my husband.” She turned slowly to face the dragoon, keeping the anger shielded from her gaze.

  “Where is your husband?”

  “He was getting me a chicken. Then took some of our cattle out to graze, I suppose.”

  “Are you often left alone?” Boyd hungrily let his gaze rake over her body, causing her skin to crawl all the more.

  Jenny bristled. “I can take care of myself just fine. And he’s never gone long.”

  Hard lines etched the man’s face around his eyes and mouth. He was cold, his eyes like those of a dead fish out of the loch. She knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to rape her if she only gave him an excuse.

  “May I ask your name?” Jenny wanted to know exactly who it was who’d assaulted her. She’d etch his name into the hilt of her sword as well and wait for the day she could claim his life in the name of every innocent he’d violated.