Beloved Highlander

by Sara Bennett

  SARA BENNETT

  BELOVED HIGHLANDER

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Lady Margaret Mackintosh tightened her fingers on her mare’s reins…

  Chapter 2

  A little earlier, Gregor Grant had run his fingers through…

  Chapter 3

  Gregor Grant was so large and tough, so masculine, so…

  Chapter 4

  Gregor woke in the sharp predawn air. For a moment…

  Chapter 5

  With Meg’s help, Gregor struggled to the same big wooden…

  Chapter 6

  Meg drew her mare up from a gallop. While it stood…

  Chapter 7

  Meg’s men had found places to sleep—some in the stable…

  Chapter 8

  It was dawn. Here, outside, the air was cool and…

  Chapter 9

  By afternoon they had reached the pass through the mountains.

  Chapter 10

  Glen Dhui Castle sat solid against the last faint glow…

  Chapter 11

  Meg’s mouth was watering. She had always been blessed with…

  Chapter 12

  Inside the general’s room it was dim, with only a…

  Chapter 13

  Malcolm Bain strode along the upper corridor, his mind preoccupied.

  Chapter 14

  Alison Forbes had laid out the meal in the upstairs…

  Chapter 15

  Meg tapped lightly on the general’s door. She felt flushed…

  Chapter 16

  This morning Meg rose early, as she had risen early…

  Chapter 17

  There above them on the stairs, Lorenzo smiled down, like…

  Chapter 18

  All day, people had been arriving at Glen Dhui Castle.

  Chapter 19

  Candles, their flames dipping gently in the sweet breeze from…

  Chapter 20

  “My lady?”

  Chapter 21

  Gregor had been drinking. Meg could smell the whiskey strong…

  Chapter 22

  In fact, Meg had three weeks of perfect happiness. Long,…

  Chapter 23

  For a brief moment, Meg found herself unable to move.

  Chapter 24

  What if I canna find her?

  Chapter 25

  Glen Dhui Castle was ablaze with light.

  Chapter 26

  Meg woke abruptly.

  Chapter 27

  The air was warm and calm. Beside them, Loch Dhui…

  Chapter 28

  Outside it was day. Why had Gregor thought it was…

  Epilogue

  Meg looked out upon Glen Dhui, watching the sun sinking…

  About the Author

  Other Romances

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  The Scottish Highlands

  August 1728

  Lady Margaret Mackintosh tightened her fingers on her mare’s reins and leaned forward in her stirrups. She was wearing a dark blue jacket with slashed sleeves and a man’s tartan trews, which molded to her tall, slender shape. She wore them for riding; she had been riding so most of her life. The people of Glen Dhui, if they thought it strange to see Lady Meg gallop about dressed like a man, would never say so. She was their lady and they loved her.

  Meg peered now through the soft and misty gloaming. Was it just her wistful thinking, or did she really see the flickering lights and shadowy buildings of Clashennic ahead? Surely there was an inn there that could provide her with a hot bath and a soft bed? Her skin and hair felt gritty from the long ride from Glen Dhui, and her body ached from her days in the saddle.

  She had wondered many times since the journey started whether it was a wild goose chase, whether she should turn back, but always she remembered her father’s words, more of an order than a plea.

  “Bring Gregor Grant back to Glen Dhui, Meg. Bring him back here to me. He is the only one who can help us now.”

  Gregor Grant. He had occupied a part of her life since she was twelve years old, and yet she had never met him. She knew him through her father’s memories and the stories of the Glen Dhui people, and the drawings she had found in the attic of Glen Dhui Castle. Meg felt as if she knew him very well indeed.

  “Clashennic lies ahead, my lady.”

  Her tacksman, Duncan Forbes, called the comforting words back to her. Relief made his usually dour tones almost eager. He and several of his men had accompanied her on this desperate journey as protection against thieves and bandits, although since the government troops had set up camp in the Highlands, folk had been more law-abiding.

  Nestled in the fold of the hills before them was the barracks town of Clashennic, and somewhere in that town was Gregor Grant—Captain Gregor Grant, she corrected herself—[ ]the man whom her father believed would save them.

  “How can you be so sure, Father?” she had asked him, her hand clasped in his as he sat before the fire.

  He had looked at her with his cloudy blue eyes that once had been as sharp as hers, as if he could still see her face. “Because the boy I remember is honorable and loves Glen Dhui as much as we do, Meg. Because he will fight for the glen and its people. Because I believe that apart from you and me and the people themselves, he is the only one who will.”

  Except Glen Dhui was no longer his. It had been twelve years since Gregor Grant was Laird of Glen Dhui. Twelve years since the Grants had come out for the Stuarts in the 1715 Rebellion, and he had ridden into battle with his father, the old Laird, and lost. Lost everything. Seventeen-year-old Gregor had been imprisoned after the Battle of Preston, along with hundreds of other men. His father had died of apoplexy in terrible conditions in the prison. And it was there, in the gaol, that Gregor had met Meg’s father—a commander for the government troops—and it had been her father who saw to his release.

  Free he might have been. Saved from the hangman’s noose or the steamy plantations of Jamaica or Barbados, Carolina or Virginia. But Gregor had lost his home, lost Glen Dhui. His family’s punishment for taking part in the Rebellion was the confiscation of their home, their estate, and with it the title of Laird. Gregor and his mother and young sister had fled Glen Dhui and never returned—they had had no choice. But the people had mourned them, him in particular—he was the young Grant Laird—and she suspected they mourned him still. She knew they had loved him, trusted him, set their hopes upon him. He had been their golden-haired boy, the light of their future.

  And it seemed he still was.

  “The lad will not let us down,” Duncan Forbes had assured her when they had set out two days earlier.

  Meg prayed his feelings were not misplaced. And yet she too was lifted by a new and vibrant hope as they rode toward their goal. If Gregor Grant was really all they said…if he was the sort of man who would set aside his present circumstances to return to the glen he had known as a boy…then Meg feared she was already more than half in love with him.

  “There’ll be an inn,” Duncan said, noting her weariness. He had dropped back to ride at her side, and she met the gleam of his dark eyes in the growing darkness. “We’ll stop there first, my lady, and ye can take your ease. Me and the men will search out Captain Grant for ye.”

  “Thank you, Duncan. Will you recognize him, do you think?”

  “’Tis a while, but aye, I’ll know him.”

  Meg nodded. She had never seen Gregor Grant herself, but she thought she would know him. His collection of boyhood sketches, found in the attic, and kept in a corner of her room, had drawn her attention again and again over the years. The sketches were delicate, so careful in their detail, romantic in their rendering, full of an emoti
on that spoke to her. The man…the boy who created such works must be special. From her father’s memories of the seventeen-year-old Gregor and her own daydreams, she visualized him as slender and fair, with the face of a poet and the long-fingered hands of an artist. His smile would be shy and yet so sweet, it would melt her heart.

  Meg was aware that such a person as she imagined did not quite fit the real Gregor Grant. For these days he was a soldier, a captain of dragoons in a Campbell regiment. The Campbells were anti-Jacobite, and it seemed ironic that a man who had fought with the Jacobites in 1715 should now keep the peace for the government in the Highlands. But that was how it was, sides were taken and then changed. The Highlander was no different from any other man in putting self-interest first. Meg could not blame Gregor Grant for switching sides, if it meant putting food in his mouth.

  Her thoughts trailed off as they reached the inn. A torch flared, suddenly, illuminating a clean, tidy-looking building—[ ]which was more than Meg could say of the tavern across the cobbled square. She glanced over her shoulder into the half darkness, where the sound of rowdy voices and drunken shouts jarred the night.

  Duncan strode inside the inn, his kilt swinging about his sturdy legs, and Meg followed in her trews, her jacket long enough to cover her to mid-thigh. She told herself that her appearance was perfectly respectable, and very sensible for traveling about the Highlands, and it was not her fault if the innkeeper could not seem to take his eyes off her.

  “My best room is free, my lady,” he informed her, cocking a stockinged leg and bowing low, his tatty brown wig threatening to slip from his head. “If my daughter, Morag, were here I’d send her to help ye…to…Ah, here she is!”

  A girl with dark hair sidled into the room, glancing at her father guiltily. “I’m sorry, father, I had to—”

  “Aye, well, we’ll see about where ye’ve been later!” her father said angrily. “I’ve told ye not to go mooning about where the soldiers are!” He seemed to recollect the company he was in, and quickly resumed a toothy smile for Meg’s benefit. “Aye, well, girls will be girls, and as I said, we’ll discuss it later. Go with the lady now, and fetch her soap and water and see to her wants. ’Tis not often we have such grand folk staying at the Clashennic Inn.”

  Duncan Forbes gave Meg a brief bow. “I’ll see ye in a wee while, my lady. After the horses are stabled, me and the lads will take a walk to the barracks and see if we canna find that matter we are seeking.”

  “Very well, Duncan.”

  Meg would have preferred to go with him and speak to Gregor Grant for herself, but such a thing was too much to hope for. Duncan wanted her safe indoors. He did not approve of women taking charge, and although he bore it at Glen Dhui, he would not allow it here in Clashennic. Since her father, General Mackintosh, had lost his sight, Meg had taken much of the running of the estate upon herself. She did the job well, she thought proudly, but there was still some resistance to overcome. Tough Highland men like Duncan were not easy with taking their orders from a woman.

  Morag, the innkeeper’s daughter, showed Meg to her room, and soon returned with a ewer of warm water. The room was small but as neat and clean as the inn itself, and Meg sighed with relief. She was weary, and as narrow as it was, the bed looked inviting. Sleeping in the open was something she doubted she would ever grow used to, and she admired the Highland man who could lay himself down to sleep in the heather, wrapped only in his plaid.

  Quickly she splashed warm water onto her face and hands, removing the dust of travel. Not a bath, unfortunately, but good enough for now. Behind her the girl spoke. “We’ve mutton stew for supper, my lady, and plenty of ale to drink. My father keeps a fine table here.”

  Meg dried her face, and began to unpin her hair. The long, curling strands of fire fell about her back and shoulders. “I’m sure he does, Morag, but I don’t know when my men will be returning. They are seeking someone in the town…one of the soldiers.”

  “Oh?” The girl’s face turned curious. “Who would that be then, my lady? I know many of the soldiers,” she added boldly.

  Meg smiled. “His name is Captain Grant. Do you know him?”

  Morag broke into an answering smile. “I do, my lady! Captain Grant is well known in Clashennic. But…he’s at the Black Dog, the tavern across the way. Many of the soldiers drink there. I saw him but a moment ago, when I popped in to…that is, when I was passing by there to…when I was passing by.”

  She finished awkwardly, plainly not wanting to openly admit being anywhere near the Black Dog. Meg was inclined to think it was a place her father had forbidden her to enter, but there was no time to mull over the follies of young girls.

  Gregor Grant was at the Black Dog, and Duncan Forbes might not be back for hours. It seemed meant, somehow. Predestined.

  She could send someone after Duncan, and then wait for his return, but why bother when she had only to step across the way? It would give Meg an opportunity to speak to Gregor Grant first, and suddenly she knew she would far rather have her first meeting with him alone, without the distraction of Duncan Forbes hovering nearby.

  “Then I must go and see him,” she said firmly, more to herself than the girl. Retrieving her comb from her saddlebag, Meg began to restore some order to her tangled curls.

  “Ye are going to go and see Captain Grant in the Black Dog, my lady? Like that? I mean…do ye not mean to change?”

  Meg met the girl’s eyes, wide in her round face. She glanced down at herself and for a moment saw herself as the innkeeper’s daughter must. A tall, slender woman wearing trews that clung to her legs like skin, and riding boots that came up to her knees. The jacket saved her, covering as it did her hips and bottom and the fleshy part of her thigh. In truth she would not pass for a man, but nor should she draw attention to herself in the dim, smoky insides of the tavern.

  “No,” Meg said, “I will not change. The Black Dog does not appear to be the sort of place one would wear one’s best gown.”

  Would Gregor Grant think it strange of her to be dressed as a man? Probably, Meg admitted wryly to herself, he will be horrified. The boy who had executed those delicate sketches must without doubt be a connoisseur of all things fine. He would like his women petite, dressed in pretty gowns, shy and sweetly mannered. Certainly not a tall, strapping lassie with fiery hair and a sharp tongue!

  “Well, it cannot be helped,” she told herself with her usual practicality. “I am what I am.”

  Perhaps it was foolish of her to feel as if she already knew the boy, and therefore the man. That she knew his mind and, perhaps more important, his heart. And yet no amount of inner discussion could persuade her differently.

  Meg smoothed her jacket one last time, tugging it lower. She was ready, and her breath was only a little faster than usual, her hands were only slightly unsteady, her heart was beating only marginally swifter beneath her breast. She was ready to put her case before Gregor Grant, to ask him in her father’s name to come home with her to Glen Dhui.

  The square was not wide across, and yet it looked immense. It was quite dark now—only the flare of a torch on the outside wall and the glow of lamps through the open windows to draw her. Like a moth, Meg thought with wry humor. A moth to the flame.

  The still-warm summer evening rippled about her as she walked. She was twelve years old again, listening to her father recount stories of the brave Highland boy who had saved his life. A boy who had put his own safety in danger for a man who should have been his enemy. And now, at last, Meg would meet him for herself.

  She stopped on the threshold of the Black Dog. It was as dim and dismal as the outside had promised. And the innkeeper’s daughter had been correct; by the predominance of uniforms and men with military bearing, this was the place favored by the Clashennic garrison. Meg drew a deep breath and, ignoring the glances and nudges and rude calls for her attention, plunged within.

  It was like swimming through smoke and the fumes of drink and stale food, and the pungent waft of un
washed bodies. Voices battered her senses, but the accents were beyond her anyway, so if any of them insulted her she could not take offense. Gathering her wits, Meg searched the bent heads and huddled groups for the one man she was certain she would know instantly.

  Gregor Grant.

  Her eye was caught by a man standing by the wall, conversing with a soldier in a red jacket and white breeches. Slim and fair-haired, he was dressed in a wide-skirted yellow brocade coat that had seen better days, knee breeches and stockings, and shoes with silver buckles. Despite the tarnish on the buckles and the stockings in need of a good scrub, he looked very fine for such a setting as this. A gentleman in a dung heap.

  As he waved his slender hands in broad, artistic gestures, a voice in Meg’s head chanted: It must be him, it must be him.

  This was just as she had always imagined….

  She was beside him now, her face level with his, but he ignored her. “It’s too bad,” he was saying. “One has to travel miles to buy a decent pair of gloves!”

  “Captain Grant?” She sounded strangely breathless.

  Both men turned to look at her, but Meg had eyes only for one. With an aching sense of disappointment, Meg realized she no longer found his face aristocratic or refined. Instead, as he raked his gaze over her, he appeared unpleasantly sly, his eyes far too close together, his jaw far too narrow. And there was something unwholesome about him.

  The chant in her head had changed.

  Do not be him, it begged. Please do not be him!

  Her wish was granted. The fop made a dismissive gesture with his artist’s hand toward an even gloomier part of the tavern. Relieved, Meg moved quickly through the crowd, easily avoiding the few patrons sober enough to reach for her. She was no longer afraid, just eager for this to be over.