Sarah Gabriel (4 page)

“What is that?” she asked.

“A pony cart,” he answered. “It is coming along the drover’s track that runs from the slopes down to the road that runs beside the loch. This way,” he said, tugging her along again, so that her booted toe hit a rock and she stumbled.

MacGregor caught her around the waist, and she fell against him, off balance. He felt so solid
and sure that she leaned against him, but reason prevailed and she straightened away. He pulled her along over hillocks and stones, then stopped short, so that she bumped into his back. She paused with him, her shoulder pressed against his.

“Hush.” He turned his head warily, fingers tightening on her wrist. Sensing danger, she moved closer to him, gazing about as he did, feeling blinded in the fog, which was deeper farther down the hill.

To the left, she heard the rumble of the cart, and then it came into view—a boxy wagon stacked with hay, pulled by a sturdy brown horse. Two men sat on the cross bench, one in a plaid, one in trousers, both in nondescript jackets; dark, flat bonnets were pulled low over their heads. The driver was a lean young man, his passenger robust and older.

“Are they farmers?” she asked. “Or smugglers with a load of illicit spirits?”

“Riding along a main road like that? Going home to supper, most like.”

“I hear that smugglers go about day or night quite openly. And it is nearly twilight.” She glanced at the fading light through the fog.

“Those are my kinsmen. Farmers and herders like me, and most of the glen folk.”

“Not dangerous then?”

“Not to us. But those fellows, on the other hand—” He stopped.

MacGregor was looking in the opposite direction, and now she, too, glanced there. Far along
the loch road, two men emerged from the fog. They wore dark jackets and trousers and stiff-brimmed hats. One of them carried a heavy object, either a pistol or a cudgel. Fiona gasped.

“Smugglers!” She edged closer to MacGregor. He exuded a reliable sort of strength, despite all. Strange though it seemed, she felt safe near him.

“The men walking along the road?” He sent her a quick glance. “Gaugers.”

“Revenue officers? Then we have nothing to worry about.”

“Aye,” he drawled. Taking her arm in a new 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 men who would know her brother.

But MacGregor tugged her in the other direction. Then he gave a low whistle and began to hurry forward, rushing Fiona with him.

In that moment, she realized that the laird of Kinloch was not the upstanding landowner he claimed, but the smuggler both Patrick and Mrs. MacIan had warned her about.
Whenever the Laird and his men walk the mountainside
, Mrs. MacIan had said,
we all keep away.

The Laird.
Now Fiona wished she had heeded the cautions she had heard.

Too late, she told herself. The Laird himself had found her.

M
acGregor stopped short, and the girl bumped into his shoulder. He set his hand firmly on her arm, wanting her to know that he did not intend to release her. Not yet.

Narrowing his eyes, he estimated the king’s revenue men to be two miles or so along the loch road. From the slope’s high angle, he could see them, although he was sure that the mist and odd angles of the slope and jutting rocks would obscure their view of the two standing on the hillside. They probably had not yet seen the cart, but soon enough they would hear its creaking noises and look for its approach.

Taking the girl’s arm, Dougal ran with her toward the road.

“Let go,” she said breathlessly. “The excise officers will take me to Mrs. MacIan’s home.”

“I will see you back there myself. You would not be safe with them.”

“I am hardly safe with you, “she pointed out.

He whistled again, a soft trill like a curlew’s call,
and the squeak of wheels slowed. His comrades knew his call. Dougal hurried down the slope with the girl in tow, and headed for the cart, where his kinsman rode on the cross bench.

“I do not need a ride—” she began.

“Hush,” Dougal said, dragging her along toward the rumbling cart. The road curved around the base of the hill, and he could not see the men on foot. Good, he thought; they would not see the cart, either. Not yet, at least.

The vehicle rolled to a quiet halt in front of them, and Dougal nodded to the driver and the older man beside him, all the while pushing the girl ahead of him.

“Miss, this is Ranald MacGregor and his son Andrew. My uncle and cousin,” he told her. “And this is, ah…” Then he realized that he did not know her name.

“Fiona MacCarran.” She turned to his uncle and cousin and smiled so warmly at them that Dougal suddenly, sharply wished she would bless him with a smile like that. Instead she sent him a furious glare.

“Miss MacCarran,” he said. “Into the cart. Now,” he added, low and fierce.

She blinked. He had not noticed the color of her eyes before—they were a sparkling blue. Looking at her, he felt something essential and intangible within him shift somehow—and become a need, a craving. He frowned and offered his hand.

She ignored it and extended her hand to his
kinsmen. “Gentlemen, how good to meet you. I am Fiona MacCarran of Edinburgh, come to Glen Kinloch to teach at the glen school.”

She had not introduced herself to him so sweetly as that, Dougal thought, scowling.

“Ah, the new dominie! And a bonny one, too.” Ranald’s hand looked like a paw closing over her slim gloved fingers.

Andrew, at fourteen easily struck dumb by a pretty girl, nodded. “We thought you’d be old and ugly, miss,” he managed, blushing.

“She’s neither of those, but she is a problem nonetheless,” Dougal snapped. “Hurry, all of you.” He took the girl by the waist, his hands fitting the taut shape. “In you go.”

“No,” she said, as he dumped her over the side into the hay.

Dougal tossed the knapsack inside after her and set a foot to the hub of the wheel to leap inside. Kneeling on the hay, a hand on the girl’s shoulder, he saw his kinsmen gaping at him. “Gaugers on the road,” he told them. “Two of them, a league or so away.”

“Och!” Ranald said. “Hide! Cover yourselves with the old plaid that is back there. If they see the teacher with us, they will want to know why.”

Dougal snatched a folded plaid in the cart bed and tossed it over both of them. As the girl gasped out in surprise, he took her by the waist and pushed her down beside him in the hay, pulling her close under the 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.

“Ah, just as I thought. Your brother is the new gauger down the loch.”

“You may regret holding me against my will.” She shoved at him; Dougal caught both her hands in one of his and peered out from under the blanket.

“Do either of you recognize the gaugers up ahead?” he asked his kinsmen.

“They are too far away,” Andrew answered. “What does it matter?”

“We have the sister of the new excise officer with us,” Dougal answered.

“Och,” his uncle growled. “That’s trouble for us, then.”

“What sort of trouble?” the girl asked in Gaelic.

“Hush,” the three men said in unison.

“Keep her hidden, and yourself as well,” Ranald said. “I see them coming now. Andrew, take the reins.” Dougal felt the cart lurch as the horse stepped forward.

Dougal yanked the blanket over his and the girl’s heads, and settled beside her under the sudden darkness. “Hush,” he told her, his face close to hers in the darkness of the woven covering.

“I will not hide from my own brother, or his
men,” she said loudly, and began to struggle, so that the blanket slipped from both their heads.

Click.
Hearing a gun latch, Dougal glanced up to see a glinting barrel not far from his head. Ranald waved the pistol in his hand and looked at them, silvery eyebrows lowered over dark eyes. “Lass, no word from you, and do as the laird says.”

“What the devil—” Dougal began.

“Mr. MacGregor,” Fiona MacCarran told Ranald in a cool, clear tone, “put that pistol away.” She spoke in Gaelic, and sounded eerily like a teacher Dougal had once had: a stern and lovely creature whom he had unabashedly adored.

He saw his big, beefy, fearless uncle hesitate. “Begging pardon, miss, but I mean to make it clear. You must hide and do as the laird says, or there will be difficulty,” he answered in the same language.

“I will not hide. Those are officers of the law, and surely friends to my brother. And you are clearly scoundrels—indeed, smugglers,” she added.

Dougal sensed a hot spark of indignation in her, saw the snap of anger in her eyes, heard it in her voice. Impressed with her ire, he might have debated the nature of gaugers versus smugglers with her—she seemed disposed to like one and not the other—but for his idiot uncle waving the pistol about. “Ranald, set that thing down!” he said.

In the next instant, Fiona MacCarran grabbed her knapsack and swung it hard enough to knock the weapon out of Ranald’s fingers. Snatching
the bag away, Dougal fell across her to hold her down, while Ranald swore, shaking his hand, and Andrew leaped out of the cart to grab the pistol. He jumped back to the bench to take the reins, while the horses sidestepped uneasily.

“Och, that’s an excellent lass!” Ranald crowed as 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 Fiona beneath him, one leg thrown over both of hers, while she writhed. “Uncle, what the devil was that for?”

“Sorry, Kinloch,” his uncle replied. “I thought she would make trouble for us.”

“And so she has,” Dougal drawled, while the girl still pushed against him. “Stop. That pistol could have gone off and killed someone!”

“Then he should not have pointed it at me,” she said.

Sighing, he shifted his weight off her, keeping her legs under his, holding her down with his arm stretched over her full bosom, his hand on her arm. Her breath heaved under his entrapment, and he closed his eyes for a moment; she was damned distracting, he thought.

“What do smugglers care about killing?” 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.

“Och, we are not so bad,” Ranald said over his shoulder. “Not so bad as gaugers.”

“So you say,” the girl replied. “Others would say the opposite.”

“Highland whisky smugglers,” Dougal pointed out, “are not bad sorts, but often decent men interested in correcting bad governmental regulations.”

“Correcting?” she asked. “Blatantly ignoring!”

“Most Highland whisky makers are only acting upon their born right to do as they please with their own damned barley,” Dougal said. “The English Crown has no right to tax any product made from barley that a man grows himself, on his own land.”

“It is hard to argue with that,” Ranald said over his shoulder.

“And revenue men are only trying to earn an honest living and uphold laws that they believe in,” the girl answered.

“Honest living! Ha,” Ranald grunted. “Dougal lad, the lassie is Scots, is she not? She speaks the tongue of the Gaels. She should understand our natures as well.”

“I do,” she insisted in Gaelic. “I do understand and appreciate the Highland nature.”

“If so,” Dougal said, “you would not feel safer with customs men who would willingly take a life for the price of a bottle of the barley brew.”

“So you
are
smugglers,” she said.

“I never said so. But I promise you we are no
friends to gaugers who conspire to profit from the fees the government will pay them for bottles of whisky taken from Highland men.”

“My brother is a fine customs officer, interested in bringing criminals to justice.”

“If I were you,” Dougal said, “I would not go about telling Highland folk about that brother.”

“Keep it quiet for sure, in these hills,” Ranald said over his shoulder. “I, for one, do not want to hear it again.”

“Kinloch, the king’s men are just ahead on the road,” Andrew called back.

Yanking the blanket over his head and the girl’s, Dougal slid down as flat as he could. “Stay quiet and still,” he told her tersely, and lay back in the straw with the girl pressed tightly against him. Like lovers, he thought, bundled and courting. He almost laughed.

“Beast,” she hissed. “Scoundrel.”

“This is for your safety as well as ours,” he murmured. “We must get past those revenue men, and we cannot do that if you are seen with us.”

“I shall scream,” she said fervently, and opened her mouth.

He set a hand over her lips, over smooth, creamy skin, and leaned close to whisper directly into her ear. “Will you?”

She looked at him—he could see those wide blue eyes by the dim light filtering through the weave of the plaid—and attempted to scream, but for the press of his hand.

“Hush.” He had no desire to frighten her. “Please—”

She bit his hand. He yelped, broke his hold, then clamped down again.

“Listen to me,” he hissed. “We must pass this road without incident. It is for the sake of many, do you understand?”

She nodded, finally. Dougal kept his hand over her mouth, unwilling to trust her and wary of being bitten again. He tucked her into his arms, the only way to keep her from moving. A glimpse of her showed the fear in her eyes—and suddenly he could not look at her.

“You there! Stop in the name of the king!” a man’s voice called out harshly.

The cart pulled to a stop. Dougal lay still in the hay, holding the girl against him. Warmth generated between them and built under the plaid. His cheek rested against her hair; her hand curled on his chest. He could feel her trembling, breathing quickly.

She smelled like rain and roses. Closing his eyes briefly, he savored that airy sweetness. A long while had passed since he had held a woman in his arms, at least one that smelled like heaven and felt like a warm, perfect fit for his very soul. He sighed, part yearning, part regret.

Then her elbow jutted in his side, and he grunted. She mumbled under his hand, and he shifted his fingers a breadth away, his body pressed to hers close as a lover. He felt her lips against his cheek,
lightly moist, warm breath raising chills in him. “What is it?” he asked softly. “Do not think to scream.”

“Let me go,” she whispered, “and I will not tell them you are smugglers. You have my word, I swear.”

“That is what we call a fairy’s bargain,” he said.

“A what?”

“It is never wise to trust a stranger, especially a beautiful, charming woman who holds a man in her thrall.” He began to place his hand over her mouth, but she pushed at his hand.

“Do you know much about fairies?” she asked quickly.

“Some. Shh,” he murmured, finding the question odd. He covered her mouth again.

“Stop in the name of the king!” The shout echoed, closer this time.

Dougal froze, and felt the girl do the same. He held her tight, improperly so, his leg wedged between hers, her skirt wadded between their bodies. He waited, sensed she did, too. The plaid covered them both, but he rolled over her just enough so that she could not be seen, even if his shape could.

“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.”

“If we ever caught any of them, we would recognize them,” the other revenue man said, snorting in laughter. “They are a slippery lot.”

“Sir, there are many MacGregors in this glen, and all around Loch Katrine. We are only 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.”

As Andrew spoke, Dougal knew he should play the part of Hector, an elderly uncle who lived at the other end of the glen. He groaned a little and coughed.

“Don’t believe the lad,” one revenue officer said to the other. “They’re rascals, the lot of them. Search the cart. You two sit there, and do not move or speak to each other.”

“My father does not speak much English,” Andrew said. “I will have to translate and explain to him what is going on here.”

Hearing heavy footfalls, Dougal realized that the revenue men stood beside the cart bed now, no doubt staring at the blanketed form in the hay. The girl tensed beneath him, and he lay motionless with her, 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,” the other man said. Thumps sounded,
and then came the rustling of straw as the gaugers poked dangerously close through the straw. Dougal moaned again and made a sort of retching sound.