Beloved Highlander

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.