Beloved Highlander

Duncan’s ears had gone pink.

Meg hid her smile. To put taciturn Duncan out of countenance was no mean feat, but Gregor Grant had managed it. She imagined he would be a formidable master. Despite his assertions that he was a landless, penniless nobody, he still wore the arrogance of his birth around him like a cloak. He was a leader of men who expected his orders to be carried out without question.

And he was hers.

Meg took another swallow of the cold air, and calmed her jittery mare with a soft word. She had not slept well last night. Like the mare, she had been restless and restive; she had wondered if she was doing the right thing. Her father had told her to bring Gregor Grant back to Glen Dhui, and she was doing that. He had said nothing of payment, but then he had not expected the man who had grown from the boy he remembered to ask for recompense. The general believed that inside the man Gregor Grant lived the same young, heroic, idealistic boy he had been then. He would realize for himself, when they reached Glen Dhui, that that was not the case.

Assuming Gregor Grant made it that far.

Meg lifted her head to gaze at the sky, wondering if the fine weather would hold until they found shelter tonight. Late summer in the Highlands was unpredictable, with showers one moment and sunshine the next. She knew they would be lucky if they reached their beds without a drenching, and that was the last thing Gregor Grant needed. He still had a fever, and when Malcolm Bain had unwrapped his wound this morning it had looked even more reddened and swollen about the stitches that she had so carefully set into his flesh.

“We will wait another day,” she had said firmly.

Gregor had shot her a narrowed look. “No, we will not. We go today.”

“But your arm—”

“Is not the issue here. We ride today.”

Their gazes had clashed, each seeking to dominate. It was Malcolm Bain’s voice that had poured reason onto the situation.

“I will keep a watch on him,” he had said. “Captain Grant is a strong and healthy man, even if he is pigheaded.”

Gregor had shot him a look of disgust, but the comment had reassured Meg. For a while. Now the worry had returned. There was so much dependent on this one man, so much dependent on her getting him home. The thought of anything happening to him on the way, of him dying…well, it didn’t bear thinking. Indeed she felt quite lightheaded when she did, as if some vital part of herself had come adrift.

Of course it was because his returning to Glen Dhui was

so important to her father. There could be no other reason for his possible demise to affect her so. She didn’t know him—he was a stranger, and any belief she may have had that he was that heroic dream she had carried with her since she was twelve years old had been effectively banished with her first glimpse of him in the Black Dog.

Some of the going would be rough. And they must take the new military road through the pass and brave the suspicious eyes of the government soldiers who stood guard there at the military post. The soldiers were mainly Englishmen, and they considered the Highlanders to be savages—[ ]half-civilized beasts that might at any moment decide to turn on them. They despised these people whom they had come to subdue. Meg saw it in their faces and it worried her. It also made her angry. She knew the Highlanders, and although they spoke Gaelic and their lives were very different from those of the English soldiers, they were not the animals the soldiers thought them.

Despite the attitude of his men, Meg was on good terms with the officer in charge of the military post. After the 1715 Rebellion it had been decided by the anti-Jacobite victors that roads must be forced through the Highlands, roads that could be used by soldiers in the event of any further uprisings. Government soldiers were posted to strategic trouble spots, to keep watch on the people and dispense English justice. Many of those soldiers were resentful, felt alienated, and took out their feelings on the people they were supposed to be in charge of.

But not all the English officers were to be hated or feared. There were some, like Major Litchfield, who was well educated and broad-minded enough to find his current posting interesting rather than bemoan it as exile to the end of the civilized world.

Meg turned her head again, and noted that her men were almost upon her. Gregor Grant, sitting as stiffly in the saddle as before, was at least still astride his horse. She eyed him narrowly, just as he looked up. Their gazes held, clashed. Something close to a smile lifted the corner of his mouth.

“Lost your way?”

Impatiently, Meg dug her heels into her restive mare’s sides and set off again in the lead.

There she was. Ahead of them. Her red hair burned against the blue sky as she rode off on her mare. She was wearing her trews and jacket again, with long boots of soft leather. Her hair was fashioned into a long, thick plait that hung down her slim back. She rode well, without fear, as if she had been born to the saddle. But despite the masculine attire, there was no way Meg Mackintosh could be mistaken for a man. Everything about her was most definitely feminine: the curve of her breasts beneath the tight jacket, the swell of her hips, the tender curve of her jaw, the full shape of her lips…

Gregor felt his body respond despite his discomfort. A sort of miracle, considering the way he was feeling, and the fact that he had just been used by beautiful Barbara Campbell for her own selfish ends.

Meg wasn’t even his type. Freckles on her nose, tart tongue, bossy manners—nothing there to attract him. And yet it did, all of it. He didn’t just find her interesting, he actively lusted after her. Last night he had slept fitfully, only to wake from hot, feverish dreams in which Meg Mackintosh played a prominent part.

What would she think if she knew? If she knew exactly what he had been imagining her doing, in those sweaty, frantic fantasies? Would she be horrified and disgusted? Would she withdraw from him?

Possibly.

Probably.

Better she never know, then….

“Lady Meg has a mind of her own.”

Duncan Forbes’s toneless voice interrupted his thoughts. Gregor met those dark eyes, wondering what the tacksman had seen in his expression that made him aware Gregor was thinking of his lady.