Beloved Highlander

“Doesn’t the general keep her reined in?” he asked.

Duncan smiled—it looked as if it hurt his face to assume such an unfamiliar expression. “The general indulges her.”

“In all things?”

“Aye. Well, almost.” Now Duncan appeared troubled. “It was her impending marriage that they were at odds over. She has refused to wed any of the men her father put before her. She was…is fussy. There is always some reason…some excuse why they are unsuitable.”

“She is hard to please, then?”

“Aye, she is difficult when it comes to suitors.”

“Until the Duke of Abercauldy.”

Duncan looked worried. “He came calling often, but we thought ’twas more to see the general than Lady Meg. The duke would spend hours with the general, flattering him by listening to his stories. A man like the general, who all his life has been busy and important, whom people have looked to for advice—such a man finds it more difficult than most to grow old and feeble, to be set aside. When the duke flattered him, he believed him. They made the marriage deal between them and the general signed the papers. When he told Lady Meg, she was verra angry. She wept, too. But in the end I think she would have accepted the arrangement, for the general’s sake, if they hadna found out the Duke wasna the man they had thought him. But by then it was too late. The Duke seems set on her and he isna a man to change his mind.”

Gregor believed the story as Duncan told it; it tallied with Meg’s, and sadly, it sounded all too plausible. “So, tell me, is it the land he wants? Or the lady?”

“I dinna know that, Captain. There is a look in his eyes when he gazes upon her. He wants her, aye. He…he covets her, I think. But then there is the land, too. With Glen Dhui added to his estate it will stretch far. He will be thought an even greater man than he already is.”

“Do you trust him, Duncan?”

Duncan’s sour expression soured even more. “He has the manners of a London gent, and no, I dinna trust him an inch.”

Gregor nodded. If the Duke was not to be trusted, then Lady Meg must not wed him. Therefore they must find a way of extracting themselves from this mess without bringing his wrath down upon their heads, and without starting a war they would be sure to lose. The general was the man for that—strategy had always been his strong point. Gregor wondered why his own presence was so necessary, but he was content to wait. Soon enough he would be able to ask the general that question for himself.

It would be strange to see him again.

He moved in the saddle, forgetting. The throb in his arm was an agonizing reminder that all was not well. Gregor bit his lip and sought to distract himself. He looked to Duncan again.

“I remember when we fought in the 1715, the Glen Dhui men were armed…in a manner of speaking. What happened to those arms, Duncan? Were they confiscated by the English?”

“No, they were set aside for a rainy day.”

Gregor smiled. “I thought that might have been the case.” He supposed the guns would be rusty by now; they had already been old when they were used last time around. The Duke of Abercauldy would probably have a small army of his own: well-trained men and up-to-date equipment. Glen Dhui had never been modern; it was out of step, isolated, a place where time seemed to stand still, or where it moved along at a very slow amble.

Gregor had always believed the glen could be improved without being spoiled. During his school years in Edinburgh, he had looked into new methods of agriculture, of managing the land. He knew there were better ways than those presently in use. But his father had sneered at his ideas and called them “Sassenach foolishness.”

“There will be nay changes here while I live!” he had declared.

Gregor had tried to persuade him differently, but he had been a boy and his father would not listen to him. So he had put aside his sense of restlessness and dissatisfaction, telling himself that there would come a time when he would be able to do as he wanted, when the estate would be all his.

Instead the Stuarts had come, the Rebellion had happened, and they had lost everything.

Again Gregor fixed his eyes bleakly on the woman riding at the head of the little troop. He was going home. It was true, it was real. He was going home, and with that knowledge came all the painful emotions he had been avoiding. Suddenly he didn’t know whether to hate her for obliging him to return to something that could never now be his. Or to love her, because he was going home to Glen Dhui.

The day was fading fast. Long shadows were draped across the glen between shards of gentle light. The mountains were dark monoliths against the rose sky, where high upon one onyx cliff, a tiny spume of white water arced downward, catching the last of the sun in a spray of diamonds.

Not far now to the croft where they would spend the night, thought Meg gratefully. She cast a glance at the grim, tired little group at her back. Gregor Grant was riding as if he were asleep, his face a white blur in the muted light, swaying in the saddle. As she watched, Malcolm Bain reached out to steady him, murmuring encouragement.

Ahead of them, down the shadowy glen, she saw the flicker of a lantern. Relief flooded her. Shona was there, waiting. Meg needed to speak to her friend, the village healer, to hear again the stories that had first turned her and her father against an alliance with the Duke of Abercauldy. To hear the reasons she should not wed such a man, and in refusing to do so must put at risk herself, her father, and all her people.

Meg thought of Shona’s croft as cozy, though she supposed some would call it crowded and close. But for Meg, Shona’s greeting was always so warm that she never noticed aught else.

Shona came from her doorway, lantern held high, to bid them welcome. “My lady!” she cried gladly. “Come in, come in all of ye. Kenneth will see to the horses.” With her classic Highland coloring of dark hair and blue eyes, Shona was a lovely woman, with a smile that encompassed them all.

“I have but two hands, wife,” Kenneth grumbled.

Shona clicked her tongue at her man. “Away with ye,” she said, gently scolding. “How often do we have guests? What is a little bother, when the sight of Lady Meg cheers me so?”