Beloved Highlander

Meg was afraid, and she was angry.

She admitted it to herself. She was afraid of what her father had said to Gregor, of what they had said together. She was angry that he had felt able to discuss things with a near stranger, and yet he could not speak of them to her, his own daughter. She had done all he asked of her and more! She had found Gregor and brought him here, no easy task, and then he had sent her from the room like a child. It would not do.

It would not!

Meg glanced down at the bundle of thick pages she held in her hands. Old, faded sketches of the glen, some grand, sweeping vistas of mountains and cloud, others small, intimate portraits of a flower or a deer grazing on the hillside, or rain striking the burn’s surface. All of them beautiful, original, the product—or so she had always believed—of an exceptional soul. He had captured all that was special about this place, he had laid his heart bare with every line, every stroke.

Meg did not believe that someone who had once drawn so exquisitely was entirely devoid of feeling. After all, she had seen his pain last evening, as they waited upon the crest of the road that overlooked the glen. She could understand why he had resisted returning, why he had not wanted to come home to the place he had loved. The glen was no longer his, he was no longer the laird, and that must hurt.

“Although you would not know he was no longer the laird,” she murmured to herself, glancing from the casement again and even cracking it open a fraction. “Look at them! They still think of him as their chief.”

Meg knew she would be a fool to believe there was anything of the boy who had drawn these pictures in the grim, warlike man Gregor had become. She would be a fool to allow the slightest part of her to soften toward him. And she was all the more determined to remain aloof because she knew it would be so easy to succumb to him. That moment by the loch had shown her that, and then last night in the parlor had reinforced it.

He found her company amusing and enjoyable, he looked at her with eyes that told her she was attractive to him. For Meg, who believed she was not, the longing to take that step closer was very tempting.

“Remember, you are no more than a thorn in his side,” she reminded herself sharply. “You have prodded him into doing something he really didn’t want to do.”

“A thorn in whose side?”

Meg jumped, and then laughed when she turned and saw Alison standing in the open doorway, her black eyes wide with curiosity.

“I was talking to myself, Alison. It is a bad habit and one I should learn to curb.”

“Aye, ye are aright there. The Captain asks ye to come down to him, Lady Meg.”

Meg’s slim eyebrows descended and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Come down to him? Why is that?”

“Ye’d best ask him yersel’. I am but passing on the message.”

The request was innocent enough, but Meg could not help but wonder what was afoot. If she came down, she would only be displaying her ignorance of the matters of war. But would anyone expect otherwise? Meg had never pretended to be an Amazon. If anyone would lead the men into a battle—if it came to that—then it would be Captain Grant. That was the reason he was here, wasn’t it?

Unless her father had another…

“Why dinna ye go down and ask him?” Alison said dryly into the long silence.

Meg laughed, wondering if her thoughts were so plainly to be read on her face, or whether Alison just knew her too well. “I will do that, then.” She glanced out of the window again.

There were even more men down there now, and young lads scampering on the hillside like lambs in the spring.

“Donald, is that your grandsire’s musket?”

She could hear Gregor’s voice, floating up to her in the stillness. He had picked up a large, long-barreled weapon, turning it over in his hands, and then sighting it down the glen.

Young Donald puffed himself up. “He was oot with Bonny Dundee, sir,” he offered the information with great pride.

“I remember. He was a braw man.”

Meg observed the two men with wonder. Gregor had spoken the words easily, honestly, with hardly more than a glance at Donald. And yet the effect was profound. Donald had loved Gregor before he spoke—they all did—and now he worshiped him.

Gregor handed the musket back to Donald and turned, glancing up at her window. Did he know she was up here, spying? Quickly Meg moved back, feeling suddenly breathless. It would not do for Gregor Grant to know how curious she was about him, how interested she was in him. How dangerously fascinated.

“I will be down in a moment, Alison,” she said quietly. “Just let me tidy my hair.”

“As ye say, my lady.”

And something in Alison’s smile made her blush.

Gregor realized he had been well and truly spoiled by his troop of Campbell dragoons.