Highland Knight Of Dreams - Amy Jarecki Page 0,1
horse, MacGregor pulled his musket from its scabbard. “With all these trees about, it will be easy enough to find a warren—or a deer. I’ll return in the hour.”
“Good,” said Eachan. “All this talk about food is making my stomach growl.”
“When isn’t it?” Quinn set to work, tossing boulders aside to clear a place to sleep. “Go on and start a fire. Mayhap it will keep your selkies at bay whilst we sleep.”
“They’re not my bloody selkies. You’re the one who’s seeing things.”
Quinn straightened and thumped his chest. “Women, mind you. I can spot a bonny lass from miles away.”
“And you’re full of shite.”
“Possibly, but if so, you’ll be eating it for the rest of your days.”
“Brothers. Why God saw to make me the second son, I’ll never understand,” Eachan mumbled as he wandered toward the trees. He stooped and picked up a stick of wood. “Ye ken this place is haunted.”
“Now do not tell me you’re afraid of a wee ghost.” Quinn chuckled, kicking away the smaller pebbles. “God’s blood, you were just teasing me about seeing selkies. Mayhap ’tis you whose head is full of fantastical delusions.”
He switched tack and began stacking the boulders in a circular fire pit. The stones had fallen from the castle walls—a fortress he was well aware had been razed by his grandfather, the Earl of Argyll, a bloodthirsty zealot. It was oft difficult to admit he had descended from such a man’s loins. Grandad had nearly ruined the Campbell legacy, so much so, the tyrant had been beheaded as a traitor in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket Square—a humiliation the family desperately wanted to forget.
Alice pushed through the door of the thatched-roof cottage. “Gran!” she shouted, pressing her hand against her chest as she gulped in deep breaths of air.
When she didn’t find her grandmother sitting in the rocking chair by the hearth, she yelled again, “Gran!”
The only parent Alice had ever known came hobbling out of the bedchamber carrying her cane rather than using it. “What is it, lass? You’re shouting so loudly, they’ll be able to hear you clear across the Clyde.”
She’d run nearly two miles and was in sore need of a drink of water. “F-forgive me, but you’ll never believe who I saw.”
“After five and seventy years, you’d be surprised what I’d believe.” Gran made an exaggerated show at looking from one of Alice’s hands to the other. “Where is your basket?”
“Who cares about the basket?” Patting her chest, Alice dashed for the ewer sitting on the table and poured herself a drink.
“You’re panting.” Limping nearer, Gran shook her cane. “Have you been running?”
“Aye, near two miles.” Alice guzzled the contents of the wooden cup. “But you must listen to—”
“Heaven’s child. Sit down and calm yourself.”
Ready to jump out of her skin, the last thing Alice wanted to do was sit. But after meeting her grandmother’s indignant stare, she inhaled deeply, made herself calm down and sat on the bench. “I was searching for yarrow in the wood when the ground rumbled with the pounding of horse hooves.”
“Do not tell me King William has sent an army.”
“It sounded like an army, but it was three knights—three Campbell men.”
“Campbells?” Gran’s expression grew dark before she turned to the hob and used a ladle to stir the pottage. “What made you think they are knights?”
“They were armed like knights—swords, muskets, dirks and targes. And they were carrying the Earl of Argyll’s pennant.”
Gran spat, whipping back around. “Argyll?” She clutched the ladle over her heart and squeezed, her face turning white as bed linens. “God forbid that name be uttered in this house.”
“Forgive me—I ken they’re evil. Worse, they’re making camp at Toward Castle.”
The old woman’s face grew so dark, it was as if a raincloud had come into the cottage, threatening to drench them both.
And Alice knew why. Moreover, she wanted to do whatever she could to face these men and make them pay for the heinous crimes committed four and twenty years ago—the year of her birth. “I can take a vial of poison and spill it into the burn. No one will ken it was me.”
“Poison?” Gran exchanged the ladle for her cane while a flash of ire sparked in her deep blue eyes. Though the elderly woman’s face had grown as withered as a prune, her eyes still gleamed with astute discerning. “Alice, do you have any idea what those brigands would do to you if you were discovered?”
“Ye ken I will not be. I’m as stealthy as a ghost—learned