Moonstruck Madness Read Free

morn. Hurry, be off!" he yelled at her astonished face, pushing her suddenly into action as she turned and ran, her cape flicking her ankles as she fled.
    He stood silently under the pines watching her disappearing figure, a tightness about his mouth as he turned back to the clearing.
    "See any more Highlanders, sir?" a soldier called out as he came running up the hill with an excited gleam in his eyes, his bayonet dripping blood.
    "No, Sergeant, I saw no one up there," he replied coldly as he led the way back down to the hut.
    Colonel the Honorable Terence Fletcher stared at the slaughter around him. The dead and dying were beyond his help, but he promised there would be neither looting nor massacre of innocents by his command and called to a stop the torching of the hut by several soldiers as the mournful notes of the piper still sounded from within.
    "Follow those into the hills!" he ordered, waving them away from the hut.
    The sergeant beside him spat as he eyed the colonel speculatively. "What of the chief? They always dress real fine. Pity to let someone else lay claim to his finery, sir."
    "You'll find plenty of others to strip, Sergeant. This one will be buried as is his right. Do I make myself understood?"
    "Yes, sir," he answered surlily, "but what of the castle? Must be up here in the hills somewhere. Got orders saying we're to destroy any strongholds, don't we?"
    "Yes, those are our orders, and we will do what is necessary to secure our position, even if it means destroying the castle," the colonel answered to the sergeant's satisfaction.
    Terence Fletcher shook his head as the sergeant hurried off. What did he really expect from these men? Most were riffraff: poor, uneducated hirelings here to obey commands, treated like dirt and paid little more than that. He shouldn't be surprised that they wanted to get what they could when they saw riches within their grasp and while their bellies ached with hunger.
    He glanced about him at the inhospitable hills and gray skies above and wished he were back in England. He'd rather be anywhere than here in these desolate, Scottish highlands where time seemed to have stood still and men still fought as their ancestors did three centuries past. Now their way of life faced destruction because of their foolhardy support of the Young Pretender, Charles Stuart, or as they fondly called him, Bonnie Prince Charlie. As successor to the long line of Stuart kings who had been driven from power in the seventeenth century, he now had the support of these Jacobite Scots in his vain attempt to overthrow the Hanoverian Georges now ruling Great Britain.
    As he stood staring at the tall pines, hearing the eerie notes of the bagpipe still coming from the hut, he saw again the face of that beautiful child and wondered what would become of her. Her face had, in an instant of time, etched itself in his memory. It was a face he would never forget.
    "Hurry, hurry for God's sake!" Sabrina urged her aunt. "We've got to leave here now."
    "But where is Angus? He really should be here," her aunt replied calmly as she carefully folded a delicate, lace-edged handkerchief. "I do so dislike hurrying," she complained softly.
    "Please, Aunt Margaret. Just this once try to hurry," Sabrina pleaded with the older woman, who continued to carefully pack'a few personal articles with unhurried ease. Her black hair was sprinkled with silver and neatly covered by a small, white lace cap, the puffed-out crown stiffly starched and high on the back of her head.
    Sabrina shrugged in exasperation as Aunt Margaret smiled at her, blue eyes vague and dreamy in her soft, sweet-expressioned face.
    "I never allow Hobbs to touch my sewing. She is quite incapable of packing it correctly—besides, I always have it with me. A lady never just sits and fiddles her fingers, my dear," she explained as she collected the rest of her items and put them in a tapestried bag.
    "Sabrina!" a voice called, followed shortly by a young boy who ran