Sarah Gabriel Read Free Page A

her?” Alec poised the pen to write.
    “Just as the sheet says, she is a siren. I could not resist her charms. There is something delectable about her.”
    “Siren. Delectable.” Alec made a few more notes. “So you enjoyed a tryst with her?”
    “I, uh, do not know.” The black hat went round in circles in the officer’s hands. “I cannot remember all of it.”
    Alec frowned. He had read the same in the other testimonies: the officers were never quite sure what transpired after they met the Highland wench, though they mentioned kissing, then they either fell asleep or passed out drunk. Alec suspected the girl might have used potions of some sort to affect the men. Upon waking, each officer found a white cockade and discovered documents missing from his quarters.
    Heron shrugged. “And when I woke, the girl was gone.”
    Alec scratched his pen over the paper. “This girl is clever, Lieutenant. None of the officers seem to know who she is, what she looks like, or what exactly happened. They all seemed bewildered. Her ruse of having fairy magic is quite clever,” he said wryly, “and even practical soldiers seem to believe it. Go on. Was anything missing from your tent?”
    “Maps and chocolate.”
    “What?” Alec looked up in surprise.
    “I do cartographic drawings for General Wade to chart the Highland roads his crews are constructing. My maps were gone, and a tin of chocolate powder was missing. Our family’s preferred variety of chocolate drink, if I may say so, is always Fraser’s Fancy Imported Cocoa Powder, which I understand your family manufactures. Most excellent.”
    “Thank you. I will convey your compliments.” Alec shifted papers, unwilling to discuss, or even think, about his neglected role in the Fraser chocolate import business. “How do you know this girl took the things?”
    As a knock sounded on the wooden post between the tent flaps, Alec glanced up, and the lieutenant turned.
    A Highland woman peeked through the flaps, a bulky plaid wrapped over her head and form against the wind and rain, worn over a shabby green dress. Holding a basket filled with folded linens under one arm, she spoke in Gaelic and pointed toward the bed, then the basket. Her hand was swathed in a moth-eaten fingerless glove.
    “The laundress,” the lieutenant told Alec. “I’ve seen her around camp. Harmless. A bit of a lackwit.”
    “I see. Miss, come back later, if you please.” Alec half stood out of habit in the presence of a female.
    She came inside regardless, mumbling in Gaelic and waving a hand to indicate she only needed a few moments. Brushing rain from her hood, she went toward Alec’s narrow cot, set down her basket, and began to strip away the blanket and bedsheets.
    “Miss, we are busy here,” Alec said, sitting again.
    “She doesn’t understand much English,” the lieutenant said. “A few local women tend the chores in this camp, and none speaks a comprehensible word. They do their tasks well enough, but come and go as they please without regard for manners or protocol.”
    The woman hummed to herself, and seemed not only plump but clumsy, dropping clean linens on the earth floor and picking them up to shake the dirt off. Unable to see her face well, Alec noticed that under all her clothing, she had a womanly shape and was perhaps not as plump as he thought. And a glimpse of a very pleasant face under the shadow of her plaid showed a younger woman than he expected.
    She took a clean sheet from her basket and snapped it out to spread it over the mattress. The crisp scent wafted through the tent, pleasantly dissipating the musty smells of grass and earth.
    “Miss,” Alec began. “Please—” But the girl ignored him.
    “It’s no use, Captain,” Heron said. “So long as we set up military camps in Highland areas while GeneralWade’s road-building campaign continues, we must hire help from among the locals. Many of them only speak the Irish tongue, and while they are genial—and