Sarah Gabriel Read Free Page B

the women are bonny,” he added, glancing at the laundress, “they can be a stubborn and superstitious lot.”
    “To be fair,” Alec murmured, “Highlanders are also a generous, polite, hospitable sort. And there is no more handsome race on earth, so they say.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I was raised in the Highlands.”
    “I, ah, beg your pardon, Captain,” Heron mumbled.
    “Now,” Alec continued, “I presume the sentries check the identities of all women entering this camp, given the events of the last several months?”
    “Of course.” Heron waved his hand. “They’re often kinfolk, sharing the work among themselves.”
    “Not reassuring, given the bonds among Jacobite families.”
    “Aye, but we’ve had only two incidents here, myself and Colonel Grant.” Heron cleared his throat. “Ever since the colonel met this Katie Hell himself, he makes certain no female goes in or out of camp without identifying herself. He was furious about his experience. Still is—claims she was a harlot and threatened his life. Though he was not crowned with a pistol butt, sir.”
    “I’ve read the testimony. His pride was more wounded than anything else,” Alec agreed. “To continue, Lieutenant, how do you know the girl took your things? The maps and the, er, cocoa?”
    “She complimented my drawings and expressed interest in the chocolate, even made us each a cup withboiled water and sugar. Said she was devoted to chocolate and must have some.”
    Having tucked the sheets, the laundress lifted the blanket to shake it out. The movement rustled the papers on Alec’s desk, and several of them scattered to the ground.
    “ Tcha, ” she muttered, turning to catch up the pages, stepping on some and crumpling others in handfuls as she bent to fetch them. Her hands were swallowed by the shabby sleeves of the overlarge dress she wore under her plaid cloak. Alec noticed that her hands were slender and pale in the fingerless gloves.
    Mumbling in Gaelic, she slapped crushed pages on his desk and bent to fetch the rest. Alec leaned down to do the same, and their heads knocked with an audible sound. She gasped and glanced up at him.
    Beautiful eyes, he saw, of an extraordinary silver color. He stared, and his mind flickered over a memory. Had he seen this simple Highland woman before?
    “Sorry,” he said, stretching out a hand to touch her plaid-swathed head. An odd ripple plunged through him, an instant need, a craving. Had it been so long since he had been near a woman?
    She rose quickly, and Alec turned back to his work. “Pardon, Lieutenant. We were saying.” Alec picked up the broadsheet to look at the image of Katie Hell again. “So the vixen snatched your pistol? Why was that?”
    “Well…I attempted to demonstrate my affection by, ah, kissing her. Then she hit me with the butt of my pistol.”
    “Ah.” Alec glanced up. “And why was she in your tent?”
    “I found her wandering in the camp after dark. She said she was looking for a kinsman but seemed to be in the wrong encampment. She was weary and lost, and I offered my help.”
    “Did she give you her name?”
    “Marie. It’s…all I remember, at any rate.”
    The laundress picked up a feather pillow and smacked it hard, then laid it on the bed and smoothed the blankets again.
    “Was she Scots or Highland?”
    “She spoke excellent English, without a trace of brogue. And she understood French when I, er, recited some poetry to her.”
    “Poetry.” Alec wrote it down. “Would you say she was bonny?”
    “Yes. Quite young, and delicate in appearance. Her hair was blond, or perhaps ash or reddish, and her eyes were blue, or green. Could have been gray. I remember that her gown was dark, and she wore a lace cap and a dark cape and hood. She smelled like lavender. Her hair was so soft,” he said dreamily.
    Alec took up the pen. “Eyes of an uncertain color, hair of an indeterminate shade, speaks French and English, dark clothing, smells like a