Except that he had made a choice in the beginning.
Damnation!
“Perhaps the hound knows,” Sorley suggested.
Brogan looked to where Sorley indicated. Hiding in the brush, the tip of his snout the only thing visible, was the same hound that had been following them for days. A wee thing with long, thin snout and red-gold hair, its legs were short and its body long. The one Fiona secretly tossed food to when no one was looking. She hadn’t even taken the hound? Oh, that did it. Brogan let out a roar of frustration, which sent the poor creature to cowering and himself to feeling like a major cad.
Approaching the dog with his hand held out, Brogan cooed. “Come here, lad. Do ye know where the lass has gone?”
The hound snapped at his outstretched fingers, and Brogan leaped back before the dog could bite them off. He supposed it was just payback for having bellowed at the poor thing. “Wee bastard is no’ going to be any help.”
“’Haps if ye offer him a treat as the lass has done,” Sorley suggested.
“I’m no’ giving him a damn thing,” Brogan said even as he reached into his sporran to pull out a bannock and tossed it to the beast, who eagerly goggled it up, melting Brogan’s furious heart a fraction of an inch.
Sorley chuckled. “Right, sir, no’ a thing.”
“In Ireland we call that giving in,” Fin teased.
“’Tis how I was conceived,” James snorted, and Charles elbowed him in the ribs.
Keith and Dugall shared a look, then Keith said, “Let’s no’ waste time seeing if the hound will lead us on a merry chase and instead search for the wench ourselves.”
Brogan shot his cousin a glower. “She’s no’ a wench.”
Keith held up his hands in surrender. “Apologies, sir, but—” He cut himself off, and Brogan turned to face him squarely.
“Have ye something to say?”
“Aye. ’Tis only that days ago we were given a second chance at life, a purpose. And that purpose was to aid Prince Charles. Now here we are far from the prince’s side, chasing a woman who’s told us where he is and that she wants no part of us. I’m just wondering when we’re actually going to do what we were meant to?”
Brogan ground his teeth. “Murray—” He cut himself off, though, realizing he was only making an excuse, because somehow his entanglement with Fiona had become personal.
Aye, Murray had ordered him to protect her, but if she’d run off once she was likely to do so again, and by chasing her he was doing exactly as Keith said, which was straying from their mission. Though the main mission, supporting the prince, could theoretically supersede the latter.
And yet, she was the prince’s messenger. So, in a way, they were doing their duty to the prince by protecting her. If she were to be caught, the phrase Dinna kill the messenger would become very real in their eyes.
The argument even sounded weak to his own ears. He stared at each man, trying to gauge how they felt about the situation, but none of them were very forthcoming.
With any luck, finding her friend would convince her to stay home, wouldn’t it? Brogan scoffed at the entire situation. Living in a castle with a brother who was chief and fought for the Jacobites wouldn’t serve her well. Especially if the dragoons came calling.
He’d agreed to help her deliver a couple of messages, not traipse all over Scotland searching for a headstrong lass and getting them into more dangerous situations. Why did he feel such loyalty to her? These men were soldiers of the prince, some related to him by blood. They’d willingly followed him as he’d been blinded by…what? Desire?
Aye… He did desire the lass, and it hit with a shocking thud in the gut. Bloody hell, he also admired her.
That was not a feeling he often had for women. His mother had abandoned him. His father’s wives had shunned him, and every other woman he’d encountered wanted him for one thing. Before now, he’d thought women were good for nothing but tending to a household, marriage, and breeding.
But now… He’d seen so much more. Knew so much more.
And it was changing him.
Fiona was changing him.
The question was, did he want that change?
Brogan quite liked who he’d been before, but now he felt as though his eyes were being opened in an entirely different way.
And she’d left him. He cursed under his breath. Once more, a woman he had allowed to get under his skin had proven he was expendable. Not even worthy of a goodbye.
Well, enough was enough. He wouldn’t put his men in danger searching for a lass who didn’t want to be found. “We’ll go to Invergarry Castle where the prince is hopefully still housed.”
The men all nodded their agreement. Brogan looked down at the hound who’d crawled from beneath the brush and was staring up at him in hopes of another treat.
“Ye can come, too, if ye want, lad.”
* * *
Guilt riddled Fiona at having left in the dead of night. But there was nothing to be done about it. She had to leave. The men had places to go, and she was holding them back. She could see it in their eyes when they thought she didn’t notice.
And Brogan, with his misplaced sense of responsibility. He was better off without her.
Why, then, did she feel a particular pang of regret when she thought of him?
That was a sensation that needed to be quickly wiped away.
Leaving had been easier than she’d thought. The men all went to sleep, save for her and Fin, who were on watch. When he wasn’t paying attention, she saddled her horse piece by piece, subtle about it. After all, they’d taken two different sides of camp, and she’d volunteered eagerly for the side with the horses.
When Brogan took over Fin’s watch, she waved Keith away, telling him she was not yet tired. At some point, when Brogan had gone off to seek a tree for a private moment, she’d taken the opportunity to mount her horse, toss the hound a thick bit of meat she’d been saving to keep him from following, and then slip away.
In the dark, it would have been hard to see if she’d gone missing, and she guessed, since they didn’t speak, that she would have at least a half hour before anyone took notice.
That had been hours before, and she’d not seen nor heard from them.
Cullidunloch Castle, the once grand home of her dear friend Annie, loomed on the moors. Even from this distance she could see the blackened, burned-out walls and the missing roof.
Just before the Battle of Culloden, she’d heard what happened here. And it pained her to know that her friend had been through such a trying ordeal. She was lucky to have made it out alive.