With her declaration, Brogan brought his lips to hers in a searing, possessive kiss. The men around them cheered, and bells pealed in the distance as the prince’s ship prepared to set sail.
Brogan wrapped her tightly up in his arms, never wanting to let go. When he was a lad, he’d dreamed of the day his mother would come back, and she never did. When he was a grown man, he watched a number of people walk out of his life as if he were nothing, including his own father.
And for the first time, someone he loved, his Fiona, was walking back into his life and telling him she was never going to leave him. She loved him.
He never would have thought it was possible that he would get what he wanted. That he loved and was loved in return.
Brogan murmured against her lips, holding gently to her face, “I love ye so much.”
“I love ye more,” she said.
Tears wet his thumbs from where he brushed her cheeks. “Why are ye crying?” He pulled back to stared into her watery violet eyes.
“From happiness. Ye, Brogan, make me happy. Ye have somehow become my whole world.”
“Och, lass, but ye are mine. From the moment ye stopped me on the road all those months ago, when ye grinned and flipped me a Jacobite coin, ye might as well have hooked my heart and reeled me in. I am yours, now and always.”
She kissed him again, and he would have melted onto the pier with her, made love to her until the sun set, save for the people all around them, and the fact that dragoons would soon descend upon Borrodale. But just a moment more he wanted to hold her. Face buried in her neck, he breathed in her scent.
At last he grudgingly pulled away. “Where are we headed?”
“Where were ye going to go before?”
“To the west coast. We were going to join the MacPhersons there and wait for word from France.”
“Annie’s cousin. He’s a good man.” She smiled brightly, her fingers entwining with his. “How about we make a stop at Dòchas along the way? I’ve a feeling with the prince on his way, I might finally be able to see my brother, and I’m certain he would love to know we’ve wed.”
“I’m no’ certain ‘love’ is the correct word.”
She nodded seriously, though there was a twinkle in her eye that made him smile.
“’Tis true, Husband, and I promised him a spar when we met again. It may come to that.”
“Perhaps we’ll take our time getting there,” Brogan teased. “Ye forget I’ve fought beside your brother and I know what he’s capable of.”
“’Tis a good thing Gus is in America with Leanna, then.”
“Why?”
“He trained Ian.”
Brogan chuckled and lifted his wife up into the air, twirling her about. Then he kissed her once more and fiddled with the buttons on her belt where she kept her dagger. “How about we have one of these fashioned for me before we arrive?”
Fiona tossed back her head and laughed, the sound drawing attention from everyone within hearing distance.
This was the start of their life together, and Brogan would remember it for the rest of his days, the pure joy of it.
The hope.
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One
Inverness, Scottish Highlands
Late June, 1745
Wind whipped at Jenny Mackintosh’s hair as she raced for her life to escape from the English. She and her small band of men pushed their mounts to the limit, flying across the moors, the crack of pistols cutting the night air behind them. At any moment, she’d feel the sting of a bullet in her back.
What else should a rebel recruiting an army expect?
Sweat beaded on her brow and dripped down her back, and her hands trembled against the leather straps of the reins.
“To the forest,” she called to her five partners in rebellion following behind her, but her words were lost in the noisy thrum of pounding hooves against the earth. Leaning to the right, she urged her horse down a slope, over a boulder, and onto an unmarked path that led toward the forest, hoping they’d lose the redcoats.
The shouts of the dragoons behind them were fainter now, but that didn’t mean they were out of danger.
She burst through the trees, and a twig caught in her hair, the wrench stinging her scalp. Still, she didn’t cry out.
Once she knew they were out of sight, she reined in her horse, her heart racing. Jenny tugged the twig from her hair and threw it on the ground, wishing it were the bloody English so she could stomp them into dust as easily. She stroked her mount’s mane, patting his neck in thanks for the hard gallop, then reached up to rub at the tightness in her own.
They waited in silence, their breaths growing slower as the minutes ticked by. The shots had ceased the moment she and her soldiers had been able to break away from their enemies’ sight, but the pounding of the horses’ advance still thundered in her ears—or was that her heart?
Jenny focused her gaze through the foliage and waited for the dragoons to catch up. They’d only been caught once, a few months ago. Jenny had escaped with her life that time, but there were several others who hadn’t been as lucky. King George, the usurper, had sent his dragoons to apprehend anyone with sympathies to Prince Charles Stuart, the rightful heir to the Kingdom of Great Britain. King George had given Charles the moniker the Young Pretender, and his father, the Old Pretender.
Prince Charlie’s father, King James, had named him Regent of Great Britain, and regent was the name under which she and other Jacobite supporters were bent on returning the prince to the throne. King George would be tossed back to Germany where he had been born and raised and should have remained.
Despite the brightness of tonight’s moon that allowed them a good view of the road, the brambles and pines were thick, veiling her and her men’s massive horses from their enemies. When the first half dozen redcoats rode past, they did not see the Scots hidden just a few feet away. They barely slowed, too busy chasing phantoms.
As soon as they passed, Jenny and her men let out a collective sigh, only to freeze as several more dragoons rounded the bend and headed right for them. Eyes wide as the moon above, she watched them advance. The gold buttons on their muted red coats glinted in the moonlight, as did the muzzles of their muskets, their pistols, and the hilts of the thin swords at their hips.
Their dress was so different from that of the Scots. They wore starched white breeches, where her men were allowed freedom of movement in their plaids. Stiff tricorns covered their heads, while the Scots wore soft woolen caps that were broad and flat on the top. When Scots were feeling particularly rebellious, they pinned white rosette cockades on them in support of the Stuart line.