“I think he is some better—Danny, I mean. He is asking for his breakfast.” Aggie’s face shone as she delivered the words. Her worry seemed to have cleared like last night’s rain.
Jeannie knew very well Aggie had crept up the ladder to the loft not once but three times during the night. On the last occasion, near dawn, she had stayed and only came down now with the glad tidings.
Jeannie had heard Aggie’s every movement because she had been unable to sleep, her mind too full of images and emotions. How many times had she relived the kiss she and Finnan MacAllister exchanged at parting?
What was a woman to do with such feelings?
“A good sign,” she said now. “Why do you not start the porridge? I will go up and check on him.”
“His fever must have broken, for his forehead is cool.”
Jeannie raised her eyebrows at her maid. How often had Aggie put her hands upon the lad? And could she truly censure Aggie, when she ached to touch Finnan?
“It was a quiet night but for the rain,” Aggie went on.
“Yes.” The storm had moved eastward over the hills before dawn. Beneath its dying rumbles, Jeannie had been sure any number of times she heard Finnan returning, looking for shelter…for warmth.
She went to the door now and drew it open to peer out. The fresh, matchless highland air poured in upon her, so unlike the coal fugue of Dumfries. Rays of sunlight angled over the eastern hills, and mist rose slowly from the burn. It looked like a world newly made, out of which a god might come striding.
One of the old gods, that was—the sort her father used to study in his books—with a rack of antlers on his head, perhaps, or a mane of auburn hair and a body to bring a woman to her knees.
When would he return? And when he did, would he kiss her again?
She had to stop thinking about it. She felt like she had caught Danny’s fever.
Determinedly, she shut the door and turned to find Aggie’s gaze upon her. “Are those men out there?” Aggie asked uneasily.
“I see no one.”
Aggie shivered. “I thought about it all night, them storming the cottage and hauling him away.” She lowered her voice. “He is so brave! Imagine losing an arm and yet going on with such courage.”
“Yes,” Jeannie could only agree.
Aggie stepped closer. “Faith, mistress, I do not know who or what to believe any more. That man, Laird MacAllister, is denounced as wicked, and a traitor, as well.” She widened her eyes. “They say he turned coat at Culloden and helped the British against his own kind. But he does not seem like that when he is with Danny, does he?”
He did not.
“Yon lad adores him.” Aggie jerked her head toward the loft. “Would follow him through fire, I think.”
“We do not know the whole tale.” But Jeannie would like to. “And it is a fatal mistake to judge before knowing all.” That much her father, with his scholar’s mind, had taught her. “Never mind that now,” she went on briskly. “Get Danny fed and go about your day as usual, just in case anyone is watching.”
****
The day proved a long one. Jeannie, following her own edict, worked all afternoon in the yard, weeding and pampering her plants, hands calm but emotions in turmoil. She lost count of how many times she raised her eyes to the path. She dared not look to the hills where Finnan might be concealed, for fear of giving him away. But her tension built as the hours crawled by.
He will come at dusk, when it is safer, she promised herself. Even she could not declare Danny unready to leave. The last time she checked on him, he and Aggie had been chatting away to each other double time, the girl seated by the side of the lad’s cot with idle hands.
Jeannie should have chastised her but had not the heart. Let the lass have her few moments of pleasure, so fleeting. Danny would soon be gone from their lives.
Both he and MacAllister would.
At nightfall, Jeannie went inside to find Aggie preparing supper. Aggie’s cheeks were flushed pink, but that might have been due to the heat of the fire on a warm day.
Or a few kisses might have been stolen in the loft. Who was Jeannie to censure?
Shocked at herself, she told Aggie, “It has been a quiet day. No sign of anyone searching.”
Aggie gave her a bright-eyed look. “And so, mistress, were you on guard as much as at work in that garden?”
