The cat’s head swung toward the door and he meowed. Cait paused, listening. Black Cat was as good as any warning system Cait could have concocted on her own. Black Cat always knew when people were approaching, and there seemed to be someone approaching now.
Cait went to her front door and waited.
Three redcoats rounded the bend. Her stomach fluttered, and she put a calming hand on it. Even though she didn’t like doing so, she’d treated redcoats before. Her reasons were for self-preservation. If she treated the redcoats well, they wouldn’t bother her, and that meant that she and the people in her care were a bit safer. There had been plenty of times when she’d been fixing some redcoat’s ailment in her kitchen while her hiding place was full of fugitives.
These particular redcoats stopped at her door and dismounted. She immediately recognized Sergeant Halloway—a nice enough young man, but his presence always gave Cait pause. This would be his third visit to her in the last few months, and that set off her senses.
He bowed to her, and Cait bit back a smile because she was no lady. Not anymore, at least, though Halloway always treated her as such.
“Sergeant,” she said.
“Lady Cait.”
“I’m no’ a lady, Sergeant. I’ve told ye that before.”
He shrugged, a gleam in his pale blue eyes. “Allow me my quirks, ma’am.”
She tilted her head in acknowledgment. “What can I do for ye today, Sergeant?”
“I have an ache in me back.” He reached behind him and presumably pressed on the ache, because he winced.
“Stop sleeping on the ground and riding all day.”
“I have no choice, because the military says I have to.”
“Then there’s no’ much I can do for ye.”
His smile was easy. He liked to flirt, and she figured he considered his visits a welcome break from the drudgery of army life.
His gaze flicked behind her, and the smile slowly faded. Cait glanced over her shoulder to find Campbell standing behind her, pulling his shirt on and watching the three redcoats warily.
Halloway’s friends stayed with their horses, but when they spied Campbell, they tensed.
Campbell put a hand on her shoulder, and Cait had to grit her teeth at this unnecessary show of possession.
“Sergeant Halloway, I’d like ye to meet Iain Campbell, chief of Clan Campbell.”
Halloway nodded tersely.
“Sergeant,” Campbell said. “Are you in need of medical care?”
“The sergeant’s back bothers him, and he periodically requires my poultices,” Cait said.
Campbell’s fingers tightened on her shoulder, and she bit back a grimace as she slithered out of his grasp.
“Let me get that poultice for ye, Sergeant.”
She skirted around Campbell, who seemed not inclined to move from the doorway, and left the four men. What a mess all of this was. She couldn’t afford for Campbell to anger Halloway, because Halloway patrolled this part of the land.
Why in the world would Campbell be offended that Halloway was here? It wasn’t as if Iain were the enemy of the English. He practically slept with them, and he definitely broke bread with them.
Cait returned with the poultice, and Halloway and his men left. When Cait turned to go inside, she was faced with an angry Campbell.
“My goodness, that’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen on yer face.”
“This isn’t a laughing matter, Cait.”
“Do ye see me laughing?”
