Behind her, Kerr slumped back in the chair—quiet now, finally understanding what he’d lost.
The hunt hadn’t ended.
It had only changed hands.
Chapter 33
Fiona Cameron—Isle of Skye, 1747
Six months had passed since the wedding.
Fiona measured time differently now. Not by dates, but by seasons of quiet. By how long the island let them pretend they were ordinary.
Autumn had come to Skye soft and watchful. The heather had dulled from purple to rust. The air smelled of the sea, and the wind carried news long before mouths did. Soldiers on the roads. New questions in the villages. Names written down instead of forgotten.
The rebellion was over.
The punishment was not.
Fiona stood at the croft’s narrow table, slicing oatcake with a careful hand. Harris sat by the hearth, mending a torn strap with a needle he still handled like a blade. He was slower than he used to be; he was not one used to idleness.
A man who had spent his life running didn’t know what to do when the ground stopped shifting beneath his feet.
“You’re starin’ again,” she said lightly.
He glanced up, caught, then huffed. “Hard no’ to. You’re reorganizin’ the whole place like it’s a campaign.”
She arched a brow. “Itisa campaign. Against chaos.”
“That chaos has kept me alive.”
“And now it has a wife,” she shot back. “Adapt.”
He smiled—small, crooked, real.
That smile still startled her.
They had learned each other in pieces this year. In shared meals and shared silences. In the way Harris woke before dawn no matter how late they slept, hand already searching for a weapon forbidden by law. In the way Fiona memorized every path off the hill without meaning to.
They were safer married.
And also, more vulnerable.
Harris no longer wore his plaid openly. The Dress Act had made a criminal of cloth. Weapons were outlawed. Names were watched. A man who lingered too long in one place invited questions.
A man with a wife, however, invited leverage.
Harris rose and crossed the room, stopping behind her. He did not touch her at first, just stood close, a comfortable warmth at her back. The ordinary intimacy of it made something in her chest ache.
“I still don’t trust it,” he murmured.
“The quiet?” she asked.
“Aye. It’s unnatural.”
She snorted. “You’re exhausting.”
“And yet, ye married me anyway.”
