Heat of the Knight

Chapter One

He remembered the smell…the feel; just about everything.

“Jesu’!”

Langston sucked in a breath full of peat, fog-blessed chill, and damp dirt.

Shivers of reaction ran all along the six-and-a-half-foot frame he’d matured into, making even his hands tremble on the reins.

He let the breath out and smiled wryly before pulling in another, testing the air for the lingering notes from what had sounded like a solitary piper.

It must have come with the memory. He shrugged, and then the yelling started.

“Angus MacHugh! You auld fool!”

The woman behind the noise appeared, coming straight at him, shoving her hair from her shoulders with one hand, while the other held up her skirts, and the sky-blue eyes she looked at him with went all the way through him.

That wasn’t the reaction he got from most women.

It wasn’t a response he got from any woman.

Langston moved his horse sideways as she passed, swirling the mist with her skirts.

She was fantastic enough to be drawn up from his imagination: gorgeous, full-figured, reckless, wild…

. He blinked. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a pistol tucked into her waistband, too.

“There you are! You’ve got to stop!”

She had obviously reached her prey. Langston couldn’t decide if he pitied or envied him.

“The rangers are at our steps! And you’re the wretch that brought them!”

“But Lisle—”

“Don’t ‘But Lisle’ me! I’ll not stand for it! We’ve got but two shillings left to our name, and they’ll want that for fines and such. Like as not, they’ll take your pipes, too! They might even take you! You know the penalty. What will I do then? How will the lasses cope?”

“I dinna’ mean to start anything. I only—”

“I already know what you wanted. We all want it. It’s not going to happen. Scotland’s lost, and we’re the ones that lost it…now move! Back to the bog with you. Get your trousers back on and hide that sett a-fore you lose your hand, or worse! Stick to the rocks and doona’ let anyone else see you!”

Her voice had softened, belying the harsh words she was using.

Langston moved his horse slowly…going one step closer, then another.

They weren’t far; they couldn’t be, but fog made the ground beneath his horse’s hooves look fathoms deep, and the distance was impossible to guess from the sound of their words.

“Hush, Angus! What was that?” Lisle whispered.

Langston had heard it, too, and he pulled on the bridle, lifting his horse’s head with the movement. The sound hadn’t been him. It was something else. Someone was coming…someone big.

“Quick! Give me the pipes! Nae, I’ll na’ hand them over.

What do you take me for, a Monteith? I can’t just let you get caught with them!

That plaide’s going to get you in enough trouble.

Quick! Hurry home. There’s four Highland Rangers sitting in the kitchen, awaiting scones as we speak.

They seem to think we can fry them from thin air, and serve them with sunlight for a topping.

Stupid, arrogant, thoughtless men. I’ll be right behind you.

I promise. That’s a love. Watch your step, now. ”

Langston smiled at her description of Captain Robert Barton’s troops.

They were every bit of all that, but she’d forgotten to add flirtatious.

That was why they were stopped at that goddess-woman’s step and visiting with the lasses she’d referenced.

It wasn’t for any scone. It was to receive a smile and a soft word or two from that mouth.

Now that he’d just heard them, he wanted to stand in line and receive the same.

Their hooves weren’t making much sound, but bridles hadn’t the same muffling benefit on the soft moor.

Langston backed his horse two steps up the hillside and was swallowed by mist almost the moment he did.

It was a troop of Highland Rangers, riding single file and with deadly intent.

He could barely make them out, and held his breath as not one looked his way.

His ears told him how many there were. He just hoped they hadn’t heard what he just had.

“Why…Mistress MacHugh. Fancy seeing you out and about.”

“Captain Barton,” she answered with a curt, barely polite tone.

Langston could envision how she’d look. She’d most likely hidden the pipes and pistol. To do anything other was inviting her own penalty.

MacHugh, he thought, letting the lineage run through his mind.

There’d been a MacHugh in this glen since the infancy of the world.

Theirs was a clan spewing out chieftains; all large, healthy, red-headed, and boisterous—all loyal to the Stuart, even unto death.

He didn’t know which MacHugh the auburn-haired goddess named Lisle could be.

The fact that she’d just been addressed as mistress wasn’t possible.

It didn’t seem conceivable that she was wed.

She’d looked too young for such a thing, especially if it was to the elderly-sounding Angus fellow.

He eased his horse closer, turning a rock with a hoof.

Langston heard it cascade onto the chipped rock path they’d used, before going over the other side and continuing down the hill.

This Angus had chosen a well-placed hilltop to play his pipes.

He’d chosen a good foggy morn, too, perfect for cover, and for muffling the skirl of his pipes.

He’d been lax in not checking first with the auburn-haired woman, though.

“’Tis a foul morn to be out, Mistress MacHugh.”

“I think it’s quite lovely,” came the instant reply.

“There’s nothing lovely about it. There’s not even enough span in front of a man’s face to see if ’tis lovely or not.”

“That’s exactly as I like it. Keeps me from seeing certain things…like vermin. Our hills are being overrun with such.”

She was audacious and bold, Langston thought. He wondered if the captain would catch her meaning. With the tight tone of his next question, he knew the man had.

“Have you a reason for being out and about?”

“Is it illegal to take a walk now? I’d not heard that of the Crown’s displeasure with us.”

“Things change quickly at the king’s court, Mistress.”

“It’s not enough that you take away our right to wear our own setts? Now you’re taking away a morning stroll on Scottish soil?”

There was a long silence after her snide remark.

Langston was at the back of the battalion.

He started circling them. The sun was moving, the air was warming, and the mist was dispersing, making it easier to see the ground, and the amount of soldiers the MacHugh lass was facing.

He admired her courage and audacity, even if it was a classic case of Highland bravado and stupidity.

“A stroll about the moors is one thing. The playing of pipes is another entirely. We heard pipes, and such a thing is illegal.”

She laughed merrily. Langston’s heart twinged with the sound. That was a new experience, and made him catch the reins up, stopping his horse.

“A woman doesn’t play pipes, Captain. It would require more hot air than any woman possesses.”

“We heard pipes.”

“In Scotland’s bogs and marshlands, beset by fog, it’s easy to hear any number of things, Captain. Why, if you venture near Drumossie Moor, I’ll wager you’d hear screams and groans if you’re so inclined. Or so it’s been said. I haven’t tested it. I’m na’ brave enough.”

“Are you saying there was no piper?”

“I’m saying naught. I’d a bit of a brisk walk under my belt, enjoying the solitude and getting a good dose of fresh, mist-laden air, and for that I get accosted by a Highland regiment? You say you heard a piper? Well, I simply state it couldn’t have been me.”

The mist was slimming into fingers of opacity that were caressing the scene in front of him.

The lass, Lisle, was atop a flat boulder, making her level with the man on horseback that she faced.

She had her shoulders back, and her hands were on the belt on her hips.

A MacHugh…she was a MacHugh. Langston ran the information through his mind.

There’d been MacHugh clan at Drumossie Moor, where the Battle of Culloden had been fought.

There had been scores of them, all decked out in their red, black, and gold plaide…

all dead. They were all dead. Langston groaned softly.

“You saw no one else out here?”

“Dinna’ you understand the word solitude, Captain?”

“Very well, actually. It’s the gift we give prisoners of the Crown…when they deserve such, that is.”

Langston knew a threat when he heard one. She did, too. He had to give his grudging admiration to her, if she didn’t have it already. She was brave. She tossed her hair over her shoulder, looked at the Captain levelly, and smiled. It didn’t look to have much merriment to it.

“That is not what I’ve heard about your prisons,” she replied.

“Are you ready to tell us where he went, then?”

“Who?” she asked.

“The piper.”

She sighed audibly. “I must not be making sense. I saw nae one out this morn.”

“No one?”

She shook her head slightly. “Nae one.”

“You’re certain?”

“Perhaps you should take your helmet and remove it from your ears, Captain. That way you’d not continually ask questions you’ve already received the answers to. It might improve your looks, too.”

“We heard pipes.”

His voice was telling of his nonamusement over her gibe. Langston didn’t have to see it, although the sun finally rising over the mountain range behind her was making it easier to do so. It was also turning her hair a brilliant burnished copper sheen.

“Well, I heard naught. Now, allow me to pass. I’ve bread in my oven, and four daughters to see fed. Not to mention my retainers, my uncle, three frail aunts, and my servants, such as they are.”

“Answer me first.”

She has four daughters? Langston repeated it to himself in disbelief. Impossible. She looked about sixteen…maybe seventeen.

“You Scots are forever for the doing, before the thinking. That’s the reason, you know.”