Chapter 25 #2
Flora saw it, yet her expression didn’t change.
But her eyes—those clever, sharp eyes—registered it. Marked it.
“Good,” Flora murmured. “Fear keeps folk alive. Pride kills them.”
Fiona bristled so hard her fingers shook around her cup, shoulders rigid, jaw set like stone. But she didn’t look away.
Wouldn’t.
Not now.
Not ever.
Flora leaned back, satisfied she’d made her point. “We leave at first light. The Prince is on the island. He moves by night, trusts no one he hasn’t trusted before. And if ye’re asked—ye never heard any of this.”
Her gaze sharpened once more—knife-edge clear.
“Choose your path carefully, Fiona Cameron. The next step ye take may cost someone their life,” she warned.
Dubh whinnied outside, smug as the devil himself.
Fiona dropped her forehead into her hands. “Christ preserve us.”
Flora took a thoughtful sip. “Clever though. No man thinks to search a beast’s tack. And if they tried to steal that one,” —she nodded toward Dubh— “they’d lose a hand.”
Fiona didn’t doubt it.
The cottage crackled with the quiet, the storm muffled by thick stone walls.
For one humiliating heartbeat, the room felt too small. Flora’s reputation pressed on her chest like a weight.
Her spine straightened abruptly, covering the flinch with a glare. “The Bonnie Prince… he is here?”
Harris’s jaw ticked. “Aye. But not for long.”
“What do you expect of me, then?” Fiona demanded, her voice fiercer than she felt.
Flora’s tone softened, but not in a comforting way. More like steel cooling, still dangerous to touch.
“Tonight,” she said, “ye rest. Tomorrow, the world will demand more of ye than ye’re ready for.”
Fiona bristled, stung. “I’m ready for anything.”
Flora only gave a faint, knowing smile, as if she saw through the bravado to the moment Fiona had swallowed hard.
Her shoulders sagged. Her knees wobbled. Her eyes burned with the sting of a day spent clinging to fear and fury.
Flora noticed. Of course she did.
“Come,” she beckoned, hand warm on Fiona’s elbow. “I’ll show ye where ye can lay that stubborn head of yours.”
Fiona followed Flora down a narrow corridor that smelled of peat smoke, lavender, and something faintly medicinal.
The walls were whitewashed, hung with framed sketches—boats, deer, the silhouette of the Cuillin—each one precise and spare, like the hand of someone who understood survival better than sentiment.
Flora pushed open a low wooden door with her hip.
“This one’s yours.”
The room was scarcely larger than a cupboard; just a narrow bed tucked under the eave, a small chest, a basin, and a single tallow candle flickering against the wall. But it was warm, clean, and quiet in a way Fiona hadn’t felt since before the rebellion went to ruin.
She stepped inside, fingertips brushing the quilt. Handmade. Patched. Soft from years of washing.
“It’s… lovely,” Fiona breathed, surprised by the crack of sincerity in her voice.
Flora leaned her shoulder against the frame, arms crossed, studying Fiona with a gaze that could read bones through skin.
“You’ve had a hard road,” she said.
Fiona huffed. “Harder than most.”
“Aye,” Flora agreed. “And ye handled it better than most.”
Fiona blinked. Compliments had never felt quite so much like being inspected for weaknesses.
Flora’s expression shifted: still sharp, but not entirely unfriendly. “Harris said ye saved his life.”
Fiona snorted. “He fought me the whole time.”
“That’s what gratitude looks like on men like him.” Flora’s voice held dry amusement. “They scowl and pretend they’re immortal. But he doesnae trust lightly.”
There was an unspoken and he trusted you , but Fiona didn’t know what to do with it.
Flora straightened from the doorframe. “Rest. I’ll fetch ye water.”
Fiona nodded. She didn’t trust her voice not to betray something—relief, exhaustion, pride—none of which she wanted Flora MacDonald to see.
Flora touched her arm briefly, a gesture that might have been warmth or warning, and stepped out.
Fiona sat on the bed, letting her breath settle, her muscles unclenching by degrees.
Until she heard them.
Voices outside.
She rose and crossed to the small window, pushing aside the wool curtain.
Harris stood near the shed where Dubh had been led. Flora faced him, wind catching her braid, her cloak snapping like a banner. They talked quietly—too quiet for Fiona to hear, but not too quiet to understand.
Respect.
History.
Trust.
Flora touched his arm in a way that spoke of battles survived and secrets shared.
Harris didn’t flinch.
Didn’t step away.
Just inclined his head, steady as a man acknowledging another equal.
Heat flared in Fiona’s chest.
“Of course,” she muttered. “Of course he trusts her. Of course he tells her what he won’t tell me.”
Flora laughed at something Harris said. A soft, knowing laugh.
And Harris laughed back.
The bastard actually laughed.
Fiona’s jaw locked hard enough to ache.
She wasn’t supposed to care.
She didn’t care.
She absolutely, decidedly, did not—
Harris turned.
His gaze lifted toward the cottage.
Toward the window.
Straight toward her.
Fiona jerked back as though burned, pulse tripping over itself.
A moment later, footsteps sounded in the hall.
She forced herself onto the bed, hands folded neatly in her lap by the time Flora entered carrying a basin and folded cloth.
If Flora noticed the tension, she didn’t comment.
“Sleep while ye can,” Flora said, setting the basin down. “Tomorrow’ll come sharp.”
When Flora left, Fiona finally let her breath spill out.
Sleep.
Right.
As if she could close her eyes with that scene still burning behind her eyelids—the trust in Harris’s shoulders, the familiarity in Flora’s smile, the quiet understanding she hadn’t been invited into.
Fiona curled her fingers into the quilt, pulse hammering.
She was many things. Stubborn, reckless, brave.
But jealous?
Jealous had never been one of them.
Until now.
Harris spread his cloak beside the door, sword within arm’s reach, acting like this was just another night, another danger, another choice he got to make for both of them.
“We leave before dawn,” he said, voice steady.
Fiona didn’t turn.
He continued, “Flora will take me to the Prince. Ye’ll leave by boat. Back to Inverness. Safely.”
Fiona blinked once.
Then laughed—a sharp, disbelieving bark that barely covered the tremor beneath it.
“You’re sending me away?”
“Aye.”
“As if I’m a bairn who wandered too far from home?”
“Fiona—”
She whirled, faster than his breath, faster than his excuses. The air seemed to recoil from her heat.
“No. No, you don’t get to say my name like a man deliverin’ bad news gently. I followed ye across half the Highlands. I bled for this cause. I nearly drowned draggin’ you out of a loch like a sack of potatoes—and ye think ye can dismiss me like one of your bloody tools?”
Harris rose slow and controlled.
Every tendon in his neck stood out like he was holding back the tide with his teeth.
“I’m sendin’ ye home,” he said, “because the closer ye get to this gold, the closer ye are to dyin’ for it. I won’t have your blood on my hands.”
“My blood is MY choice!” she insisted, voice iron-hot.
“Aye,” he growled, “and it’s not enough.”
“Why?” she demanded, advancing. “Why is my safety your concern?”
Harris didn’t answer—not fast enough, not honest enough.
Something in Fiona snapped sideways, sharp as a blade’s turn.
“Oh, I ken why,” she said, words low and trembling with anger she hadn’t let herself name until now.
“You trust Flora. You speak plain with Flora. You let her carry pieces of your burden. But me?” Her laugh was vicious and wounded.
“I’m only good enough to haul ye out of a drownin’ and take orders like a wee soldier. ”
His jaw locked. “This has nothin’ tae do wi—”
“It has everything tae do with it!” she hurled back, stepping up to him so fiercely he had to brace. “I watched ye outside—aye, I saw ye—standin’ there with her, speakin’ soft, trustin’ her with truths you willnae even give me. Laughin’ and smilin’ at each other like bloody companions !”
“What you saw,” he growled, “was none of your—”
“And when she touched your arm,” Fiona cut in, voice breaking like a storm surge, “you didn’t pull away. You didn’t flinch. But God forbid I get close, eh? God forbid I matter enough for the truth!”
Harris’s breath hitched, like the accusation cracked through something he’d sworn not to feel.
Fiona shoved him then.
Hard.
Her jealousy and fury braided into one unstoppable force.
“You’ll cast me aside,” she hissed, “because it’s easier than wantin’ me. Easier than trustin’ me. Easier than lettin’ me stand where Flora stands and hearing the same truths ye give her.”
Her chest rose and fell in sharp, trembling breaths.
His jaw clenched, but not in anger.
Something rawer.
He stepped toward her.
She stepped right into him.
And then—
She shoved him in the chest once more.
Harris rocked back half a step, eyes flaring with shock, and underneath it? Hunger he’d been fighting for miles.
“You think I don’t see ye?” she spat, stalking him like a challenge made flesh.
“Running yourself ragged, actin’ like the whole rebellion rests on your shoulders alone?
You think I don’t know the weight ye carry?
You think I haven’t watched you— EVERY NIGHT —pretend ye don’t want anyone close enough to share it? ”
“Fiona—”
“No. You’ll listen, ye godforsaken MARTYR !”
She shoved him again, harder this time, her whole fire-red fury in her palms.
“I’m not Flora MacDonald,” she snapped. “I see the way you look at her, like she belongs in the pages of some noble tale. But I’m not her. I’m not one of your men. I’m not a ghost from Culloden hauntin’ you. I’m here . I chose to be here. And you’ll damn well treat me like someone who matters.”
His jaw flexed.
But he didn’t back away this time.
Fiona’s voice trembled, not from fear but from the strength of holding herself upright.