Chapter 1
Miss Whitmore
Sixteen years later
Miss Diana Whitmore had two ways of lying: an impeccably English accent and an expression that discouraged questions. Lady Penelope Hawthorne valued both, provided they were used in her favor.
That afternoon, the road south of Inverness decided to test them both.
The lead horse reared before the coachman could pull the reins. The carriage tilted to the left, struck a stone buried in the mud, and stopped with a crack of wood. Eliza swore under her breath. Penelope looked up from the book open in her lap.
"I hope it was the wheel," she said. "Injured horses cost more time."
Diana closed the volume she had been reading. Outside, a man shouted. The animal went on striking its hooves, throwing mud against the side of the carriage.
"Thomas is down," Eliza reported, peering through the window. "And he appears to have chosen his own arm to break the fall."
Penelope held her book out to Diana without looking at her.
"See whether it is broken, Miss Whitmore."
That was how Penelope gave orders. She turned obedience into a conclusion already reached. Diana handed the volume to her sister, adjusted her gloves, and stepped down.
The wind brought the smell of wet peat and warm leather. Thomas sat beside the rear wheel, his face without color, holding his forearm against his chest. The coachman was trying to calm the horse. Another servant was examining the cracked axle.
Diana knelt in front of the injured man.
"Move your fingers."
"I can move them."
"Do it, then."
Thomas obeyed. The hand shook, but the fingers answered. Diana felt along the arm carefully, watching the way he held his breath when her fingers reached the wrist.
"It does not appear to be broken. There is a bad sprain and possibly a small fracture. I need clean water, cloths, and two narrow splints."
"There's a house ahead," the coachman said. "I saw smoke before the bend."
Penelope appeared at the carriage door, wrapped in gray fur. The mud did not dare touch her. Diana suspected it withdrew out of prudence.
"Go there," Penelope said. "Take Robert. The rest are needed for the wheel."
Eliza appeared behind her with Diana's small bag.
"Your case."
Diana took the bag. Her sister's fingers stayed a moment on the strap, long enough to ask in silence whether she wanted company. Diana answered with a movement of her head almost too small to see.
Penelope saw. Penelope saw everything.
"You should not be long," she said. "The light is going."
Robert, a servant too young to hide his relief at getting away from the horse, followed Diana along the edge of the road.
The ground rose to a low stone wall, and beyond it dark heather spread over the hill.
The morning frost still held in the places the sun had not reached.
Under their boots, the mud made a thick sucking sound.
The stone house stood in the distance, beside a stand of pines. Diana calculated that it would take them under ten minutes.
Then she saw the blood.
A dark drop marked the top stone of the wall. Another had fallen into the heather on the far side. Diana stopped.
"What is it?" Robert asked.
She ran a gloved thumb over the stain. Still wet.
"Someone is hurt. Go to the house and bring the water and the cloths. Ask for two narrow splints as well, for Thomas's arm."
Robert looked over the wall.
"Lady Hawthorne told me to stay with you, miss."
"And you will go on obeying it when you return. In the meantime, I will look for a herb to stop the bleeding."
He hesitated, but the house was close and visible from the road. In the end he went on alone.
Diana waited until he was well away. Then she went over the wall.
The blood appeared at irregular intervals, sometimes on the leaves, sometimes on stone. Whoever was hurt had tried to keep to the low ground. There were marks of a dragged boot and fresh furrows in the wet earth.
She moved through the heather, holding her skirt above her ankles. The wind chilled the skin left bare between glove and sleeve. Somewhere behind her the frightened horse gave a short whinny, and Penelope answered with an order the wind took apart.
Diana found the man behind a rise of ground.
He lay on his side, half covered by the heather, one arm folded under him. The dark coat had been torn near the ribs, and blood soaked the léine and had pooled in the earth. A spent pistol lay a few steps from his hand.
She approached with care.
Mud and a short beard covered his face. Dark hair stuck to his forehead. The breathing came at intervals, too shallow.
Diana touched his neck. The pulse held.
"Sir. Can you hear me?"
Nothing.
She undid the fastening of the coat and pushed the cloth off his shoulder to look for another wound. The léine gave under her fingers.
The scar showed near the joint: a curved, pale line crossing the skin to the top of his back.
For a moment Diana was eight years old again, water in her lungs and dark wool around her body.
Alistair MacLeod.
The name crossed time without losing its shape.
He had grown until he took up too much room in the heather. The shoulders were broader, the face harder. The scar stayed where the ice had cut him.
Diana set the bag down beside him and examined the main wound. The ball had entered below the ribs. There was no visible exit. The bleeding was slowing, which could mean improvement or a shortage of blood left to lose.
"Of course," she murmured. "Sixteen years to repay a debt, and you choose to collect under unsuitable conditions."
Alistair's eyelids moved. He did not open his eyes.
Diana pressed a folded cloth against the wound. Alistair jerked and reached for her wrist, and the strength failed before his fingers closed.
"Save your strength. You are already showing poor judgment in the way you breathe."
Voices came from the road.
Men. More than two.
Diana lifted her head. The metallic sound of equipment moved with the footsteps. Soldiers.
She looked at the wall. Robert had not come back. Between Alistair's position and the road there was only low heather and a rise of ground incapable of hiding a man that size if anyone approached.
Alistair opened his eyes.
The green was darker than in the memory, fixed on her through the pain. His hand moved toward the empty pistol.
Diana pushed it away with her foot.
"If you intend to face a patrol, I suggest you begin by organizing your own breathing."
He said something in Gaelic, low and rough. Diana understood only one word. Go.
"No."
The footsteps closed in. Diana pulled the coat over his chest, scattered heather across the pistol, and stood. A tear in her glove left her forefinger bare. There was mud on her skirt and blood at her cuff.
Two soldiers came over the wall. A third stayed by the road, holding the horses.
"What are you doing there?" the older one asked.
Diana squared her shoulders and let Miss Whitmore take over her face.
"I am looking for a medicinal plant. One of Lady Hawthorne's servants has injured his arm."
The English accent changed the way the man watched her at once. The suspicion lost its footing, and condescension took its place.
"Alone?"
"My escort has gone for water at that house ahead. I imagine Lady Hawthorne can confirm all of it, should you wish to explain why you delayed her journey."
The younger soldier looked past Diana and saw the boot in the heather.
"There's someone there."
She allowed a moment of distaste to cross her expression before she looked back.
"Unfortunately."
Both of them moved forward. Diana went with them, keeping herself between the older soldier and Alistair's wound.
"I found this man lying here. He is drunk or dying, possibly both. The smell does not encourage a prolonged investigation."
The young one pushed the heather aside with the toe of his boot.
"Looks like a Highlander."
"He can barely organize his own breathing," Diana said. "I doubt he has organized a rebellion."
The older soldier made a short sound through his nose. His hand stayed on the hilt of his sword.
"We saw blood near the road."
Diana showed him the forefinger bared by the torn glove.
"Did you find this as well? The stone won."
He looked at her hand, then at Alistair. Diana held the expression of a woman who already considered the conversation excessive.
Alistair did not move. His chest barely rose under the coat. The mud hid part of his face, and the absence of any visible tartan helped.
The young soldier crouched down.
Her whole body prepared itself for a movement she did not yet know.
He touched Alistair's shoulder with two fingers. Alistair did not react.
"He's cold."
"It is winter," Diana said.
The young man took his hand back.
From the road, Penelope called.
"Miss Whitmore?"
The voice came clear, impatient, and close enough to remind the soldiers that a lady of position was waiting.
Diana turned.
Penelope stood on the other side of the wall. Her eyes went over the soldiers, the heather, and Diana's muddied skirt. They stopped at the bloodstained cuff. Nothing in her face changed.
"Thomas needs you," she said.
"I am coming."
The older soldier signaled to his companion.
"Leave the drunk. He won't last till morning."
Diana picked up her bag.
"That was my assessment as well."
She walked with them to the wall. Every step required leaving Alistair behind without looking. Penelope waited by the road, one hand resting on the stone.
"Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked.
Diana lifted the small sprig of an astringent herb she had gathered by the wall.
"I did."
Penelope studied the plant, then the torn glove.
"I see Scotland remains aggressive toward English accessories."
"The stone held strong convictions."
Eliza arrived with the water and some cloths. Her eyes found the blood on her sister's sleeve. Diana handed her the bag before any question could get out.
"Thomas first."
For the next several minutes she worked under Penelope's silent attention. She cleaned the servant's wrist, set it between two splints, and tied the cloth firmly. Her hands were steady. Diana knew this because she had to order them twice to stay that way.
When she finished, the coachman announced that the wheel would hold as far as the nearest inn.
Penelope returned to the carriage.
"Miss Whitmore, come. You are covered in mud."
Diana looked at the hillside.
"I left one of the cloths by the wall. I will not be long."
Penelope did not move for a second.
"Naturally."
Diana crossed the road without running. Her employer's gaze stayed between her shoulder blades until the stones took her out of sight.
Alistair was still conscious when she knelt beside him. The green eyes followed the movement of her hands as she took up the pressure on the wound again.
He spoke in Gaelic, his voice reduced to a thread.
This time, Diana understood every word.
"Why did an Englishwoman lie for me?"