The Highlander's Maiden. Elizabeth Mayne

Gordon to be sure.

      Other than both being garbed in serviceable Wallace hunting plaid, she could not tell from where they came or to which clan they gave allegiance, though she’d have had to be blind not to pay notice to his straight back and proud bearing—another giveaway of his clan affiliation. He moved with the proud strut of an invincible warrior, which the bloody Gordons were, curse their souls!

      She could be wrong. The more slender man could simply be a soldier or officer in King James the Sixth’s garrison. God forbid he was a Gordon or Douglas scout, reconnoitering for rebels hidden in the pass. This was MacDonald territory and a Campbellton shire. Rebel earls and their war parties weren’t welcome here.

      Both men hitched their plaids close over their backs as the brunt of the strong wind caught them and their overloaded pack animals descending the mountain.

      Cassie saw that they had slogged through deep mud, probably in crossing the mire of MacDonald’s cow field. The hems of their muddy plaids slapped against the backs of their legs.

      “You didn’t find out who they are!” Millie fussed when they went ‘round the bend and out of sight.

      “Why should I want to know that?” Cassie responded, turning her attention back to Ian as he fell soundly on his bottom. Cassie winced at his impact, knowing that the fall had hurt. His bare shanks were exposed to the ice. He was so surprised he didn’t know whether to howl or pound his fists. Cassie waited to see what he would do.

      “They could be im-por-tant!” Millie insisted as she pulled hard on Ian’s arm. “Whisht, Ian, get up. Let’s try again.”

      Ian rose so unsteadily he clutched Millie’s waist, then leaned too far into her. His sturdy little body overbalanced Millie as well. Down they both went as quick as a blink, a small mass of tangled legs and banging skates.

      “Ian, leggo! Y’er choking me!”

      “Am not,” Ian insisted, mad now. He did a split getting up, both of his hands pushing heavily into Millie’s tummy. Cassie came to their rescue.

      “Shall we skate together for a little while?” she suggested, righting the little one, firmly steadying his balance. Without argument, Ian gave her his hand. Millie dutifully took the other and they circled the pond without further mishap, restoring Ian’s confidence.

      “The dark one had a signet ring, so he must be somebody im-por-tant!” Undeterred, Millie returned to her prior topic. She was like a dog that had dragged off a bone, determined to savor it down to the very marrow.

      “One was dark?” Cassie repeated, adding under her breath, “Who could notice for the mud?”

      “Och, y’er doin’ it again! Saying things ye don’t want me to hear but ye say them anyway. Mama says it’s because y’er always doing yer thinking out loud.”

      “Your parents make a habit of discussing me in front of wee bairns, do they?” Cassie asked, teasing Millie naturally, the same way her older brother and sisters had teased her at Millie’s age. “Your da calls me fey and my own sister accuses me of being so witless I say every thought out loud like a five-year-old.”

      Not one to be distracted, Millie continued. “‘Twas a gold ring on his little finger with a blue jewel in it. I saw it plain as day, winking at me from the edge of his ragged mitten.”

      “Well, there. If your father gives them leave to have supper at his table, you’ll have time to knit the poor dark man a new pair of mittens,” Cassie said. “I didn’t see any ring, myself.”

      “Tha’s ‘cause ye weren’ lookin’! You only looked at his face.”

      Cassie shook her head, baffled by the girl’s powers of observation. The man had very nice blue eyes and came with an endorsement from Euan’s father. That was better than a king’s seal of approval in this part of the Highlands. Even so, if he was who she thought he was, he was a dead man. Like the rest of her MacArthur and Campbell kinsmen, Cassie had been brought up believing the only good Gordon was a dead Gordon.

      Cassie loosened her hair from her hood. It spilled down the back of her cloak to be played with by the wind and tangled and blown about her face. The sun picked up its fiery colors and turned it into burnished gold. That was the only time she liked it, when she was in the sun.

      One of these days she hoped to get the privilege of putting her red hair up in neat coils like her mother and all of her sisters. Until the day she was actually married, to put her hair up was the next worst thing to a sin. She had heard her brother James say that in England unmarried girls past a certain age were allowed that wonderful privilege…if they attended Queen Elizabeth at court. The day that happened in Scotland, Cassie would turn cartwheels up and down the nave of St. Giles Cathedral.

      In her mind, she should have been granted that privilege when she and Alastair Campbell became engaged. But her mother had said no, and insisted the answer was still no, even when they’d buried what was left of poor Alastair in their chapel cemetery alongside his parents’ infants that hadn’t lived through childhood. Cassie still felt as if her heart had gone into the cold earth with him. It had been over a year since Alastair’s death. In that time a peace treaty had been signed and no further battles had disrupted the return to normal life.

      In just a few days Cassandra MacArthur would be twenty. How could she hold up her head at the spring fetes if she was still wearing her hair down at twenty? Cassie sighed and gave up brooding over the impossible.

      Ian was content to hold Millie’s hands and let her pull him along. So Cassie skated away, concentrating on making her figures with her blades in the pristine ice. Eights were easy, requiring little more than the careful management of her skirts. The circle within a circle was harder.

      The children’s voices filled the high meadow with laughter, making Cassie realize she was happy at Glencoen Farm, happier than she was anywhere else in Scotland.

      “Auntie Cassie,” Ian called to her. “I’m hungry.”

      She’d come prepared for his inevitable hunger and produced two apples from her pocket. Millie left him standing on his skates and came to her, grabbing both apples greedily.

      “Sit you down then.” Cassie instructed the girl firmly. “We don’t need to tax either of your skills with eating and skating, too.”

      “I’d best take off Ian’s skates. Mama will want us home well before dark,” Millie added wisely.

      Night came on quickly and early during winter. The sun was already sinking to the west. Millie skated as fast as she could back to Ian while biting into one of the apples. Then a devil got inside her and she circled the boy, holding his apple just out of his reach.

      “Give it to me!” Ian demanded.

      “Come and get it yerself,” Millie taunted. She skated far ahead of him, close to the rockbound edge where granite stones were frosted with a coat of dripping ice. She executed a sharp, quick stop on her iron skates. “Come get it, piglet!”

      “Gimme!” Ian yelled.

      Crack! went the ice at Millie’s feet. The sun caught the jagged line as it ripped across the length of the frozen pool.

      “Millie, don’t move!” Cassie yelled, horrified as that jagged line zigzagged under Ian’s feet.

      “Gimme it!” Ian screamed again, his hunger turned to temper.

      Millie froze, clenching both apples, and looked to Cassie, who sped Millie’s way as fast as she could.

      “Children—” Cassie’s heart thudded in her chest, but she kept her voice as calm as she could make it “—don’t move, please. I’m coming to you.”

      “I want mine no-ow!” Ian stomped his foot.

      The crack underneath him shattered like glass and roared with the voice of a cupboard full of pots and pans toppling onto a flagstone floor.

      “Millie!”