The Highlander's Maiden. Elizabeth Mayne

caught the ague from the dunking and couldn’t drag his dirty hide off his cot for more than a month. That caused MacArthur to miss the Glorious Twelfth and all the fair hunting days between.”

      “Now wait there.” Maggie held up her hand. “The Glorious Twelfth is in August. Douglas should have been up and running by August.”

      “Och, did I forget to mention that when Douglas crawled out of the well he had a broken leg?”

      “Cassie!”

      Cassie shrugged. “Serves the great big oaf right. It didn’t mend straight. He can’t track boars anymore or keep up with the other hunters on foot. MacArthur is racking his wits trying to figure out what to do with the man now when he comes a-visiting. Douglas eats as much as a horse, and we don’t even want to go into his other charming attributes. Mother has about had it with Douglas the Darling and told MacArthur not to invite him to Achanshiel anymore.”

      “Ah, I get it now. So what you’re really saying is that father’s sleeping on the cold side of the master’s bed and that’s why he threatened to marry you off to the next man that asks, bounder or no’. Look at things this way, Cassie, you’ve got two new men to choose from now that surveyors have come from court.”

      “One’s a Gordon, the other is a Hamilton. They’re dead men if they cross Glencoe into Lochaber. Besides, I wouldn’t have either,” Cassie replied, ignoring the niggling frisson under her skin that told her she’d definitely have one of them.

      “I can tell you this—I’d likely run off to Wales if MacArthur tried to force me to marry a man I find disgusting.”

      Maggie threw up her hands. “Well then, there’s a whole countryside full of eligible of men. Didn’t you like one of the young Maitlands that danced with you at Cathy’s wedding?”

      “I liked talking to him. Maggie, I don’t like really big men—warriors.”

      “Och, don’t tell me you want a farmer.” Maggie groaned. “You’ve been cosseted and waited on hand and foot since the day you were born. A farmer’s no good for you.”

      “I’m no more a princess than you were,” Cassie said, justifying herself. “I’ve been thinking about marrying a vicar.”

      Maggie rolled her eyes at the ceiling. She probably couldn’t get her Catholic husband to go to a Protestant wedding if her sister married a vicar, let alone allow the two of them to enter his house as a married couple. “A vicar, Cassie? Why a vicar?”

      It wasn’t easy for Cassie to explain, since she hadn’t had much time to explore the fantasy completely herself. “What I mean is I like to read, and all the ministers I know are always reading.”

      “So.you want a learned and educated man.”

      “Aye, and one who isn’t adverse to bathing,” Cassie quipped with a flashing grin.

      “They will all do that if you make it a requirement to touching you,” Maggie assured her.

      Men, in Maggie’s estimation, were merely overgrown, hairy little boys, needing to be managed and nurtured very carefully by a wise woman who knew what she needed and he needed. Cassie clearly hadn’t caught on to that fact. But then, her sister was very used to going about things her own way—and spent too much time in the hills reading and wandering, attended by no more than a couple of elderly gillies their father trusted with her safety.

      Maggie came around the table and gave her sister a hug. “Oh, you mustn’t worry, sweetling. There’s the right man for you out there somewhere. All the good ones can’t be taken. I must go and see how the cooks are doing. Set out the candles, will you please?”

      “Of course I will.” Cassie squeezed Maggie back, and only cast the smallest of envious glances at Maggie’s smooth unblemished complexion as their quick embrace ended. “Why did I get all the freckles and you didn’t get a one?”

      “Because God always saves his best for last.” Maggie kissed her cheek and left her with one final gem of sisterly advice. “After you’ve done the candles, do go an’ rest awhile. You’re not as strong as you think you are, and the bairns willna let you go to bed without another of your stories.”

      Cassie turned to the cupboards. She tucked her hand across her lips to cover a yawn, and the unconscious gesture brought to mind a stranger’s fingers touching her mouth. An honorable stranger whose liberties had been performed in an heroic and generous manner. She was not going to think about that.

      She was not going to think about King James’s letter or demands either. It wasn’t her wish to lead a Gordon around Lochaber, revealing to him where each of her kinsmens’ fortresses and strongholds were situated in the hills. King James had the wrong idea of Cassandra and Lady Quickfoot.

      Cassie only elaborated on older, more traditional MacArthur clan legends. The king thought he could marry off a woman who didn’t exist. Lady Quickfoot was a character in oral stories that were over two hundred years old. She wasn’t real. She wasn’t Cassandra MacArthur!

      Besides that, the last person in the world she would marry would be a Gordon. He could well be the very man responsible for killing her beloved Alastair. God might forgive the Gordons the men they killed in battle, but that didn’t mean the Campbells or MacArthurs ever would. Not this MacArthur at least.

      Did she have the king’s letter in her hands this moment, Cassie would burn it. At least she was consoled by the fact that the letter commanding “Lady Quickfoot” to serve his royal interests in Lochaber was safely hidden where no one could ever find it—behind a loose panel in the headboard of Cassie’s bed at Castle MacArthur. Furthermore, its obscure addendum to Cassandra MacArthur regarding an unacceptable marriage to a Gordon would remain hidden as well.

      Instead, she turned her thoughts toward supper, hoping it wouldn’t last too long tonight. She, for one, intended to go to bed as early as the children did.

      Cassie took out Maggie’s tall candelabrum. Beeswax candles were kept in the stillroom, where it was damp and cool all year long. She fetched her cloak and headed outside. The darkening sky above the faraway mountains took her breath away. Cassie stopped perfectly still in her tracks, absorbing all her eyes beheld.

      To the west, the faintest glow of sunset still tinted the winter sky, but to the east it was dark enough for the stars to shine though the gloaming.

      Cassie leaned on the fence, enjoying the quiet and the wind and the silence that settled so peacefully around this farm. If she stayed out long enough, the stars would become so bright and thick in the cold air that they looked like faint clouds racing and twirling in the heavens, heralds of Apollo’s chariot. She had half a mind to go up in the hills to where she always felt secure and one with the elements. That would certainly solve her current dilemma.

      Granted, this Robert Gordon had said nothing to her about Lady Quickfoot. But that didn’t mean he was unaware of Lady Quickfoot’s identity.

      Something bothered Cassie more than it had earlier. Alone, she could feel Gordon’s hand cupping her breast, touching her throat and chin and fluttering across cold, sodden cloth stuck at her waist.

      Cassie shook her head, refusing to dwell on such memories. She needed to leave her sister’s farm as soon as possible, by first light tomorrow, before the subject of Lady Quickfoot could ever be broached. Before that blasted letter from King James could ever be mentioned.

       Chapter Four

      A glaze of ice filmed over the water that Robert had planned to use for his ablutions before supper. One bucket was far too little if he was going to be presentable enough to sit down to the lady of the house’s table. No matter how filthy he was, Robert drew the line at immersing himself in the nearest loch. He refused to suffer such frigid torment twice.

      He was too damned civilized