She had to warn as many people as possible of Cumberland’s new order. No one was safe. There could be no more acting, no more pretending. If there was even an inkling, or a feeling, or a dragoon needing an excuse to slake his bloodlust, life would be taken.
Fiona slowed her mount, bile rising in her throat, her stomach squeezing and rebelling even when she had nothing inside it. She coughed as her body fought to expel everything, including all the thoughts tormenting her mind. Pulling back on the reins, she leaned over the side of the horse gagging, unable to stop her throat from working, the clenching inside. She spat onto the ground.
Something warm brushed her ankle. Brogan was there. He let out a low sound under his breath but said nothing, and when she sat back up, he held out a flask.
“Drink.”
Fiona wiped her mouth with her sleeve and took the proffered flask. As she swished the whisky around her mouth to rinse, then spat it out, Brogan watched her. Handing it back, their gloved fingers brushed and she couldn’t help but wish that their skin touched. Suddenly needing to feel that contact with another human. So long had she been running, so long had she been without affection. Just the warm brush of his leg and gloved fingers soothed some of the nervous energy that was catapulting through her veins.
“My name is Fiona,” she blurted out. Och, why had she so freely told him that? One kind gesture and she was spilling secrets?
She looked away, not wanting him to see those thoughts running rampant through her mind. Not wanting him to see her regret in sharing, and then for him to ask questions as a consequence.
“Hmm,” Brogan mused, the low gravel tone growing on her. “I’d no’ have pictured ye as a Fiona.”
She whipped her head back around, frowning, slightly offended. “And what would ye have thought?”
“Jezebel.” The man said it so seriously, she almost allowed the shock of it to show on her face, but then noted the twinkle of humor in his eyes. The bastard was making a joke. At a time like this.
Fiona rolled her eyes. “Ye can call me Mistress.”
He snorted.
Fiona straightened her shoulders. “We are going to my family’s home first. ’Tis on the way to the Ruthven Barracks.”
He nodded, his brow furrowed.
“I’m no’ staying there,” she warned. “I simply want to tell them what we just heard. It is my duty to make sure my clan is safe.”
“Do ye no’ have a brother or a male cousin who could do that?”
Fiona bit the tip of her tongue to keep from issuing a tart retort. The man knew nothing of her family and yet he made assumptions. She supposed most people would, but still it irritated her.
“Every person has a duty to their family. Every person, Brogan Grant. One day ye’ll understand that, and I pity any sister of yours, or a future wife or daughter, who must feel inferior to ye.” She drew in a breath, holding his gaze, challenging him to put her down.
Brogan cocked his head but said nothing. Did he have family that he wanted to warn?
“We should warn as many as we can,” Fiona said. “Do ye want to warn your clan?”
“I will, after meeting with the prince.” He eyed her with an expression she couldn’t make out.
She glanced at the men behind them, the six of them staring at her with unreadable expressions. I’m no’ weak, she wanted to shout, but they’d all seen her bent over a horse gagging, so they’d already formed their opinions about her.
“Onward,” she said in a voice as strong as she could manage, mustering some of that authority she’d tried to wield when they’d first met.
“After ye,” Brogan said. He didn’t strike her as a man who often followed others, and yet he was allowing her the lead. Curious.
Granted, he didn’t know exactly where her family home was. She’d not been forthcoming with that information.
Fiona focused straight ahead, urging her mount into a trot and then a gallop, feeling the need to move, to have the sting of the icy air and rain on her skin.
The sounds of battle had ceased completely as they made their way back toward the field, but the acrid scents of gunpowder and cannon fire were still strong, and mixed with it was the metallic scent of blood. Despite the rain, the scents clung heavily to the air. She feared it would be that way for a long time to come.
Even when they were far away from this place, she was certain to still recall the scent. Visions of the battle, of the carnage would haunt her forever.
How many men had lost their lives today? Her stomach clenched and she feared being sick once more but managed to hold it in.
Then her blood ran cold as an anguished cry reached them. They stopped, staring in the distance at the battlefield as a cloaked woman bent over the body of a dying man. Several warriors comforted the cloaked figure. But Fiona knew there could be no soothing touch that would heal the heart from death. When the woman stood, the warriors lifted the body of the fallen man and loaded him onto a wagon.
Fiona narrowed her eyes, uncertain if she could believe what she was seeing. What tricks her mind tried to play on her. Of all the thousands of men on the field, of all the thousands of lives lost, what were the odds that one of them would be known to her?
“Nay…” she murmured, her heart clenching and all of her going cold at once.
“What is it?” Brogan asked.
The figures grew smaller and smaller, but Fiona’s heart continued to pound. “My… I think that was my friend Annie. I pray it was no’. For if it was, then she mourns the loss of a loved one.”
With her heart and head in contradiction, Fiona turned her horse in the direction of the caravan that had disappeared down a rise.
She needed to know.
The men followed her without question. By the time Fiona got to where she’d last seen Annie, there was no one in sight.
Brogan rode up beside her, the concern on his face evident. She hoped this was not going to be another opportunity in which he’d seize on her womanly emotions and inability to continue with the mission.
“Ye saw them before, aye?” she asked, wearily avoiding his gaze.
“Aye.” He said nothing more, no arguments, no veiled insults, but a quiet agreement.
That was all she needed to keep going forward. She had to find Annie. They searched the surrounding area but came up completely empty. Annie, if it was indeed her, had disappeared with the mist.
When an hour had passed and the men stared at her with question, she knew what needed to be done before Brogan spoke. She cut him off as he opened his mouth. “I will look for her when we have delivered our message.”
He nodded, though the expression on his face said he didn’t believe that would happen. A shadow of pity crossed over his gaze before he flicked it toward his men and back. Thankfully, the sympathy was replaced by his typical disgruntled affect.