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He turned his head casually away toward the far side of the road as the soldiers passed, but then heard a loud “Ifri
He was equally startled—and nearly as horrified—to see Ian, hands tied behind his back, smeared with dirt and blood and obviously the worse for wear, being shoved along by two cross-looking British privates, red-faced and sweating in their heavy uniforms.
He stifled his immediate urge to leap off the wagon and stared hard at Ian, willing the lad not to speak. He didn’t, just goggled back with his eyes bulging out of his head and his face pale, as though he’d seen a ghost, and walked past, speechless.
“Jesus,” Jamie murmured under his breath, realizing. “He thinks he has seen my fetch.”
“Who thinks what?” asked the driver, though without much interest.
“I think I must get down here, sir, if ye’d be so civil as to stop? Aye, thanks.” Without thought of his back, he swung down off the wagon; it twinged, but there was no warning stab of pain down his leg—and if there had been, he would still have gone up the road as fast as he could, because he saw a small figure a little way ahead, ru
It was, and he just managed to catch her up, seizing her by the arm as she ran, petticoats kirtled up in her arms and feet hammering the dust.
“Come with me, lass,” he said urgently, grabbed her round the waist, and pulled her off the road. She uttered a stifled shriek—and then a much louder one, when she looked up and saw his face.
“No, I’m not dead,” he said hurriedly. “Later, aye? Step back on the road wi’ me now, or someone’s going to come see am I raping ye in the bushes. Ciamar a tha thu, a choin?” he added to Rollo, who was sniffing him industriously.
She made an odd gargling noise in her throat and continued to stare, but after an instant blinked and nodded and they were back on the road. Jamie smiled and acknowledged a man who had stopped in the middle of the road, dropping the handles of a barrow he was trundling. The man looked suspiciously at them, but Rachel, after a moment’s stu
“Wh-what—” she croaked. She looked as though she might collapse or vomit, chest heaving and her face going scarlet and white and scarlet again. She’d lost her cap, and her dark hair was matted with sweat and sticking to her face.
“Later,” he said again, but gently. “What’s happened to Ian? Where are they taking him?”
Between wrenching gasps, she told him what had happened.
“A mh’ic an diabhail,” he said softly, and wondered for a split second what—or who—he meant by that. The thought vanished, though, as he looked up the road. Perhaps a quarter mile back, he could see the large, slow-moving knot of evacuees, a sprawling mass of slow wagons and trudging people, with the neat scarlet columns of soldiers splitting to flow round them, coming on now four abreast.
“Aye, then,” he said grimly, and touched Rachel’s shoulder. “Di
“Free? But what—what are you going to do?” She’d got the hair out of her eyes and was calmer, though the whites of her eyes still showed all round. She reminded him of a young badger at bay, baring its teeth in panic, and the thought made him smile a little.
“I mean to have a word with my son,” he said, and, leaving her, strode purposefully up the road.

HE MADE OUT William at a considerable distance. The young man was standing at the side of the road, bare-headed, disheveled, and slightly battered, but evidently attempting to look collected; his hands were folded behind his back, and he appeared to be counting the wagons that passed him. He was alone, and Jamie hastened his step to reach the lad before anyone came along to talk to him; he needed privacy for his own conversation.
He was reasonably sure Rachel hadn’t told him everything about the recent stramash and wondered whether she herself had been partly the cause of it. She had said the trouble began just after she’d told William about her betrothal to Ian. Her account had been slightly confused overall, but he’d got the gist of it well enough, and his jaw tightened as he came up to William and saw the look on his face.
Christ, do I look like that in a temper? he wondered briefly. It was off-putting to speak to a man who looked as though he asked nothing more of the world than the chance to rend someone limb from limb and dance on the pieces.
“Well, rend away, lad,” he said under his breath. “And we’ll see who dances.” He stepped up beside William and took off his hat.
“You,” he said baldly, not wishing to call the lad by either title or name, “come aside wi’ me. Now.”
The look on William’s face changed from incipient murder to the same look of startled horror Jamie had just surprised on Ian’s. Had matters been otherwise, he’d have laughed. As it was, he gripped William hard by the upper arm, pushed him off-balance, and had him into the shelter of a scrim of saplings before he could set his feet hard.
“You!” William blurted, wrenching loose. “What the devil are you doing here? And where is my—what have you—” He made a convulsive gesture of dismissal. “What are you doing here?”
“Talking to you, if ye’ll close your mouth for a moment,” Jamie said coldly. “Listen to me, lad, because I’m telling ye what you’re going to do.”
“You’re not telling me anything,” William began furiously, and cocked a fist. Jamie grabbed him by the upper arm again, and this time dug his fingers hard into the spot Claire had shown him, on the underside of the bone. William let out a strangled “Agh!” and started to pant, his eyes bulging.
“You’re going to catch up the men ye sent Ian with and tell them to set him free,” Jamie said evenly. “If ye don’t, I go down under a flag of truce to the camp where they’re taking him, introduce myself, tell the commander who you are, and explain the reason for the fight. Ye’ll be right there beside me. Do I make myself clear?” he asked, increasing the pressure of his fingers.
“Yes!” The word came out in a hiss, and Jamie let go suddenly, folding his fingers into a fist to hide the fact that they were trembling and twitching from the effort.
“God damn you, sir,” William whispered, and his eyes were black with violence. “God damn you to hell.” His arm hung limp and must have hurt, but he wouldn’t rub it, not with Jamie watching.
Jamie nodded. “Nay doubt,” he said quietly, and went into the forest. Once out of sight of the road, he leaned against a tree, feeling sweat stream down his face. His back felt cast in cement. His whole body was trembling, but he hoped that William had been too distrait to notice.
God, should it have come to blows, I couldna take him.
He closed his eyes and listened to his heart, which was thumping like a bodhran. After a little, he heard the sound of hooves on the road, a horse galloping, and, turning to peer through the trees, caught a glimpse of William thundering past, heading in the direction Ian had been taken.

THE GATHERING STORM
BY BREAKFAST ON Thursday, I’d come to the firm conclusion that it was the Duke of Pardloe or me. If I stayed in the house, only one of us would remain alive by sundown. Denzell Hunter must have come into the city by now, I reasoned; he’d call in daily at Mrs. Woodcock’s house, where Henry Grey was convalescing. A very kind and capable doctor, he could easily manage Hal’s recovery—and perhaps his future father-in-law would be grateful for his professional attention.