Free The Warrior Laird by Margo Maguire Page A

floor, wrapped in his tartan, his pack right beside him. She told herself that if she did not look now, she would never know.
    She took a deep breath and crept silently to the spot.
    MacMillan shifted in his sleep, startling her.
    She held her breath and considered what to do. Did she dare untie the laces and look inside his pack? She could take just a wee peek at the map his companion had spoken of, and if it was not like hers, she would tie up the pack and leave.
    But if it looked to be the other part of the document she’d taken from Argyll—
    Dugan took a long, deep breath, and Maura heard him mutter something low. Her name?
    No, of course she’d only imagined it, mayhap wishing it was true. For his embrace had shown her how a man’s touch could soothe and excite, all at once. Even in her dreams, she hadn’t imagined that a kiss could make her blood sizzle and her knees weak.
    Of course, she’d never encountered a man like Dugan MacMillan.
    The sound of a deep snore to Maura’s left startled her and she realized she tarried too long. If she was going to satisfy her curiosity, she had to do it now, and do it quickly. She opened Dugan’s pack and slid her hand inside. In complete silence, she watched his handsome face for any sign of awakening as she felt for a document. She quickly came upon a rolled piece of parchment at the bottom of the pack.
    Drawing it out carefully, Maura did not unroll it, but held it up to the light of the fire. Her heart pounded with excitement when she realized ’twas exactly like Argyll’s—tattered, with markings for lochs and mountains, but little else. Maura had no doubt its ragged edge would fit perfectly against the edge of the map in her possession.
    An ominous creak sounded above her, and she knew she had to move.

 
    Chapter 6

    M aura pulled up her hood as she slipped unseen into the street. Moving quickly, she headed toward the loch and found the narrow road that bordered it. Walking north, she intended to continue until the road disappeared into the woodlands north of town. She would not lose her way if she kept to the water’s edge and followed it west in the direction of the highlands.
    She avoided thinking about her theft of the highlander’s map and concentrated on getting away from Fort William, as far and as quickly as possible. She knew it had been wrong to take the map, but perhaps her guilt could be ameliorated by the good use she would put it to. Surely, saving her helpless sister was a justifiable reason for her thievery.
    It was not the first impulsive act of her life and Maura doubted it would be her last. Her quick actions were never mindless, but always based on some innate instinct. Sometimes her deeds landed her in serious trouble, but she never regretted them—especially her rash behavior on the day Rosie was born.
    Maura had been hiding in the room where her mother labored loudly and painfully with her twelfth child. From what Maura could tell, the bairn had come early, and the birth had not gone well. Rosie had been born far too tiny, her color a sickly gray. The poor bairn did not cry, and she hardly moved in the well-used crib in which the midwife had placed her. But Maura had loved her on first sight, her wee rosebud lips and perfect little fingers and toes.
    Lord Aucharnie had roared his displeasure with his wife, with the midwife, and with the tiny, frail bairn. He had given orders for his child to be left alone to die. His own child.
    Maura had no intention of allowing her father to kill her tiny sister. The midwife had made no objection when Maura had wrapped the bairn in soft wool and taken her from the castle. She’d run through the Aucharnie hills to her refuge from her father’s frequent wrath—the quiet warmth of Deirdre Elliott’s cottage. Deirdre’s own bairn, Janet, was but a few months old, and Maura knew the woman would be able to feed her sister.
    Maura’s father,