Free Jennifer Roberson by Lady of the Glen Page A

—If she could reach Chesthill, or even a tacksman’s dwelling, someone would help her do it. She would not fail him in this, albeit she failed him otherwise.
    Guilt was merciless. Without me, he wouldna be dead.
    She flogged herself with it. Perhaps that was how her breeks had come to be torn. Without me, he wouldna be dead.
    She heard a sound, and stopped short. MacDonalds . . . Were they coming back? Did they mean to kill her, also? Cat hugged herself, shivering in the darkness.
    Without me, he wouldna be dead . Without MacDonalds, also. But it was her dirk, the dirk her father had set aside because of all the nicks. She had lifted that dirk as she intended to lift a cow, and it had killed Robbie.
    Without me . . . Cat heard the rattle of stones. A muffled, wuffling sound. Even as she prepared to flee, a shaggy calf wandered out of the darkness and stopped, blinking great eyes at her.
    “—only a cow —” Cat clutched her plaid-swathed chest, breathing rapidly. She convulsed as fright bled away, replaced with a bone-deep trembling in the aftermath of panic.
    A cow. A calf. A Campbell calf, or a MacDonald. She believed it more likely it belonged in Glen Lyon, as the MacDonalds had come raiding before she could.
    Cat laughed a little, then bit it back before the noise escaped her control and she keened like an old woman. “—brawlie calf,” she crooned, marking its plumpness. “A braw, sonsie calf—” It was significantly less painful to think of living calves in place of dead brothers.
    She put her hand on its damp, flared muzzle. Its breath was warm, sweetly redolent of summer grass. She bent, blew her own breath into its nostrils. It whuffled back.
    A little Campbell calf.
    The thought was abrupt. Robbie would want me to bring him home —Robbie would.
    For Robbie.
    Robbie’s calf.
    Behind her, away against the scree, the untended fire beside her brother’s body died to ash and embers. It had been a small, unprepossessing fire, meant for men bent on cattle-lifting; was now lackluster tribute to Glenlyon’s slain son, the impetuous young Campbell heir who one day would have been laird. The embers, Cat knew, would burn out before dawn. But by daylight she would be back, and the firelight wouldn’t matter.
    Robbie’s calf whuffled again.
    If she unwrapped her belt, she would lose her trews entirely. So Cat unpinned and shrugged out of her plaid, then twisted it into a rope. With it knotted around the calf’s neck, she turned toward Glen Lyon. We’ll go home, brawlie lad.
    She thought briefly of Mairi Campbell, now bereft of her Robbie. And if there were a bairn, it would never know its father. Only its begetting, its heritage, and the name of a man long dead.
     
    In Edinburgh, with the rain rattling glass, the Earl of Breadalbane looked upon Glenlyon. Nostrils flared slightly: Distaste. Distrust. But the earl had learned never to discard a single potential ally, despite apparent ineptness, lest he relinquish an advantage. And there will be one—there will be a task for him. I will use him well, one day. “Robin.” He waited until Glenlyon’s attention came back from its wandering. “You are not a political man.”
    Glenlyon shifted irritably. “What do I care for such things? Kings do as they will. Parliament does as it will. Politics have naught to do with the Highlands.”
    Breadalbane demurred politely. “It is no man’s failure that he not be acquainted with the perambulations of the Privy Council and such men as Tories and Whigs—God knows there is intrigue aplenty both foul and formidable.” He tapped a fingertip against the paper. “But there is the matter of the king.”
    Annoyed, Glenlyon frowned.
    “There is opposition to James.”
    Glenlyon stirred. “Argyll’s dead.”
    And replaced by his son, the tenth Earl of Argyll . . . Inwardly Breadalbane grimaced. Glenlyon was blind, unremittingly blind. “Other opposition. James is Catholic. He holds the throne though Catholics are