Chapter One
The Scottish Highlands
August 1728
Lady Margaret Mackintosh tightened her fingers on her
mare's reins and leaned forward in her stirrups. She was
wearing a dark blue jacket with slashed sleeves and a
man's tartan trews, which molded to her tall, slender
shape. She wore them for riding; she had been riding so
most of her life. The people of Glen Dhui, if they thought
it strange to see Lady Meg gallop about dressed like a
man, would never say so. She was their lady and they loved
her.
Meg peered now through the soft and misty gloaming. Was it
just her wistful thinking, or did she really see the
flickering lights and shadowy buildings of Clashennic
ahead? Surely there was an inn there that could provide
her with a hot bath and a soft bed? Her skin and hair felt
gritty from the long ride from Glen Dhui, and her body
ached from her days in the saddle.
She had wondered many times since the journey started
whether it was a wild goose chase, whether she should turn
back, but always she remembered her father's words, more
of an order than a plea.
"Bring Gregor Grant back to Glen Dhui, Meg. Bring him back
here to me. He is the only one who can help us now."
Gregor Grant. He had occupied a part of her life since she
was twelve years old, and yet she had never met him. She
knew him through her father's memories and the stories of
the Glen Dhui people, and the drawings she had found in
the attic of Glen Dhui Castle. Meg felt as if she knew him
very well indeed.
"Clashennic lies ahead, my lady."
Her tacksman, Duncan Forbes, called the comforting words
back to her. Relief made his usually dour tones almost
eager. He and several of his men had accompanied her on
this desperate journey as protection against thieves and
bandits, although since the government troops had set up
camp in the Highlands, folk had been more law-abiding.
Nestled in the fold of the hills before them was the
barracks town of Clashennic, and somewhere in that town
was Gregor Grant—Captain Gregor Grant, she corrected
herself -- the man whom her father believed would save
them.
"How can you be so sure, Father?" she had asked him, her
hand clasped in his as he sat before the fire.
He had looked at her with his cloudy blue eyes that once
had been as sharp as hers, as if he could still see her
face. "Because the boy I remember is honorable and loves
Glen Dhui as much as we do, Meg. Because he will fight for
the glen and its people. Because I believe that apart from
you and me and the people themselves, he is the only one
who will."
Except Glen Dhui was no longer his. It had been twelve
years since Gregor Grant was Laird of Glen Dhui. Twelve
years since the Grants had come out for the Stuarts in the
1715 Rebellion, and he had ridden into battle with his
father, the old Laird, and lost. Lost everything.
Seventeen-year- old Gregor had been imprisoned after the
Battle of Preston, along with hundreds of other men. His
father had died of apoplexy in terrible conditions in the
prison. And it was there, in the gaol, that Gregor had met
Meg's father -- a commander for the government troops --
and it had been her father who saw to his release.
Free he might have been. Saved from the hangman's noose or
the steamy plantations of Jamaica or Barbados, Carolina or
Virginia. But Gregor had lost his home, lost Glen Dhui.
His family's punishment for taking part in the Rebellion
was the confiscation of their home, their estate, and with
it the title of Laird. Gregor and his mother and young
sister had fled Glen Dhui and never returned -- they had
had no choice. But the people had mourned them, him in
particular -- he was the young Grant Laird -- and she
suspected they mourned him still. She knew they had loved
him, trusted him, set their hopes upon him. He had been
their golden-haired boy, the light of their future.
And it seemed he still was.
"The lad will not let us down," Duncan Forbes had assured
her when they had set out two days earlier.
Meg prayed his feelings were not misplaced. And yet she
too was lifted by a new and vibrant hope as they rode
toward their goal. If Gregor Grant was really all they
said ... if he was the sort of man who would set aside his
present circumstances to return to the glen he had known
as a boy ... then Meg feared she was already more than
half in love with him.
"There'll be an inn," Duncan said, noting her weariness.
He had dropped back to ride at her side, and she met the
gleam of his dark eyes in the growing darkness. "We'll
stop there first, my lady, and ye can take your ease. Me
and the men will search out Captain Grant for ye."
"Thank you, Duncan. Will you recognize him, do you think?"
"'Tis a while, but aye, I'll know him."
Meg nodded. She had never seen Gregor Grant herself, but
she thought she would know him. His collection of boyhood
sketches, found in the attic, and kept in a corner of her
room, had drawn her attention again and again over the
years. The sketches were delicate, so careful in their
detail, romantic in their rendering, full of an emotion
that spoke to her. The man ... the boy who created such
works must be special. From her father's memories of the
seventeen-year-old Gregor and her own daydreams, she
visualized him as slender and fair, with the face of a
poet and the long-fingered hands of an artist ...
Beloved Highlander. Copyright © by Sara Bennett.