Page 1 of His Wicked Highland Ways

Argyle, Scotland, August 1750

“I hear he is a terrible, wicked man,” Aggie said, her voice rife with scandal, “a typical highlander, always flashing his dirk or his sword, going off his head with temper and committing vile murder, or worse.”

Jeannie Robertson MacWherter, hunched over her small plot of garden beneath the surprisingly warm August sun, wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of one filthy hand and shot a look of annoyance at her companion, Aggie Moffat. Though ostensibly Jeannie’s servant—and her only one—Aggie had in truth become far more since the death of Jeannie’s father last year. Now Jeannie bit her tongue, pushed away her irritation, and reminded herself just how dear to her Aggie was.

“Have you been gossiping again?” she asked sternly. “You know what I told you about believing everything you hear.”

Aggie looked stricken. Back in Dumfries, from whence the two women hailed, she had gathered snippets of news and wild stories the way other women might gather flowers, and treasured them as tenderly. But things were different here in Argyle. Jeannie wanted to start new, keep her nose—and that of her maid—clean.

“Well, but,” Aggie said in earnest self-defense, her lowland brogue coloring every word, “it is just so dull here. I do vow, mistress, I will perish if something interesting does not happen soon.”

Jeannie understood the sentiment. The two of them had been in residence at the small stone house in Glen Rowan since May, and life could not be more different from the bustle and clatter of Dumfries. Jeannie had been totally unprepared for the quiet, the deep, seamless dark that fell at night, and the isolation of the glen.

Only three houses occupied the small valley set like a green jewel cupped in God’s hand half way between Oban and Glencoe. One belonged to the landed family Avrie, the other—near the head of the glen and currently unoccupied—to the man Aggie now decried. With so little to talk about, Jeannie could only sympathize with Aggie’s exaggeration.

Still, Jeannie could not permit such chatter, especially of a stranger.

“You’ve been listening to the folks at Avrie House again, have you?” she accused and added, not giving Aggie a chance to answer, “Anyway, what could be worse than murder?”

Aggie took the second question as an invitation and lowered her voice to a throb. Her plain, somewhat homely face, enlivened by a pair of truly beautiful blue eyes, acquired the glow with which she always imparted what she termed news. “I am speaking of him having his way with women, of course.”

Jeannie experienced a twinge of disquiet. The man in question—one Finnan MacAllister—had been a friend of her late husband, Geordie, and was arguably the last person Jeannie wished to encounter. Yet she owed her presence here at this peaceful refuge to him.

Now dismay caused her to sit back on her heels and regard Aggie fiercely. “Are you speaking of rape? Because, if you are, that is a very grave accusation to make.” Not that Jeannie felt inclined to defend the man, but fair was fair, as her father had always said—at least when he was sober.

“Well,” Aggie admitted with a touch of remorse, “not that, maybe, but he definitely works his wiles on them and is far too persuasive, if you know what I mean.”

“I certainly do not. If you say he seduces women, we have nothing to worry about. It is surely difficult to do from a distance.” To Jeannie’s knowledge, Finnan MacAllister was not in residence at the big stone house, Dun Mhor, and had not been since her arrival.

Of course he did not have to be in residence to make his intentions felt. Jeannie’s mind shied away from the letter even now tucked into a chest in her bedroom. She had not told Aggie about that dreadful missive, nor would she.

“They say,” Aggie continued with renewed enjoyment, “he has had every woman in the glen.”

“Oh, has he?” Jeannie could not keep the sarcasm from her voice. It made no great number from whom to choose—the old Dowager Avrie at Avrie House, her various servants, and presumably the wives of her landsmen. “And from whom did you get this nugget of knowledge? Dorcas, in Mistress Avrie’s kitchen?”

Jeannie knew for a fact Aggie stole away and walked the short distance to Avrie House for a cup of tea whenever she could. But the Dowager Avrie’s cook, whom Jeannie had met on two occasions, was clearly a harridan with a mean streak and a spiteful tongue.

Not that Jeannie thought well of Finnan MacAllister. Far from it. And he, from the tone of his letter, clearly thought very ill of her in return.

You have no right to occupy the premises at Rowan Cottage and will vacate immediately , he had written in a heavy, black, yet—for a reputed murdering savage—very respectable hand. This missive will serve as your notice. I give you thirty days to remove yourself.

It had been dated 15 June. It was now 16 August, and the wicked Finnan had not appeared in the glen to enforce his demand.

“Has he,” Jeannie added spitefully, “had Dorcas and that awful cohort of hers, Marie?” Marie, a squat troll of a woman, had a tongue like a wasp. Jeannie had loathed her on sight.

“Well, no.”

“Then he has not ‘had’ every woman in the glen, has he?” Jeannie challenged. “Be careful what you say, Aggie. I wish a peaceful life here, and a clean start.”

Besides, everyone at Avrie House obviously detested Finnan MacAllister even more than Jeannie did herself. They might have good reason, or they might not; it was scarcely Jeannie’s place to tell. The Avries had once owned this beautiful glen. It was rumored Finnan MacAllister had schemed and cheated it away from them and precipitated the death of Lady Avrie’s son. But that, too, was gossip.

“Now,” she urged more briskly, “help me weed this pitiful crop, or we shall have nothing to eat this winter.”

Jeannie, a city lass born and bred, made no fit gardener. Everything she had planted, from parsnips to cabbage, struggled and wilted. The soil here seemed determined to thwart her every effort.

“Yes, miss,” Aggie agreed. She enjoyed the garden even less than Jeannie. At least Jeannie appreciated being out in the sweet air and the views of enclosing, purple-clad hills.

Aggie bent to pull a weed, but her tongue, once unhinged, seemed to defy restraint. “They say he’s slaughtered two score men or more.”

That, Jeannie might be willing to believe. Her husband, Geordie, had once been Finnan MacAllister’s brother-at-arms. They had served together, so Geordie confided, when they first took up their swords as mercenaries. When in his cups—which happened frequently—Geordie spoke of old battles and his friend Finnan’s ferocity in a fight. None could best him, and few stood before him. Even by Geordie’s account, and Geordie had virtually worshipped the man, Finnan had few scruples beyond survival.

“They say,” Aggie went on with relish, “his sword is enchanted. The one time he was nearly beheaded occurred only because that blade fell from his hand.”

Yes, and on that occasion Geordie had been there to save Finnan’s life. Jeannie, still balanced on her heels, looked about this place she had, in only four short months, come to love—hers through a bequest made to her now-deceased husband in gratitude for that very moment.

Finnan MacAllister, so Geordie had said, never forgot his friends. Nor his enemies.

Despite the warmth of the day, a chill traced its way up Jeannie’s spine. She had in all honesty not loved her husband, but he had offered her protection when she desperately needed it. Geordie MacWherter had been a drunkard, a wild Highlander, a former mercenary living a ruined life. But he’d had a gentle heart. And this refuge he had left her remained all she had in the world.

She thrust her trowel into the thin, rocky earth and rooted up a stubborn weed. Funny how weeds were all that wanted to grow here. Gorse, bracken, and heather, along with a hundred other specimens she could not name, thrived without care, while her poor vegetables struggled.

Ah, but the weeds belonged here; her transplants did not. Just as, perhaps, she did not.

“I want you to promise you will not go to Avrie House and gossip with those two vipers,” she said firmly. Aggie had promised before and what good had that done? “The Dowager Avrie is very ill, and I would not have her upset by idle chatter.”

“She’s dying,” Aggie said with no perceptible decrease in enjoyment. “Not expected to last the winter. And anyway, there’s no one else with whom I can visit save the women in Avrie’s kitchen. I swear, miss, I will go mad here in this Highland prison.”

“Prison? How can you say so? Just look at that view.”

“But these nasty, tiny flies bite all the time. The more I sweat, the more they bite. The weather is abominable—”

“Not today.”

“Not today, no. But how many times have we been caught out in one of those storms that blow up without warning?”

More times than Jeannie could count. The rain swooped in from the sea beyond the hills, and she had frequently been drenched to the skin. This was a strange, wild place, but beautiful also.

“I know it is not easy.” She reached out and covered Aggie’s hand with her own. “And I cannot express how grateful I am that you agreed to accompany me.”

Aggie’s eyes immediately filled with tears. “Where else would I be? We’ve been together since we were both children and your dear, sainted father was kind enough to take me in.”

Jeannie’s dear, sainted father, who had determinedly drunk his way through all they owned, leaving her penniless.

She squeezed Aggie’s fingers warmly. “This is an adjustment for us. It’s lonely, and the nights are long.” Enough, sometimes, to spur a woman to madness. “But spreading gossip among our neighbors will not help.”

With a rush of earnest righteousness, Aggie said, “Very well, then, I will not spread gossip. But say I may still go to Avrie House, miss.”

“For heaven’s sake, why?”

Aggie’s cheeks grew pink, and her eyes gleamed. “Have you seen Lady Avrie’s groom, miss?”

“I have not.”

“Young he is, and not ill-favored.” Again, Aggie lowered her voice. “And you know, miss, a girl might live in this wilderness without many things, but not the attentions of a man.”