Judith E. French Read Online Free PDF Page A

she salvaged what she could of her family. She sat Johnnie MacLeod’s only living son, Corey, on a stout Highland pony and gave the seven-year-old boy a dagger and a leather pouch of coins.
    “Keep the sun on your left in the morning and your right at the end of the day,” she told him. “You must go south to Fort William and then beyond to the nearest Stewart farmstead. If anyone asks you, your father died fighting for King George.”
    “No!” Corey replied hotly. “I won’t leave you, and I won’t tell such a lie! Charlie is our rightful prince, and our daddy—”
    She slapped the child’s face so hard that the imprint of her hand rose white on his cheek. For a second, Corey stared at her in disbelief, and then his big brown eyes filled with tears.
    Cailin wanted to weep as well. Her little half-brother Corey was the son she’d never had. She’d cared for him since his own mother had died in childbirth. Cailin had never struck him before in his life, but this was no time to show compassion. She had to make the boy obey her. His life was at stake. “Listen to me,” she said harshly. “Ye be a MacLeod and a soldier. You will do as I say. And you will live as your father would want you to do. You will kiss German George’s feet if you have to. Do ye ken?”
    Corey bit his lower lip and nodded, his eyes huge and filled with fear.
    “I will come for you, Corey. As soon as it’s safe, I’ll bring you home. I promise.” She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly.
    He could no longer contain his tears. “Dinna send me away,” he pleaded. “I’ll be good. I will.”
    “You are the MacLeod of Glen Garth now,” she admonished him. “But you aren’t a man grown yet. You have much to learn.”
    “I love you, Cailin,” he sobbed. “I want to stay with you and Grandda.”
    “As your father wanted to stay with you, but he couldn’t,” Cailin said sternly. “We will be together again. I swear it.”
    “Glynis said I’m an orphan now, just like her. She said ye were nay my real sister, just a stepsister, an’ ye’d not have me here. She said you’d send me off forever to be a shepherd or apprentice me to a weaver.”
    “Glynis is a foolish girl,” she replied. “Glynis has the sense of a broody hen. You are my father’s son and my brother. Stepbrother means nothing between us, Corey. Besides, I couldn’t send you away forever. You own Glen Garth now. You will be the MacLeod here when I’m an old woman toasting my toes by the fire.”
    He flashed a wan smile—his father’s smile—and pain knifed through Cailin. So long as Corey lived, Johnnie lived as well. She hoped that she was making the right decision for them both.
    She called to her serving man, Big Fergus. “I’m entrusting Corey to ye,” she told Fergus intently. “Go with him and protect him. More than God, I count on you. Do not fail your little chief, Fergus. For if you do, the ghost hounds of Glen Garth will hunt you down and eat you, skin, bones, and tallow.”
    She gave Corey a final hug, then sent him off on the shaggy brown pony with Fergus striding through the cold rain beside him. Finley wept loudly at his twin’s departure, but Fergus was so proud of the old-fashioned claymore strapped over his shoulder that he grinned from ear to ear. Fergus might be slow of wit, but there was nothing wrong with his strength. As faithful as the black and white sheepdog that trailed behind them, Fergus would guard Corey with his life.
    They’d not been gone an hour when the first patrol of English dragoons arrived at Glen Garth. Cailin was changing baby Jamie’s nappie when she heard the first musket shot. Thrusting the infant into Jeanne’s arms, she threw an old plaid over her shoulders and ran out of the house.
    By the time she reached the courtyard, soldiers were smashing windows and shouting orders. Finley ran from the dairy with a pet goose in his arms. A dragoon bore down on him and and seized the squawking bird by the