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Intosh? Her family would look foolish. She remembered that infuriating amusement Aeneas could demonstrate. He might know it was her influence, if he recollected herat all. Her brother and stepmother raised their fists with the rest of the Farquharsons.
    ‘M c Intosh!’ they shouted, not one voice at odds.
    MacGillivray took a step forward, facing his people, fist raised. He, at least, would not let her down.
    ‘M c Intosh!’ he thundered as his clan echoed him. It was done. A great shout of affirmation went up. MacGillivray slid the third feather into the M c Intosh bonnet clasp beside the other two. Aeneas dropped to one knee so that his aunt could place the bonnet on his head.
    ‘Aeneas! Aeneas! Aeneas!’ chanted his ecstatic clan.
    ‘Did you see that?’ Shocked, Anne turned to Elizabeth, the spell broken. ‘They voted for him!’ The tree shook. ‘James voted for him, and MacGillivray!’ The branch under their feet dipped alarmingly.
    ‘Anne, keep still!’ Elizabeth shrieked. It was too late. Her grip was lost. Even as Anne tried to grab hold of her, she crashed out of the tree, yelling as she fell with a splash into the shallows of Loch Moy. Anne looked down, horrified, at her sister thrashing in the water. Then she remembered the gathering and looked over to the house, more horrified. Aeneas was on his feet. He and MacGillivray seemed to be staring right at her. Surely the leaves screened her? Both of them started to run towards the water. The last thing Anne wanted was to be caught, here, hiding in a tree like some misbegotten child. She stepped back along the quivering branch and slid behind the main trunk, pulling her dress tight round her so as not to be seen.
    MacGillivray and Aeneas arrived, together, at the lochside. In the shallows, Elizabeth, dress ballooning, struggled to get upright. Aeneas had seen her once when she was barely ten years old and didn’t recognize her, but MacGillivray knew who it was immediately.
    ‘Elizabeth?’ He was mystified, knowing she’d stayed behind at Invercauld with Anne, but he waded in to help her out.
    Behind Aeneas, others hurried down to join them, curious about the interruption and concerned that it might be some breach by arival clan. In minutes, Anne would be discovered, hiding like a thief from justice. There was only one thing she could do in the circumstances, brazen it out. Carefully, balancing herself so she would not collapse backwards into the water, she dropped out of the tree, landing lightly on her feet no more than a yard from a startled Aeneas. Three dirks around him were half-drawn in response. He simply stared at her, then waved away the protection.
    ‘It seems we have a pair of nestlings,’ he said, and there it was, that infuriating half-smile.
    Behind her, Anne could hear Elizabeth’s undignified spluttering and MacGillivray’s shocked ‘Both of you?’ She kept her eyes coolly on Aeneas and strove to appear off-hand.
    ‘We were just passing,’ she said.
    They were deep in M c Intosh territory. Aeneas waved a disbelieving hand that took in loch, forest and the distant Cairngorms. A shout of laughter escaped him. Anne shot him a look that would have shrivelled most recipients and, in that second, saw the first flash of recognition in his eyes. A long moment passed before he got her name to his dumbstruck tongue.
    ‘Well, Miss Farquharson. Fàilte ,’ he said, as he doffed his new chief’s bonnet and nodded. Mocking her, she knew. Let him utter one word about how she’d grown and those dirks would be needed to protect him. He didn’t. Lady Farquharson, pushing through the crowding guests, got there first. She was mightily embarrassed and even more annoyed.
    ‘Elizabeth? Well!’ she screeched. ‘Anne? I don’t believe the pair of you!’
    ‘It was Anne’s idea,’ Elizabeth protested.
    Any thought Anne had that Elizabeth would not betray her evaporated like spit off a hot stone.
    ‘How could you ruin such a special moment?’