Page 2 of The Forsaken

And because annoying fellow McQuoids and Smiths was what McQuoids and Smiths did best, she slowed down even more and belted out into song.

“My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,

My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;

Not that she needed to belt. With the blanket of quiet winter storms lying upon the slumbering earth, the sough of her breath and the crackling of a dead autumn leaf carried like a reaver’s shot.

“Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,

My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Gathering her heavy skirts out of the mud, she hurried toward their Savior.

Though she strove to be a lady in every traditional sense, she simply loved life too much—relishing a clever joke, a good game, and the joy of belting out a song from the very bottom of her heart.

“Farewell to the mountains, high-cover’d with snow,

Farewell to the straths and green vallies below…”

The distant laughter of her fellow McQuoids drifted over the wood copse. Oh, and I’m the senseless one? she would have screamed if she could. Get back to the carriage!

“Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,

Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods…”

A sharp wind stole the breath from her lungs, forcing her into a desperate, shallow gasp.

Her sister and cousin soon caught on, or slipped away to another hiding spot, and all went quiet. The wind howled along the old Roman road, echoing off the stone-lined ditches.

Around her, ice pellets struck the bare elms like popping embers, though they gave nothing back but a merciless chill.

Holding her fur-lined hood, she pulled the heavy pink wool tight against the wind, the soft marabou fringe tickling her chilled cheeks. She squinted at the specks of snow dissolving in her eyes and blurring her vision.

Through the soot-heavy fog, a man materialized as if he had grown straight from the knotted elms. Even the towering McQuoids could never rival the surrounding oaks the way he did, his dark over cloak swirling around powerful legs.

Dressed in black from his three-cornered hat to his Carrick cloak, he stood with the solid stance of a rider in fitted breeches. In the shifting cold, Andromena watched him as her own cloak snapped like a quiet hello in the wind.

Wrapped in black satin that hid his face, he looked every bit the ruthless highwayman. Any other woman would have shrunk from him at a glance.

Not a McQuoid lass.

All Andromena’s family knew her burning hatred of losing. Using that to Meghan and Fleur’s advantage, she took a deep breath and burst into song, loud enough for it to carry to the heart of London.

“My heart’s in the Highlands, my h-heart is not here…”

Each of her exhaled breaths created a little cloud replaced with each next verse.

At last—after much dragging of her hems, both literally and figuratively—she reached him, puffing from the exertion. Andromena needed but a single glance to confirm her fears: he was scowling. A McQuoid-Smith with a fondness for mischief, she had become an expert at reading a room’s scowls.

Trying to place him, she tipped her head all the way back, knocking her hood off.

The gentleman’s black-brown eyes—the deep-amber of polished mahogany with darker russet undertones, smooth like bold, smoky Scotch…and just as dangerous, too—a lesson she learned after sampling those spirits with her sisters some Christmastides ago. The way they moved over her, burned just as hot, too; leaving the same tingling in her belly.

“Who are you…? I know y—”

The jarring, harsh quality of his voice snatched away the shadowy figure just out of her memory’s reach. “You are loud.” He didn’t hide his disgust.

“And you are rude.” So, she didn’t bother to hide her indignation. Why should she?