Page 6 of Seduced By the Reckless Highlanders
She stripped off her blouse, taking so little care that she tore a few of the buttons off and they flew off like little missiles.
Moira shook her head. “I think somebody else will dae that soon for ye, darlin’,” she observed. “He is pilin’ up enemies faster than I can fold up laundry. But dinnae strike against him, Keira, because they would imprison a man but hang a woman for the same crime. Is it worth losing yer life for a wicked creature like that?”
Keira put her hands over her face and thought for a moment. “When you say it like that, Moira, no, it is not.” Then she banged her fist on the table and growled. “But the way he makes poor Adaira’s life a misery should be avenged. He is a cruel father and an even crueler husband. Adaira has asked me to help her run away, and I have agreed.”
Moira frowned as she helped Keira take off her dress. “Are ye sure that is wise, Keira?” she asked. “Yer father has spies everywhere an’ little escapes him, an’ as ye say, he is cruel. I know that I cannae change yer mind once ye have made it up, but I would ask ye to think twice. He may have killed yer mother an’ his second wife, but it strikes me that he would have no conscience about killin’ ye too.”
Her blue eyes were earnest as she gazed at the young woman she treasured so dearly.
“Why have you never left us, Moira?” Keira asked suddenly. “You could walk out any time now that I am a grown woman who can look after herself.”
Moira was astonished. Keira had never asked her such a thing before. Was she trying to tell her something?
“Keira,” she said, her voice husky as tears sprang to her eyes, “the only reason I would ever leave yer side is if ye sent me away. Are ye goin’ tae do that?”
Keira was horrified. “No!” she cried as she rushed forward to embrace Moira. “Not in a million years! I love you, Moira. I would never send you away.”
Moira breathed a huge sigh of relief. “I am such a silly woman,” she said, but she was wiping tears from her eyes as she spoke.
3
Keira, slipping on the homespun breeches she wore when she wanted to disguise herself, sighed.
“Why can women not dress like this?” she asked. “It is so much more comfortable than all our petticoats and dresses.”
“Ye wilnae be sayin’ that in a while,” Moira assured her as she began to bind Keira’s breasts with a long strip of linen. She pulled it tight to make sure that the soft mounds of flesh were flattened so that they resembled a teenage boy’s chest.
“Ow!” Keira moaned. “That is so sore!” She drew in a deep breath, then fisted her hands and screwed up her face in pain.
Moira shrugged as she tied the end of the bandage off under Keira’s arm. “Well, nobody is forcin’ ye tae do this foolish thing, Keira. If ye are sore, it is yer own fault.”
She wrapped more linen around her waist to make it look thicker, then helped Keira pull the straps holding the trews up and tied the string at the waist, then stood back to look at her.
“Good thing ye have slim hips, hen,” she remarked. “Now ye are almost shapeless!”
Keira donned a tattered jacket with specially padded shoulders, then sat down so that Moira could tie and pin her hair up and then bundle it into a cap. She might not pass musterwith anyone sitting across a table from her, but from a distance, particularly if she was riding astride a horse and not sidesaddle, as a woman did, she looked like a young man.
“Maybe I can persuade some obliging man to cut his hair and make a beard for me,” she suggested, laughing as she pulled the cap farther down over her head until it almost reached her eyebrows.
Moira raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “I think ye should stay at home, but I know ye are too softhearted tae let people go hungry. At least I know whatever it is ye are doin’ when ye slip away at night, it is nothin’ bad.”
Keira looked at Moira and felt an upwelling of love. She wished she could run away with her and Adaira and find some decent, hardworking men with whom to raise families. She had been born and brought up in an environment where she had never wanted for anything, and for that she was grateful. However, when she saw the desperate state of some of her father’s tenants, it had made her so angry that she knew she would have to do something to change their circumstances for the better.
She could not stand idly by while people starved around her. Appealing to her father’s better nature did no good since he did not seem to have one. No, she had decided that something more radical would have to be done, and since she had access to her father at all times, she decided to do it.
Her horse, a big grey mare she had called Diamond, had become so used to the journey to the Rabbit’s Foot tavern that she could do it in the dark. This was just as well because it was a distance of almost a mile, and it would have taken Keira almost two hours to walk.
The young man who stepped into the tavern immediately descended the stairs to where the barrels of beer were stored, then he made his way to the secret inner chamber concealedbehind a large cupboard that stored whiskey. He took a single key from his pocket and unlocked the door, then stepped through the back of it into a sizable but dark and stuffy room.
The men sitting on top of empty crates there looked up and smiled at him as he came in. There were five of them in all, each one a farmer or a laborer, smiling and holding pints of ale in their hands.
“Evenin’, boss,” Gerry McKinlay said. “Have ye brought us anythin’ tonight?”
Keira, the “young man,” laughed. “Of course I have,” she replied with mock indignation. “You know I never come empty-handed!”
She took off the backpack she had been carrying and spread out the contents onto the floor. There were apples, bread, cheese, chunks of dried meat, and five small oranges, which were an exotic treat. The men exclaimed over them since they were such a rarity.
“My father is having them brought in from Spain,” she told them, “but I know where we can get our own supply.” She winked at them. “I have heard that a shipment of spices and fruit is coming in from the continent next week, but the cargo will never fall into my father’s hands.” She looked around them, grinning. “It will fall into ours!”
