Page 26 of Highland Crown
“You’re mistaken,” the soldier by the door replied, one hand resting on the pistol he’d stuck into his belt, the other on the handle of his saber. He was making it clear they wouldn’t be leaving. “We directed the innkeeper to have you brought here.”
“What for?” Jean asked sharply.
“We’ll ask the questions,” he barked in reply. “And you, old woman, will keep a civil tongue in your head.”
Suddenly, Jean’s legs began to give way, and Isabella took her arm as she leaned on the table to steady herself.
“You will state your names.” The soldier by the door continued to speak. The officer at the far end of the room had yet to say anything.
Isabella was no expert on military uniforms, but she’d lived through the French wars and she could distinguish the difference in rank between the men. The shorter of the two, standing by the door, wore the stripes of a sergeant on one sleeve. The silent one, taller and powerfully built, was an officier, distinguished by gold braided epaulets on his shoulders.
The sergeant, with thinning, long blond hair, wore a moustache that partially hid a scar running from the edge of his mouth to his jawbone. The officer had novisible marks, and his lustrous brown hair was fashionably curled with sideburns that extended well below his ears. His pale blue eyes were fixed intently on her face.
“I’m Mrs. Gordon. Of Duff Head. This is Mrs. Murray. She’s visiting friends and kin in Inverness. We’re looking for no trouble. We only came here to visit my nephew. He’s in the law trade in Edinburgh. Perhaps ye know him. John Gordon.”
A muscle in the officer’s face twitched. The next motion of the head was insignificant, but it was understood by his subordinate.
“Your bags,” the sergeant ordered. “Put them on the table.”
If they were looking for confirmation of who she was, her medical instruments would be proof enough. Isabella noticed Jean trying to hide her hands in the folds of her skirt. They were trembling badly.
Neither woman moved to pick up the bags. With a growl of disgust, the sergeant deposited them on the table and started to open one.
“Stop,” Isabella said sharply enough to make the soldier hesitate. She would never allow herself to be some sheep led to slaughter. She’d fight every step of the way. She turned to the officer. “I have given you no permission to paw through our belongings.”
“You think we need permission to—” the sergeant began.
“You willnotspeak when you are not being addressed,” Isabella asserted powerfully, cutting him off. “You have a superior officer here. Have you forgotten your place?”
She waved a hand as if he were an annoying insect,softening the edge in her voice as she directed her words again to the other man.
“If you would be so kind, sir, as to tell us exactly who you are and what business you have with us?”
The sergeant, reddening from his collar to the roots of his hair, opened his mouth to interject again but was waved to silence again, this time by his commander.
“Finally, she speaks.” The smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth told her he was impressed.
“And you, too, have finally decided to join the conversation,” Isabella retorted. “If that’s what we’re to call it.”
To study medicine as a woman and to convince a patient that she was as capable of treating them as any male physician, she had to appear confident, sometimes even arrogant.
Isabella’s shoulders and neck ached from holding up the imaginary crown she was wearing for this occasion. Her father always told her that she was more of a queen than any woman sitting on a throne in Europe. That she was able—when it was called for—to wrap herself in regal aloofness. Frailty empowered an opponent, while a show of strength always diminished their advantage. At this moment, she needed to utilize all her strength.
“Your name, sir?”
“Lieutenant Ellis Hudson of the 10th Royal Hussars, at your service.” He bowed rigidly. “This is Troop Sergeant Davidson.”
Isabella refused to curtsy and could only manage a slight nod. She kept her chin high. She held the officer’s gaze without a flinch.
“You will tell us why you’re detaining us, sir.”
He motioned to the dishes of food on the table. “Would you care to sit and join me, Mrs. Murray?”
“Thank you, but we have other plans. Now, you will kindly answer my question. Why have you brought us in here?”
“Mrs. Murray, you say.” He let the name roll off his tongue as if he were savoring the taste. “I have an excellent memory for faces.”
The man paused, letting the comment hang like a threat between them. Isabella raised an eyebrow and waited.
