To Love a Highlander by Sue-Ellen Welfonder Page A

glared at him now, sure he enjoyed needling him.
    “I’ll no’ have you hanging on my cloak when we reach the abbey village.” He released Roag’s arm, brushed at his sleeve. Behind them, Wyldes closed the door, no doubt returning to his innkeeper duties. “Why don’t you go back inside and spend the day with Maili? She’d welcome your company.”
    “Such a good friend, you are.” Roag retrieved a leather satchel, similar to Sorley’s, that rested on the cobbles near the well. Opening it, he withdrew a hooded cloak just as threadbare and ratty as the one stashed in Sorley’s travel bag. “With such friends, a man doesn’t need—”
    “I am no’ your friend.” Sorley watched his rival plunge the cloak into the barrel of muck. Not surprisingly, the lout flashed a wicked grin, as if he enjoyed thrusting his arms into steaming horse and cow dung. “I have ne’er liked you and dinnae plan on e’er doing so.
    “If you ruin this day’s work, there’ll be no end to the reckoning I’ll have from you.” Grimacing, Sorley dipped his own cloak into the barrel. “I’ll no’ wear such reeking rags for naught.”
    “I’ll be nowhere near you and Sir Henry.” Roag straightened, shaking out his pilgrim’s mantle before swirling it across his shoulders. “Though”—he rubbed a handful of muck on his arms—“I mean to keep close enough to see if anyone in the village makes a suspicious move. There’s an old abbey watergate down by the river edge. That’s where I’ll be.”
    “See you stay there.” Sorley watched him mount hisshaggy beast, irritated because he did so with such care. Not that Sorley would swing up onto the aged back of his steed with any less caution. But he didn’t like being reminded of Roag’s better side. The bastard was good to animals.
    It was his only merit.
    Even his sudden cough was irritating. Hacking and loud in the chill morning air, it grated on Sorley’s nerves even more than the wretched cloak he’d just donned. Trying to close his ears, and his nose, he climbed onto his nag’s back.
    He saw the reason for Roag’s coughing fit as soon as he settled himself in the saddle and turned his horse toward the road.
    “Damnation!” Sorley’s eyes widened, his heart almost stopping.
    A terrible rushing sound roared in his ears as he stared at the small party of mounted Highlanders riding into the stableyard. Their tartan finery and the well-tooled broadswords hanging on elaborate shoulder-and-hip belts marked them as a chiefly entourage, as did the silver-buckled brogues on their feet. The over-large great dirks tucked beneath their sword-belts also screamed quality. Dark blue and green plaids, the wool shot through with thin lines of red and yellow, signaled them as men of Clan Labhran.
    The MacLarens.
    Lady Mirabelle rode at the head of the column, beside her father, Munro.
    Sorley bit back a curse and pulled his cloak’s hood lower down on his forehead. He was vaguely aware of a barely muffled noise that could only be Roag laughing. Ignoring him, Sorley felt his gut clench and his heart plummet nearly to his dung-encrusted toes, for hadn’t he also smeared the muck on his arms and legs, hoping to make himself as unpalatable and beggarlike as possible?
    Apparently he’d succeeded, because the MacLarens gavehim and Roag a wide berth as they approached each other near the inn’s gateway to the road.
    The Highland guards, big and burly to a man, rumpled their noses. They also kneed their horses, urging them to trot faster past the two men they clearly held for lepers or worse.
    Munro MacLaren, graying, slight of build, and rather incongruous in his bold, chiefly raiments, looked at them with pity as he rode by.
    Mirabelle eyed them with interest.
    Or rather, her gaze sharpened on Sorley.
    To his horror, she edged her horse closer, her eyes narrowing as she looked him up and down. “Good sir,” she addressed him in her soft Highland voice, “can it be I’ve seen you at