“And I’ll not go without you. We fight together and we fall together. That has ever been our way.” Raw emotion throbbed through each syllable. How could Lord Jack think he would abandon him here? “I’ll not leave this place without you. Even though yon crabbit wifie tried to loosen my brains from my head when I came only to see how you were faring.”

Frowning as she tried to follow the meaning of his words, Rosie exclaimed in sudden dismay, “Oh, dear Lord. Martha! What have you done to her, you hateful man?”

Fraser felt his brow darken once more. He touched the back of his head reminiscently. “Aye, hateful, is it? I did no more to her than she did to me. Less, if truth be told.”

“Where is she?”

He remained stubbornly silent under her accusatory stare. Then, with a glance at Jack’s taut face, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Cellar.” As Tom and Rosie both made for the door, he halted them with a question. “Och, can ye no just leave her there? Gi’ us all some peace?”

Martha tensed when the cellar door opened and a man’s large silhouette filled the frame. Why would the highlander come back so soon? He had been outraged by the kiss she had bestowed on him while he was bound and helpless. Had he changed his mind about taking his revenge? Memories of her home in flames, the bodies of her family scattered like discarded dolls on the beloved grass of her homeland and the scent of her own burning flesh crowded in on her. The edges of her vision darkened, and she sagged weakly against the rope that held her upright.

“Oh, quickly, Tom.” Rosie’s voice came to Martha as though from a distance. “These ropes are so tight, I cannot loosen them.”

It seemed to take an age for Tom to free her, and when Martha did emerge from the cellar, clinging to Tom’s arm and blinking at the overbright light, she was greeted by the sight of the highlander. He was seated with his muddy, booted feet up on her spotlessly clean kitchen table, cutting himself a second slice of the bread he had taken from her pantry. This, it seemed, was required to go with the hunk of her cheese that he was eating. The sight of him was exactly what she needed to restore the steel to her backbone.

“Get that Scots devil out of my house,” she said in a tone of sharpened flint. Releasing her hold on Tom, she clutched the torn edges of her dress together over her shoulder with one hand while trying to repair the damage to her hair with the other.

“We might have a bit of a problem there.” Tom guided her to a chair. “He is refusing to go anywhere until the injured man—who has regained consciousness and is a nobleman called Jack Lindsey—is well enough to leave with him.”

“How dare you?” Martha’s voice shook as she addressed the highlander. The object of her fury continued with his repast without response. He appeared to be oblivious to the storm of emotion he was provoking within her. “You think you can break into my house, molest my cousin, lock me in my own cellar and then demand the right to remain under my roof at your leisure?”

“Whisht now, woman. Hush your mouth.” His hazel gaze, when it flickered over her, held no interest. She might as well have been part of the furniture.

Martha quivered with outrage. “I will not be spoken to in such a way, in my own home…”

“Choose then. Will it be the door or the window by which you take your leave? Because I’ll be happy to help you on your way out of either.” Fraser rose to his feet, planting his hands on the table as he loomed over her. From his expression, she knew he was serious.

“Far be it from me to interrupt this exchange of pleasantries,” Tom said, in the voice of a long-suffering parent who has been forced to intervene between squabbling offspring. “But might I suggest we postpone this conversation until Mr. Delacourt has been consulted? Any delay in deciding what action to take next might well bring the king’s soldiers a step closer to the door. I for one am quite fond of the idea of keeping my head attached to my spine, if at all possible.”

Martha bit her lip. “Very well,” she said coldly, turning her head away from the Scotsman’s glare.

“Aye, ’tis good sense you’re talking.” Fraser nodded, straightening his stance. He returned to his seat and to what appeared to be the more important matter of filling his belly.

Mr. Delacourt, when summoned to be formally introduced to his houseguest, regarded Jack thoughtfully. “Might you be related to the Lindsey family who reside in the county of Northumberland?”

“I am amazed at your wide knowledge, sir,” Jack admitted. “I am indeed of that family.”

His host viewed him over the top of his spectacles. “Then you are, in fact, the Earl of St. Anton.”

Martha tensed at the mention of the title. A glance around at her companions confirmed that no one had noticed her sudden rapt attention to everything Jack had to say.

“At your service, sir.”

Mr. Delacourt’s encyclopaedic knowledge of the families of the British nobility never failed to impress his acquaintance, and he greatly enjoyed showing it off. “I know your uncle a little, although we have very opposite views when it comes to politics. You are welcome to stay here, my lord,” he said. “At least until you are fully recovered from your injuries and able to travel. Tom tells me that may take some time, since you have lost a considerable amount of blood and are likely to suffer some loss of use of your injured arm.”

Jack struggled then to raise himself on one elbow. He failed miserably, a fact that seemed to illustrate Mr. Delacourt’s words, and gave up the effort. “Sir, I cannot thank you enough for your help. Believe me when I tell you that I will not stay here a moment longer than is necessary. I would not, for the entire world, place you and your family in danger.”

“Your sentiments do you credit, Lord St. Anton. But if we can come up with a creditable story, I believe you will be safe here. The focus of attention has shifted back across the border once again.” He proceeded to fill Jack in on the prince’s retreat from Derby, the details of which he had gleaned from his newspaper. “A few troops remain nearby. Their task is to round up any deserters or stragglers, and our object must be to do all we can to shield your identity from them.”

At that moment, Fraser strolled into the room eating an apple. “The big feller, Tom, he kens a thing or two, but I was right about yon wee peely-wally lass.” He nodded in Martha’s direction. “What she needs is a good skelp about her backside.”

Shaken to the core by the revelation about Jack’s identity, Martha scarcely registered the insult. Mr. Delacourt, on the other hand, was so startled at the sight of the large Scotsman that he raised his brows in alarm. “I fear that our task may be somewhat harder than I had originally anticipated.”

This comment struck Jack as hugely entertaining, and he gave a shout of laughter that left him weak and gasping. When he had recovered, the conversation among the four men became serious and focussed on the dilemma facing them.

“It seems that you and I are here as bystanders,” Martha murmured to Rosie. A plain blue dimity gown with a high neck had replaced the dress Fraser had torn, and her light-brown hair was pinned up in its usual neat style. She hoped a casual observer might believe that her natural serenity had been restored.

“The whole point of bringing Jack to the old dower house instead of to Delacourt Grange was that there is a priest hole here in which he can hide should the need arise,” Tom explained.

“The problem with that plan would appear to be the fact that his lordship’s injuries leave him too incapacitated to move with any ease. He would have great difficulty getting into the priest hole at all. It is a very narrow space,” Mr. Delacourt replied.

“Aye, but only let Elector George’s men come close enough, and I’ll know how to deal with them.” Fraser’s hand strayed to the hilt of his dirk. Martha felt her lip curl. Must he take every opportunity to demonstrate his virility?