Bloated, agitated clouds darkened what was left of the meager sun and the warmth she provided. The sky rumbled like a thousand horses charging across the heavens with Thor in the lead. Crackling bolts of lightning pierced the twilight, hurled by the angry god at the arrogant mountains. But they stood, impervious and unyielding against the onslaught. Nothing on earth or in heaven moved in the waiting stillness before the sky tore open and the clouds spewed forth sheets of icy rain in a violent flash for which the body had no time to prepare.

Admiral Peter Gilles hated the Highlands.

He cursed the Stuarts and all their descendants one more time as he hunkered low beneath the sparse branches he’d ripped from the trees earlier. But there was no relief to be found from the pelting rain.

He was used to cold weather, but this was the kind of frigid chill that seeped into the marrow of your bones and made you utterly miserable. The kind of cold that made you want to curl up in something warm and go to sleep. Forever.

“Is it close to morning?” Hendrick queried through clicking teeth when the rain finally stopped.

“How the hell should I know?” Maarten replied, sounding equally despondent from his makeshift shelter.

Gilles looked up at the heavens. Through the shadowy haze, he could make out the stars for the second time in the last four hours. Dead of night had passed quickly and the morning would be coming soon. It was the one thing, the only thing agreeable about this wretched place. Daylight was getting longer, giving him more time to hunt.

But he was going to have to find his prize soon or risk losing his men in a mutiny. He’d have to kill them, of course. Either way, he would be one man against the MacGregors. Not favorable odds.

The days were getting longer and his time was running out.

They were making progress, even though everything was wet here. All the time. It made maneuvering over the mossy hillsides difficult and dangerous. But there was at least one Tavernier in every village he and his men had traveled who knew of the MacGregors, leading them ever northward. Gilles did not find her with the MacGregors of Stronachlacher, but a most helpful fellow in Breadalbane was good enough to tell him of a clan of MacGregors living on one of the isles northwest. Exiled from the rest, they lived in the mists, rarely seen or heard of.

She was with them. Gilles knew it in his guts, but where? Which isle? No one knew, and if they did, they would not say.

He hated Highlanders too.

Something caught his attention and he looked around, realizing what it was. Birds chirping. The dawn had finally come. “Hendrick,” he ordered, leaving his shelter and slapping his soaked hat across his thigh, “find us something to eat. Nuts, berries, I don’t care.

“Maarten, gather the rest of the men and—” He stopped suddenly and tilted his head south. “What is that sound?”

“More thunder.”

“No.” He listened for another moment then beckoned Hendrick back to him. “Horses. Tell the men to take cover.”

A little while later, they watched the narrow road from the other side of a muddy hill.

“Sounds like a small army,” Hendrick murmured, waiting for the riders to appear.

“Twenty, perhaps thirty, no more.”

“Covenanters, perhaps,” Maarten offered.

The sound grew louder until it shook the ground and silenced the birds above. Gilles held his breath as the riders came into view. They wore no military regalia, but their tight formation, and their size, suggested otherwise. They could belong to any one of the Lowland barons, but what were they doing in the Highlands? Their pace was not urgent, but not leisurely either. As they passed him, Gilles spotted a younger man, too young to belong to an army, dressed in the unsightly garb of a Highlander. But it was the rider beside him, his face partially hidden behind his hooded cloak, that held Gilles’s cool gaze.

“Men,” he said with a smile, keeping his eyes on James of York. “We have found her.”

“Where?” Hendrick peered at the riders through narrowed lids.

“There.” Gilles tugged his earlobe, directing Hendrick’s line of vision in the right direction. “That man is her father.”

“The king?”

“Yes, the king.” Gilles sneered at the troupe as they rode away. Clever of James not to travel with his entire army lest he draw more attention to himself, but risky, as well.

“Why don’t we just kill him now then?”

“Because, imbecile, James still has many supporters. If we kill him first and then kill two of the men who have outwardly claimed his title, suspicion will fall to the prince and his succession will be difficult, if not impossible. My lord has a grander plan, one that will bring more support to his side, not less.”

“A Dutch king,” Hendrick grinned.

“Yes, if we do this right.” Gilles smiled back at him and patted his cheek. The man could not match wits with a cricket, but he could fire a pistol with almost perfect accuracy—and he didn’t mind killing women or children when the need arose.

“James’s Highland companion has obviously told him that his daughter lives, and is leading him to where she is hiding. All we have to do is follow them.”

“And then what?” Maarten asked as Gilles straightened and strode to his horse. “How do we kill her with not only MacGregors guarding her, but the king’s men, as well?”

“Let’s find her first, Maarten.” Gilles grinned at him as he placed his hat on his head and brought the rim down low over his brow. “We can discuss ways to kill her after that.”

Was it possible that he was finally going to see her? Meet her? Perhaps even kiss her blessed cheeks? James tried to remember how many times he had prayed for mercy from God in the last several days. God, the only One who could understand how a king could grieve so over the loss of his child. But no, Colin MacGregor had understood also. How could a mere boy show so much compassion when men twice his age and a hundred times more cultured than he would think a king odd for his sorrow?

“I have something to tell ye,” the young MacGregor had told him four days after his father had gone home. “But ye must swear first on yer kingdom and on yer faith that after I tell ye, my kin will always find mercy with ye. Ye must swear never to bring them harm, nor any shame.”

James had grown fond of Colin since he’d arrived at Whitehall. He was quiet and agreeable while the king answered his many questions about everything from his battles in France and Spain to his views on the Covenanters. Their conversations had helped James through the worst days of his grief. The king had even found himself smiling while he watched Colin practice in the list with Connor Grant and some of his finest men. He was not only quick with his mind, but with his arm as well. The boy would make a fine soldier, if only James could convince him to remain in his garrison.

“You have my solemn oath,” the king had promised him easily, already trusting the stranger more than any man in his Great Hall.

What MacGregor told him next proved that he trusted his king, as well.

“Yer daughter is alive.”

They were words James would never forget hearing, though he could not remember what he said in response. How? Where was she? Who was she with? Was it possible that she had been given back to him as Isaac had been returned to Abraham?

Colin told him everything while James laughed with joy and then wept, then laughed again. She had been rescued… rescued at the very last moment by Colin’s brother, Robert MacGregor. She had spoken of the king often and not with anger or resentment, but with admiration. Admiration! Oh, what had he done to deserve such mercy? The sisters had been kind to her but—and this made the king weep all the more—Colin told him there was an emptiness in her eyes, haunting and so very quiet that it had nearly broken all their hearts.

“Where? Where has your brother taken her?” James had asked, and this was when the boy looked like he might change his mind and tell him nothing more.

“We didna’ know who she was at first, but my brother knew that whoever wanted her dead could be here with ye. He wanted to keep her safe. We all did.”

“Where, son?”

“Robert took her home.”

And that was where they were headed now. To a remote part of Skye hidden in the mists—a place called Camlochlin—a place the boy asked the king to forget the moment he left it. Colin had assured him that the only way to reach his home alive was if he accompanied the king and his men. Even if James found Camlochlin on his own, the MacGregors were not expecting them, and since the king did not carry his banner—lest his enemies find him on the road with only a scant number of his men in his company—the MacGregors might attack before they realized who he was. So James had taken Colin with him when he and his men left England in the cover of night. He told no one where he was going, not even his wife, lest someone question her. At Colin’s request, he did not tell Captain Grant, either. He thought about it now and turned to his young companion.

“I must confess I am disappointed in my captain for not telling me about Davina.”

“Captain Grant left everything he loves to serve ye,” Colin told him and cast the dark heavens an even blacker look. “He even broke my sister’s heart, fer which I will never fergive him.”

The king smiled. Such a serious lad, he was.

“My brother asked him no’ to tell ye until he was certain there were no traitors in yer midst. If word got oot that she lived and she was traveling with MacGregors, ’twould only be a matter of time before they found her.”

“And yet you told me.”

Colin nodded but said nothing more. It was clear to James that the boy had misgivings about what he’d done. Was he worried that his father would be angry with him for bringing the king to his misty home? Or was it something else? Someone else?

“Your brother went to much trouble to see to my daughter’s safety,” James said vaguely, looking around at the landscape. “Since he didn’t know who she was at first, I must assume that he did not do so for me.” He slipped his gaze to Colin when the boy remained silent. “Does he care for her then?”

“We all do,” Colin muttered through his teeth, averting his gaze from the king’s.

“I see,” James said with a heart almost as heavy as when he believed Davina was dead. The promises Colin had asked him to make made more sense to James now. This Robert MacGregor cared for her. Perhaps, he’d even fallen in love with her, and every king before him knew firsthand how possessive Highlanders were.

Dear God, he should have taken more men.