Page 38 of Highland Spy

Careful not to loosen her blonde wig, Ariana leaned her head back and poured a drop or two from the shortest vial into her eyes.

The liquid stung slightly and her eyes welled with tears. She blinked until the sensation ceased. A heaviness warmed over her vision.

Connor secured a ragged coat atop a pair of trews and a stained léine. His hair was mussed and somehow he’d managed to black out a front bottom tooth.

The effect was startling. Never would she have recognized him.

“Do I appear as different as you?” she asked in Gaelic. He’d insisted on it since they left. For practice, he’d said.

Fortunately for her, she’d picked up the difficult language with ease. Her parents’ attempts to match her to a wealthy man had included rigorous lessons. She’d had to learn several languages in anticipation of the husband who never came.

Connor looked down at her, studying her face.

Delilah had taken care to line her eyes with kohl and put a smear of carmine on her lips and cheeks. The way most wenches wore their faces at night, she’d said.

“I’d no’ ever recognize ye in a thousand years,” he said.

She nodded, relieved.

She was even more relieved when her wig stayed locked in place despite the movement.

“The town isna far.” He nodded to the west, where lights glowed through the trees. “When we get to the clearing, ye go first. We’ll be going to a tavern called the Lamb’s Tail Inn, aye? It’s the busiest in the area and it will be full.”

Ariana’s pulse skipped and raced a little faster.

This was it.

“I remember,” she said.

He smiled and rubbed his thumb over her cheek. “Ye’ll do fine, lass.”

The affection took her aback, but before she could react, he’d already turned and begun walking through the wet forest. She followed suit and repeated in her mind what she was to do: Enter the Lamb’s Tail Inn and make her way through the crowd. Talk and flirt, but without intent, until Connor arrived and could point her in the right direction.

It was an easy enough task.

All too soon, Ariana found herself at the clearing and stepped out on her own. The weight of Connor’s gaze settled over her back like a sable mantle on a cold day.

There was a slight tiredness to her eyes from the tincture she’d put in them, and the low lights from the taverns she passed seemed overly bright.

Several men stared as she passed, openly and lewdly.

Her breath came harder in her nervousness, but she forced it to slow.

Men had never stared at her so. She had always been a lady and warranted respect, but she did not appear a lady now. Not with the carmine painting her lips or the way her cloak lay open to reveal the exceedingly low-cut bodice beneath.

Several men loitered outside a dingy white building, leaning against the walls and several barrels set in the thick mud. The sign above the establishment indicated it was the Lamb’s Tail Inn.

A bald man grinned at her. “Can I get ye somethin’ to slake yer thirst, lady?”

She forced a little laugh and waved him off, answering back in Gaelic. “I haven’t even made it in yet.”

His hard lean against the barrel did not indicate he’d be moving from it anytime soon. “Ach, maybe on yer way out then?”

“Mayhap.” She spoke in a lowered voice, trying for a husky timbre. With a wink, she pushed through the door and was met with the heat and odor of at least a hundred bodies. Her breath clogged in her throat, and she fumbled with the clasp at her neck a moment before liberating the latch.

Sweat prickled at her scalp beneath the wig. Where outside it had been so cool, inside was like standing near a blacksmith’s forge. She swept the cloak from her shoulders and slung it over a peg on the wall.

The scent of stale beer was pungent in the thick, greasy air, but she forced herself further inside. Large wooden tables filled the room, and bodies crowded side by side upon the benches. With the barmaid navigating the narrow aisles, it would be almost impossible to move.