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heads.
Instead, she thought of what Duncan had told Rory. “Why did you
tell that Rory guy I was a lady? And I’m now an ambassador to the
American colonies?”
    He shrugged and looked away. “I’m not good at
duplicity. I’ve never been good at lyin’. That’s the best I could
think up, since ye made me promise not to tell that ye don’t know
where ye are.”
    She smiled down at him, liking that he wasn’t
a good liar.
    His shoulders stooped. “I—I kept makin’ the
lie worse too, for now ye are an Indian princess to boot. Ye
wouldn’t happen to be a princess, would ye?”
    She’d read the literature about Indian
princesses. She knew the bigotry, but that was a couple hundred
years from now, more in the nineteenth century. What would a guy
from his time think of Native American’s that lacked the hierarchy
for such titles? However, as he looked over his shoulder, his brows
furrowing just so, she found herself saying, “Not even close.”
    “I doubt that.”
    At first, Fleur didn’t know what to think of
the comment. Then Duncan actually cracked a lopsided grin at her,
and she felt the power of his smile zip straight through her skin
and into her stomach where it ignited, radiating electricity in
every cell of her body. Down to her mitochondria, she felt that
smile.
    They stared at each other for a long moment.
Just as Fleur wondered how he kept walking forward while he looked
at her, he tripped a tad. He straightened with lightning reflexes,
no longer looking at her, but straight forward.
    “Do you want to ride up here with me?”
    “’Tisn’t far now.” His voice cracked.
    She noticed how he hadn’t really answered her
question. But she gave him a break and changed the subject. “Why am
I an ambassador? And why at your mother’s request?”
    He was silent for a beat, but then said in a
deep voice, “Ye are Indian, eh? Coilltich , right?”
    “ Coilltich , that means forest people,
doesn’t it?”
    Ian and his incessant smartphone had been the
one who had informed her of that word, of what the Highlanders had
thought of Native Americans when they first encountered them.
Although Britain had colonized America around fifty years ago, in
1608, all of Europe, even the Scottish Highlands, were abuzz about
the land and the people therein. Ian had talked about a colleague
who researched Native Americans and Highlanders—their differences
and similarities. But before Fleur had learned much, they’d been
interrupted by one of Rachel’s interns.
    “Well, it means more than that,” Duncan said.
“At least now it means much more. But, aye, I suppose that’s a
definition.”
    “What’s another definition? Savage?” Her
anger had gotten the better of her, and she couldn’t believe she’d
said as much, spoken in a harsh tone. She’d gotten teased and
bullied and called much worse than a forest person, and she’d never
uttered a word in her defense back then. She’d swallowed the pain
instead and tried to forget it. So why did she have so much moxie
now? With him?
    He stopped the horse, turning to look up at
her. “I don’t ken what clan yer from, but my brothers are somewhere
in the Virginia colony, and their saviors are people like ye. I ken
it’s rude to associate ye with all Indian tribes, as it would be to
associate me, a MacKay and proud of it, with a Sutherland, my sworn
enemy.”
    Hmm, he was a MacKay like that Rory guy, like
the laird of the land. Interesting.
    But then again, Ian had informed her,
smartphone in hand, that there were hundreds of MacKays in Tongue.
Maybe it was the same in Durness during the seventeenth century
too.
    “I—I just don’t ken fast enough to lie, I
suppose,” Duncan continued. “And all I thought about was my own
circumstances—my brothers in Virginia, and my ma seeking more
letters from them, more information. She keeps askin’ me what’s
Virginia like, as if I would ken. I have no answers. And so, out
popped the bald lie.
    “And lastly, no, I