Faintly, through the wood, she heard the sound of human voices.
She slipped into a patch of ferns and lay prone, looking the more urgently down slope.
The sound of a happy laugh - female - and voices, clearer. Male and female. The lilt of the Gaelic - did Andrew have the Gaelic? She didn't know for certain that he didn't. A movement between the trees. Red hair, curly. The woman's laugh, again, shocked, delighted. Two figures, at first hard to make out among the stems, climbing as she had. A patch of green - the woman's dress - yes, definitely, a woman - a young woman - with bright red hair in a simple green dress, and beside her a dark-haired, beardless man in a kilt and a soldiers shirt.
Fifty yards below her, a tree lay fallen. The soldier pinned the red haired woman against it. He kissed her. She, laughing, pretended to struggle. He pushed the yoke of her dress off her shoulders. She batted at his hands, but did not readjust her dress. They kissed. He reached his arms behind her, and she protested. He backed off, his hands on her shoulders, looking crestfallen. She laughed, and licked her lips.
He leaned in to kiss her, and she twisted away, laughing. The sleeve of her dress slipped further down her arm, and a nipple appeared.
The two by the tree looked at one another, shocked. Fiona held her breath.
The man took hold of the neckline of the green dress. The woman twisted away, turning to run, and tripped, sprawling, the dress half off. The man dropped to his knees between her legs.
Fiona bit her lip, one finger gently circling her bud.
Down slope, the man was holding the woman down with one hand on her throat, while the other worked on the buckles of his kilt. The woman was wriggling and protesting - but quietly, and still with a hint of laughter.
