Amanda Scott by Highland Fling

but not one of the ones pressing so near and peering in the windows at her heeded him.
    The coach slowed more and more, then stopped altogether and began rather sickeningly to rock back and forth.
    “They’ll ha’ us over,” Fiona shrieked, grabbing Maggie’s arm. “By St. Andrew’s cross, mistress, what are we tae do?”
    Wishing she carried a weapon like Kate’s, or better yet, a loaded pistol, Maggie pressed her lips together, determined not to shriek her terror aloud like Fiona but to retain at least a semblance of her dignity. Her mind raced, for she knew they stood in grave danger, but she found it nearly impossible to think clearly. So many people surrounded the coach now that the light was all but cut off. Then the window nearest her shattered in an explosion of glass, and a leering face pressed toward her.
    Angrily, she snatched up a small satchel from beneath her feet and hit the man, trying to push his face away, but he snatched the bag and disappeared. On the other side, the coach door opened and hands began grabbing at Fiona and then at her. The older woman struck out with her fists and kicked anyone she could reach, but she was being dragged bodily from the coach.
    Maggie grabbed at Fiona’s skirt, trying to keep her from being pulled from the dangerously lurching coach, but then she felt her own arms grabbed.
    “No!” Fighting desperately to protect herself, she could do nothing more to help Fiona, who was wrenched mercilessly from the coach and swallowed by the crush. Maggie fought like a cornered badger, but soon she too was jerked from the coach and flung into the crowd. Kicking and screaming, terrified and beyond reasonable thought, she felt hands pawing at her breasts, at her face, her bottom, and even between her naked legs, until suddenly she was falling, choking, unable to breathe, into blackness.
    When she came to her senses, she was lying, bruised and battered, on the filthy footway, and the street was oddly silent. Feeling sick, she tried to sit, tried to order her dazed thoughts to recall what had happened. She could not seem to concentrate. Leaning against the wall of the nearest building, she held her aching head and waited for her dizziness to ease. When she could make herself look around, she saw that the area was not entirely deserted, but no one appeared to be paying any attention to her, and there was no sign of her coach or of Fiona or Mungo. Remembering her messages and feeling frantically to find them still safe inside her corset, she drew a deep breath and shut her eyes again in profound relief.
    A hand touched her shoulder.
    Shrieking, Maggie jerked away, hit her head against the stone wall, and nearly blacked out again.
    “Be easy, girlie,” a scratchy but discernibly female voice said. “Them pesky louts oughtn’t to have hurt such a pretty gel as yerself, but it could ha’ been a sight worse did they not all run off wi’ yer coach, and no doubt ye’ll be fit as a fiddle in due time. Have a nip from me bottle now, and ye’ll soon be feeling much more the thing.”
    The woman’s accent was strange, but Maggie understood enough to believe she meant only kindness. Still, the smell of cheap gin right under her nose nearly led to her undoing. Turning away and swallowing the hot, sour taste that roiled into her throat, she struggled to attain a more respectable position and looked at her would-be savior, wishing she could think clearly.
    Dressed in tattered black rags, the person she saw was definitely female but member of a class Maggie knew little about. In the Highlands, the poorest of folk generally looked respectable, and even those who liked their whisky overmuch never reeked of the stuff like this old crone did. Above the smell of cheap gin wafted the even more repulsive odor of a long-unwashed and no doubt diseased body. When the bottle was pressed to her lips again, Maggie nearly vomited.
    Collecting herself, she pushed the bottle away and muttered, “No, thank