Chapter 293

Joanna climbed out of the coach and looked about the village. It was only three miles from Castle Kincade, and it was larger than she expected. There was a milliner's, a modiste, a blacksmith shop, a bookstore, and a market with quite a few inns. Boxes full of brightly colored flowers sat just beneath every window. Purple florets bloomed from Scottish thistles mixed with the red bog myrtles, Scottish bluebells, and the bright-yellow gorse blooms.

Brock noticed her studying the flower boxes as they passed by a window full of their fragrant scents.

"They keep the midges away." He chuckled and nodded to the bog myrtle.

"Midges?" Joanna hadn't heard the term before.

"Aye, you were lucky not to have seen a cloud of them yesterday while we rode. Wee biting beasties."

"They're insects?" She cringed, not liking the idea of a cloud of tiny insects swarming her at all.

"They aren't everywhere, mainly around the livestock and in the fields far from towns. The females are the ones that bite