Brian kicked in abject silence, his shrieks silenced by the pressure on his windpipe—and went limp.
Rainger threw Brian at the approaching MacLaren.
The dead weight sent MacLaren staggering.
Rainger leaped and grabbed the muzzle. He twisted the musket free of MacLaren’s grip, then smashed the stock into his chest.
MacLaren fell with a hard thud. Dust rose around him.
Rainger rammed his knee into his chest. He smashed his fist into his face.
MacLaren’s head smacked the ground hard. His eyes rolled back, showing the whites.
Rainger laughed again, glad to finish this business. He unbuckled MacLaren’s leather belt and truncheon. He ripped the knife and its scabbard off his wrist.
And fingers grabbed his hair and yanked him onto his back.
He didn’t have to think. Instinct took possession of him. He waited until Brian leaned over him, then kicked straight up, catching Brian under the chin.
Brian’s jaw broke. He screamed.
Rainger didn’t waste any more time. Musket in hand, he mounted MacLaren’s horse. He took the reins of Brian’s horse. And with their saddlebags and their supplies, he rode hard back toward the road.
He had a princess to rescue.
Sorcha rode down the main street of Hameldone, turning her head from side to side, trying to take in all the sights. It had been so long since she’d seen two houses together she could scarcely contain her excitement. The narrow street, dirt road, and cramped, narrow shops gave the place an almost medieval feel, and as she neared the market, the noise of many voices raised to sell and buy sent a shiver of exhilaration down her spine.
Each sound struck her ear, transporting her back to Beaumontagne, to her capital city of Beauvallee. She could almost imagine that when she rode around that corner, she would see the colorful market with the royal palace perched high on the crag above the town, see Clarice and Amy with their arms full of flowers, smiling as they walked toward her—
Clutched by an unreasonable excitement, Sorcha urged the pony forward, around the corner—and almost ran into Sandie, seated on his pony, glowering and surly. “Keep up, young man.”
After their first day, he’d never again referred to the fact he knew she was a woman. In fact, despite her cheerful attempts to start a conversation, he’d hardly spoken to her for the two and a half days it had taken the poor ponies to plod their way into Hameldone.
She, who had lived in a convent and dreamed of meeting people, of learning new ways and seeing new places, had spent the first leg of her journey in silence. If he’d been trying to make her glad about his impending departure, he had gone about it the right way.
Now he turned back in his saddle and urged his pony into the depths of the market.
Sorcha’s nose twitched as she smelled fresh-baked bread and roasted venison. She would eat here before she took the road east toward Edinburgh. Eat, and buy some rosy apples and some potatoes and some dried beef—
“Are ye going t’ ride that beastie up my back?” Sandie asked. “Because if ye are, we can part ways right now.”
Startled at his harsh tone, she stared at her traveling companion. At the convent, she had imagined she would hate to part from whoever brought her so far. Actually, she’d be relieved to see his back. “We can part now.” With tardy courtesy, she added, “If you’re amenable.”
He narrowed his eyes.
Belatedly, she realized he might not know the meaning of amenable. “I mean, if you don’t mind, I’ll go on without you.”
“I know what ye mean.” His gaze flicked over her mount. “Ye’ll be taking the pony, then?”
“St. Donkey? Why, yes!” Sorcha could scarcely believe he asked. The poor dear still looked gaunt and at first she’d shown nothing more than a wary acceptance of Sorcha’s petting. Now her eager affection made her follow on Sorcha’s heels like a dog, and Sorcha wouldn’t let her go to a cold fish like Sandie the blacksmith.
“’Tis an expensive gift from MacLaren,” Sandie said.
Presumptuous man! “She was not a gift. Mother Brigette paid MacLaren good money for her!”
Sandie grunted and headed for a squat building with a horseshoe nailed on the door.
She followed. “Is that the stable where I should leave St. Donkey?”
“Aye.”
“Can you tell me the best place to trade my herbs?”
“Mrs. MacDuncan’s.”
“And is that the best place to buy supplies for my journey?”
“Aye.”
“Can you recommend an inn where I can spend the night? Because I’d like to have a good place to sleep with clean linens and a fine meal before I take to the road.”
Sandie stopped. He slewed around in the saddle. He scowled. “If this is what ye mean by parting ways, ye’ll be for following me all the way home.”
She drew up. She watched him dismount and lead his pony into the stable. She waited until he came out and headed into the crowd. And she took St. Donkey inside, rubbed her down, put her in a stall and fed her, paid the hostler for the straw and the oats, and headed for Mrs. MacDuncan’s to sell her herbs.
Sorcha didn’t notice the broad-shouldered, well-dressed stranger standing in the shadows, watching her, or see Sandie take a small purse from him and, in an unusual burst of loquaciousness, gesture to her and then to the road out of town.
The road into the wilderness and toward Edinburgh.
Chapter 7
From the moment Rainger fought himself free, it had been a grueling day, but he was rested and the horses were good—MacLaren knew his horseflesh. The pony Rainger abandoned close to Castle MacLaren, figuring the beast would return to its stables if it had any sense. He led the second horse, riding the first one, then the other to keep them fresh. Now he kept an eye on the rocky path and urged them along as quickly as he dared.
But when the sun dipped toward the horizon he had to stop for the night or risk laming the horses on the rocky, pockmarked trail.
Four men sat outside a squat stone farmhouse smoking pipes and watching him; when he asked if he could get lodging, one pointed toward the door with the stem of his pipe and said, “As long as ye’ve got coin, Mrs. Gurdey will feed ye, and ye can sleep in the hut before the fire.”
“I’ll sleep in the stable with my horses.” Rainger wasn’t fool enough to leave the valuable horses alone in this poverty-stricken country.
“As ye like, young firebrand.” The spokesman, an older man with as many crags in his face as the Pyrenees Mountains, puffed a smoke ring into the air and let the breeze carry it away. “Where are ye going?”
“To Hameldone.” Rainger dismounted. “How much longer will it take me?”
“Riding those fine beasties, ye’ll be there before the sun sets tomorrow night.”
Two men nodded.
Another said, “Ach, Feandan, he’s young and in a hurry. If he hastens, he’ll be there by early afternoon—if he doesn’t break his neck first.”
Rainger smiled a chilling smile. “It’s not my neck I’m likely to break.”
At the implicit threat, all four men lifted their bushy eyebrows, but they appeared neither worried nor alarmed. Of course not—there were four of them and one of him. They could bring him down if they wished. It was Rainger’s task to make them believe such action would cause them more harm than profit.
“All right, then,” Feandan said. “Ye’d best tend yer horses. We’ll tell Mrs. Gurdey to set another place fer supper.”
Rainger turned away, then turned back. “Have any of you been to Hameldone?”
“We’re coming back from market,” Feandan said.
“Did you see a girl with hair the color of the sunrise?”
“In Hameldone or on the road?”
“Either. Have you seen her? She’d be traveling with a man.”
The men exchanged glances. “Nay. Havena seen her.”
But they should have—if she hadn’t already been att
acked.
“Mayhap Mrs. Gurdey will know.” The elderly man jerked his head toward the dark, open doorway. “She’s the only wayhouse between here and the market. She sees everyone pass.”
Rainger took the horses to the stables, curried and groomed them, gave them oats, and returned to the little hut, his thoughts grim. Surely Godfrey wouldn’t have traveled so far into the Scottish wilderness after his prey. Yet he’d traveled the road before when he had taken Sorcha to the convent... .
The men had disappeared and a tall, stout woman stood in the doorway, her beefy fists resting on her hips. “Show me the color o’ yer money. ’Tis na charity house I’m running here.”
Rainger kept his gaze on her, not backing away from her hostility, and dug a coin from the pouch he’d taken from MacLaren’s saddlebag.
She grunted at the sight, palmed the coin, and disappeared into the hut.
He stepped inside and blinked until his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Smoke swirled up from a small peat fire in the middle of the single primitive room. A pot bubbled on a hook over it. Sausages fried on a hot, flat rock.
The men were gathered around a long, rough table, slurping stew with wooden spoons, scoops of bread, or their fingers.
Rainger did not regret his decision to bed down in the stable.
He joined the men. His hostess slapped a bowl in front of him. Digging out MacLaren’s spoon, Rainger joined in the slurping, too hungry to bother with manners that would be ill-appreciated here anyway. When Mrs. Gurdey placed a platter of sausages on the table, his knife held the others at bay while he stabbed the largest.
It was a crafty display of skill, for he trusted these men not at all and they needed to know he was not easy prey.
When he had satisfied his hunger, he sat back, fixed his most princely expression on his hostess, and asked, “Have you seen a young woman with hair the color of sunrise riding the road?”
She stared sullenly at him, a woman who obviously hadn’t smiled since the day she first looked in the mirror. “No women ride this road. ’Twould be foolish.”
“She was with a man named Sandie.”
Mrs. Gurdey stared at him. “Sandie? Aye, Sandie’s been here.”
“But no woman?”
The female snorted. “Sandie hasna got a woman o’ his own. He’s a surly bastard, he is.”
She returned to the fire to fling on another sausage, leaving Rainger to stare after her and wonder what Sandie’s temperament must be to have this woman think he was surly.
Feandan wiped the gravy off his beard. “Did ye lose yer woman, lad?”
“Yes.” Years ago. “Yes, I did.”
“’Tis a shame when a filly goes astray.” He cocked a knowing eye. “Still, there are always others.”
“Not for me.” Rainger had only the one princess left.
“Ah. ’Tis like that, is it? Well, then, I’m afraid I didna see yer woman, but perhaps she covered her hair.”
“Perhaps.” Rainger had been so frantic to find her, he hadn’t thought that the nuns might have dressed her in a habit or disguised her as... as what?
From the woman by the fire came the answer. “Sandie had a lad traveling with him. Sandie was coming back, but the lad said he was going on t’ Edinburgh.”
Horror lifted Rainger to his feet. “Did the boy have hair the color of sunrise?”
“I don’t know aboot that,” she said, “but that lad had carrot hair fer sure. Do ye think that could be yer woman?”
Rainger died a thousand deaths at the thought of Sorcha dressed like a lad. Did Mother Brigette not realize a pretty boy was as likely to be raped as any girl?
But at least Sorcha was a woman who’d had little contact with men and would have the shy nature of a cloistered nun. She would keep to herself, barely speak to strangers, tremble at the idea of interaction with an unfamiliar man—and for her, all men were unfamiliar.
Slowly Rainger sank back onto the bench.
That was what he needed to remember. Sorcha might be untutored in the way of the world, she wasn’t bold, and she was very, very wary.
Luckily for Rainger, he didn’t know that at that moment, Sorcha stood in the common room of the Brown Cock Tavern, her arms draped around the shoulders of her new best friends, Mike and Haverford, singing the ditty called “Your Bubbies Look Like Melons, But They’re Lemons In My Mouth”—and she was having a marvelous time.
The next morning, Sorcha shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. MacCutcheon. “Thank you so much for allowing me to stay in your marvelous accommodations. I can well see why your inn was recommended to me.”
“Ach, ’twas a wonderful night we had wi’ ye.” Mr. MacCutcheon’s round face beamed like the full moon. “The best I can remember.” He nudged his wife. “Heh, Nellie?”
“I canna remember a better.” Mrs. MacCutcheon, as tall and thin as her husband was short and round, wiped her hands on her apron, reached out, and gave Sorcha a jerky hug. In Sorcha’s ear she whispered, “I’ll remember what ye said about shrieking at the pig rather than MacCutcheon—they’re enough alike I’ll get me satisfaction and MacCutcheon will stop scowling.”
Sorcha hugged her back. “He’s a fine man, to have such a fine woman for his wife.”
“I’ll remind him of that, too.” Mrs. MacCutcheon smiled at her spouse, who smiled back with the blissful expression of a man who, the night before, had been well loved.
Sorcha turned to Davis, the blacksmith. “Thank you for recommending this place. It was wonderful getting to know you. I hope someday we can meet again.”
Davis rumbled, “Aye, little lad, if ye ever come through Hameldone again, ye must come find me and we’ll lift another pint and we’ll sing another song.”
She punched his meaty shoulder, located at least a foot above her own, and turned to the spry old apothecary. “Mike.” Opening her arms, she hugged him as hard as she could. “You dear man, I promise I’ll write you when I get home and you must promise to write back and tell me if Miss Chiswick has favorably responded to your suit.”
“I still say if she hasna forgiven me after forty years, she’s na likely t’.” He sniffed as if in disdain.
But Sorcha understood he was actually brokenhearted. “And I still say if you don’t try, you’ll die regretting it. Besides, I think all she’s been waiting for is a simple ‘I’m sorry,’ and she’ll fall into your arms.”
“She’s a bonny thing.” Mike’s smile stretched his wrinkled mouth. “She’d look beautiful in orange blossoms.”
“That’s the spirit.” Sorcha turned to Haverford.
Lord Haverford, actually—tall, handsome, a man of wealth, and an Englishman in exile. A knowing smile played across his lips and his blue eyes looked into the depths of hers as if he were trying to tell her something.
He’d been doing that all last evening, too, but last night she’d been tipsy enough not to understand, and today, sober as she was, she still couldn’t comprehend what it was he thought he knew. “Haverford, my friend.” She extended her hand to him, for Haverford winced whenever she embraced him. “I’ll miss you most of all.”
Taking her hand between both of his, he cherished it. “I think you should wait to travel on until next week when I can escort you.”
“There isn’t time for that.” Now that she’d left the convent and shed the company of Sandie, she felt the pressure to go forward, to get to Beaumontagne before something dreadful could happen. “I’m in a hurry.”
“So you’ve said. But sometimes it’s better to be safe than arrive on time.”
All around her, the others nodded.
“’Tis a road fraught with danger that ye ride,” Mike said. “And at the end o’ it, ye have Edinburgh, the most sinful city in the world.”
“I won’t be in Edinburgh long,” she said. “Just long enough to catch a ship to my destination.”
Haverford groaned. “A ship? Like that?” He ran his gaze over her from head to toe. “I should keep you here by force.”
“But you won’t.” She grinned at him. “That would make me unhappy.”
Haverford sighed. “No. I won’t.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t take his concern seriously, but she easily read his character. Haverford was bone-lazy and without resolution of any kind, and although she had hopes for his future, at the moment she could command him with a crooked finger.
The serving maids waited outside to bid her good-bye, so Sorcha gave her new friends a last wave and escaped through the door to more affectionate farewells.
Then, with a spring in her step, she headed for the stable, where she settled her account. St. Donkey greeted her enthusiastically, shoving her head under Sorcha’s arm in search of treats. Sandie’s pony was nowhere in sight, and she asked the hostler, “Is Sandie already gone?”
“Yesterday,” came the answer.
That surprised her. What had sent Sandie off in such a hurry? Was he so pleased to be rid of her he couldn’t wait to leave her behind? It pained her to sit in judgment of her fellow man, but what an odd, nasty sort of person he was!
Yet she had an adventure lying before her, and she cheerfully saddled her pony and rode toward the outskirts of town.
As the last building disappeared on the horizon, she found Haverford mounted on a beautiful horse, his broad shoulders stiff, his posture erect.
Bringing St. Donkey to a halt, she grinned up at him. “Are you waiting for me?”
“I’ll ride with you until midday.” He lifted one hand. “Don’t argue. A young woman of your quality shouldn’t be riding about the wilds of Scotland on her own.”
“You... you know?” She couldn’t believe it. She’d been absolutely manly last night, eating with her fingers and a wooden spoon, singing tavern songs, drinking ale... although Haverford had taken that second pint away from her. “Ohh.” No wonder he’d been gazing at her so meaningfully. “That’s what you were trying to tell me.”
“Among other things.” He gestured to the road ahead. “Please, ride on.”
She urged her pony forward. “What gave me away?”
“What didn’t?” He rode behind her.