He really must care about William gettin’ true justice.With that in mind, Owen drove his foot into the chest of an oncoming soldier, sending the man sprawling onto his back.
Kicking another soldier in the ribs, winding him, Owen saw his opportunity. The trouble was, they still needed horses, and he had no notion of where the stables might be.
“Brandon! Stables!” Owen barked, catching a foolish soldier in the chin with a sharp right-hook. The man reeled back, dazed.
Brandon had reached the rear of the small band of guards. “I shall fetch them, Laird Dunn! Get into the forest! I will find you!”
He took off before Owen could protest, sprinting out of view around a jutting portion of castle wall. Unease flooded Owen’s chest as he watched the man go, for putting his faith in an Englishman would never sit comfortably with him. True, Brandon had fought on their side and helped free them from the cells, but Owen was still not convinced it was not part of a greater ruse.
Her father will punish her gravely for this.A sudden, troublesome thought came into Owen’s mind as he delivered a powerful to knee to the groin of another guard. The soldier crumbled, clutching at the front of his breeches as he rolled and writhed on the grass.
“Sawyer! Hold them for a minute!” Owen commanded, before retreating back through the thinned-out band of guards.
Sawyer nodded. “Aye, M’Laird! It’d be me pleasure!” To punctuate the point, he slammed his mallet into the shoulder of a grizzled old soldier, who was huffing and puffing with rage.
Charging back into the kitchens, Owen raced around to the far side of the workbench, slipping and sliding on the polished stone floor. There, he found Heather, crouched low with her arms covering her head, as if she expected a torrent of arrows to come raining down.
“We have to go, Lass.” Owen did not even pause to explain. Hauling her to her feet, he ducked slightly, and grasped her by her arms and legs. She yelped as he hoisted her across his broadshoulders, the way he might carry a doe that he was bringing in after an afternoon hunt.
Hurrying back to the rear door, Heather wrestled a hand free and began to pound on his chest. “Put me down! What in heaven’s name do you think you are doing?”
“I cannae explain right now!” Owen replied. “Trust me, Lass. Just… trust me.”
She ceased her pounding, though he heard her groan and mutter under her breath as her body bounced to the rhythm of his pace. It was not the most gentlemanly way to carry a lady to safety, but he had never much thought of himself as a gentleman. That was an English institution.
“Owen!” Heather shrieked suddenly, drawing his attention to a guard approaching on the right.
Having lost his poker, in order to wield Heather, Owen resorted to his fists. He let go of Heather’s shapely thighs, for a moment, and diverted all of his strength into a formidable punch. It caught the guard square in the nose, prompting him to stumble back and unleash an ungodly scream as his hands flew to the injury. Blood gushed between his fingers, but at least the man had his life.
I wish the same could be said for all the captured Scots that ye Sassenachs are takin’ to yer Sassenach gaols.Embittered, Owen ran on with his cargo. The path to the forest was much clearer, now that Sawyer had dispensed with most of the guards.
All around the stretch of grass, wounded men lay grumbling and moaning. A few fumbled for their weapons, but it seemed to be more of a formality—a sign that they did not want it to look like they had given up, but they had no strength or will left to keep fighting.
“What are ye doin’, M’Laird?” Sawyer drew level with Owen, as the pair jogged toward the sanctuary of the shadowed forest. Even with torches and a much larger army of guards, it would prove difficult to chase the fugitives through such dense woodland.
Owen shook his head. “I’ll explain later.”
“As ye prefer, M’Laird.” Sawyer flashed a grin up at Heather, drawing a rather coarse word from her lips. The sound of it made Owen want to laugh, for he had not expected such a word from such a beautiful woman’s mouth. Still, he would have to save his laughter for another time, when they were truly free of Gallagher Castle and England.
“Can you please tell me what is happening? Why are you dragging me around like a sack of cabbages?” Heather muttered, as Owen finally set her down on the ground.
They were in the very depths of the forest, on the outskirts of a small clearing, where Owen hoped Brandon would find them.IfBrandon had any intention of coming to them. For all Owenknew, Brandon had merely gone to round up the next wave of guards.
Owen sat down to catch his breath. In a better-fed, better-watered, better-rested state, he could have continued to carry her for miles, but his time in the cells had sapped some of his usual strength.
“I couldn’ae leave ye there, Lass,” he said, at last. “The guards saw ye leadin’ us out. If I’d left ye, they’d surely have told yer faither, and I daenae think he would’ve taken too kindly to ye freein’ us. If he locks ye up for speakin’ yer mind and “behavin’ badly,” what do ye think he would’ve done if he found out ye helped us?”
Heather’s expression moved through a violent series of emotion: outrage, doubt, panic, guilt, shock, and something akin to relief.
“That is, unless ye already kent there’d be soldiers waitin’ there for us?” Sawyer interrupted, twirling his mallet in a figure of eight. “I swear I heard ye say it was a trap.”
Heather’s eyes widened. “Yes, I did say that,afterI realized it was a trap. Do you think me so conniving that I would have gone to the trouble of setting you free from the dungeons, only to hand you straight back to the guards?”
“Makes sense to me.” Sawyer sniffed. “Yer faither probably realized he couldn’ae just execute us without givin’ us a fair trial. So, he asked ye to lure us out, so he could kill us anyway and call it defense.”
A noise of disbelief puffed out of Heather’s nose. “How dare you! I would never do such a thing! I set you free because I believe in your Laird’s innocence, and I want the real culprits to be punished.” Her eyes sought Owen’s, glittering with hurt. “Doyouthink I fooled you?”
“I will nae lie to ye, though ye might nae like what I say—aye, for a moment, I thought ye were part of it. Then, I saw yer face and kent that ye were nae,” Owen said honestly. He did not know how to be anything but. “As for Brandon—” he trailed off, looking toward the trees opposite.
