He gazed at the beautiful but scared angel. “There’s a blackhouse not far from here. The Redcoats will have already searched it, as it lies in their wake.”
Chapter 5
A blackhouse was a traditional type of cottage that often housed both families and animals, and Abby hoped he was right about the English having already searched all the houses in the area. “Good, that’s where we’ll go, then.”
She didn’t want to be anywhere near any of the man’s enemies or their allies. What happened to the Jacobites after Culloden was one of the cruelest times in history. They were routed from their lands, hunted, and murdered. Cumberland, the leader of the English army, wasn’t calledThe Butcherfor nothing. If she was found with a Jacobite, she would also be killed.
She took a deep breath and tried to calm her body. She could freak out later when she was safely home. For now, she needed to get herself and her new companion to safety.
She glanced at him. Wariness mixed with curiosity filled his eyes, but something else sparked in the brown depths, sending a jolt of electricity through her chest.
The same thing had happened when their eyes met earlierand, surprised at her body’s reaction to just a look, she quickly gazed at the sky above.
Once away from his intense gaze, her breaths became normal as her own gaze found the moon and the dark clouds rolling over it. A second later, rain fell on her hood. Hard.
Sighing, she muttered, “Perfect.”
She was tall, but with the man more than a head taller, she was able to duck under his good arm and help him limp further away from the empty moor.
Her one plan was to get as much distance between them and the battlefield as possible. If they were stopped and questioned, and if the injured man’s reaction to her clothing was any indication, she would be in trouble. A lot of men of that time were barbarians and thought of women as their property. She didn’t know what they’d think if they saw her clothes. One thing she did know was that they wouldn’t listen to reason and they would think her mad if she told them the truth. They would probably just kill her.
The torrents of rain hindered her vision of a safe route.
Her nerves were strung so tightly that even the sound of their footsteps scared her, and although it was cold, she felt sweat drip down her back. Her eyes never stopped moving, peering in all directions, trying to discern any movement that might mean danger.
When had wolves become extinct in Scotland? She started and twisted her head to look behind for anything that moved. No. She tried to reassure herself. If that was the Battle of Culloden, then it must have been 1746, and she was sure wolves were gone by then, although, blast it, she remembered reading tales of them being around in the 1800s. She peered into the darkness. Great.
As quick as it had come, the deluge stopped. Moonlight slithered its way through the empty clouds, and Abby’s heartbounded up into her throat. The light would show their whereabouts to anyone close enough to see.
She tried not to think of Englishmen finding them while she hustled the man as fast as she could through a small stand of trees. He gripped his side but kept up with her, and once on the other side, she exhaled in relief at the clear meadow.
She twisted her head to peer up at him. “How far?” she whispered.
“Cl-a-ose,” he stammered.
Half-dazed with exhaustion and spent emotion, Abby let him guide them along their course.
And as they stepped on the green grasses, she gazed back. She still had to find the orb. She had to get home before anyone found her, before she was stuck in this hellhole.
Mashing her lips together, she hoped she could find her way back the next day. New fear swirled like a maelstrom in her chest. What if someone else discovered it first? What if it was buried in the mud and she lost it forever?
Stop it, Abby. No what-ifs. I will find it tomorrow, and it will take me right back home.
The man leaned on her more heavily and drew her back to the present . . . past . . . whatever. Logically, she knew she shouldn’t be interfering. She could be upsetting the delicate history of time, and what of the consequences that might happen in the future?
She grimaced. There was a name for it . . . ah, the butterfly effect. Yes, a small change can make much larger changes happen.
Her meddling could be worse than killing a bug. He was much larger than a bug, so her saving him could be even more catastrophic than standing on a bug in the past.
Should she have just left him to die there? She scrunched her nose. No. She couldn’t have done that, not once she knew he was alive. If she’d left him there, she would never have been able to forgive herself. She would have had nightmares of guilt forever.
He groaned.
Her shoulder ached, but she drove her back straighter, accepting more of his weight.
She listened to the quiet. No sounds of weapons, no thundering horses’ hooves. Certain they were safe at last, her heart quieted.
Grunting with the effort, she pushed up harder into his armpit.
