“Ye’re just young,” Bennet said dismissively. “Ye’ll see that I’m only doin’ the right thing for ye.”
“Ye expect me to believe ye’re doin’ what’s best for me?” Jeane asked incredulously.
Bennet opened his mouth to answer, but he didn’t get the chance.
Jeane heard Fergus before she saw him—a war cry that seemed to rattle the trees. He galloped up on his stallion, his sword drawn. He held it high as he moved closer to the carriage.
Jeane’s heart jumped up into her throat. She was happy to see him and Aiden circling the carriage, but she was also afraid. There were only two of them, and there were four trained guards and her father against them.
Not that her father had any type of training. He had never taken to violence of any kind and had barely any training for it, only what he had learned with a wooden sword as a child.
But his guards, on the other hand, were well trained by her father’s man-at-arms, Conor. He was one of the guards, his hard, gray eyes glaring into Jeane’s.
He had always hated her, always called her ugly and slow, and Jeane hated him back with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
He rode on the right side of the carriage, on the other side from Fergus, thank God. Jeane knew Conor was good with his sword.
“Ye will return the lass, or I will kill ye,” Fergus snarled. “Every last one of ye.” He pointed his sword toward Bennet. “And I will kill ye slowly.”
Bennet hummed, looking over at Jeane. “It seems ye have a suitor. Too bad I’ve already made the deal with Fraser.”
Bennet gave an order to the man driving the carriage, and the man whipped the horses mercilessly, just as Conor fell back, pulling around the left side of the carriage to fight with Fergus.
Their swords clashed together clumsily as they rode, and soon enough, they went off the trail, down where Jeane could not see them.
She stuck her head out of the carriage, trying to see, but she could not.
She caught sight of Aiden, fighting off two of her father’s guards on the other side. She couldn’t see Fergus at all.
Fergus,she prayed.Please be all right.
“Conor!” Bennet called out. “Kill him.” Fergus roared as he slashed at the man. Conor’s horse stumbled over a root and went down hard, throwing Conor off the horse.
Conor slid about ten feet before he got his feet out of the stirrups, and Fergus pulled up his stallion, stopping the horse and dismounting it.
He held his sword out, pointing it toward Conor as he scrambled up. Fergus had been hoping to get close enough to strike at him before he picked up his sword, but Conor was quick.
Well-trained, Fergus thought as Conor swung his sword, clashing it against Fergus’.
Fergus yelled as he pushed the man forward, backing him up against the tree bark. He did not take time to glance over at Aiden, who was fighting two men as the carriage ran off the road.
He knew that his friend could handle himself.
Fergus, on the other hand, did not care whether he died trying to reach Jeane. It would be an honorable way to go, protecting the woman he loved.
What had Bennet thought would happen, anyway? That Jeane would just give in, marry someone else? That he could take her from Fergus?
“Just give up,” Conor panted, and Fergus could tell he was losing steam even as he got in a pretty good strike against Fergus’ sword.
“I willnae give Jeane up. Nae now. Nae ever.”
Conor parried, and Fergus kept striking, over and over. As the other man backed up against a tree, his back against the bark, Fergus sneered at him.
“This is when ye meet yer Lord, Conor Addison,” Fergus warned.
“Nay,” the other man gasped, but his arms were shaking from the effort of holding Fergus’s broadsword back.
Fergus pulled back and struck again, this time piercing Conor between the ribs. Conor cried out, his hand clapping against the wound.
