“I’ll take that as a compliment. If he comes looking fer me, tell him I’ve gone to the mill or someaught.”
The large stable doors rattled, and almost without thinking Gabriel ducked around the side of the building. A horse headed away from him down the hill at a canter, and the doors closed again. So she rode places alone. He couldn’t imagine any London lady doing that, but he had very limited personal experience with anything proper.
He waited long enough for her to be reasonably out of sight, then strode back around and pulled open the stable door. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said to the large group of grooms and stable boys measuring out hay and oats for the dozen horses in residence, and pulled his saddle off its post.
“Yer Grace,” the oldest of them exclaimed, and trotted over to grab hold of the other side of the saddle. “I’ll see to this.”
Gabriel recognized him as yesterday’s guard with the pitchfork, and now he knew the voice, as well. “And you are?” he asked, releasing his grip.
The man bowed, walking backward toward where Union Jack stuck his head over the stall door and nickered. “Oscar Ritchie, Yer Grace. Lattimer’s head groom, if ye please.”
“Ritchie. Are you related to Mrs. Ritchie, the cook?”
He grinned. “Aye. My good wife, she is. Ye want yer Jack saddled, do ye?”
“If you please.”
“Ye ken ye’ve nae shoes on, Yer Grace.”
Gabriel sighed. “Yes.”
“Rollie over there’ll lend ye his boots.”
The youngest of the stable boys, a lad with bright red hair and cheeks to match, frowned. “I willnae. My ma gave me these boots.”
“I’ll worry about my own boots,” Gabriel broke in, trying to decide how to broach the subject of military service without sounding like he’d been eavesdropping, but then deciding that holding on to that piece of information might be wiser for the moment. Despite his reputation to the contrary, he did know something about patience.
The groom bent in another bow. “As ye say, Yer Grace.”
While he slipped the bridle on over Jack’s head, Kelgrove skidded into the stable. “I did what I could, Major,” he panted, squatting in front of where Gabriel seated himself to pull on the boots, “but you shouldn’t ever wear them to see Wellington again.”
“For the devil’s sake, Kelgrove, they’re boots,” he retorted, stomping into the left one. “They serve a purpose. I don’t give a damn if I can see my reflection in them or not.”
“Of course not, sir. ButIdo.” The sergeant stood, shaking out a heavy brown woolen coat. “I found this in the attic, with a selection of your predecessor’s clothes. Most are too small and more fit for a costume party, but a few of them are passable. Thank God you found trousers, though, because no one’s been willing to lend you anything but kilts.”
Gabriel shrugged into the coat, then took hold of Jack’s bridle. “Thank you. I’ll be back shortly.”
Kelgrove stepped in front of him. “Major, you cannot go riding by yourself. It isn’t…” And he sent a look at the interested grooms surrounding them. “It isn’t safe.”
Swinging into the saddle, Gabriel inclined his head. “‘Safe’ hasn’t concerned me in quite a long time, Adam. And find me a harder mattress, will you? I nearly drowned in that one.”
Without bothering to wait for an answer, he ducked beneath the stable door and sent Union Jack galloping down the slope toward the lake. It felt like an hour since he’d heard his quarry depart in that direction, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes at most. Still, given the dense clusters of trees, with narrow streams and pathways leading up through the shallow hills all along the shore, she could be anywhere. Except the mill, of course.
Slowing Jack to a canter, he considered. She had no idea he rode behind her, so she wouldn’t be hiding or trying to cover her tracks. He reckoned that she had a specific destination in mind, especially given that his pocket watch read barely six-thirty in the morning.
The trail forked in three different directions ahead, and he pulled Jack to a halt and hopped to the ground. With the damp and then the wind yesterday, the myriad tracks were faint and dulled at the edges—with the exception of a quartet of deer and a horse with metal shoes. “There you are,” he murmured, mounting Jack again and heading away from the lake and up the trail that paralleled a stream toward the top of the hill.
A few minutes later the trail topped a rise, opening out to a heather-filled meadow split by the curving stream. On either side of the water, and joined by a stone bridge that looked Roman, was a village of perhaps three dozen small stone and wattle houses, a blacksmith, a tavern, a church, and a shop or two. He knew at least one village lay on Lattimer land, so he supposed this could be it—Strouth. More buildings and people for whom he was responsible. More weight to sit upon his shoulders—because while he was accustomed to holding lives in his hands, those were soldiers, men who for the most part had signed up to face danger and death. Here there were undoubtedly women and children, babies and grandparents, all people with whom he had little experience—and no idea how to protect.
“Were ye following me, then, Lattimer?”
Gabriel shook himself out of the tangled cobweb of his thoughts as Fiona Blackstock appeared at the far end of the bridge to put her hands on her hips and glare at him. Somehow she managed to look both formidable and enticing at the same time. “Yes, I was,” he returned coolly, sending Jack clopping onto the bridge. “You mentioned several times yesterday that the Highlands was a dangerous place. I’m here to protect you.”And to see what the devil you’re up to,he added silently.
“I meant that the Highlands arenae safe ferye,Sassenach. I’m perfectly well, thank ye. Go back to Lattimer before ye frighten the wee bairns. Or all the way to London, and spare the lot of us.”
“Bairns. Those are children, yes?” he persisted, ignoring the verbal jabs as he swung out of the saddle.
As he moved up to keep pace beside her, Miss Blackstock lifted an artfully curved eyebrow. “Aye. Bairns are children. And that’s a cow, and that’s a wagon,” she said, imitating his accent as she pointed.
