The mare flicked an ear, as if offended by the implication that the fault might lie with her. The lane north from Wexford Hall was little more than a strip of packed earth between hedgerows, the last of the autumn leaves clinging in damp clumps. The air smelled of wet earth and smoke, somewhere behind her, a farmer was burning stubble. Ahead, a thin smear of cloud turned the afternoon light a flat, colorless grey.
Isla’s shoulders ached. The hours since leaving Wexford had stretched and blurred. She had stopped once at a coaching inn to water Morrow and swallow a hurried bowl of soup, ignoring the curious glances of the landlord at a lady travelling without a husband at her elbow. Isla had insisted upon the trap from the Hall’s own stable, a light conveyance, fast and nimble. She had told herself it was practical. In truth, she had wanted to feel the reins in her own hands. If she was to wrench her life out of one course and into another, she would at least hold the leather.
Beside her on the narrow seat lay her reticule, the drawstring wrapped twice around her wrist to keep it from bouncing away.Inside, folded with a care that belied its contents, lay the letter. Yet to be posted.
To His Grace, Edward Ravenscroft, Duke of Wexford…
Even in memory, the formal opening made her stomach turn. She had kept it brief. She had thanked him for his protection thus far. She had acknowledged the scandal that had driven them together and the fire that had driven them further apart.
She had written, in a hand that did not quite tremble, that she absolved him of any responsibility for her future, that she would not oppose any petition he chose to place before the Church concerning the dissolution of their marriage.
You should have a wife of your own choosing,she had written, the ink blurring once where a drop had fallen too fast.One who can give you the sort of household and heir your mother desires. I am unsuited to such a role. You are free of any obligation to me.
She had meant to writeand I to you. The words had refused to come.
The letter means naught. It just speaks truth where it needs to be said. I’ll post it the first inn I come to.
But she had passed three and stopped at one. And the letter was still with her.
“I’m free as the wind and nae sorry for it.” she told the air.
Her voice sounded strange in the open air. The word free sat on her tongue like a stone.
“If I’m free whit ails ma hert?” she wondered aloud, biting back the tears that had felt close to spilling all day.
She had resented the idea of marriage from the first moment their father had announced Alistair’s plans. She had fought the notion of being paraded before eligible men like a heifer at market. Every dance, every polite conversation had felt like a chain being forged link by link. Even Edward, in that first instant in the stable, had seemed merely another weight.
Now the chains were, in theory, loosened. She was on the road north, no chaperone but her own sense, no husband but the law as yet unwound. In a few days, if the roads held, she would smell the air of Perthshire again.
And yet. The prospect of never seeing Edward again, the real man, not the duke on the ballroom floor, left a hollow in her chest that the thought of any amount of Highland wind could not fill.
She straightened, annoyed with herself.
“I’m actin’ daft and pullin’ you doon wi’ me, so I am,” she told the mare. “We shall both grow maudlin and weep into our oats."
Morrow tossed her head, unimpressed. The hedgerows grew taller as they went, giving way to the first outlying arms of a small wood. Bare branches knitted overhead, dimming the light further. The trap’s wheels squelched through damp patches; somewhere nearby a rook cawed, the sound harsh.
Isla had grown up with stories of the road. Bandits in the passes. Horses stolen under cover of fog. Carriages stopped by men with scarves over their faces. Most were exaggerations, fed on winter nights to make the fire more necessary. A few had been true. She glanced back, more from habit than fear.
At first she saw nothing beyond the sway of hedges, the curve of the lane. Then, faint and regular, the sound reached her. Hoofbeats. Distant, but closing. A single horse. No rumble of wheels. No creak of leather harness. Not a post-rider, the cadence was wrong. Someone travelling at a steady canter, restraining speed rather than racing. Her pulse quickened.
She told herself it was nothing. A farmer on his way home. A gentleman out for air. No reason, absolutely none, for unease to crawl along her spine. The hoofbeats grew louder. The lane narrowed further where the wood pressed close. The hedgeshere were untrimmed. Brambles reached greedily over the verge. The light took on that peculiar twilight quality that made distances hard to judge. Isla licked her lips.
The mare’s ears twitched back. She, too, had heard the approaching horse.
“Easy,” Isla murmured. “We shall be clever. If he wishes the road, he may have it. We do not need to play hare for every hound that chooses to run.”
A little way ahead she saw, cutting off to the right, a narrower lane. If she turned in there, whoever followed might pass on, none the wiser. She would wait until he was gone, then regain the main road.
The plan formed and settled in the space of a breath. She flicked the reins, guiding Morrow into the side lane. The mare obeyed with a grateful snort, the ground here was softer but free of immediate stones. A short distance in, the track curved sharply, concealed by a copse of hawthorn.
“Whoa,” Isla whispered, drawing the mare to a halt behind the concealing foliage. The trap settled with a small creak.
She climbed down, boots squelching slightly in the damp earth.
If the rider were innocent, he would pass and be lost to the distance. If he were not, if he saw the trap and its horse standing unattended, he might decide that two fresh animals were worth the trouble. A man on foot with two horses could vanish into the back lanes, leaving her with nothing but the clothes on her back and an empty road. The thought of being stranded, miles from shelter, sent a flicker of genuine fear through her.
She cast about quickly. A fallen bough lay a few yards away, stripped of most of its smaller branches by wind and time. She hefted it experimentally. It was heavy, but not unmanageable.
