She waved him off—actually waved him off. He didn’t think anyone had done that since the cook had shooed him away from the kitchen—and the freshly baked tarts—when he was a lad.
“I understand quite well. You’d better go now, before I reconsider, while I’m still agog over the poetry of ‘lose my damned mind.’”
His mouth twisted. She was teasing him. It was still difficult for him to believe how natural it seemed.
He should correct her and make sure she understood that this didn’t change anything, but she was right: he didn’t want to give her the opportunity to change her mind. It would have to wait. “Aye, well don’t get used to it. I’m afraid I’ve a limited supply of poetic words. I can’t think of anything that rhymes with ‘bloody.’”
She laughed, and the sweet sound reverberated in his chest.
“How about ‘study’? Or maybe ‘muddy’?”
He gave a sharp laugh. He should have known she’d think of something. “I’ll work on it.” He sobered, and the wry smile slid from his face. “I won’t be long. Stay out of sight. If anyone approaches, you can slip behind those rocks.”
It wasn’t a cave, but the space between the big boulders was large enough to slide between. He wished he didn’t have to leave her alone, but it couldn’t be helped. If they were going to reach the coast anytime soon, they needed a horse. He would have preferred two, but that would be much harder to explain.
His first priority—hisonlypriority—was getting Janet to safety as quickly as possible. But he would also concede a twinge of uncertainty about his leg. Something didn’t feel right. All the climbing yesterday must have aggravated it. Unfortunately, he hadn’t thought to take the ointment from MacKay before they separated. Nothing appeared wrong when he’d looked at it earlier while bathing—actually, if anything the bleeding seemed to have lessened—but it had hurt like hell every time he took a step. The pain was sharp and deep—biting. And he was tired. More than he should be. The sooner Helen could look at it, the better.
“I’ll be fine,” she assured him. “If anything goes wrong, I have my dagger.”
Although he knew better than she did how well she could use it, it didn’t exactly ease his mind to think about her needing to do so.
He nodded. “I’ll be back before you know it.”
Their eyes met. His feet didn’t want to move. She looked so sweet and trusting. So beautiful and strong. He wanted to reach for her with every fiber of his being, as if it were the most natural thing to do. But he didn’t. He forced his feet to walk away.
“Ewen.” He turned. “I…” He could see some kind of turmoil on her face, and an emotion he couldn’t name. “Be careful.”
He nodded, wondering what she’d been about to say. Indeed, he seemed to be thinking about it the entire way down the hill to the village. She’d been about to tell him something. Something he suspected he didn’t want to hear, but longed to hear at the same time. His chest burned. Knowing he would only drive himself mad thinking about things that could not be, he forced his mind to the task at hand.Focus.
His plan was simple: he would offer enough money to avoid any questions. Normally when the Highland Guard needed horses in the Borders, they made use of the network of Bruce supporters in the area. Unfortunately, the loyalties of this village tucked away high in the hills of Galloway were unknown. They had supporters in Douglas, Lanarkshire, about fifteen miles away, but as that was also where they’d run into trouble earlier, he wanted to avoid the area.
As the village did not have an inn, he started with the nearest holding and worked his way across, getting more and more frustrated with each stop.
There didn’t appear to be a single horse for sale in the entire village, let alone one that was suitable. Hell, at this point he would welcome an old field nag.
After a half-dozen stops, his frustration was showing. But when he approached the next croft, he caught sight of something roaming in the field that would make it go away: a beautiful, sturdy, and agile-looking courser.
Unfortunately, the owner was proving difficult.
“Where did you say you were from?” he asked.
Ewen eyed the old farmer, whose weather-beaten face hid an agile and shrewd mind. “Roxburgh,” he answered curtly. “Are you willing to sell the horse? I’ll offer you ten pounds.”
Even for the fine animal it was a generous offer. The old man should have jumped at it. Instead, he stroked his long, gray beard assessingly. “’Tis a lot of silver. You must really have need of it.”
Ewen’s temper was running thin. The farmer obviously suspected something, and Ewen didn’t like the way he was putting him off with questions, but he wanted that damned horse. He gave him a hard look. “Will you sell me the horse or not?”
“He isn’t for sale.”
Ewen clenched his teeth and counted to five. “Why not?”
“He isn’t mine to sell. I’m caring for him. I was a stable-master in King John’s army.”Ah hell, Balliol!Definitely not a friend of Bruce’s, then. “I still take in ailing horses when I can. This one belongs to the captain to the guard at Sanquhar.”Damn. This just kept getting better and better. Sanquhar was one of James Douglas’s castles now garrisoned by the English. The old man’s eyes gleamed deviously. “Perhaps you can put your request to him?”
Ewen didn’t need to ask what he meant. He could just hear the clop of approaching horses now. He looked over his shoulder, catching the glint of mail in the sunlight as a half-dozen English soldiers entered the outskirts of the village from the pass to the west. Although they were still a good distance away, they were closing in fast.
He wouldn’t be able to flee without being seen. When he wasn’t hobbled by injury, he ran fast—but not faster than a horse. In these wide-open hills, with no mist to hide his direction, he couldn’t be sure that he could find cover fast enough to lose them.
And then there was Janet. What if in hunting for him, they found her instead? He couldn’t risk it.
