Several of his men, led by Gregory, rode around him, galloping at full speed towards the MacAllan keep. When he had realized that Effie knew more than she was telling, he had interrogated her until he was sure he had wrung every drop of information she had to give him, and then left her in the company of several of his guards to make sure she did not flee. She might yet be useful to them, and he wanted to keep every option clear.
“Arran!”
Gregory’s voice cut through the air beside him. Arran glanced around for the barest moment, his jaw clenched tight. All he wanted was to keep going, to keep driving forward, but Gregory raised a hand to slow him. Reluctantly, he pulled on the reins, and slowed the horse down, the other men following in his stead and dropping to a canter, then a trot.
Gregory swerved off the main path and into a thicket of trees that hid the men and their horses from the main path. Arran, catching his breath, pushed a hand through his hair.
“What is it, Gregory?” he demanded, impatient. He was distinctly aware that every moment they wasted was another when the Laird MacAllan could have been doing God only knew what to his young wife, and he refused to stand by and allow it to unfold.
“We need to rest the horses,” he warned him. “We’ve been riding all night. It’s near morning, whatever they’ll do to her…”
He trailed off. Arran shuddered at the thought of what all of this might have led to. What if they had already hurt her? He could barely stand the thought of harm coming to her, the weight of it pressing down on him, making his stomach twist.
As he turned his head away, he saw something, out of the corner of his eye. He leapt from his horse, and made his way back towards the road. Sure enough, preserved in mud, carriage tracks were visible. He dropped to his knee, and reached out to touch them. They gave way under his fingertips, the mud still damp. Whatever had left this, it had been recent.
Gregory strode over to see what he was looking at, and, when he saw the marks in the mud, he knelt down next to him.
“What do ye think?” he muttered. He knew Arran was a damn good tracker, and trusted his instincts above all else.
“That this set of carriage tracks has only gone one way,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Whatever they carried out of here, it hasnae yet returned…”
He lifted his head, casting his gaze along the road, towards the Keep.
“Which means that they haven’t brought her back to the Keep yet.”
Gregory looked slightly surprised.
“Ye’re sure about that?”
Arran nodded.
“Aye. There’d be tracks coming in both directions if the carriage had already passed back through here, and ye ken how MacAllan only travels by carriage, never by horse.”
“Aye, because he couldnae heft his fat arse on to the back of one if he tried,” Gregory muttered. Arran let out a bark of laughter and though he could find little mirth in the situation, he needed whatever break he could get.
“If we wait here, we’ll be able to waylay them before they reach the Keep,” Arran added. Much as he wanted to ride right up to the Keep and storm it, make them pay for what they had done to him and to Amelia, he knew that patience was the winning game; it was the only way he would get her back, and all that mattered to him in that moment was holding her in his arms again.
Gregory nodded, knowing better than to question Arran, and he turned back to the waiting men to give them their instructions. Soon, they had all spread out across the road, some waiting on the left side, others on the right. As the sun began to rise, casting a sickly greenish glow over the land, they waited in silence, ready for the moment that MacAllan and his men would show their faces and they would be able to hand Amelia back her freedom, as she well deserved.
Arran’s ears were pricked for every noise in the forest that day; the sound of the leaves brushing against each other, small animals scrabbling up the trunks of trees, one of his men clearing their throat. He felt as though every inch of his body was alight with awareness, every part of him tuned to whatever note Amelia was playing. He had to find her.He had to…
All at once, he heard it; the sound of hooves trotting on the road, along with the squeak of a carriage wheel. It reminded him, all at once, of the day of his wedding to Amelia, when he had kissed her in the carriage, the wanting need that hadconsumed him, even then, and that drove him now. He glanced over at Gregory, making sure the other man had heard it, and Gregory nodded, planting his hand on the hilt of his sword. Arran did the same, his heart thudding against his chest.
Sure enough, a few moments later, the carriage rounded the corner towards the waiting ambush. A single horse and rider pulled it along, but a couple of guards rode along the side, their eyes fixed ahead, looking tired and indolent. If they had been riding all night, he supposed they must have been exhausted, which would make this attack all the easier.
“Now!” Arran roared. And, in the blink of an eye, the half-dozen men spread out over each side of the road sprang into action.
Arran dived before the horse of one of the guards, causing it to rear and whinny. It nearly threw its rider, and Arran sprang towards him, dragging him from the saddle and tossing him to the ground. The horse bolted out in front of the carriage, nearly tipping it over, and the driver ground to a halt.
But the guard was on his feet again in a matter of seconds, and he had rounded on Arran as the carriage screeched to stop, nearly tipping over with the intensity of the sudden movement. The guard had his sword in his hand, but Arran was faster, drawing his and lunging towards him. The guard managed to deflect Arran from landing a killing blow, but the snarling blade glanced off his arm, drawing a spurt of crimson blood that stained his cloak and sent him howling to his knees.
Turning his attention to the other guard, Arran rushed over to join Gregory, who was standing beneath the rearing horse. He gazed up at the creature for a moment as though frozen to the spot, and Arran pushed him out of the way at the last moment, in the split-second before the beast’s thundering hooves crashed down on the spot he would have been standing.
Without so much as taking a breath, Arran grasped the saddle and pulled himself up behind the rider. Kicking his feet free of the stirrups, he lifted him from the saddle, and tossed him to the muddy road below. He dug his heels into the sides of the horse and sent it careening off towards the Keep in a panic, the other guard’s horse fast catching up with it, and then turned his attention to the carriage.
One of his men had cut the tie between the driver’s horse and the carriage, leaving them stranded, and he swung himself up on to the door and threw it open. He prayed, for a brief moment, that she would be inside, that he had found her, that he had not started this fight for nothing…
Then, all at once, he saw her.
