“Why not?” she challenged him. Her defiance caught her off-guard. If she was captured again, she supposed, why shouldn’t she say what was truly on her mind?
As she shivered before him, her eyes slid past him, and to her horror, she could make out the sight of a body slumped just a few yards away from him. Her hand flew to her mouth, cold fear gripping her chest. What if he wasn’t sent here to help her? What if he was… what if he was worse?
“What’s that?” she whispered, pointing with a quivering finger to the slumped body half-concealed by the shadow of the trees. He glanced over his shoulder, and stepped aside so she could get a better look.
“It’s a stag, lass. Naught to be afraid of.”
He sounded amused by her terror. Was this funny to him, how fearful she was? She took a step forward, her legs trembling, and sure enough, she could see now that it was nothing more than a deer, its head twisted unnaturally to the side, its eyes closed. She felt a stab of sadness, seeing it like that, though she knew it was foolish. How many animals had she eaten over the course of her life? But she had never been faced with the bluntness of seeing one, killed, before her…
She knelt down next to it before she could stop herself, though she knew not what she planned to do. She reached out and planted a hand against its flesh, feeling the warmth of life seeping from it. This creature had come out here, knowing not that it was living its last few hours… much like she had, when her father had loaded her and her sisters into a carriage to drive them north. In some ways, she envied the deer. At least it would never have to share a bed with that awful Laird, Donald.
Then, she looked down, and saw that the blood of the stag was seeping against her knees. She let out a disgusted cry and leapt backwards, nearly crashing into the man who had stumbled upon her bathing. He caught her before she toppled back into the river, his arm around her waist, the strength of it almost shocking to her after what felt like a lifetime in this forest alone.
“Careful, now,” he warned her. His voice was gruff and sharp, and she glanced up at him, intending to protest his orders. Yet, as soon as she found herself looking into his brown eyes, so brown they almost looked black under the cloak of his hair, she felt the words wither in her throat. The sinewy muscle of his arm pressed against her for a moment, a sudden warmth heating her body that took her by surprise.
She pulled away from him quickly, hugging the cloak tightly around her shoulders. He made his way towards the stag’s corpse, and hefted it on to his shoulders with ease. She could see, now that he had given her his cloak, his muscles moving beneath his skin, the practiced strength of his body, like a wolf hunting for prey.
“You stay here,” he told her. “I’m going to get my men to take this back to the Keep, then I’ll deal with you.”
“Your men?” she asked, with a gasp, her eyes darting around like she feared she might be watched in that very moment. They must have been the voices she had heard earlier. More sent to find her, or just a part of this hunt?
He moved off between the trees, and she stood there, her feet frozen to the ground, like the tree roots had reached up through the earth to hold them there. She didn’t know what to do. She could have tried to run now, but the cold of the river had stiffened her muscles, and besides, she was exhausted. She could barely muster up the strength to keep standing. Whatever she had imagined when she had first bolted from the Keep, she could see now it had been nothing more than a mistake. And now she had been found, she was sure she would be returned to her father.
She shuddered at the thought. Her punishment for daring to defy him would be harsh, and she knew it. And how would Donald, the man she was supposed to marry, take herabandonment? Would he see that she was so desperate not to be with him that he would call off the wedding?
Or would this make him even more certain that he was to make her his? The thought curdled in her stomach. For a man like that, perhaps her unwillingness would be part of the charm. As sickening a notion as it was, she could hardly believe that he truly thought she wanted to be with him, or would have chosen to be if she’d had the chance.
Not that she had given much thought to a true marriage yet. Of course, there had been times when she and her sisters had imagined what kind of man they would marry. She had never put a face to her fantasy, but she had imagined someone tall, dark, handsome, someone who gazed at her with such adoration she could scarcely imagine it; someone who would cherish her and adore her above all else, someone who would…
“Aye, aye.”
The man’s gruff tones cut through her memories, and she glanced around to see him approaching her. He paused by the river to clean his bloodied hands, dipping them below the water. Her gaze was drawn to his fingers, their calluses, their dexterity. For a brief moment, she could almost feel them on her body, though she knew she was mad for thinking it. She had seen what he’d done to the stag, and she was far less formidable than that beast. This man could have done anything he wanted with her.
For some reason, the notion of it didn’t terrify her as much as it should have.
“Where are you from, lass?” he asked her, as he easily vaulted the river and made his way towards her.
“England.”
He let out another chuckle, that low sound that rumbled up from some place deep inside of him.
“Aye, well, you can be sure I’m not taking you all the way back there,” he replied. “And I’d wager you didnae run all theway from England to Birnam Wood. Where were you before you came here?”
She hesitated. Could she lie to him? Tell him that she needed to be taken somewhere far away from here, that her family were waiting for her some hundreds of miles away? Would he believe it?
Suddenly, his face clicked with some recognition, and he tapped his finger against his chin. A slight breeze moved through the trees, brushing the hair back from his face for a moment.
“I heard tell of some Sassenach family staying near the McAllan keep,” he remarked. “That’s where ye’re from, isn’t it?”
She parted her lips, intent on protesting, but then she felt the wind drop out of her. Her head sinking to her chest, she nodded.
“Yes, it is.”
“Then you should get back there before the night falls,” he told her, jerking his head towards the road. “Come. I’ll take you myself.”
She stared at him for a long moment, as though struggling to make sense of why he would go out of his way to do something like this for her. She had faced so much struggle in these last few days, she could scarcely believe that someone would be intent on helping her in the way he seemed to be.
But she couldn’t trust him. Not a chance. Not after she had come so far. Before she could think twice, she bolted back towards the forest.
