“No camp tonight, I want tae press on tae Dumbarton,” Cameron’s brusque command broke into her mutinous thoughts, elation sweeping through Aislinn.
They must be close or he would stop, surely! Mayhap only a few more leagues away!
She had overheard him talking to his men yesterday as well that he’d traveled this route a few weeks ago with his former commander, Gabriel MacLachlan, when they had gone to fetch Gabriel’s bride-by-proxy from a convent near Dumbarton.
By proxy? That meant the poor colleen hadn’t been allowed to speak for herself, but was no doubt married against her will.
Saints preserve all women! Would the day ever come when their lot wouldn’t be determined by men?
Sighing with frustration, Aislinn forced away the memory of Cameron’s warriors laughing atherexpense as he twisted around in the saddle to look at her.
“Do you need tae stop, Aislinn?”
She bristled, his query not brusque at all but uttered in so even-tempered a manner that she wondered again if she was being addressed by the same man.
So he had done since yesterday, each time no more than a brief comment or question, and she had refused to acknowledge a one of them.
Lay your blanket there, Aislinn.
Would you like another oatcake?
Time tae wake, Aislinn.
That last one had wholly startled her, Cameron kneeling beside her and gently shaking her shoulder with no hint of the affliction Conall had told her about.
His voice so low and husky that she had shivered then, too, but at once she had jumped to her feet and whisked up her blanket. Aislinn astonished by the change in him as he had looked at her so strangely…
“No! I don’t need to stop!” she retorted in spite of her resolve not to speak to him, her mind racing again.
Whatever had come over the man? Had he decided to take to heart what she’d said to him after all—that it took practice to become good at anything? Had he forgiven her as well for taking a weapon to both him and Conall, and his anger had cooled? Mayhap speaking to her in so calm a manner was his attempt to make amends for what had happened yesterday…
“My thanks, though,” Aislinn muttered, still not able to fully let go of the embarrassment he had caused her. As if astonished that she had softened her tone, he glanced at her over his shoulder, but she averted her eyes—a sudden sound in the distance making the hair prickle at the back of her neck.
A scream, aye, there it was again!
A high-pitched, feminine outcry of such terror and distress that Aislinn’s horse snorted and tossed his head, while Cameron and his men acted like they hadn’t even heard it.
Or had they? She saw that Cameron’s shoulders had stiffened and he glanced in the direction of the scream—until another shriek of such fright made her jerk hard upon the reins and kick her horse into a gallop.
“Aislinn!”
Cameron had bellowed out her name, but she didn’t stop—how could she?
Not with the screams growing louder, Aislinn plunging her mount through the trees as dusk deepened around her.
She heard the pounding of hooves not far behind and knew Cameron and his men followed, but she pressed forward until she burst into a clearing brightened by a sputtering torch thrust between two branches.
Three soldiers dressed in mail shirts who had been kneeling upon the ground jumped to their feet to stare at her wide-eyed, though a second more and they had drawn their swords.
Aislinn’s heart in her throat as she recognized them as English from their conical helmets and knee-length gray tunics—the same garb she’d seen on the beach where her father and Daran had been attacked.
Was there a larger force nearby? She could smell salt air on the stiff breeze and knew they weren’t far from water. Mayhap they’d come from a stronghold that hadn’t yet fallen to King Robert?
Her horse whinnying sharply as the men surrounded her, Aislinn had only to glance at the bedraggled girl lying upon the ground who wept piteously to know what the bastards had been about.
Saints help her, how was she to defend herself without a knife or sword? Pulling hard on the reins, she made her horse rear with hooves pawing the air—which scattered the soldiers until she realized Cameron had ridden up beside her.
Everything happened so swiftly as he jumped to the ground and attacked the soldiers with his sword glinting in the torchlight, two of the men cut down before she had drawn a breath.
