“What’s that you say?” Colin pulled his mount closer to hers and tilted his head in her direction.
“Nothing,” she countered, maintaining the unspoken battle of wills between them this day.
He might have shaken his head at that; she couldn’t be sure, considering the plaid wrapped around him like a cocoon. She liked to think he had, anyway.
With no further word, he pulled his horse ahead of hers again, picking up the pace once more.
It had been this way between them all day long, the tension from last night’s unresolved conflict hanging over their journey as heavily as the gray skies above them. Had they said more than twenty words to each other all day? She very much doubted it. But it wouldn’t be she who broke down first. Colin was the one who needed to make amends, not her.
Hours passed, one blending into another in the silence of the gray rain. Abby’s mind had glazed over, as numb as her bottom by the time Colin dropped back beside her on the trail again.
“We’ll leave the road here. No too far through the woods there’s a place where we can seek shelter for the night. It’s long deserted but with nightfall approaching, it will offer some protection.”
Silence returned as they rode forward, weaving their way through forest and underbrush that looked as if it hadn’t been disturbed in years. Rain beat down on them, spattering against the woolen draped over Abby’s head. Each drop landed with a wet plopping noise that grated on her raw nerves. After what seemed an eternity, she opened her mouth to point out how very different her view ofnot too farmust be from Colin’s, but stopped when she saw the structures looming in the clearing ahead of them.
Surely those burned-out remains of what had once been someone’s home couldn’t be their destination, and yet Colin appeared to be slowing his horse.
“That’s it?”
She could hardly believe her eyes when he nodded his answer. How in the world did he expect them to stay dry in that place? It was little more than rubble and charred wood. Even the forest they’d ridden through would likely provide better shelter.
“It’s no the castle where we’ll stay for the night,” he called back to her as he dismounted and began to lead his horse forward on foot. “It’s the stable beyond that offers shelter.”
“Right.” Abby drew her own animal to a halt, her dismay multiplying. “I guess that would be theburned-downstable?” Did he not see the same thing she saw?
“There’s more of the building still standing than you might think.”
Through the murky light of dusk and gray drizzle, she finally spotted the area he intended. It looked like little more than a shed left standing, backed up against a large outcrop of rocks. Once she dismounted andapproached it, however, she could see that it was, as he had said, larger than it appeared. It likely had been a storage area for the original stable, carved deeply into the earth it backed up against.
She untied her wet bundle from the back of her mount and handed over her reins to Colin to allow him to see to the animal’s care. After a day spent in this relentless rain, she wanted only to be out of the wet, even if that meant nothing more than a cold hovel dug into the earth.
Thank goodness half of the front was open. If the whole wall still stood, she doubted she’d be able to remain inside, no matter that it was the only half-dry place around.
A fire pit made out of stacked stones sat near the opening, making it obvious even to her that she and Colin weren’t the first travelers to seek shelter here. It was equally obvious that no one had been here in a very long time, so this likely wasn’t some slightly off the trail well-known stop.
“This seems rather out of the way. How did you even know this place was here?” she asked as Colin joined her.
He stopped at the entrance to shake the rain droplets from the plaid he’d worn over his head and shoulders before he answered.
“The MacBrydes who lived here had ties to my own clan, the MacKiernans. My mother knew them from her childhood.” Colin disappeared into the far, dark corner, returning with an armload of wood and tossing it into the fire pit.
Abby leaned against the opening, peering out to study the remains of the once large castle. Suchdevastation set her imagination loose trying to picture what could have led to such ruin. There must have been large numbers of people here at one point in the past.
“What happened to them?”
“War, disease, breeding.” Colin grunted and coughed, scooting back from the smoke of their newly started fire. “Or lack of breeding, I should say. The last laird of the MacBrydes sired naught but female offspring and when his wife died, he went mad from grief and ended his own life. His only surviving daughter refused to take a husband and instead allowed the castle and its lands to fall into ruin. Gradually their people drifted away, aligning themselves with other clans. Time and any number of battles raging through here have left MacBryde Hall as you see it now.”
“I’ll give you this much: one thing you Scots never seem to lack for is a tragic story.”
“ ’Tis all too true,” Colin agreed, his eyes unfocused as he stared out into the ever-worsening rain. “Tragedy steals the dreams of even those who dinna deserve it.”
Flames licked upward from the fire he’d coaxed to life, like yellow arms wavering in a ghostly dance, spreading their heat with intensity.
Abby backed away, the heat so overwhelming after a couple of minutes, she was sure she could see the steam coming off her plaid. Only feet away from the fire, the chill hit her, seeping through the wet clothing she wore.
She unwound the woolen from her head and shoulders and draped it across the rails at one end of the shed. If she was lucky, it just might dry by morning.
To her surprise, the top of her shift and overdress where the plaid had covered her were only lightlydamp, though the skirts of both, along with her riding underpants, were completely soaked up to her thighs.
