Page 62 of A Dangerous Highland Affair

All the diners had since dispersed. The cottage, which belonged to Robbie, was being used as an unofficial headquarters for Neacal and his band.

Robbie shot Neacal a look, betraying his uncertainty -not helping the situation.

Pressing his point home, Neacal added. “I’ve…we’ve got to be more careful, especially with these,” he produced a fistful of posters gathered from around the village. “These, I’ve counted four o’ them already. All wi’ our faces on them… an’ that’s in a small place like this!”

Neacal’s face began to steam up, his cheeks reddening as he spoke. “I mean, for a start, it means the lairds men have been all over here… an’, I’m nae sure it’s safe enough…”

“It’s the best place we’ve found. It’s safe for now, and I always keep a lookout on the place,” Robbie assured him.

But Neacal wasn’t convinced.

“Listen,” he said, finally belting his plaid tightly and checking that his black sgian dubh was still intact. “I’m going to try an’ remove as many o’ these posters as I can. An’ I advise ye to do the same, in the meantime, get a hold o’ Ruaidhrí an’ ask him what’s going on. I’ve got work to do…”

And with that, Neacal pushed his way through the room and out the door, without another word.

The cold morning air rushed past his face as he raced to mount his horse. Then, he stopped. Looking around outside the cottage for the horse, it hit him. It had gone and Teasag with it.

Despondently, Neacal sighed. He scratched his head and looked about, but deep inside, he could already feel his heart plummeting.

It wasn’t really about the horse—that had never been his in the first place. And it didn’t take him too long to find a replacement, lent to him by one of the gang from the dinner last night.

No, as Neacal mounted the jet-black stallion and picked up the reins to go, the reason for his sudden slump was the thought of Teasag.

She was gone, and he had no idea where to find her. And although, as he brought the black stallion to a trot, he should have been concentrating on his own dire situation—like the fact that Marcas’s men had so nearly captured him last night– the only thing he could think about was her.

He hadn’t told any of the others about why she had taken off like that—not wanting to alarm them with her reaction. Part of him feared what they might have done to try and stop her going.

The look on Teasag’s face as she had ridden off would live with him forever; mistrust and fear, all combined into one. Worse still, she had looked so genuinely disappointed that he’d wanted to weep.

No-one had ever done that before. Then again, no-one had ever been close enough to matter before.

Really, he should be worrying about what she might do; from the look on her face, he couldn’t rule out her informing on him and bringing Marcas’s men back to their door.

Neacal frowned as he rode on through the steely gray landscape, only gradually beginning to invigorate with the slow tips of dawn. It came as some surprise to realize that he really didn’t care about whether she ran to the authorities, at least, not so much as it should do.

The only thing he really wanted to do was to see her again.

A face.

From deep in her thoughts, Teasag gave a start.

She had been lost in contemplation, sketching by a small lake close to the thieves’ village she had visited yesterday.

However, when she had checked in there earlier, Neacal had already gone, and now she was left, with time to kill and no particular place to go.

To try and make sense of her thoughts, she had decided to stop in the middle of the open lea, and draw the spectacularly beautiful scene. It was supposed to calm her down, but all it had done was bring up more problems than it solved.

And just when she was about to get up and leave, something had stopped her.

A figure had appeared, slim and muscular, sporting a crop of chestnut brown hair, which billowed about in the breeze.

For a moment, Teasag had thought it was Neacal, but the wind shook that thought from her mind. The person’s hair blew back to reveal a delicate heart-shaped face, with shining gray eyes, which glowered even from across the glen.

Teasag’s heart gave a jump. It was a woman, and she was looking straight at her, with the demeanor of a wildcat about to pounce.

Almost instantly, Teasag recoiled, leaping back into the bushes where she had been sketching. Although part of her felt the instinct to pick up her charcoals and start drawing—there was something weirdly compelling about the woman’s face. Her eyes were some of the most intense Teasag had ever seen.

But she didn’t. Instead, she just froze, hovering in the undergrowth, hoping that she hadn’t been seen.