Page 42 of It’s in his Highland Kiss

Now, though the fabrics she was putting on smelled oddly of old potatoes and were making her itchy, she could at least breathe and move as she pleased. Even the bandage that she had wrapped around her chest to reduce the appearance of her breasts wasn’t as constricting as her corsets.

Marion looked at herself in a small mirror that stood at the far end of the room. She gathered her dark hair, her fingers smoothing it all down carefully, and wrapped it around the back of her head, before she put on the hat that she had found, hiding her mane under it.

She could pass for a boy, she thought, as she stared at her reflection. A particularly effeminate boy, but a boy, nevertheless.

Satisfied, Marion opened the door carefully once more, looking left and right at both sides of the corridor before she slipped out unnoticed. She didn’t really have a plan other than sneaking out of the castle and doing anything she could to find Eiric, but first, she would need a horse and a sword.

A real sword.

She had no delusions that she wouldn’t be recognised if Adaria or one of the people that knew her well saw her, and so she remained vigilant, trying to look as inconspicuous as she could while making her way to the training area in the castle grounds, where she expected to find a sword. As she passed by the kitchen, she saw an empty crate and seized the opportunity, grabbing it and carrying it with her as she walked through the courtyard.

“No one will stop ye if ye look busy and like ye belong,” Eiric had told her during one of their lessons, and Marion had always listened.

And no one stopped her, indeed. She made it to the training grounds without a hitch, and she grabbed the lightest sword she could find, after making sure that it was sharp. Tying the sheath around her waist, she made her way to the stables and was once again unnoticed. Even the stable boy was too busy to question her about why she was taking a horse, perhaps assuming that one of the noblemen had asked for it.

Marion sneaked out of the castle grounds from the back, where the walls were less guarded, the men who stood there too busy talking to each other and drinking smuggled wine to notice her. No one was expecting an attack, after all. They had no reason to worry or to stand guard.

Once she was out of the castle grounds, she breathed out a sigh of relief. She had made it that far. Who was to say that she wouldn’t make it to Eiric?

I’ll bring him back even if I have to fight an entire army.

Marion rode into the woods, loosely following the path that Eiric would have taken earlier that morning. While she rode, she looked for signs of his presence or that of the men who had taken him, her gaze glued to the ground.

It had been foolish for him to leave all alone, Marion thought, even though she knew that he had done the very same thing several times in the past and had never faced any danger. He should have taken Edan with him, at least, if not an entire entourage of men to support him.

Anything to ensure his safety.

But berating Eiric in her mind would do nothing to help Marion. She had to focus on the task at hand. She had to find him.

Marion soon saw the tracks that Eiric had left while riding his horse. The trail that he had left was easy to trace, even though Marion would get confused every now and then when there were other trails over and under it. Most of them were older, though, as far as she could tell, while those that were fresher seemed to belong to different animals than horses. She could see that a fox had gone through there, and so had other small animals, but no other horses ever since he had travelled that very path.

Then, she saw his tracks stop, and others take its place. There were several pairs of footprints there, more than she could count, and she knew that they must have belonged to the men who had taken him.

Their trail was leading her deep into the woods, too deep for comfort. She had never ventured so far out in the wilderness, so far away from the castle, and she was all alone, with nothing but her horse and her sword. She didn’t know how many men she would be up against once she found Eiric, and the last thing that she wanted was to be captured by them.

Then again, perhaps they would take pity on her. She was English, after all, or at least sounded like one, and she could easily sell them a story about how she had been taken to Scotland against her will if that was what they wanted to hear and if it would get her and Eiric out of there.

I have nothing to worry about. I know what I’m doing.

It was the first time that she would be fighting an enemy who wanted to kill her, the first time that it wouldn’t be practice. There would be no fake deaths, only real ones, and no matter how much Marion tried to prepare herself for it, she doubted that she could.

Perhaps she would have to take a life that day. Perhaps she would lose her own. Either way, it was nothing for which she could prepare herself.

It didn’t take her long to find what she was looking for. The English had set up camp in the woods, and Marion could see the smoke from their fire before she got too close.

With a determined sigh, she jumped off her horse and tied it to a nearby tree, before she approached the camp carefully on foot. She looked at her surroundings meticulously, wondering if there were some guards hidden among the bushes and the trees, but she got close to their camp with no issue.

They were cocky, she realised. They didn’t think that anyone would come looking for Eiric, or they simply weren’t worried about it. Perhaps they thought that they could defeat anyone that dared come near.

But so was she. The decision to go into the woods after Eiric had been a cocky one, and one that she had made without thinking clearly. Now that she was there, she could feel her skin becoming drenched with sweat. Her legs trembled and threatened to topple her over. Her heart sent bursts of blood to her head, leaving her dizzy.

She could hardly breathe, but she knew what it was: panic. Panic was a worse enemy than the British. It was panic that clouded her judgement, and it was panic that made it even harder for her to concentrate and try to find a way out of the dire situation in which she had put herself.

Marion took a deep breath. It did her no good, thinking about the number of men and swords in that camp. It did her no good, pondering a plan that she didn’t even have.

It did her no good, wondering if Eiric was still alive or if the entire thing was in vain. Even if there was a slim chance that he was still breathing, she had to help him.

He would do the same thing for her.