Page 58 of The Widow Wore Plaid

“That way.” MacKenna pointed straight down the hillside, into a tightly packed thicket of brush that gave onto a sea of tall Scots pines.

“How do you know that?” Matthew didn’t doubt the hunt master, but he’d like to know his reasoning as well.

“They don’t have horses, so they had no need to go back by way of the falls. If they had, we would have seen them. As the crow flies, Castle Kinellan lies about two, two and a half miles straight that way. Lord Kinellan knows that as well as I do.” The Scotsman nodded toward the hillside. “No man is going to walk five miles when he could get to the same place in half that distance. If he’s walking home, he’s heading straight for Loch Kinellan. That way.”

“But if there’s no trail, how do we follow them?” Granger echoed the question in Matthew’s mind.

“We don’t. Not unless some of you want to follow them on foot. The horses can’t go that way.” MacKenna pointed to the trail they’d just followed to the lodge. “We’ll have to take the trail down, run parallel to them, then cut over when the path branches out toward Loch Kinellan.”

Matthew swung up onto Lucifer. “You heard him. About face.” The party turned their horses, MacKenna taking the lead again, and headed back down the trail.

Granger rode up beside Matthew, at the rear of the column, as they walked their horses under the dappled shade of the towering pines, his face an unhappy study. “I’m beginning to think we will be able to give no assistance at all to Kinellan and Jane.”

“As long as they end up safely back at the castle, I will consider this little jaunt a success even if we don’t see them at all until then.” Matthew sent up a prayer that it might be so.

“I agree. I just wish I didn’t feel quite so useless.” Granger sat up suddenly, his focus on the trees off to their left. “Is that . . . do you see something moving over there?”

Peering into the dense forest, Matthew at first didn’t see anything, until the crack of a tree limb brought his attention to a distant figure slipping from tree to tree. “I see . . . something. A man I think.”

“Is it Kinellan?” The question was whispered although the distant figure certainly could not hear their conversation.

“I confess I can’t tell.” Squinting didn’t even help Matthew because of the density of the trees. “But I will say, it’s a single person and Kinellan would have to be dead or dying to have left Jane.”

“Seton, then?”

“Most likely.”

Matthew pulled his rifle from its holster on his saddle and took aim. A long shot to say the least, but one could get lucky.

“Shall we warn the others?” Granger jerked his thumb at the line of searchers several yards ahead of them.

“I think not. Don’t want to scare him off now, do we?” He took aim, leading his target just a little, then squeezed the trigger with an even hand.

The boom of the weapon sent birds squawking into the air. The company halted and became a confused milling mass as MacKenna wheeled around and rode back to them. “What did you find, my lord?”

“Perhaps nothing.” Matthew jumped down as did MacKenna and stalked into the woods, ignoring the clinging vines and grasping brush. If he had done for Seton, Matthew would put it down as a job well done.

They reached the approximate area he’d shot into and they were rewarded by splashes of blood on the nearby ground and bushes, but no body.

“I’d say you winged him, my lord.” MacKenna nodded off into the tangled woodlands. “’Twon’t stop him, but it might slow him a bit. Give us time to make it to the loch before they do.”

Nodding, Matthew shook his head and turned back, feeling useless despite MacKenna’s words. As soon as they reached their horses, Matthew withdrew his ammunition pouch and reloaded his rifle. One never knew when a rifle or pistol would come in handy. Just because he’d missed this time didn’t mean he would miss the next. And until then, he aimed to be prepared.

* * *

The hot afternoon wore on interminably until the burden of putting one foot in front of the other almost became too great for Gareth. Not only the heat, but the pain in his shoulder had grown worse with every step. Back at the lodge he’d seemed to have the fortitude to face an army single-handed. Now that false strength had drained away, leaving him weak and weary. They would have to stop soon and he feared once he sat down to rest, he might never rise again.

Jane had been a true blessing, not only acting as his crutch when he couldn’t navigate through the dense brush, but also talking to him, keeping his spirits up throughout the grueling trek. Hell, throughout this entire ordeal, she’d been the reason he’d been able to endure. Without her, he’d likely be dead, either on the lodge lawn or somewhere inside it. She’d tenaciously forced him to cling to life, through her dressing of his wounds and the administration of the willow tea. Without that, he’d never have lasted this long. Now he was trudging forward more from her dint of will than his. Perhaps enough was enough.

“Jane, I need to rest at least a little. Can we stop for a few moments?” He hated to plead like a weakling—except that’s what he was now. If not for his wound they would have arrived at Castle Kinellan already. As it was, they were scarcely halfway to Loch Kinellan.

“Of course, my love.” She shifted him more fully onto her shoulders and stopped to look around. “Where can we sit?”

“That will do.” He nodded to a fallen log, big enough so it shouldn’t tax him too much to get back up.

They hobbled over to it and she undraped his arm from around her and helped lower him to the tree trunk. The relief of not moving, of not having every blasted step jar his wounded shoulder, was so great the dim light began to waver before his eyes. No, he couldn’t faint. Jane would wave the awful smelling salts beneath his nose again and the stuff was vile. Instead, he concentrated on breathing and resting every throbbing part of his body.

Jane plopped onto the log beside him. With a deep sigh, she lightly rested her head on his good shoulder. “Never in my life have I been as tired as I am this minute.” Her shoulders slumped and she stretched her legs out, her dusty half-boots scuffed and torn where she’d tripped on an exposed tree root and taken a spill. “I think I am officially retiring all hope of being rescued by Matthew. The others have obviously not been able to ascertain where we were taking Cook’s picnic lunch.” She licked her dry lips and swallowed with difficulty. “What I wouldn’t give for that bucket of water right now. Or one of Cook’s pork pies.”