Your EC
Chapter 17
The moment he capitulated like a lovelorn swain, she rewarded him by throwing her arms about his neck. “You won’t regret it. I promise. I’ll make sure that you won’t.” She was all happy anticipation. “Nicnevin should be able to carry us both if we keep to a fairly sedate walk.”
As he couldn’t do much more than walk himself, this seemed like a more than sensible idea. “Excellent.”
He watched with something more particular than admiration as she untethered her mare and took up the reins and hoped up into the sidesaddle without waiting or asking for him to leg her up. Competence—that’s what she was, all able, graceful competence, completely at home on the animal.
“Nicnevin. Queen of the Fairies. She’s a grand horse.”
“Aye. That’s another thing remembered.” Greer’s smile gleamed. “And she is grand, isn’t she, though she’s nothing so magnificent or celebrated as Cat Sìth.”
“Cat Sìth?” The name set off that familiar feeling of awareness, but nothing more. “The mountain panther that was said to prowl the Highlands?”
“Aye. You’ve remembered the folklore, anyway,” she answered, watching him closely, as if she expected the name to mean something more to him. But when it didn’t, she simply urged the well-bred mare next to the stone bench, so he could slide onto the animal’s back without over-testing his strength or risking his dignity.
Still he hesitated to throw his leg over the mare’s back—what if he did not know how to ride? What if he had never ridden a horse a day in his life?
“Ewan?” She offered her arm. “Ready? Or are you remembering something else?”
“Nay.” But he supposed he was ready as he would ever be to leave the only place he knew as home and go out into the world to face his past. And his future.
He bade Gent to stay, took his misgivings in hand, accepted the arm she offered him. He made the made the most of the situation by wrapping his arms tight around her trim waist, and snugging himself up to her back, close and comfortable. Because it was a long way to the ground, and the unpredictable vertiginous feeling he could keep at bay with his two feet on the ground was bound to swell up any moment.
Best to hold on tight. And inhale the soft scent of her hair. And enjoy the physical intimacy the long ride would afford him. “Gie it laldy” he said, more for his own benefit that hers. Let her think him amorous rather than afeared.
And frankly he was amorous and growing more so with every sway of the horse that brought her sweetly rounded bottom in contact with his groin.
And she wasn’t indifferent—she slowly relaxed back against his chest as they went along, even as she was her usual, curious, confident self. “Why did Dewar tell you not to leave the glen, do you think?”
His misgivings returned as he searched for how much of an answer to settle upon. “He said I needed to remember more about myself before I should venture out.”
“I should think the venturing out might help you remember.”
Her opinion jibed so exactly with his that he began to feel foolish for having allowed Dewar’s fears to dominate him. “It already has helped,” he assured her.
“Just so.” She smiled at him over her shoulder. Her confidence gave him courage, and her kindness gave him hope, although her warmth gave him something altogether earthier—his attraction to her was a physical thing that made the blood leave his brain and depart for climes further south.
He relaxed into the rhythm of the animal swaying beneath them and began to enjoy the day—the beauty of the canopy of trees arching above.
The image of another tree-lined lane through a forest, with a grey stone bridge seen ahead over his horse’s ears, slid into his mind’s eye. He could see riding himself, alone, atop his own mount with his feet in the stirrups and his hands on the reins. “May I?”
“Of course,” she answered, sliding her fingers back to give him control. “Her mouth is very soft,” she instructed, referring to the mare. “Quiet hands on the reins.”
A soft mouth. A firm but gentle touch.
He had to lash his wayward thoughts firmly into place, and concentrate on the job at hand, not on innuendo. But he knew without concentration—his hands knew what to do without any interference from his brain. And it felt…good. He felt in control—in control of the animal, and of his own fate—for the first time in a long time.
“Hold tight.” With his heels and his legs, he urged the mare into an easy, controlled canter along a flat in the path.
His lass immediately wove her hands into the horse’s mane, and leaned forward, giving him room to do the same. As the mare was bearing their weight easily, he wrapped a strong arm around Greer’s waist, and urged the animal into a gallop.
They streaked down the path like thunder, the animal’s blazing turn of speed eating up the distance. Excitement pounded through his veins with every step, every smooth gait forward.
He let out a great hoot of delight at the thrill of it all—at the speed, and control. At the joy of remembering. At the sublime feel of his lass in his arms. It all felt so right.
And Greer was right, too—venturing out was good for him. And it was fun.
He used to have fun all the time—with Alasdair. The image of a laughing, red-haired man with a wicked, slow smile swam out of his memory. His friend, Alasdair.
He kissed Greer’s neck, and drew the mare back to a walk before the path narrowed and became steeper.
“Gracious,” Greer said. “I don’t think Nicnevin has ever led such a charge.” She gave her beloved animal a reassuring pat on the neck. “Well done, old thing.”
The phrase rang in his head like the kirk bell echoing in the distance ahead. “Well done, old man,” in a low, droll man’s voice—a man who wasn’t Dewar or the doctor, the only two voices he could now remember.
Alasdair. Concentrate, Ewan, concentrate, old man. He could almost hear Alasdair exhorting him.
But that couldn’t be right—Ewan was just the name she had gifted him. It couldn’t be his real name.
He was disconcerted enough to give over the reins to Greer, who halted the mare at the gate marking the boundary of Crieff land. “There it is—Crieff village.”
The wee village was situated on the banks of a wide river that wound down the seam of the glen. After the silence and vast openness of the moor, the town was a revelation. The buildings were pressed one against the other like stones in a wall, with a dirt street snaking through the middle. He could see people—a seeming swarm of them—moving about, moving like bees darting from one wildflower to the next. He could hear a cacophony of sounds—dogs and people and rolling drays, hammering and shouts and laughter.
But images were starting to fly fast into his head as well—a farrier, sweat-soaked and sooty from his forge, laughing into his beard. A merchant’s wife smiling and beckoning him into her shop. A well at a crossroads, busy with horses being watered and women filling buckets for their washing. He could see himself, riding down the middle of that street. Meeting a man in black robes—a priest. “The kirk is on the left.” Tucked up against the hillside.
“Aye,” she answered. “Over there.” She pointed to a square stone bell tower rising through the trees to the southeast. “Saint Columba’s. You remember.”
“Some.” He was still hesitant—the memory that swam into his brain didn’t jibe with the fairly large kirk below. His fresh remembrance was of a smaller interior, with a blazing swath of color—a stained glass window at the altar end. And another, different room with a long table, with men seated about—a magistrates’ council.
Too many images to catalogue at once or make sense.
His arm tightened about Greer’s waist.
She understood without being told. “Perhaps we should go by the kirk first?”
“Aye,” he finally agreed, though his body was so tense his hands had knotted into fists against her skirts. A Christian kirk couldn’t be dangerous. A vicar wouldn’t kic
k a man in the head and leave him to die.
“Ewan?” She put her hand over his in reassurance. “It will all come right. I promise. We can stop or turn back whenever you want. You have but to say the word.”
He wanted to thank her. To assure her that he was fine. That his palms were not growing slick, and blood was not pounding in his ears as if he were about to take one of Archie’s dares.
His breath stopped up in his chest. Archie, another of his greatest friends. Alasdair and Archie, and…someone else.
He closed his eyes to concentrate, to take a deep breath into his lungs, but his nose filled with the distracting aroma of baking bread. “The baker is on the corner.”
“Aye.” Her enthusiasm was more carefully muted—respectful of his wariness. “You have been here before.” She smiled at him in that encouragingly kind manner that made him want to do anything rather than disappoint her.
And if he did not find the courage to face his past now, when would he? Though every fiber of his body was tense with unease, he nodded her on. “Aye. Let’s gang on with it.”
Greer urged the mare through the gate and down the slight incline to where the fields gave way to muddy street. She chose the way past the back of an inn yard, which opened to the lane.
“Oh, sar!” A young ostler leading two horses had stepped out into the lane in front of them. “Good to see ye. I feared the worst, sar, when the horse come back riderless—”
“You know me?” He clearly spoke with more heat than he intended, for the ostler drew instantly back.
“Nay, sar. I wouldn’t presume—just concerned, was all. Yer pardon, sar.” The ostler knuckled his forehead and drew back to let them pass.
Sir. The ostler called him sir, though he was dressed as simply as the ostler was, in a linen shirt, leather jerkin, and sturdy breeks.
“It’s quite all right.” Greer dismounted and hastened to reassure the lad. “We’re only seeking information. Do you recognize my friend?”
“Aye. I thought so.”
Ewan tensed, ready to absorb the blow, filled with a sudden dread that he was about find out something he didn’t want to know—something he didn’t want her to know about him.
“Or thought I recognized ’im, was all, mileddy,” the ostler hedged. “Didn’t mean tae interfere.”
“Not at all,” Lady Greer assured him, all cheerful confidence. “You work at this inn?”
“Nay, mileddy. At the Inn at Bridge of Shee.”
There it was in his mind’s eye—the narrow stone bridge, arching over the dark river flowing below. He could almost feel the icy cold slide of the water across his skin.
“Heading back there now, mileddy,” the lad was saying. “Fetching carriage horses back.”
“Oh, aye, of course,” Greer encouraged. “We’ve often stopped at your inn—it lies at the crossroads that leads in one direction west toward Crieff, and in the other north toward Dalshee,” she explained to Ewan before turning back to the ostler. “But you saw my friend there, perhaps?”
“Weel,” the lad hedged. “Thought as ’ee had come through there on a grand mount heading south, some while back. Might not remember him so much as the horse—warm-blood, big-chested stallion, black with a white star on his chest.” The ostler’s enthusiasm was professional—all for the horse. “Grand looker of an animal.”
He could instantly conjure an image of such a beast—tall, seventeen hands, a hundred odd stone. A magnificent animal with the sweetest, easiest disposition, like a fairy creature. Black with a white blaze across its chest like the legendary black cat that prowled the Scottish Highlands.
Cat Sìth—the name cracked across his mind like a gunshot in the glen.
“Thought ’is lordship,” the young fellow went on, “were his rider, though I can’t be sure.” The lad gave him a quick once-over, taking in his simple wool breeks and leather jerkin—working man’s attire. “But the horse come back tae the innyard riderless, few days later. Landlord bid us keep ’im while ’ee asked round. Valuable animal, that. Well trained, easy disposition.”
They had to all move aside as a carriage rumbled out of the inn yard and past them up the lane.
“His lordship?” Greer’s voice was higher, and sharp, impatient at the delay. “Was riding that memorable, particular horse?”
“Aye, thought so.” The ostler nodded again, shifting his glance between them. “Remember a big mon, well set up, riding that powerful big horse. Generous, ’ee were—tipped me a vail. Dismounted and asked me tae water the beast. Those were his words—‘Water the wee beastie, there’s a good lad.’ The innkeeper, ’ee come out tae greet him. ‘Milord,’ ’ee said, and bid him take his ease. But ’ee asked only that landlord fetch him out an ale to drink to his health, as ’ee were sore anxious to get tae Edinburgh. Smiling ’ee was. Said as ’ee were getting married. Tossed me a sovereign when I wished him happy.”
“Oh, aye?” Her voice rose on a rush of breath. “Married?”
Ewan was as stunned as if he had had the wind knocked out of him—breathing became suddenly impossible. He searched his brain frantically for some image—a face, a name—to form in his mind at such a revelation.
But nothing came—his brain stayed stubbornly blank.
How could he not remember such a thing? There might be a woman out there, somewhere, worrying and wondering what had happened to him. Yet he had no recollection of her.
It was hell not to know, not to understand who and what he was.
It bothered Greer, too—she was practically shaking with some tense emotion. “That seems generous. So he was a man of some money?”
“Aye,” the ostler ducked his head respectfully. “Ye don’t forget a mon generous wi’ money and a horse like that, mileddy.”
“No, you don’t,” Greer agreed, though she looked more and more in the grips of some strong emotion—her color was high and she had to grip her hands in her skirts to stop them from shaking.
What was wrong?
He forced himself to take part, to try and make sense of it—to find some other fact to spur a memory. “When did the horse come back riderless, exactly?”
The ostler scratched his head. “Must be nigh a month now, sar.”
“That was when we found you on the road.” Greer reached up to him, as if in appeal, her eyes round with revelation.
“Aye.” He dismounted to take her hand and feel her trembling intent. “I could have fallen.” Perhaps he had been unseated from his mount and fallen into a ditch after all, instead of being beaten to within an inch of his life.
And yet he could not make himself believe it. “What happened to the horse?”
“Kept him only a few hours, sar, afore someone came fae the beastie.”
His wee beastie. His Cat Sìth. His blood began to pound in his ears again—the image of those bloody boots, sheathing a dirk that was just out of reach, slid back into his brain like a blade. Dewar’s warning rang like a peal in his head—There are people out there who want to hurt ye. “Who?”
“Don’t rightly ken,” the lad was saying. “I was across the yard, helping the farrier that afternoon.”
Bitter disappointment that the horse was gone, and relief that the animal—his magnificent animal—was cared for, made a sour brine in his belly. “Was the horse marked in any way? Was there any blood?” Head wounds were notoriously bloody—Dewar had said that Lady Greer’s skirts had been dirtied with his life blood.
“Nay, sir. But lathered ’ee were—spooked like. And the rein broken like ’ee'd stepped on it loose.”
“Nothing in the saddle bags?”
“Don’t reckon there were any, sar. But now I do think on it, I reckon I saw yer saddle at the start, but when t’horse come back, there weren’t no saddle.” The lad shook his head, as if unsure of his recollection.
That made two of them. “How far is this Inn at the Bridge of Shee?” he asked, though he felt a prat for not knowing how to get to a place he was supposed to have been.
The ostler frowned at him—clearly doubting if he were the man he remembered.
“Six and thirty miles, sir. On t’other side of the moor, at the top o’ the strath.”
Too far to go now, riding double on Greer’s mare. Too far to go alone, not knowing the way. Not knowing what dangers might be lurking. And not just for him. If he enlisted the lass’s help—and he knew no one else he might ask—he might be leading her into danger.
“Thank you,” Greer said to the ostler as she fished a wee coin out of her pocket. “You’ve been most helpful. I’m sorry I can’t be so generous as to give you a sovereign, but we thank you for your help.”
“Welcome at that, mileddy.” The lad took the coin with a polite knuckle to his brow. “Happy tae help ye, sar.”
“Thank you,” he added, though he had more questions than answers.
When the ostler was safely down the lane, out of ear shot, Greer gripped his arm. “Oh, Ewan,” Her face shone with pleasure. “Do you not see?”
“Aye. We’ll have to go there, to this inn—at least I will.”
“Nay. Does none of it make awful sense? Does none of what he said make you remember?”
“Aye, some.” But she was fairly shaking herself apart at the seams with whatever it was she had made of the information. “What is it?”
She lowered her voice to a trembling whisper. “I think I know who you are.”
“Who?” The weight of possibility squeezed his chest like a binding.
She took his hand and pulled him back down the lane the way they had come, away from any prying eyes or ears. And still she whispered. “I think you’re Ewan Cameron, Duke of Crieff.”
Dewar’s words rang in his head—Yer Crieff. But the Duke of Crieff? Surely he would have remembered that? Surely he would have some residual understanding of what a duke did, or what he had to know, or who depended upon him?
It was impossible.
MAD, BAD & DANGEROUS TO MARRY (The Highland Brides Book 4) Page 16