Amanda Scott - [Border Trilogy Two 02]

by Border Lass

  Desperation had kept her going, and for a wonder, the water had pushed her skirts up nearly to her hips, enough for them to resist wrapping themselves around her legs. She was tiring fast, though, and knew she could not go on indefinitely.

  She had to find something that would float, to cling to.

  She could barely manage to watch where she was going, but she knew they were rapidly approaching the river bend. Without conscious effort, because of the way she held the child and because she faced the south bank of the river, she had drawn closer to it—close enough to see boulders poking their heads up out of the water. The closer she drifted, the likelier it was that they would collide with one.

  Much as she wanted to feel firm ground beneath her again, she wondered if letting the river drive them into a boulder might not kill them both.

  Telling herself sternly that such a collision was more likely to injure them than kill them, and that injury would be better than drowning, she tried to judge how safely she could ease them closer yet. Only then did she remember the log.

  Most debris in the water consisted of branches, twigs, and other such useless stuff, none of it large enough to provide support for both of them. But, if she could grab the log, they could at least gain a respite. They might even manage to pull themselves out of the water if the log lay near enough to the shore.

  She had no doubt that she would have managed the feat easily by herself, but her fierce grip on the child made everything else awkward, and exhausting. Other than telling the little one to kick and muttering as much encouragement as she could while fighting just to swim and breathe, she had had barely spoken.

  The child, too, was using what energy it had to kick and Sibylla knew she dared not waste her own energy lest she need it later.

  As a result, she did not even know yet which sex the child was.

  It seemed to be wearing thin breeks rather than a skirt, but its fragile bone structure seemed feminine, as did its willingness to obey her. Despite the attempt to climb onto her after she fell in, one stern command to kick hard and look for something they could grab that would help them stay afloat had been enough.

  That simple trust in her made Sibylla determined not to give up.

  Nevertheless, she had no illusions. She had to work her way nearer the shore to have any chance at all.

  When a break in the trees showed Simon he was a little ahead of the victims, he shouted at Hodge to stay near the river so he’d be at hand if they somehow managed to make it to shore before the river swept them around the bend. Then he turned his horse to cross the open field and get well ahead of them beyond the bend.

  He had ridden only a short way, however, when a shrill whistle made him look back to see Hodge waving frantically. As Simon wheeled his mount, he saw Hodge dismount and disappear into the shrubbery.

  Simon put his horse to its fastest pace, wrenched it to a halt near Hodge’s beast, and flung himself from the saddle. Following Hodge’s footprints through the shrubbery to the riverbank, he saw the big shaggy-haired Borderer trying to step onto a half-submerged log with myriad dead branches still appended to it.

  Seeing the sodden, bedraggled woman clinging to one of those branches and the child clinging to the woman, Simon shouted, “Take care, Hodge, or you’ll be in the river with them.”

  “I’ll no be going aboard it, m’lord,” Hodge said. “The blessed thing be so unstable I’m afeard me weight will dislodge it from whatever’s keeping it near.”

  “Will it take my weight?” Simon asked as he drew near enough to see for himself that the log was anything but stable. It rocked like a ship at sea.

  “I’m thinking I could hold it steady enough for ye,” Hodge said. “Like as not, though, ye’ll get a dousing.”

  “I won’t fall in,” Simon said, noting that the woman had not spoken or even tried to push away the heavy strands of muddy hair that obscured most of her face.

  She was shivering, clearly using what little was left of her energy just to hang on. The child, too, looked spent, but although its arms were around the woman’s neck, it seemed to have enough sense left not to choke her.

  He moved up beside Hodge, who was holding a stout branch. The log looked like the upper part of a good sized tree, but the length of it was not near enough to the shore for him to step onto it. He’d have to make a leap, and the damnable thing was bound to be slippery, but if anyone could hold it steady, Hodge could.

  “Mistress, pay heed to me,” Simon said as he shrugged off his cloak and draped it over a nearby shrub. “I am going to step onto that log whilst my man here holds it steady. When I do, I’ll take the lad from you first. Then we’ll have to decide the best way to get you out safely. Can you hang on a while longer?”

  “I shall have to, shall I not?” she murmured, still not looking at him.

  “Have faith,” he said more gently. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Hold fast now, Hodge. Don’t let the damnable thing get away from you when I jump.”

  “I’ve got it, sir.”

  The woman looked up then, her eyes widening as Simon set himself to jump. He saw that they were grayish brown, almost matching the muddy water. Her plaits and the loose strands that concealed so much of her face were a similar color, soaked through as they were. Her lips were nearly blue. Despite her bedraggled appearance, though, she seemed vaguely familiar.

  He wondered if she was the children’s mother and perhaps a woman from one of the estates near Elishaw.

  With no more time to think of aught but getting safely onto the log, he put a hand lightly on a sturdy branch, fixed his gaze on the flattish place he’d picked as the best spot to land, and jumped.

  The log was indeed slippery, but he kept his balance by grabbing a strong-looking, upright branch. Holding on to it with his left hand, he bent toward the child, saying, “Reach a hand to me, lad, so I can pull you out.”

  The child shook its head, clinging tighter to the woman.

  “Come now, don’t be foolish!” Simon said curtly. “Give me your hand.”

  “Obey him,” the woman said quietly. “He will not hurt you or let you fall.”

  “Them others tried to hurt us,” the child said, teeth chattering. “Sithee, they said they was just drowning puppies. But them puppies was us!”

  “His lordship only wants to help us now,” the woman said as calmly as before. “I’m very cold, and I know that you are, too. We must get warm.”

  “Come, lad,” Simon said, forcing the same calm firmness into his own voice.

  “Me name’s Kit,” the little one said. “And I’m no a lad.”

  Stifling his shock that anyone would throw a wee lassock like the one before him into a river to drown, Simon said in a gentler tone, “Come now, reach up to me, lassie, so I can have you out of there and help the kind woman who rescued you. You do not want her to freeze solid like a block of ice, do you?”

  Biting a colorless lower lip, Kit obeyed him, and as he grasped her arm, he reminded himself to be gentle. As stick-thin as she was, he feared her arm might snap in a too-hard grip.

  Balancing himself and trusting Hodge to keep the log as still as possible, he braced a knee against the upright branch and squatted, using both hands to lift the child. Despite her sodden state, she seemed feather light to him.

  “There now,” he said as he held her close. “Not so bad to be out, is it?”

  She was silent, staring over his shoulder at the larger man beyond him.

  “That’s Hodge Law,” he said. “He only looks like a bear. He’ll be gey gentle with you. I’m going to turn now and hand you across to him.”

  “I’ve me cloak ready for her, m’lord,” Hodge said, reaching to take the child as Simon leaned out as far as he could and handed her to him.

  Turning back to the woman, Simon saw that she had already begun to ease her way to the end of the log. “Be gey careful, mistress,” he warned. “That current is still strong and deadly.”

  “You need not tell me that, s
ir,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I have been its captive for what seems like hours now.”

  “Not as long as that,” he replied mildly. “I saw you fall in, and I warrant you were in no longer than five minutes, mayhap ten by now.”

  She gave him a sour look, and the sense of familiarity strengthened, but he had been wrong about her being from a tenant family. Her manner of speech indicated a considerably higher birth. In any event, he wanted her out of the water.

  Hodge was trying to shift wee Kit under his own cloak without letting go of the log, and Simon realized they had no idea how long the child had been in the water before they’d heard her scream.

  The log tipped precariously, and he heard the woman gasp.

  “I’m coming off, Hodge. I’ll hold the log now whilst you wrap that bairn up well. As thin as she is, it will be astonishing if she does not sicken from this.”

  “Aye, sir,” Hodge said, firming his grip on the branch he held until Simon was ashore, then relinquishing it to give his full attention to warming the child.

  That they had not seen the second child float by gave Simon hope that his lads had successfully plucked it from the water. It occurred to him that although Kit had said “us,” revealing that the villains had thrown someone other than herself in, she did not seem concerned about the fate of her erstwhile companion.

  With these thoughts teasing his mind, he kept his eyes on the woman, but she was managing deftly now that she no longer had to worry about Kit.

  Fortunately, the area where the log had snagged formed a shallow inlet of sorts, where the current seemed less fiercely determined to carry away everything in its path. When she had made her way round the end of the log, Simon released it and stretched out a hand to help her out of the water.

  Her exit was anything but graceful, because she had lost her shoes, the bank was nearly vertical there, and she had trouble managing her sodden skirts to avoid tripping on them. How she had swum in them, he could not imagine.

  By the time he got her out, Hodge had wee Kit swaddled tight in his voluminous cloak and held Simon’s cloak ready in his free hand.

  Taking it from him, Simon wrapped it around the woman, pulling the fur-lined hood up to cover her head as he said, “The sooner we get you to a fire and see you both well warmed, mistress, the less likely you are to—”

  He broke off in consternation as she gave him a bewildered look, turned sheet white, and fainted. Had he not been tying the strings of the cloak, she’d have fallen flat. As it was, he barely caught her before she hit the ground.

  “Sakes, m’lord,” Hodge said. “What are we to do now?”

  Simon did not reply. He was staring at the woman in his arms.

  As he’d caught her, he had scooped her up into his arms so abruptly that the hood had slipped off again and the strands of loose hair that had hidden her face fell away as well, giving him a clearer view of her than he had had before.

  He’d only met her two or three times before, but he recognized her easily.

  “Ye look as if ye’d seen a boggart, m’lord. D’ye ken the lass then?”

  “Aye,” Simon said curtly, glancing at him.

  Hodge raised an eyebrow, clearly expecting further information, but Simon said no more, striding off with her toward the horses instead.

  He was hardly going to tell Hodge Law, when even his own family did not know, that just over four years before he had nearly married the woman.

  Becoming slowly aware of hoofbeats and motion, Sibylla realized she was on horseback and that someone was holding her. The hardened, muscular body behind her held her securely and moved easily with the animal he rode.

  She had no doubt who it was.

  Perhaps this will teach you, the next time you try to drown yourself, to do a better job of it, she told herself with a touch of amusement—doubtless born of exhaustion or perhaps incipient hysteria.

  Of all the people who might have rescued her, it had to be the one man who had fiercely warned her, after she had thoroughly humiliated him, that he would someday see to it that she got her just deserts. To be sure, they had met several times in the meantime, but always in company. He had treated her with chilly civility, and she had taken good care never to find herself alone with him.

  Forcing herself to stay relaxed so he would not know she had regained consciousness, she peeked through her lashes, hoping to see where they were and be able to judge how far they were from Sweethope Hill House.

  But the hood of the thick woolen cloak that enwrapped her covered most of her face, so she could not see enough of the passing landscape to do her any good.

  She was warm, though, warmer than by rights she ought to be after her freezing experience in the Tweed. Certainly, the cloak was not her own, though, because the river had swept hers away, doubtless forever. And her other garments—warm or not—must still be wet, because surely, she would have wakened had anyone tried to strip her clothing from her.

  Still, the hood’s fur lining was soft against her cheek, the smooth, loping gait of the horse was soothing, and whatever Simon Murray had threatened years ago, she knew he would keep her safe . . . until he could safely murder her.

  THE DISH

  Where authors give you the inside scoop!

  From the desk of Amanda Scott

  Dear Reader,

  An incident during the Lake Tahoe fire of June 2007 proved to me once again that ideas come to a writer from unexpected sources of every imaginable kind.

  BORDER LASS (on sale now) was outlined and its teaser chapter written when I decided, because of the way that first chapter brings together the hero and the heroine—Sir Garth Napier (a Scottish knight) and Lady Amalie Murray—that I should add a brief prologue to show readers why Sir Garth acts as he does.

  I was sitting on the porch at the cabin where I spend much of each summer, on a lake a thousand feet above Tahoe, trying to decide how I wanted to structure such a prologue, when I looked up to see a yellow-white cloud of smoke billowing above the granite peak that shoots up another thousand feet directly across the lake.

  To anyone in a forest, such a sight is terrifying, but with a medium-sized lake and a tall granite mountain to protect me, I felt fairly safe staying put.

  The incident that awoke my imagination occurred a few days later when an irate man accosted a firefighter and his wife in a Tahoe supermarket. The firefighter’s T-shirt identified him as a member of the South Lake Tahoe Fire Department.

  The community had signs out everywhere, thanking the firefighters for all they had done and were doing to save the many, many houses they were able to save. As a result, most folks the firefighters met were friendly and grateful. Many called them heroic.

  The man in the supermarket loudly began berating the firefighter about the department’s “failure” to bring in “the bombers” (planes dropping retardant) sooner. The firefighter, although exhausted, tried to explain that such planes have to be called in from other areas and asked sympathetically if the man had lost his home.

  Admitting that his house was not in danger, the man continued his tirade until the firefighter walked away to avoid losing his temper, only to look back minutes later and see the same irate man approach his wife again in the checkout line and begin poking her in the chest as he shouted at her. Fortunately, a large candy rack stood between the firefighter and the other two, and the store’s security people quickly removed the antagonist from the premises, so no blood was spilled.

  When I heard about the incident, my always busy gray cells began to turn the incident into a more violent confrontation in fourteenth-century Scotland. Soon I was recalling other firefighter anecdotes I’d heard that likewise suited my hero’s character and were irresistibly easy to translate into plausible knightly actions.

  My brief comparison of today’s firefighters with knights of old gave me a fresh perspective on both. I hope you enjoy the result when you read BORDER LASS.

  Until then, Suas Alba!

  http://home.
att.net/~amandascott

  From the desks of Rita Herron and Diana Holquist

  Dear Reader,

  Something remarkable happened this month that is too interesting to be a coincidence. In the Deep South, outside Atlanta, Georgia, Rita Herron wrote INSATIABLE DESIRE (on sale now), the first book in her new trilogy The Demonborn. Meanwhile, in the deep North, outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Diana Holquist wrote HUNGRY FOR MORE (also on sale now), the last book in her One True Love trilogy. These books couldn’t be more different; the authors have never met; and yet, each book is about a being with almost the exact same remarkable talent.

  Almost.

  The authors discuss:

  Diana Holquist: Rita, I can’t believe that in your book INSATIABLE DESIRE, the God of Fear touches people, then knows their greatest fear and uses that fear to kill them. In my book HUNGRY FOR MORE, the heroine, Amy, touches people and then knows the name of their soul mate, their greatest love. And guess what—the soul mate almost always turns out to embody the person’s greatest fear in some way. Of course, in HUNGRY FOR MORE, no one’s trying to kill anyone . . .

  Rita Herron: Yeah, killing demons probably wouldn’t work so well in romantic comedy. But seriously, the idea that what people fear most is the very thing they have to face to make them whole is such a visceral, primal theme. It works across genres, from my dark paranormal to your romantic comedy.