“And we are not betrothed,” she said. “If we were, I would have been told.”
No doubt he was not the husband she expected. His boots and plaid were muddy from the long journey in the winter rains. Even without the mud, he was nothing like the Lowland courtiers she was accustomed to have fawning over her.
“Here’s the marriage contract with your brother’s signature.” He pulled out the parchment he’d carried inside his shirt all the way from Kintail, thrust it into her hands, and tapped his finger on the sprawling signature at the bottom.
When her eyes began moving from line to line, Rory was impressed that the lass could read. Her mouth fell open as her gaze traveled down the page. Ach, every move the lass made was seductive. When she finished reading, she fixed those violet eyes on him again.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “How did ye get my brother to sign this?”
“We were gambling, and he ran out of coin.”
“Gambling?” she said, her voice rising. “My brother gave me away in a card game?”
Rory shrugged. “He didn’t expect to lose.”
The lass opened her mouth but words seemed to fail her for a time. Finally, she said, “But he never loses.”
“He did that time.”
“I don’t believe it. When did this happen?” she fired at him, then returned her gaze to the parchment. Her eyes flew back to him. “Eight years ago?”
“Aye,” Rory said. “’Twas not long after Flodden.”
“You signed a contract to marry me,” she said, her voice steadily rising in volume and pitch, “and waited eight years to claim me?”
“Your brother said ye were too young, and I should wait a bit.”
“I’ve been grown up for quite some time,” she bit out. “In any case, I will not be your wife. This marriage contract is—”
“Look, lass, we can decide later whether we wish to abandon the agreement, so long as we haven’t yet consummated the marriage…” As he said the words, his gaze fell to her breasts again, and he lost track of what he meant to say. He gave his head a shake. What was wrong with him? This was no time to let himself become distracted, but with all the blood rushing to his cock, he could not think.
“You’re telling me that I’m to put my life in the hands of a complete stranger, a wild Highlander at that,” she said, “and we’ll sort things out later?”
“The royal guard is coming for ye,” he said. “If ye wish to escape, we must leave now.”
Sybil leaped to her feet. When Rory saw how all the color had drained from her face, he regretted his bluntness. But now that she finally appeared to understand the urgency of her situation, she made her decision quickly.
“I’ll have the servants pack my trunks at once,” she said. “How large is your carriage?”
“Carriage? There are no roads where we’re going, lass,” he said. “And we’ve no time to fetch your things.”
“But…I can’t just disappear!” Sybil, who had questioned him so coolly before, looked frantic now. “My little cousin will worry. I must tell her where I’m going.”
“You’ll tell no one,” he said. “Someone in this household sent word to the queen that ye were here.”
“That would be my uncle’s vile wife,” Sybil said between tight lips, then she took a deep breath. “I’ll use my drawing paper to write a note so my cousin won’t fret.”
Rory tamped down his impatience while he scanned the hills in the direction of Edinburgh. Sybil came up behind him. By the saints, the first his wife touched him was to use his back as a damned table.
“I have been rescued,” she said aloud as her quill moved across his back. “Do not worry. Will send word when I am able. Love always, S.”
She folded the parchment and set a rock on top of it at the base of the tree.
“We’ve tarried too long,” Rory said, and lifted her onto his horse.
He was going to regret this. He already did. Yet, when he swung up behind Sybil and pulled her tight against him, his heart raced.
And it had nothing to do with the twenty riders who had just crested the hill.
CHAPTER 2
The Highlander moved so quickly that Sybil found herself sitting astride his horse before she knew how she got there. She sucked in her breath when he swung up behind her.
“Hold on,” he said, his breath in her ear.
An instant later, the horse bolted forward. The Highlander leaned low over her, encircling her so that every part of her was touching brawny man as they sped into a gallop.
Good heavens, she was riding off with a stranger. This was bold, even for her. Perhaps she should go back…
When she turned to look behind them, her heart went to her throat. A long line of riders was heading for the castle.
“Those are royal guards—I can see their banner,” she said, peeking between the Highlander’s arm and his chin. “God no, they’re turning! They’re following us!”
“Keep your head down, damn it,” he said. “They have archers with them.”
No sooner had he spoken than an arrow zipped past his arm and between the horse’s ears. The Highlander curled his body around hers in a gallant effort to protect her as another arrow whizzed over their heads.
“How dare they?” she said. “The fools could hit us!”
The queen was angry, but she would not want her men to kill Sybil. Surely not.
She heard a thunk.
“Curan,” the Highlander said in a soothing voice as he patted the horse’s neck.
Sybil thought the poor beast had been struck, but when she looked for the arrow, she saw it was sticking out of the Highlander’s thigh. She sighed. Her escape had been dramatic but short-lived.
Despite the blood running down his leg, the Highlander showed no sign he was aware of his injury. Instead, he continued speaking to the horse in Gaelic, urging it to gallop still faster. But surely he could not ride like that for long.
“Can’t ye see you’re injured?” she shouted over the wind in her face. “We can’t go on.”
“We’re not stopping till we lose them.”
The Highlander’s determined tone and evident skill as a rider eased her panic. Perhaps her escape was not finished yet. They crossed the field and sailed through the air over a burn at a mad gallop. The Highlander rode as if he and his horse were one. Even before she felt him lean to the side or tighten his thighs, his horse anticipated the signal and sensed where he wanted to go.
“We’re out of the range of their arrows now,” he said. “Here, hold the reins.”
“But—” Before she could object or ask why, he had wrapped her hands around the reins and let go. Fortunately, she was a good rider, but he did not know that.
The grass was a blur beneath them as the horse flew over the ground. From the corner of her eye, she saw the glint of a blade. The Highlander had a knife in his hand. Heavens!
For a moment, she feared he meant to stab her and drop her to the ground to divert the men following them. But another quick glance revealed that he was cutting a strip from the bottom of his tunic.
“I need both my hands for a wee moment,” he said, “so don’t fall.”
Don’t fall? “Ye don’t intend to bandage your leg while we’re galloping, do ye?”
“’Tis that or bleed to death,” he said between clenched teeth as he snapped off the arrow.
While keeping his balance as if he were sitting on a rock instead of hurtling over hills and valleys on horseback, he tied the strip around his wounded thigh. Sybil’s heart pounded in her ears, and she tasted blood from biting her lip.
He grunted as he pulled the knot tight. Finally, the Highlander was finished and took the reins from her. The makeshift bandage had taken only a few moments, but it had felt far longer. Sybil sagged against the stranger’s chest as his arms surrounded her again.
“Ye did well, mo rùin,” his deep voice rumbled in her ear.
He’d called her my dear in Gaelic, which wa
s oddly comforting, coming from a stranger.
Despite their desperate circumstances, this Highlander was so steady, his movements so sure, that Sybil began to believe he would succeed in carrying her to safety.
She would worry later about how to escape her rescuer.
***
Rory’s leg hurt like hell. Each time the horse lurched forward over the rough terrain, the point of the arrow dug farther into his leg causing a jolt of searing pain that nearly blinded him. Although he had eluded the riders chasing them for the moment, he did not dare stop long enough to remove the rest of the arrow from his leg and rebandage it. He needed distraction, and he had a burning question to put to the young woman for whom he was risking his life.
“Who’s James?” Rory kept his voice even, though he wondered what the hell his pledged bride had been up to.
“Which James?” she asked.
“Which James?” Her answer did not improve his mood. He could see that if she did become his wife, he would have to mind her closely.
“There are so many of them,” she said, “starting with the king.”
He ground his teeth together. Naturally, he had assumed his promised bride was an inexperienced virgin. Perhaps he was wrong.
“I was referring to the James ye mentioned when I found ye under the tree,” he said.
“Oh, him.”
The disgust in her voice eased his concern over that particular James. But then, a woman might react that way if an affair ended badly.
“Who is he?” He stifled a curse as the horse stumbled, jarring his leg again.
“James Hamilton of Finnart, son of James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran,” she said. “He paid me a visit earlier, before you came.”
Rory knew the name. Though a bastard, Finnart was Arran’s favored eldest son. “I thought there was bad blood between your family and the Hamiltons.”
“Oh aye,” she said with a humorless laugh. “The Douglases and the Hamiltons have been at each other’s throats in a fight for control of the crown since the king’s death at Flodden.”
“So what did this Finnart want when he visited ye today?” Rory asked.
“Me.”
Rory’s temper ticked up a notch.
“The man won’t take nay for an answer,” she continued blithely. “He told me that with the men of my family banished and the threat of a long imprisonment hanging over me, I had no choice but to avail myself of his protection.”
Rory’s shoulders relaxed. He recalled her words when she mistook him for this James Finnart. I told ye I won’t do it, so go. It was a comfort to know that his bride refused to relinquish her virtue even under such pressure.
“I left my handprint on his face,” she said.
Ach, that was even better. Despite his throbbing leg and the queen’s men tracking them, Rory felt almost cheerful now.
“Once he had me, James’s interest wouldn’t have lasted more than a month,” she said. “And then where would I be?”
“Otherwise, ye would have given yourself to him?” Rory asked, his voice rising.
The lass had the gall to laugh. She turned in the saddle to look at him.
“The prospect of being beheaded for treason does tend to make a lass consider choices she wouldn’t otherwise,” she said, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “Such as running off with a perfect stranger.”
***
“I think we’ve lost them,” Sybil said as she turned to scan the hills behind them yet again.
“Perhaps,” the Highlander said, but he continued to ride at a relentless pace.
She had not caught a glimpse of the royal guards since the Highlander turned the horse off the road and onto an overgrown footpath an hour ago. In fact, she had seen no one at all but a lad herding sheep.
She craned her neck to look ahead. Surely they must come to a village or a town soon. Once the Highlander finally stopped for food and rest, she would crawl out a window, bribe a stable lad for a horse, or whatever she had to do to make her escape. Riding off with this Highlander was the most exciting thing she had ever done, but it was time to part ways with him.
She was grateful to the Highlander for what he’d done, but not grateful enough to marry him. After thwarting her brother’s attempts to marry her off for the last five years, she was not about to succumb to that wretched fate now.
She had begun to think he would never stop when he drew the horse to a halt behind a thicket of low shrubs and trees that grew beside a burn. Without a word, he lifted Sybil down, his big hands nearly meeting around her waist. She assumed he needed to relieve himself, and was glad for the chance to stretch her legs.
“The ground will be damp. Sit on this,” he said, handing her a rolled-up blanket he untied from the horse. “We’ll make camp here.”
“Make camp?” she said. “Ye mean to spend the night here?”
“Aye, ’tis a good spot.” He patted his horse. “And Curan needs to rest. I rode him hard today.”
A good spot, here in the brush? There was no window to crawl out of and no stable lad to bribe. How was she to escape unnoticed from here?
How was she to escape at all?
“It will be dark soon,” he said before he turned and led the horse a few yards away.
Unless she wanted to die wandering the hills alone at night, it appeared that her plan to part ways with the Highlander would have to wait until tomorrow.
Sybil had never slept outdoors in her life. She glanced around at the tall grass surrounding her and nearly laughed. When she imagined spending the night with a man, sleeping on the rough ground amidst the weeds with a stranger was not how she envisioned it.
She found a fairly flat area and spread the blanket, then sat down to observe her rescuer. This was her first opportunity to examine him closely since their chaotic flight from her uncle’s castle. Even without the numerous lethal weapons strapped to his body, this Highlander would be intimidating. He was tall, powerfully built, and had a dangerous air about him.
Up until now, her fear of the queen’s men had led her to disregard the threat the Highlander himself might present. She swallowed, keenly aware now that she was alone with a stranger with no ready means of escape. His men would likely be joining them soon, but that was hardly a comfort. What if he expected to do more tonight than sleep? The Highlander believed she was his to claim, and he’d gone to considerable lengths to do so.
The tension in her shoulders eased a bit as she listened to him murmur to his horse in soft, reassuring tones while he removed the saddle and bridle. He paused to rub the horse’s nose and give it an affectionate pat before leaving it to graze. Nay, she had not misjudged him. Though this Highlander might attempt to seduce her—he was a man, after all—she did not believe he was the sort to force himself upon a woman.
At least, that’s what she was going to tell herself. Giving into fear never did a lass any good. Worse, it was dangerous. She needed her wits about her.
She noticed he was limping as he walked toward her. He had been so stoic about his wound that she had forgotten he had been struck with an arrow.
“We should go to a village and find a healer for you,” she said, thinking this would solve both their problems.
“No need.” The Highlander winced as he lowered himself onto the blanket beside her.
When she saw that his leg was covered with crusted blood, she felt a surge of guilt for being the cause of his injury.
“I’d best get this arrow out now.” He pulled out his dirk, then paused to look at her. “Ye may not want to watch this, lass.”
Sybil had her pride too. If he could cut his own flesh, then she could watch without fainting. The Highlander wielded the blade with a rock-steady hand as he cut off the blood-soaked bandage.
She bit her lip, uncertain what to do, as he struggled to remove his trews. Though he obviously could use her assistance, undressing him might prove a risky and revealing endeavor. She did not want to do anything he might view as an invitation. When sh
e looked up, the glint of amusement in his eyes told her he had read her thoughts.
“I don’t have a great deal of experience dressing wounds”—in truth, she had none—“but I’ll help if ye tell me what to do.”
“If you’ll grab the bottom of the leg of my trews and pull, I can manage the rest.”
She gave it a tug, and her pulse jumped as she caught a glimpse of muscular bare thigh up to his hip. Once they managed to ease his trews down far enough to reveal the bloody wound, however, she could see nothing else.
Good God, how had he ridden so far with such an injury?
“’Tis not as bad as it looks,” he said, and winked at her.
Sweat broke out on the Highlander’s brow as he patiently worked the jagged tip of the arrow out of his torn flesh. While he showed no other sign of the pain his efforts must be causing him, Sybil’s hands grew stiff from clenching them through the long and arduous process. When he finally removed the broken-off arrow and cast it aside, she took a deep, cleansing breath.
The Highlander drew a flask from inside his tunic, and she was tempted to ask him for a long drink of it.
“Ach, I hate to waste good whisky on my damned leg,” he said, and uncorked the flask with even white teeth.
As he poured the whisky over the open wound, he emitted a string of colorful Gaelic phrases in quick succession. Sybil was tempted to ask him to repeat them slowly so that she could expand her vocabulary, but this was probably not the time to ask for a lesson in Gaelic cursing. Besides that, her instincts told her not to reveal that she understood Gaelic. A Douglas did not share her secrets without good reason.
The Highlander wiped his blade on the grass and began to cut a new strip from the bottom of his tunic.
“Wait,” she said, touching his arm. She lifted the hem of her gown to reveal the linen shift beneath it. “See? I have more cloth to spare than you do.”
CLAIMED BY A HIGHLANDER (THE DOUGLAS LEGACY Book 2) Page 2