by Aileen Adams
He muttered oaths she’d never heard before as he went to his horse, taking it by the reins and bringing it about. “Remember that I offered when ye find yourself facing starvation, lass.”
Her laughter rang out in the tight space. “Yes, I’m certain that I’ll starve without you to protect and provide for me. Snide, smug, arrogant…”
He turned away, leading the horse from the cave without looking back. Only his faint laughter carried back as he disappeared.
She stomped her foot again, clenching her jaw tight enough to hurt. The arrogance! Thinking she needed him, simply because she was a woman. Were all men the same? She’d hoped not, but it appeared her hopes had been groundless.
The mare whinnied as though agreeing with her—or, perhaps, to comfort her. She buried her flushed face against the gentle creature’s neck, torn between wanting to scream and sob in rage. It would appear that no matter how far she roamed, there would be no escaping the attitude that she was incapable simply because she was a woman.
What a relief to know she would never marry the man who had just left the cave.
“Come now, let us go,” she murmured to the mare as she stomped out what little was left of the fire. While spending the night on the wet ground did not thrill her, neither did the prospect of discovery. If Fergus had found her, who else might?
They were no more than three or four paces from the opening when there was a cracking noise.
A tremble above her.
And the first rush of earth and rock tumbled down in front of them.
8
A strange lass, to be sure. Strange and stubborn. Her stubbornness would be her downfall.
Fergus walked the horse away from the cave, still leading it by the reins. The ground was far too loose after such heavy rain, and he felt safer relying on his own balance to keep his feet under him—as it was, he slid more than once in the thick mud.
She’d starve to death, no doubt. Or fall prey to a wolf or bear. Or a thief, more likely. How would she defend herself against a thief? Or, worse, a band of them?
Foolish thing. She would soon see the error of it.
Why did he still think of her?
“It matters not,” he muttered, grimacing as he made the slow, careful journey down the side of the hill. Would he ever reach the road? It seemed each step was more treacherous than the last.
The distant rumble caught his attention, as well as that of the horse. The gelding’s ears turned in the direction the crash had come from.
Then, a scream.
A woman’s scream.
He began scrambling up the hill, reins still in hand, before he had time to think twice. It could only be her screaming.
He knew she would end up in such fashion but had never dreamed it would come to pass so swiftly.
“Elspeth!” He waited for her response while still scampering up the hill. The crash was what worried him most, as it could have meant the falling of a tree. The rain-soaked earth would mean greater likelihood of such an event, the roots loosening from the soil.
Another crash, and another scream—muffled this time, but no less panicked than before. Muffled?
That was when he understood what must have happened.
Sure enough, when he reached the place he had only just left, there was hardly anything left to designate the cave’s existence thanks to mud and rock which had fallen from the hillside above it. The entrance was all but blocked from sight, and there was always the chance of even more mudslides from above.
“Elspeth!” he called out while tying the gelding a distance from the cave, ensuring the horse would not find itself trapped in anything which might continue to fall. “Are ye injured?”
“No!” she cried. “Trapped!”
“I know,” he grimaced. There was nothing to be done but dig her out. He searched about for a sturdy limb in the hopes of using it as a shovel of sorts and found one nearby.
“I am going to dig ye out!” he shouted after removing his tunic. It would be better not to ruin the thing, and he had the feeling the work he was about to put his hands to would indeed destroy it.
“Use caution!” she advised. “There could be another slide!”
“It’s grateful I am for the reminder,” he grunted as he got to work. “I might not have considered the possibility if you’d not brought it up.” He lifted a rock in both hands and tossed it aside.
“What?”
“Nothing. Stay away from the entrance and keep the mare away as well.”
“I had not intended to do otherwise,” she retorted.
“Must ye always have something to say?” he snarled as he struggled to remove the brush and mud. It seemed no matter how he worked, he never managed to make headway.
She did not respond, which he considered a blessing. Sweat broke out over his back and shoulders, dripped down the sides of his face and over his chest and caused leaves and needles to stick to his skin. It was nasty work which would only have been worse had the sun revealed itself. Luckily, the clouds were still thick and dark overhead.
It seemed a lifetime before he’d cleared enough space that he might look in at her. “Where are ye?” he asked, the question echoing.
“Here.” She waved her arms, further back in the cave.
“Are ye all right?”
“As well as can be.” Yet there was an edge to her voice.
“Are ye in pain?”
“No, I am well.”
“Ye sound as though you’re pained.”
She groaned. “I twisted my ankle while jumping back from the landslide.”
“Why could ye not simply state it?”
“Could you please help me out of here?” she demanded, rather than answer.
“Now she wishes for my help,” he snorted to himself—loud enough for her to hear, naturally.
She merely huffed in reply.
He returned to the task at hand, as he would not have left her to perish in the cave no matter how stubborn she was or how difficult to reason with. It was not in his nature to leave a person in peril, regardless of his personal feelings toward them.
And she might not have been an altogether bad sort if she might only cease her endless grumbling.
His shoulders burned, his arms ached, and yet he continued to move mud and rock away from the cave as though his life depended upon it.
It might very well have, after all, seeing as how another slide could bury him. He kept one eye on the rock face above him, watching for any shift in the earth which covered it. Please, let it hold, he prayed to no particular entity. Anyone who might be listening was welcome to assist him.
Had it only been the lass, he might have stopped partway through and helped her scramble up through the hole he’d dug. The mare complicated matters. He would no sooner leave an animal to starve to death than he would a human.
“I can help you,” Elspeth insisted as she began digging out from inside.
“You must rest your ankle,” he grunted between breaths.
“I can stand on one foot,” she insisted, and her small but capable hands began moving in the mud, matching his own efforts.
Though he was loath to admit it, she made the work easier. Pulling a rock from the mud with her on the other side to push from behind it was child’s play. He even found himself smiling at her once her face became visible.
She merely averted her eyes.
He gritted his teeth and returned to work, grunting from the effort, pushing his body past the point of exhaustion until a slim window opened at one side of the cave.
“Can ye lead the mare through?” he asked, backing away.
It took time for Elspeth to convince the horse to leave the cave, and Fergus could understand why. The poor beast was likely terrified of what might come of another attempt to exit. Yet little by little the mare began walking to the front of the cave.
“Hurry,” Fergus whispered, watching the ground above for movement.
“I know,” Elspeth hissed, then returned to croonin
g softly as she comforted the mare.
Finally, she appeared, and soon after the horse’s head, neck, and so on until the two of them stood outside the cave again.
Fergus released the breath he’d been holding in anticipation, bending at the waist with his palms on his knees. His back ached terribly from exertion he had not seen the likes of in too many years.
But he was realized he was happy. Not simply relieved at the lass’s safety. Genuinely happy. He dismissed it as pride in himself for having done a good deed, along with pride at what he had accomplished physically.
“Thank you,” she whispered, stroking the mare’s neck. “You did us a great service.”
“Now, ye see what I meant,” he replied, still a bit winded. And he’d always considered himself to be in top form.
Her expression of reluctant gratitude hardened to resentment, and he knew he’d said the wrong thing.
“A woman cannot so much as express gratitude without you reminding her how weak she is,” she snarled, eyes flashing fire. They might have been quite lovely eyes, wide and green, had they not looked so hard.
“I did not—”
“You seem to have forgotten how I dug as well. On an injured ankle, no less!”
“This is not a competition.”
“I merely wish to remind you that I might have freed myself if you had been too far away to assist me.”
His very bones ached, his muscles were weak. If he had stretched out right there in the mud, he believed he might have been asleep before his head touched the ground.
He was not up to the task of arguing with an impossible woman.
“Have it your way,” he relented as he wiped the mud from his bare arms, then flung it to the ground. “I’ll not be bothering ye again, lass, since you are more than capable of handling yourself in any situation the wilderness holds in store.”
She turned her gaze from him to her saddle, fingering the stitching as though it suddenly held great importance. “Very well.”
He waited for one last expression of gratitude.
It never came.
His blood boiled as he untied the gelding and led it down the hill in search of the quickest path to the river. Would that he might wash the entire experience away along with the mud.
9
Fergus had come back for her.
Why had he come back?
Moira had certainly given him no reason to, as short-tempered and dismissive as she’d been.
And yet he had returned.
Perhaps she had not given him the chance he deserved.
Get a hold of yourself.
It was best that they stay away from each other. What if one of the Campbell clansmen met him on the road while she was somewhere nearby? That would mean the end of her freedom.
And yet…
He interested her. She found him very interesting, indeed.
He’d asked for nothing but her thanks, which she could admit to herself she’d offered grudgingly and with poorly disguised resentment. Why should she resent the man who’d freed her?
She would still be in the cave, clawing at the mud, were it not for him. No telling how long it would have taken for her to clear a hole as he had, with his strong, capable body.
Very strong. Very capable.
His bare back was the last thing she saw before he disappeared between a pair of ash trees, their new, bright green leaves still sodden and dripping, weighing down the branches. She thought she saw glimpses of him now and again as he made his way down the hillside.
Where would he go?
He did not appear to travel east, in the direction of Ben Macdui and the Campbells.
Perhaps there would be no harm in trailing him.
At a safe distance, naturally, for she had no desire to walk into a trap.
“Come now,” she whispered to the mare, leading her down the hill by the reins.
Moira’s ankle smarted terribly, and she feared it had begun to swell, but little there was to be done about it until she’d reached a place to set up camp.
She would need to wash away the mud caked under her nails, coating her hands and arms. A stream would suffice, unless she reached the River Dee first.
Did she wish to reveal herself to the casual passerby, however? For the river was where riders would stop to refresh themselves and their horses. She had taken note of fishermen there, as well, and understood the likelihood of Luthais’s men patrolling the land under Campbell protection.
Yet that was where Fergus would most likely go, as he would need to bathe thoroughly after his exertion.
That made up her mind. She followed the trail he left in the mud, his feet having slipped and slid as he worked his way down the hill.
The road was nothing more than a series of deep puddles which she and the mare splashed through in order to cross to the other side, where she could make out glimpses of flowing water between the trees. There were pines on this side of the road, great, towering beasts which had sheltered the ground beneath from much of the deluge.
It was nearly a delight to trod somewhat dry ground after the unfortunate incident in the cave. She might have been swept up in the slide, and she knew it. If she had made a move to leave only three seconds sooner…
Rather than spend time thinking about what had not come to pass, she turned her attention to the trail Fergus had left. He made it easy to follow him. Then again, he had no reason to guard his trail.
He considered her beneath his concern. She was merely a woman, after all.
It was enough to make her want to trail him all the way to his destination, just to have the satisfaction of knowing she had followed him while he was unaware.
It wasn’t as though she had a destination in mind.
Perhaps this interest in a stranger who was not truly a stranger was her way of avoiding the nature of her situation.
She growled to herself while continuing to lead the mare slowly, quietly through the dense woods. It was never in her nature to lie to herself—if anything, she was too honest at times.
A fearful temper often got the best of her, the same temper her father possessed. While she loathed it in him, it seemed there was little controlling it in herself once someone had stirred her blood.
She knew this and knew she ought to control herself, and her lack of control was a disappointment.
She knew, too, that her temper had often clashed with her father’s and resulted in many of her beatings. One would think that so many such beatings would have impressed upon her the need to hold her tongue, but that was not so. Still, she could admit to having goaded him more than once—even if she could not excuse a man striking a woman for any reason, especially a daughter.
It was no surprise, then, that she understood it was easier to think about Fergus than to think about where she would spend the rest of her life. There were no answers as of yet. She might always live in the woods, moving from one place to the next, and if it were not for the threat of enemies searching for her, she could be perfectly happy in such an existence.
Living outdoors had always been her preference.
Yet how could one feel satisfied when they could never truly rest? She could not imagine a life spent looking over her shoulder for the next threat.
It was better to follow her would-be husband, to learn about him and his ways.
The first thing she’d learned; how right she’d been about his being unable to find a wife on his own. Pity the poor woman who wished to become his bride—Moira guessed anyone with such intentions would also be the victim of a bad fall, perhaps a hit on the head she had never recovered from.
Otherwise, they would have to be plainly daft.
Who could live with such a man? Always puffing out his chest, reminding his woman how manly he was. How weak and fragile she was in comparison.
She’d just as soon take a pan upside his head, than put up with such nonsense.
His male pride would likely have been destroyed by her hunting ability, mu
ch like her father’s had been. She smirked at the memory of besting him time and again, once bringing home the carcass of a full-grown stag for his benefit.
She supposed her back still bore the scars of that beating. One of the most severe she had ever received.
Never would a man beat her again. Not for a slight, not for a coarse remark, not because he knew what a foolish, pathetic, useless man he was and wished to take his pain out upon her flesh.
Not ever again.
Foreign tears sprang to her eyes, which she told herself were the result of placing too much weight on her swollen ankle.
Sometimes she allowed herself to lie.
10
Day turned to night not long after Fergus finished bathing in the River Dee, taking pains to avoid stepping into deep, rain-swelled water.
Even so, the current pulled at his legs, reminding him there were things far more powerful than himself.
There were times when such reminders were necessary, he supposed. They kept men from thinking too highly of themselves and believing they were the most powerful force in the world.
Those who chose to ignore the reminders were like as not the men who fell dead as the result of accidents, careless and foolish. Easily avoidable.
He’d been through too many truly dangerous situations and lived to tell the tale. To die as the result of mere carelessness would seem the height of stupidity. Once the grief he hoped his friends would express at his loss had worn off, they would more than likely laugh at him.
Just as he would have done if it were any of them.
They were a strange lot.
He chuckled to himself as he washed the mud and grime from his skin, wondering whether Rodric and Quinn had found shelter before the worst of the storm had set in. Rodric had long been possessed of a talent for telling when the weather was about to take a nasty turn; he believed it to be the result of a wound he’d taken to the shoulder while in battle, as he’d never felt the change in weather so acutely before.
Would that Fergus might have possessed even a bit of his ability. He may have avoided the entire awkward, frustrating mess with the lass who’d tracked him ever since leaving the cave.