Chapter Seven
Torie paced back and forth, back and forth, at the foot of High Fell. The path led off, here, from the highway, petering away into dirt and stones, a wild track that twisted up the steep, ancient rise of land like a dusty ribbon while the road continued on.
An isolated place, few ever came here especially at night. At the moment, it remained so quiet, she could hear the night birds twittering up on the high moor, and her own heartbeat. The swish of her skirts as she moved to and fro. Tense as a bowstring.
She stretched her ears for another sound. Hoofbeats.
Why didn’t he come? It was full dark. Too early for the moon to rise. When it did, it would be a sharp, waning crescent, cold as a knife.
She’d brought little away with her for, as she’d told Jamie, she had little to bring. A few items of clothing, her wee treasure box. She wore her dark cloak, which she hoped would help make her invisible here.
She’d left behind a note, carefully elusive, saying not to worry for her. She was safe and had left of her own accord. Tired of her dreary life, she’d gone chasing adventure.
Would that keep Lord Beckenham and her father from coming after them?
She’d stuffed all her belongings into a tapestry bag she hoped would fit on Jamie’s saddle. The two of them would have to ride double. Just till they were well away.
What might come after that, she could not imagine. Did not need to imagine. So long as Jamie was part of it.
Back and forth. The cold was beginning to seep in, and her ears caught a sound—
Not hoofbeats. At least, not just hoofbeats…
She did not know from which direction Jamie might come, where he’d been hiding himself. From the west, though, came a clamor.
She turned and, running a few steps up the path to the rise, strained her eyes. Along the road came a horseman, aye. But not alone.
Oh, by God, no.
But yes. It was a troop of redcoats.
They came at a steady jog from the direction of the inn. Their leader rode a tall, pale horse—like the one in Revelations, she thought, ridden by none other than Death. The foot soldiers, in two rows, followed behind him, double time.
She spun to look in the opposite direction and saw—
He did come swiftly, man and horse making one being, an arrow following the road. The sharp moon rose behind him like a threat.
“No,” she said, and it was a moan. “Oh, no.”
There was nowhere to hide. Not a tree, not a rock big enough to conceal them. When the two parties met, it would be here and no place to flee but up the fell.
She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry out. Seven years waiting and now, once again, meeting with her here would endanger him.
With the rise of the moon, everything turned to silver—each stone and clump of dying bracken. The details jumped into focus—the approaching troop. The man on horseback who now slowed upon sighting her.
Could he see the soldiers also? He must. He must!
Abandoning her tapestry bag, she grabbed up her skirts and ran for him. If she could reach him first, perhaps they might make it away.
He drew the black horse up hard when she reached him, but after one glance his attention was not for her. His eyes rested on the approaching danger.
The troop of soldiers had seen them—seen him—and quickened their pace.
Swiftly, Torie made a decision. “Go. Ye can go much more swiftly without me.”
“I’ll not leave ye, Torie. I’ll not leave ye again.”
“Oh, please!” It was a sob. She would not be the cause of his travails, not a second time. She would not live without knowing what befell him for seven years more—or a lifetime. “Go!”
He shot her one speaking look, dark as the sky empty of all but that wicked moon, and hauled her aboard the horse, perching her on the saddle before him. Looking back, she could see the mounted redcoat captain had broken from his men, spurring his mount to pursue them.
With a wild, beautiful movement, Jamie brought his horse around. They tore down the road, eastward.
It felt as if they rode directly into the light shed by the rising moon. Surely, surely it would wrap around them, lend its magic and hide them from pursuit.
It could not end badly this time.
Then Midnight stumbled. It was but a small check in his powerful stride, but Jamie stiffened in response as if, indeed, he and the horse were one.
Torie stole a desperate look behind. The redcoat captain was closer than she’d expected.
Jamie swore and directed Midnight from the road off across the moor. Was he looking to spare the beast from the hard road surface? Searching for a place to hide?
Again, Midnight stumbled. And again.
“What’s wrong?” she cried.
“No doubt he’s picked up a stone.” Jamie reined in the horse with hands that remained gentle.
“What are you doing?” she gasped.
“If I continue on, I’ll ruin him. I won’t do that.” He drew his pistol.
“Jamie, Jamie, no. If you kill a redcoat captain, they’ll follow you forever. Let me down. Let me down and I’ll distract him.”
“I will not do that either. If I turn myself over to him, ye can get away, and with nay harm to your reputation.”
“You’ll hang.” For real, this time.
“I love ye, Torie Henshaw. Remember that. ’Tis forever.”
“No!” The word tore from her lips even as he dismounted, bringing her with him.
“Run,” he bade her, and there was time for nothing more.
She ran.
Not away from the redcoat but straight toward him.
Huge, his mount looked as she approached, and he barely drew up fast enough to keep from trampling her. She waved her cloak at the animal, making two bat wings of it, and screamed.
“Curse it!” the captain cried. “Get out o’ the way, woman.”
She would not. She could not, on her life. Instead she flung herself at the horse’s bridle and clung on.
The captain tried to kick her away. His gaze moved from her to the man behind her.
How long could she delay him?
“You must help me,” she burbled. “As an officer of the king, I throw myself upon your mercy. My father is the vicar at Tordall. Do you know him?”
“Nay, I do not.” Again he tried to throw her off, but she had a death grip upon his leg now. “Get out of the way. In the king’s name! I will pursue that blackguard.”
He would not.
A desperate glance over her shoulder told Torie that Jamie and Midnight had disappeared as completely as if they had never been.
Gone into the moonlight?
A sob escaped her throat. Mayhap she had imagined it all. Perhaps he had never returned to her. Grief had turned her mind to madness.
For where could he be?
“Woman, ye are obstructing the king’s justice.”
“Take me to my father. The Reverend Henshaw, at Tordall. He will take charge of me.”
The captain glared down at her before searching the moorland with narrowed eyes. She could hear his men approaching, the rattle of muskets as they jogged up from the road onto the fell.
Once the captain gave her over to them, he would ride after Jamie.
If Jamie truly existed.
She did the only thing she could: stiffened in every limb and then slumped in a feigned swoon to the ground.
The captain swore again and, as she’d wagered he would, dismounted. When he came down upon one knee beside her, she reared up and hurled herself upon him, tumbling him onto his back.
Drawing his pistol out of the leather holder at his side as she did.
Lunging to her feet, she aimed the weapon at him.
“Stay down,” she ordered him, “or I vow I will shoot.”
“Ye’re a madwoman!”
Quite possibly, she was. For in the past seven years of her staid, careful life, she’d never done anything so mad as this.
They would arrest her. To be sure, they would. She did not care, for she would throw herself to the wolves to assure Jamie got away.
But how long could she hold the captain? The rest of the troop approached swiftly, closer and closer.
She raised the firearm and sighted along it. Did she know how to fire the weapon? If she killed the man, aye, she would hang.
She cocked the pistol.
Fired.
The explosion rang through the night. The captain’s horse shied and started away back toward the footmen.
Torie turned and ran.
She ran into the moonlight, hoping it would reach down and swallow her as it had Jamie. For she had no future—not without him—and she was done with her past.
Like a girl of seventeen, she ran. Her cloak billowed out behind her and her hair tumbled down. The rough moor came up to meet her feet, and wildness possessed her heart.
When the horse swooped in upon her, at first she thought it must be the captain. He’d called his horse, set off in pursuit. But nay—a glance showed the horse to be black, and the man on its back the one she loved.
He slowed just long enough to pull her up across his saddle. For one exquisite moment, he buried his face in her hair.
“You were supposed to get away,” she cried.
“I could not leave ye. Did ye kill him?”
“No. I fired at the ground. Chased his horse away.” Desperately, she asked, “Midnight?”
“A stone in his shoe, as I said. I pried it out wi’ my knife.”
“That captain will be after us.”
“He’ll not catch Midnight, not now when I’ve my whole world in my arms. I’ll not lose ye again.”
She leaned into him and felt the years fall away, felt the hurt dissolve like mist. “And I am yours from this moment—as ever I was—whatever may come.”
He laughed in joy. At an unseen signal between man and horse, they surged to flight, into the moonlight, and rode away to claim their forever.
The End