One #2
“I …” What should she say? “I … was travelling with my father. He has business up in the Highlands. He’s a wool merchant.” She glanced past the man’s shoulder back towards the thick forest beyond. “I need to go back.” Had Isabelle escaped?
The man didn’t say anything for a few long moments. “If yer da has dealings with the Munros, we aren’t likely to take ye back.”
Rachel’s heart sped and she turned to study the landscape. The man leaned closer. “I’m Angus Riley, friend and warrior to The Macbain of Druim. And ye are?”
Rachel kept her chin high and her lips tight.
“Now if I’m to introduce ye as a … guest at Druim, I must know yer name, lass. Prisoners doona fair well in the dungeons. It be dark, cold and skittery down there.”
A threat or a fair warning? “Rachel Brindle. And you will return me to my father, William Brindle, please.”
“Ah, now Miss Brindle, how is it that ye have so much blood on ye?”
Rachel glanced down at her hands. They were streaked red. So they hadn’t found the man she’d saved. “I … I must have cut myself,” she murmured.
“I see no gash upon yer lovely skin, lass. Not even a bump from falling off yer mount.”
Rachel’s mind whirled. “I don’t remember.” She shook her head and noticed that the torturous velvet cap at least was gone. Would her father find it amongst the ferns and know she’d been taken? Or would she be lost forever at Druim?
I’ll come for ye. The barbarian’s words came back to her. Would he? Rachel let out a long sigh. She wouldn’t count on it.
The cost of her name was so incredibly worth the warm water enveloping Rachel in the deep bathing bucket in the room she’d been given at Druim.
“Guest” was certainly better than “prisoner”.
Angus Riley had kept his word and introduced her to the tall, grim-faced leader of their clan as a damsel in distress.
She’d been given food and drink and a small room above the main hall.
What would happen to her tomorrow was unknown, but for the night, she was told she could bathe, sleep and recover from her obvious ordeal.
Bathing and eating played a part in Rachel’s plan, but not sleeping.
She intended to escape. For despite their gentility, she knew her current protectors would turn captors once they confirmed her connection to their enemy.
Rachel rubbed the floral soap along her limbs but resisted the urge to relax. Escape was a priority, before Druim realized just how capable she was. Her bedraggled and exhausted appearance upon arrival had lowered their defences. There wasn’t even a guard outside her door.
Rachel dried and dressed in her stained green gown.
It was still damp from her attempt to wash away the blood.
Rachel fingered her clean hair. It was dark outside the window slit.
She cracked open her door to an empty corridor dimly lit.
She walked with purposeful stealth. The main stairway would lead to a great hall filled with warriors.
Her eyes studied the shadows. This was a huge fortress.
They needed at least one other exit. Rachel nearly fell into a rectangular hole cut into the floor at the end of the corridor.
Her heart thudded as she gathered her long kirtle.
The ladder within the hole led down into a low-ceilinged hallway.
The earthy smell of roots and grain indicated that it was a storage area.
Perfect. Rachel crept along the dark, rough wall into a kitchen.
Several cloaks hung from pegs. She threw one over her dress and pulled the hood up.
Could she disguise herself as a servant and sneak out the gates past the guards?
Rachel whirled around at a muffled gasp.
A woman stood in the doorway, a bit older than she.
Evelyn, if Rachel remembered the woman’s name from her earlier introductions – the maid who watched the chief’s young children.
Evelyn’s eyes were wide in her round face.
Rachel grabbed her stiff hand. She poured just enough power into it to warm the servant.
A blue glow surrounded their clasped hands.
“Holy Lord our Father,” Evelyn murmured and passed the sign of the cross over her chest with her free hand. Rachel stared into her frantic eyes.
“I have powers. They are good powers, but if you don’t help me I will turn them against you.
” The woman didn’t say anything. Did she not care what happened to her?
“I can turn them against your young charges.” Evelyn’s eyes nearly popped at the lie.
She bobbed her head nervously. Rachel smiled.
“Good. I think you want me gone as much as I want me gone now. So you’re going to walk me out of here, past the guards, past the gate to where I can find a horse. ”
The night was cool as they left the building and it felt good against Rachel’s flushed face.
As much as she dreamed about adventure, the actual participation in it was stressful.
Perhaps she would agree to settle down with a docile Englishman like her father wished.
She and Evelyn walked arm in arm, like two young maids heading home for the evening.
“Wave with me,” Rachel whispered, and Evelyn lifted her hand to the watchman.
He tipped his head at the girls and walked the other way along the wall.
“You’re good at this, Evelyn,” Rachel murmured and patted the girl’s rigid arm.
Evelyn passed another sign of the cross before her chest. Rachel frowned. She didn’t like scaring the woman.
Evelyn hurried with her through the streets towards a corral. “You know, I fibbed back there,” Rachel said in the dark. “My powers only heal. I can’t hurt you or your wards. And I wouldn’t anyway.”
Evelyn stopped before a low barn. “There are horses. Now go.” She turned a fierce expression on Rachel. Evelyn certainly wouldn’t be inviting her over for supper anytime soon.
“Not a word, Evelyn.” Rachel held a finger against her lips then lowered it quickly. Could the girl see her finger tremble? “You’ll look guilty if you admit helping me get away.”
Evelyn fled. Rachel entered the barn and went to work.
She selected a horse and worked a bridle between its teeth.
It wasn’t her horse, but it was a fair swap.
She led the beast through the darkness, keeping to the rear of all the houses.
She knew exactly where she was headed. The moor that stretched wide and bare in front of Druim would allow no hiding and a single rider out at night would arouse suspicion.
No, the mountains behind the castle were the best way to go.
“Holy God, please guide my way to safety,” she whispered into the hazy mist floating down along the ledges of granite.
Rachel led the horse along a narrow path between the castle wall and the rock face.
Thunder rumbled and Rachel tipped her head upwards with a soft groan.
The horse nickered. “Shh,” Rachel whispered.
Rain began to tap the summer leaves overhead just as she spotted a fairly large ascending path.
She tramped up it, under the trees. Lightning sparked across the moor behind followed by a deafening clap of thunder.
She jumped at the noise and the horse easily yanked the reins from her grip.
“Bloody horse,” she hissed after its retreating tail.
“Please. Come back here,” she called weakly.
She spent a full minute trying to decide what to do.
Go after the horse or continue on foot? In the end the rain decided it for her.
Under the thick canopy, Rachel was dry. She gathered her skirts and started to climb.
She walked blindly, her thin slippers barely protecting her feet from sharp rocks.
She wanted to put some distance between her and Druim before finding a safe place to sleep for the night.
Rachel wondered what type of animals roamed these woods.
She glanced up nervously as God lit up the forest with another flash of lightning.
The deafening crack of thunder barely registered in Rachel’s shocked mind for, standing on a boulder just above her, was the barbarian. He had come for her.
The light retreated, leaving her blind until her blinking eyes adjusted again to the shadows.
He stood staring down at her as if cut from the rugged granite around them, a fortress like the mighty castle behind her.
Curiosity and shock mixed on his face. As distant lightning lit up the trees again, she watched his eyebrows rise and the corner of his lush mouth crook upward into a lopsided grin.
Rachel’s heart danced, flushing her with heat that, luckily, he couldn’t see in the dark.
He’d come for her. A man who kept his promise.
Rachel wasn’t sure what to do. Should she walk to him or wait in the dark? What was the protocol for a rescue? She huffed. Some rescue. She’d done most of it herself. And for all she knew she was being rescued by someone much more dangerous than those at Druim.
The man’s shadow moved in the darkness and Rachel jumped, frowning at herself. Even if she could barely see, she definitely could hear.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice sharp in the stillness.
“Alec Munro.” His deep voice, drawn rough and strong, reflected his Highland heritage. Rachel released her breath and nodded in relief. He was a Munro. Thank the Holy Lord. “And ye are?”
“Rachel Brindle. I was travelling with my father and sister to Munro Keep when the Macbains attacked.”
“And ye circled around into the fight to …”
Rachel felt guilt bubble up inside. She certainly hadn’t meant to ride back and distract him. “My sense of direction is quite poor,” she murmured. “I did not intend to disturb you.”
“Yer father travels to meet with The Munro?”
A flash of lightning showed him much closer than she’d thought, his gaze assessing. She refused to back away even though her foot lifted involuntarily. “My father trades with Hamish Munro.”
“Hamish Munro is dead.”