Snow Raven (6 page)

Merry shivered, skirts swaying to a halt as she encountered another miniature lake in the road. Within moments of her pausing, the others vanished into the deepening mist which had rolled down from the Welsh hills with the oncoming twilight. She heard a murmur of voices and assumed she could catch up easily enough. A moment’s rest, surely, was not amiss. Her legs ached, muscles tense from the cold and damp, and she eyed a nearby copse longingly.

Just a respite from the rain would be welcome, so she picked up her hoops again, and picked her way through the mire, having long ago decided it was best not to think about how she must look after the events of this day. Wearily Merry ducked beneath some low-hanging branches, then eased herself into a small clearing where the tree cover lessened the rain to an occasional droplet. She pushed back her hood and shook out her hair, feeling the damp locks tumble free of what little remained of her coiffure. Mist curled about her, and had she not been so exhausted and miserable, she might have been frightened by the deepening silence of the darkened wood.

Instead, she leaned against a young alder, letting the tree serve for support. Certainly there was none other she could count upon. Were Sir Jasper here, Merry assured herself, he would have gallantly tossed his cloak in the mire as Raleigh had for the queen, thus preserving her delicate little slippers and her dignity in one fell swoop.

Whereas the laird of Lindsay abandoned a lady to her own devices. Merry sniffed at the unbidden reminder of her adverse circumstances, conveniently forgetting it was she who had refused the offer of a steed.

A dark figure stepped from the curtain of mist before her eyes, startling Merry. She was unaware of another presence there at all until he spoke.

“Mistress Tanner, are you unwell?”

Merry might have imagined concern in Lindsay’s deep voice, but knew better. Her challenging gaze met his level one, and for a moment they simply regarded each other with a wary, mutual respect.

“Nay, sirrah. I but decided to avail myself of a break from the enforced march.”

Merry spoke lightly, but her tone betrayed her pique. She no longer cared what Lindsay thought of her; indeed, she was eager to be quit of his company as well.

Something suspiciously close to a smile touched the corners of his mouth. Beautifully shaped lips, she noted resentfully, the lower one full and slightly reddened as if a bee had stung it and flew away. His dark hair glistened with rain, and even at a distance she caught the scent of him, hauntingly familiar now though they had only the briefest of acquaintances.

“I must needs remind the lady she had the option of riding.”

Aye, trust him to toss that in her face! Merry stiffened, her gaze never leaving his. “I assume I delay your journey, milord?”

“Not at all. I have, in fact, taken the liberty of sending the others ahead. I fear your man is not doing well.”

“Jem looked uncommonly pale,” Merry agreed, frowning with concern.

“Precisely why I instructed Gilbert and Hugo to ride on and see him settled for the night in a village or inn. Warmth is what he needs now, warmth and rest and plenty of quiet.”

She nodded. It was difficult, nigh impossible, to ignore Ranald Lindsay looming over her, making her feel absurdly petite by comparison. Something about the man set her heart racing and yet raised an instinctive alarm, causing mixed feelings and confusing her senses. Perhaps it was the intimacy of the misty little clearing, the pressing of heavy air around them swirling her up in a maelstrom of emotion.

“We should forge on as well.” Merry was dismayed at the sound of her own voice, breathless and too rushed to pass for the cool mien she was renowned for at Court. She glimpsed a flash of something in Lindsay’s dark eyes at her remark; was it amusement?

“I quite agree. Travel will only worsen with the dastardly Welsh weather, I fear.”

“Surely Scotland cannot be any vast improvement,” Merry said with some asperity, and when he chuckled at her remark she was quite surprised.

“Have you ever been to Scotland, lass?”

“Lass?” Merry looked at him, unsure if he meant to insult her or not, but quite unwilling to be mocked. She shook her head. “Please do not call me thusly. Nay, I’ve no need nor desire to cross the border until this year.”

“Until the betrothal with … what was your fine lord’s name?”

“Sir Jasper Wickham.” Merry did not attempt to conceal the annoyance in her tone this time, certain he was mocking her. Quite good at it, he was, too, she conceded with a silent annoyance. Those dark eyes gleamed with triumph, yet nothing but the smoothest of words escaped his lips.

“Ah, the esteemed Sir Wickham.” Ranald nodded and managed to project an appropriately sincere air. She succumbed to the urge to bait him in turn and looked in the direction of a stirring dark shadow in the mists.

“Your ill-natured mount, I presume?”

He laughed shortly. “Aye, lass—ahh, milady. Resist though you may the notion of riding, at this late hour ’tis only sensible. Already the sun races us to the inn.”

Merry knew he was right and clamped down the urge to mount a spirited, if token, resistance. She glanced at her muddied skirts, ruined slippers and sighed. She ached from head to toe; this miserable damp did nothing but accentuate her misery. Surely even an uncouth Scot was halfway bearable under such trying circumstances.

“Pray assist me then.” Doing a passable imitation of Gloriana herself, Merry hiked her skirts and farthingale to her ankles and half stomped, half strode toward the tethered horse. It shied at her sudden emergence from the mist, but Lindsay was right there, soothing the nervous animal with a surprisingly gentle hand. Merry noticed his fingers were not blunt and thick like a peasant’s, but long and tapered, like those of a musician. It contrasted with his roughshod nature, and she felt breathless again. A kilt-clad warrior with an artist’s hands. Why did such a realization send little shudders through her?

Before she realized it, Ranald Lindsay had circled her waist with those remarkable hands and boosted her easily into the saddle. She was forced by necessity of the farthingale to ride sidesaddle, and the seat was not suited for such, but Merry was a passable horsewoman. Her Majesty and Uncle Kit would have stood for nothing less. Every Tanner born was a neck-or-nothing rider, and she smiled as she supposed Lindsay assumed her a helpless bit of fluff clinging terrified to a horse’s mane.

A second later he joined Merry, lithely swinging into position behind her, strong thighs again gripping the gelding’s sides, his hips seeming to meld against her backside through layers of material. Against her will, Merry gasped and gripped the gelding’s mane, and the instant she did so she sensed his amusement.

Ranald Lindsay laughed low, in a rich baritone which rolled through her like the thunder in the distance, and before she could debate the wisdom of riding with a wild Scot, he had touched his heels to the horse’s ribs and they bolted into the mist.

* * *

AS UAR LAPSED INTO a canter over marshy ground, Ran steadied his passenger with one hand circling her waist. A tiny waist, he noted with an irritation he couldn’t fully explain, feeling the smooth ridges of whalebone stays blocking any definition of the flesh beneath. Meredith Tanner was like a female caged in steel and silk, enticingly near, yet beyond all boundaries just the same. For a painful moment, he imagined it was Blair he held in his arms, her flaxen hair spilling over her shoulders and her sweet laughter rippling over them like the wind.

A deep shudder coursed through him, causing his arm to tighten about Mistress Tanner’s waist, and she let out a little mewl of pain.

“Forgive me,” Ran muttered, immediately removing himself from any deliberate contact with the woman, only praying she wasn’t such a needle-wit as to slide off the saddle when they hit a rough spot. Grudgingly he conceded Mistress Tanner appeared to have some grasp of riding, as evidenced by her natural posture. Her tension came not from Uar’s unpredictable nature, he suspected, but the intimate contact necessitated by riding double with himself.

She was not alone in her discomfort. His loins betrayed his need, his hunger after months of denial and suppression. After Blair’s death, he had not succumbed to any woman’s wiles, though there were certainly a share of fair lasses upon his demesne. Ran’s treacherous body reminded him he was not dead yet, though his heart had been burned and buried with his beloved wife and child. He set his jaw, feeling anger rise as his conscience warred with base physical needs.

How could he look upon another woman, especially some court-bred tart who simpered about the magnificent rat she was to marry, a man spawned from the bowels of hell? A man who had enticed Blair to her untimely end. Wickham’s fiancée. The realization set him to shaking, not with fear but rather a cold, deadly rage all too familiar over the past months.

How ironic life was. He had Wickham’s woman in his arms, a frilly Tudor rose as worthless as the snake himself. How easy it would be to simply lift his big hands and wrap them about her slender neck. Ran considered this course only briefly; it was not in his nature to murder innocents, even lasses as vexing as this red-haired virago. Besides, Wickham would not be truly injured by such an act. Shocked, perhaps, and maybe a trifle disturbed, but in his self-absorbed way, Sir Jasper would quickly forget and move on.

Nay, the means to wound Wickham lay not in futile acts of desperation, but in slow, measured humiliation. He was a man whose reputation depended much upon public opinion, and the best way to strike at his black heart was to wound his ego.

Ran’s lips thinned in a calculating smile. He imagined he held a proverbial sword to Wickham’s groin now, and with one quick thrust he could render a
Sassenach
fiend forever impotent.

* * *

MERRY WAS UNAWARE WHEN she nodded off, but what surprised her most was awaking with a jolt to find herself nestled intimately against Lord Lindsay. His muscular arm encircled her waist, and she leaned precariously to one side, her head cradled against his broad chest. She resisted a first impulse to jerk free, and instead inhaled slowly as her mind wildly sought any escape from looming humiliation. There didn’t seem to be any.

It seemed they had traveled leagues already, and it had been dark for several hours. The rain had stopped, surrendering its hold on the heavens to a waxing moon bright with promise and a web of stars that tangled above them like a jeweled strand. Merry caught a whiff of saltwater and prayed it was Bristol Channel. Weariness gripped her like a stony hand, and she slumped back against Lord Lindsay despite her resolve. His sturdy frame seemed to absorb the worst impact of Uar’s jolting gait, cushioning the shock to her already bruised body.

His deep voice rumbled against her hair. “Almost there, Mistress Tanner.”

Merry nodded, not trusting herself to speak. Something about his presence, the masculine tones reverberating through her, set her quivering with both anticipation and an unfamiliar trepidation. Never had she felt so wary of a man, but then Lindsay was no ordinary man.

“I confess I shall be glad to be quit of this roughshod beastie,” Merry said, attempting a carefree little laugh she did not feel. “Remind me, milord, to recommend my uncle as a source of fine, smooth-gaited steeds.”

“Only if you address me as Ranald henceforth, and dispense with all manner of title.”

Merry twisted in the saddle so she might look at him. By moonlight his features were darkly handsome, saturnine. She quelled an urge to shiver and instead injected mirth into her tone. “But y’are by rights a peer. ’Tis unseemly I should not acknowledge your status.”

“More my bane.” Something flashed in his eyes, though his gaze remained steadfast ahead, not meeting hers. “Better yet, keep it simple. Ran will suffice for now.”

Ranald … Ran … a name as harsh and unforgiving as the rugged mountains from whence this dark Scot issued, Merry thought. She conceded his request, though it did not rest easily with her courtly upbringing. She settled for his Christian name rather than a presumptuous nickname.

“Very well, Ranald … how much longer to the inn? I thought ’twas but a few hours?”

She peered ahead into the inky darkness, judging the emptiness of their surroundings by the lack of any light.

He did not answer for a moment. “I remember you blamed me for missing an encounter with your betrothed.”

“Not you specifically, of course. Your little brother—bent on mischief, that reckless, would-be, incompetent Highway Jack.”

He chuckled low. “An apt description of young Gil. You ken he meant no mischief?”

“Ken?” Merry glanced at him, the Scots dialect taking her by surprise. She sensed he worked hard to match her precise English, and by the way his hand balled under her rib cage, knew he was annoyed by the little slip.

“You know he meant no harm. A cad’s trick, to be sure, but Gil has not a malicious bone in his body, lass.”

“Merry, please.” It seemed only fair since he had invited her to indulge in similar familiarities, and she disliked the playful spin he put on “lass.” “As for your brother the knave, we shall see.” She kept her tone cool and noncommittal, expecting a plea or demand she be soft on the wayward cad. None came.

Instead, they jogged on for several more miles in relative silence, until Merry remembered he had not answered her last question.

“The inn, milor—Ranald. How far?”

“We are not going to the inn.”

“Nay?” Merry was surprised and no little disconcerted by this news. This time, she did wrench herself halfway round to stare at him. “Then where? Directly to Whitehall?”

“No.”

His curt response did not bode well for her temper. “Wherever are you taking me?”

“The border.”

“Border? You mean, north?”

Merry heard herself stammering like an idiot, and flushed with frustration. Something about this man pushed her to the edge. Mayhap his refusal to deal with her directly. Whatever the source of this irritation, she was determined he would not get the best of her.

“Indeed, I note we’ve changed directions. The moon was rising in the opposite direction when we left the glen.” Merry strove to remain calm, not easy considering she risked provoking a man who controlled not only the horse, but her very life at the moment.