The Accidental Highland Hero (19 page)

As soon as they left the outer bailey, she rode up to join Cyn. “Where did Nighinn tell you to escort me?”

“The nearest village. From there, ye will have to make your own way.” Sour faced, scraggly like a horny toad, his lips thinned and his eyes ice blue with contempt, Cyn stared straight ahead and said not another word.

The cold forced another shiver through her as she huddled closer to her horse. A crack of thunder broke overhead, and Eilis stifled a gasp. Then the deluge of rain began. Her head bowed, she tried to keep the rain from dripping over the hood into her eyes, but the winds whipped this way and that and, after several minutes, it ran down her throat into Nighinn’s gaping gown.

“Will you show me the way to Glen Affric?”  Mayhap she could find Fia, her memories, and a way out of this mess.

“Aye, I will point out the way from the village.”

And then he spoke no more. She was too cold to care and concentrated on clutching the cloak to her throat, trying to keep the rainwater from running down the gown any further.

But a couple of hours into their journey, riding through soggy heather in the glen with the rain pounding relentlessly, she glanced about to see where Cyn was. Gone. She looked back over her shoulder. All of the men had slipped away.

Chapter Ten

 A twinge of panic attacked Eilis as she halted her horse in the middle of nowhere, wondering where she was as the rain continued to soak her through and through. Now she realized how vulnerable she could be alone without an escort, unprotected. She squashed the impulse to turn around and seek the shelter of Craigly Castle.

Had Nighinn hoped something untoward would happen to her unescorted as she was?  She didn’t doubt it.

With another ripple of shivers cascading down her spine, she pulled the cloak tighter and hoped when she finally dismounted, Nighinn’s gown wouldn’t fall off her it was so big. But she was glad to leave James’s sister’s gowns behind. They were not given to her to keep and mayhap Catriona could wear them some day.

Eilis bit back the fit of jealousy that swamped her. She had no right to feel any way concerning James and Catriona’s relationship. He wanted her for his wife, and Eilis was unimportant in the scheme of things except as a means to an end.

With that dismal thought and the cold rainwater running down her face and gown, she reflected how terrible it was to have nobody to care for and no one to care for her in return.

The cold wind whipped the hood off her head, and the rain doused her hair. With numbed fingers, she struggled to pull the hood back in place.

A horse whinnied some distance off. Cyn and his men?  Mayhap they were looking for her?  Heart racing, she jerked her head around, but saw no one, just sheets of gray water so heavy, she couldn’t make out the lay of the land. But what if it was James or one of his men searching for his brother?  Och, she hadn’t considered that. She turned her mount away from the sound of the horse. What if she ran into the search party?  Mayhap they wouldn’t recognize her.

Nay, they wouldn’t. She imagined she looked as drowned as when Eanruig and Niall pulled her from the sea.
Eanruig.
Aye, he would recognize her.

More horses whinnied, and men shouted over the wailing wind. She couldn’t make out their words though, and because she couldn’t see them, she presumed they couldn’t see her, which gave her a shred of relief.

Heading farther away from the men, she hoped she wasn’t riding in a circle and looping back in the direction of Craigly Castle. She nudged her horse into a grove of trees and prayed the branches and needle-like leaves of the larch would deflect some of the drenching rain. When she dipped her head to keep the rain off her face, she saw a cave half hidden by underbrush. Did wild animals live there?

  To get out of the wind and rain, she’d take her chances as cold and wet as she was. After slipping off the horse, she tied him to a branch then ducked inside the cave. ‘Twas so dark, she could see naught but groped along the rugged walls until she was well away from the entrance and out of the wind. But still, she was chilled to the bone, and inside the cave it was even colder.

What she wouldn’t have given for a fire and dry…

She tilted her head up and sniffed. The smell of smoke drifted in the chilly, damp air. She froze. Then faint light deeper in the cave caught her eye. Before she could flee, a giant of a man rounded the crag, rushed her, and covered her mouth, stifling her scream. He lifted her into his arms as if she were naught but a cloth doll and stalked deeper into the cavern.

  Although she craved telling the man to let her go, she feared he’d harm her so she bit her tongue and said naught. Mayhap she could talk her way out of this, after she dried her clothes by his fire.

But the way his blue eyes speared her with intrigue, she thought mayhap not. His blond hair hung loosely about his broad shoulders, and his sturdy build and blue eyes reminded her of a Norseman. She briefly wondered what he’d be doing in these parts. Although the worry about what he intended to do with her soon made her think of naught else.

His footfalls echoed off the rock, and the fire crackled and popped in the distance. She shivered from the cold and fear.

When the roof of the cave reached downward, the man stooped low, holding her closer to his body. His heat slightly warmed her, his actions reminding her of James when he carried her into the keep after she attempted her first escape. She shivered again in a man’s warm embrace but wished she was in James’s protective arms instead. Even though the Norseman didn’t scowl at her like James had.

In a darkened corner of the cave, a man’s abrupt laughter erupted. She jerked her head around to see who it was.

Long dark hair and eyes the color of a mink watched her. His bemused expression and build reminded her of James. His brother? Dougald?

“I am usually the one to catch the lasses so quickly, but do you not think in our current predicament this is neither the time nor the place for such frivolities, Gunnolf?”  His smile broadened, and his eyes sparkled with mischief.

Gunnolf?  Wasn’t he the man traveling with James’s brother?  Praise be to God they were safe.

“Ja, but I thought she was one of them,” the Norseman said, his mouth curving upward as he set her on her feet next to the fire.

She rubbed her arms and moved even closer to the flames.

“Aye, she looks very much like a hardened warrior, minus a sword. Unless you already disarmed the lass and dropped the sword yonder.” The man’s dark eyes caught and held her attention as he strode across the cavern and joined them. Just as beautiful as James, the same way he walked, with purpose and nobility…and charm.

The Highlander pulled off her cloak, and she squeaked, the sound bouncing off the limestone walls. “You will catch your death, lass.” He shook her cloak out, sending water droplets flying, some sparking the fire. He set the garment next to the flames.

“You are Dougald?” Eilis asked, her breath in her throat.

He raised his brows. “Do not tell me my brother has sent you to rescue me?”  He cocked his head to the side and considered her gown, the fabric voluminous enough to attire two women, clinging now to her shivering form.

“You need to remove your gown, lass, or you will become ill.”

“Nay.” She vigorously shook her head.

Dougald shrugged out of his worn tunic, revealing his naked torso, as bronzed as James was, and now wearing only a pair of trewes. “You will learn I am not easily dissuaded when a lass’s health is at risk.” He handed his tunic to her. “We will turn our backs.”

Her skin flushed with heat, she hurriedly yanked the wet gown down to her feet then pulled off the skin-clinging shift. After slipping Dougald’s tunic over her head, his own body heat still warming the wool, she laid her garments beside the fire.

“I…I am dressed.” Although in a man’s short tunic she felt nearly as naked as when she had no clothes on at all and still felt chilled to the very depths of her person.

Dressed only in the pair of ragged, checkered trewes, Dougald retook his seat by the fire. The light of the flames glistened off his skin and the moist walls. The wind howled eerily at the entrance to the cave, muffled by the thick rugged stone. Droplets of water dripped off daggers of rock clinging to the ceiling into shallow pools. The fire spit and crackled as she stretched her fingers over the scant warmth.

“Now, explain why you are out in this weather all alone,” Dougald commanded, as authoritative as James would be. Did all his brothers sound the same?

Gunnolf considered her nearly sheer shift lying beside the fire, a small smile tugging at his lips. She had heard men oft had the most wicked thoughts about women even when they were fully clothed, but God’s knees she wasn’t even
half
dressed.

“Sit.” Dougald motioned to a natural stone bench situated next to the fire.

She took a seat. “James and his men are searching for you. They might be quite close.”

His eyes dark, Dougald frowned. “You have not explained what you are doing out here all by your wee self, lass.”

“I have business that is none of your concern,” she snapped.

Gunnolf grinned. “’Tis not that James has upset another wee lassie who belongs to some clan chief who wishes James to marry, eh?”

“Of course not!”  She glowered at Gunnolf. “He is marrying Lady Catriona who should be here…soon. And his cousin, Nighinn is trying to win his hand, if the marriage fails to occur with Catriona.”

“Nighinn?”  Dougald groaned. “Not her.”

“Aye and Lady Beatrice is there.”

“James would not allow a bonny lass such as yourself to travel alone across his lands.” Dougald leaned closer to the fire, and the flames danced off his eyes, entrancing her.

Yet there was something about James that had Dougald beat. But she couldn’t decide what it was. Mayhap that James was angry with her more oft than not which inspired her own temper to flare, making her feel full of life. And he did not use his rakish charms on her
overmuch
. Dougald did not even know her, yet he was trying to exploit his handsome features to seduce her.

“I had an escort, but I lost the three men.”

“Three men?  Not enough to protect a lovely lass,” Dougald said, his gaze so intense, she felt he wished to force the truth from her with just a look.

She again took note of the rags they wore, well, and now that she wore also. She couldn’t imagine James’s brother would be so attired. “Where are your weapons?”

“Taken. Dunbarton’s men captured us, and one of his lasses freed us. They are now in search of us. Mayhap that is who you heard calling out yonder way.”

Her heart sank. She’d thought it was James and his kin, although she had worried the men might have been thieves. She considered the rocky cave floor and wondered what she’d do now. If she ventured forth alone when the rain let up, she’d surely run into someone—either James and his men or the Dunbartons. After some of the tales she’d heard about the evil the Dunbartons had done recently, she didn’t wish to meet up with any of those men.

“Who are you, lass?  I am Dougald MacNeill, James’s second eldest brother. And this is Gunnolf, friend and bodyguard.”

“I would change my loyalties in the blink of an eye to guard the lady’s body.” Gunnolf cast a rakish grin, but she thought him only teasing, to a degree.

“The lass is a genteel woman. Mayhap a lady even. Although a wee big, her garments are of the finest wool, her shift the kind of chemise only ladies of higher standing wear. So who are you?”

“Allison,” she lied.

Dougald’s eyes widened, and he glanced at Gunnolf.