An Auctioned Bride (Highland Heartbeats #4)(39)

She tried to shift him into position, and finally managed to hang onto his mane with one hand as she stepped onto a large rock with her good leg. She would still have to make a bit of a jump to throw herself partly over the horse's back, but when she was there, she felt sure she could scramble astraddle without falling off. Only one way to find out.

“Okay, I need you to hold still for me, all right? We have to help Hugh.”

The horse stomped impatiently, flicked its tail, and then blew another short breath from its muzzle. Now or never. The horse grew fidgety.

Quickly, she tightened her grasp on the clump of his mane in her left hand, placed her hand on its back as she had done once before, and then, still favoring her injured leg, leaped upward. She managed to land halfway across the horse's back, her feet dangling, her torso precariously balanced.

The horse shied a bit to the side, nearly spilling her to the ground. Ignoring the pain in her injured leg, she managed to scramble higher and swung her leg over. She was unbalanced, and the horse uncertain, still scampering sideways, but she once again resumed singing the lullaby which seemed to calm him.

“Good boy,” she soothed, leaning forward to pat his neck. She grabbed his mane with her other hand and leaned her body forward. “Go one now,” she cajoled. “Come on, let's walk.”

The horse merely stood, twitching his ears at the quiet sound of her voice. Riding this half-wild horse without saddle and reins was going to be quite a bit more difficult than what she was used to, which was a gentle mare, sidesaddle, reins, and… w

Well, nothing to be done about that now.

Squeezing her thighs tightly around the barrel of the horse, she tugged on its mane, urging it to go in the direction she wanted, tapping with her heels. He moved off. Again, she heaved a sigh of gratitude. This was a smart horse. Then again, maybe it just wanted to return to the hut, maybe even to the mare, who maybe, just maybe, might have returned.

With one backward glance toward the cleft in the rock wall that she could barely see, she faced forward, her eyes casting to and fro among the trees, doing her best to keep the horse to a sedate walk as they headed downslope. She let the horse lead, knowing that the gelding was more likely to remember exactly where the hut was than she did. The last thing she needed to was to inadvertently run into the group of highlanders, and that strange English man who had tried to kill them.

She still didn't know who they were or what they wanted, but she had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that somehow, in some way, news had gotten back to the one it was who had ordered her kidnapping in the first place.

And now they were following her, and when they found her, they would make sure this time that she was dead for good.





22





Hugh watched Dalla disappear from the opening of the cave, though he tried to get up and stop her. His body refused to do his bidding. Even his voice failed him. He glanced down at his leg, cursed, and fell back, weak as a baby. Unable to protect Dalla, unable to even protect himself.

He lay gasping, forcing back the blackness the clouded around the edges of his eyes, and felt for his knife and ax. They were there. Why hadn't she taken his weapons? She should have taken his weapons!

A myriad of thoughts raced through his head, none of them good. He lay wounded, weak from loss of blood. Dalla was out there, defenseless, and someone had tried to kill him, or her, or both of them.

Pain shot through his leg, and he closed his eyes, then forced them open. It was too easy to fall asleep, as weak as he was.

Dalla said that she had seen highlanders, at least based on her description of their appearance and clothing, and another man dressed in better clothing, but what did that mean? Was she assuming that it was a foreigner? There were plenty of Scottish who did not dress like highlanders, especially in a large city. What would be the purpose of an Englishman traveling all the way from England to southern Scotland and then making his way up-country and into the highlands?

It didn't make sense. She must've been mistaken. She must've seen highlanders, maybe with perhaps some city dwellers, perhaps from the east along the coastline, or maybe even Moray Firth to the northwest.

It grew more difficult concentrate, to push back the edges of blackness the threatened to pull him down into painless slumber. He focused his gaze on the opening in the cave wall. Perhaps they had seen a young lass out by herself, unprotected, and thought to take advantage.

But no… he could not make such a mistake in assuming… she said that she had seen them from a distance, and had hidden, so they couldn't have seen her first and then given chase. They had found her trail and then given chase, or else… or else someone had followed their trail from the seaport… perhaps someone who had not taken kindly to Hugh winning his bid to pay for her for himself.

He sighed, confused, unable to make sense of it. They were in trouble, the both of them. Without him, she would die out there in the wilds, perhaps be kidnapped again, to a fate worse than he even wanted to contemplate. She could become lost and at the mercy of the wild animals. Unbidden, the memory of finding Elyse all those years ago tore through him, prompting a groan.

Even if he was to survive his injury, they were without horses, and winter was fast approaching. He had told Phillip he would return before the first snowfall. And if he didn't? He had no doubt that Phillip would send others, accompanied more than likely by Jake and Maccay, to find Hugh, but they didn't know where he was. All he had told them was that he was venturing north toward the coast. He couldn't recall if he had even mentioned to them his idea of trying to find Derek.