The Hunter (Highland Guard #7)(99)

And God, he was hot.

He groaned and would have gone back to sleep if Robert hadn’t shaken him again. “The lass, where is she?”

That brought him up quick. Some of the haze cleared from his mind. Janet. His gaze shot to the pallet. The empty pallet.

He swore, realizing what had happened. He’d fallen asleep, and she’d fled.

How the hell could this have happened? He’d been on duty, damn it! He didn’t make mistakes like this.

He tried to get to his feet, but something wasn’t right. He couldn’t seem to get his limbs to coordinate. Bloody hell, he was as weak as a newborn foal.

“What is the matter with you, lad?” Robert said, giving him a hand. “You’re burning as hot as hellfire, and it’s cold in here.”

“I don’t know—”

Ewen’s words died in a stab of pain as he tried to put weight on his injured leg.

“It’s the leg. Must be worse than you let on.” Robert paused to shout for his wife. “Sit,” he ordered. “Margaret will take a look at it.”

Ewen shook him off, looking around for his things like a man without sight. “I can’t. I have to go after her.”

“Why would she leave?” Robert asked.

Because he was a blind fool. “To get away from me.”

If anything happened to her, he would never forgive himself.

He reached for his sword and nearly fell. God, he felt horrible! He didn’t need Helen to tell him that something was very wrong with his leg. How could things get so bad so quickly? He’d thought it was looking better, but it was worse. Much worse.

He bit through the pain and the fog of fever to ready himself. He managed to get most of his armor on before Margaret appeared.

Her soft cry told him that he must look worse than he felt. “You’re ill!” she said.

He didn’t argue. But a quick glance through the remaining bag told him he was going to need a few things. “I will need some food and drink, and whatever coin you can spare.”

Janet had taken it all. He swore again. How could he have been so derelict? He knew she would run. He should have taken better precautions. He should have tied her up, damn it. He should have done whatever was necessary to keep her safe.

He should have done whatever was necessary to keep her with him.

Ah hell! He swore again. Not even the fever could prevent him from seeing the truth.

“You can’t go anywhere like this,” Margaret said.

“I have to,” Ewen said through clenched teeth, fighting the powerful force that seemed to be trying to slow him down. It was up to him. The morning sun was already in full force. “She could have been gone a few hours already.” He couldn’t lose the tracks while they were fresh.

He picked up the bag and started toward the back of the barn. His leg buckled, and he would have fallen to the ground had Robert not caught him under one arm. “Steady, lad.”

“The horse,” Ewen said, biting back the wave of nausea that rose inside him. “Just help me to the horse.”

“It’s gone,” Robert said.

The extent of his failure was humiliating. While he was supposed to be on guard, she’d snuck a damned horse past him. “I’ll have to go on foot.”

“You won’t make it to the next village in your condition,” Margaret said.

He didn’t even make it out of the barn. Darkness rose like a fiery dragon’s mouth and swallowed him whole.

Janet didn’t stop looking over her shoulder, expecting Ewen to come storming down the road behind her like a demon from hell. Or perhaps, more accurately, a phantom from hell.

She remembered how he’d looked the first time she’d seen him. The dark leather armor dotted with rivets of steel, the strangely fashioned plaid wrapped around him, the blackened nasal helm and arsenal of weaponry strapped to his broad, well-muscled chest. Her heart squeezed. She’d been scared for good reason, it turned out. She should have turned and run the first moment she’d seen him.

But either he wasn’t coming after her or she was better at hiding her tracks than she thought. She remembered his tips: hard ground, water or rivers when possible, circle back, confuse and obfuscate. She kept to the road, blending and hiding her tracks as best she could. But she knew her best weapon was speed, so she didn’t take as much time hiding them as she could have.

Perhaps the misdirection had worked? Recalling what Ewen had done when first taking her from Rutherford, Janet did not retrace their steps east, but rather headed north toward Glasgow, hoping to lose her tracks in the large burgh before turning eastward onto the main road.

But unfortunately, Ewen had the advantage of knowing her destination. Even if she managed to elude him on the road, he would find her soon enough in Roxburgh. Unless she could think of a way of making contact with her source at the castle without returning to Rutherford.

Despite what she’d told Ewen, the idea of donning her habit again did not sit well with her. Having come to the barn in only a chemise—the fine under-gown Mary had thoughtfully provided still in the house—Janet had been forced to choose between the extravagant surcote meant to go over it or “Novice Eleanor’s” dark brown wool kirtle. Although she’d chosen the latter—a woman in such a fine gown traveling alone would be much more difficult to explain—she could not bear to put on the white scapular and veil. Instead, she’d wrapped the plaid around herself like a hooded cloak—the one Margaret had left, not Ewen’s—and did her best to avoid other travelers on the road.