Highland Wolf (Highland Brides #10)(2)

“Laird Kerr,” the Wolf said in greeting as he reined in before them. He then reached into his plaid to retrieve a scroll. Holding it in hand with the seal covered, he let his gaze slide briefly over Claray before turning his attention back to her uncle. “I understand your niece, Claray MacFarlane, is visiting. Is this her?”

“Aye,” her uncle muttered distractedly, his gaze on the scroll.

Nodding, the Wolf leaned down, offering him the sealed message. Claray resisted the urge to rub the spot where her uncle’s hand had gripped her so tightly when he released her to take the missive. Her upper arm was throbbing, but pride made her ignore it as she watched him break the seal and start to unroll the scroll.

Claray was actually holding her breath as she waited. Hope had reared in her again, this time that the missive might be from her cousin Aulay Buchanan. Perhaps this was his response to her cousin Mairin’s plea for help on her behalf. She might yet be saved from the fate the MacNaughton would force on her. Distracted as she was, Claray was completely caught off guard when the Wolf suddenly scooped her up off her feet as he straightened in the saddle.

She heard her uncle’s shout of protest over her own startled gasp, and then she was in the man’s lap and he was turning his mount sharply and urging it into a run toward the gates.

Claray was so stunned by this turn of events she didn’t even think to struggle. She did look back as she was carried out of the bailey though. She saw the two men who had arrived with the Wolf following hard on their heels, and beyond that, her uncle’s red face as he began to bellow orders for the gate to be closed and the drawbridge raised. A quick look forward showed the men on the wall scrambling to follow his orders, but the gate was released one moment too late. The spiked bottom slammed into the ground behind the last horse rather than before them, and while the bridge started to rise as they rode across it, it was a slow process and had only risen perhaps two or three feet off the ground by the time they’d crossed it.

The Wolf’s horse leapt off the tip without hesitation, and Claray instinctively closed her mouth to keep from biting off her tongue on landing. She was glad she had when they hit the hardpacked dirt with a bone-jarring jolt she felt in every inch of her body. Teeth grinding against the pain that shuddered through her on impact, Claray glanced back again to watch the other two men follow them off the bridge. She was more than a little surprised when the fair-haired warrior caught her eye and gave her a reassuring grin followed by a wink.

Flushing, Claray turned forward once more and tried to sort out what was happening and how she should feel about it. However, her thought processes weren’t very clear just now. She’d had little to eat these last three days but what Mairin had managed to sneak to her that morning, and she hadn’t slept at all. Instead, she’d spent that time alternately pacing as she tried to come up with a solution to her situation, or on her knees, praying to God for His intervention. She was exhausted, bewildered and, frankly, all her mind seemed capable of grasping at that moment was that this did seem to be an answer to her prayer. She would not be marrying Maldouen MacNaughton today.

Relief oozing through her, Claray let out the breath she’d been holding and allowed herself to relax in her captor’s arms.



“She’s sleeping.”

Conall lifted his gaze from the lass cuddled against his chest and glanced to Roderick Sinclair, who had urged his horse up on his right. The man looked both surprised and amused at the woman’s reaction to the situation she found herself in. Conall merely nodded and shifted his gaze back to the lass, but he was a little surprised himself.

Lady Claray MacFarlane had been asleep before they’d got a hundred feet from the drawbridge of Kerr’s castle. Conall had been a bit befuddled by that at the time, and still was. He’d basically just kidnapped her. She had no idea who he was, yet hadn’t struggled or even protested. Instead, the lass had curled up like a kitten in his lap and gone to sleep. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that and had fretted over it as they’d met up with his men and then galloped through the morning and afternoon, riding north at a hard pace that he’d only just slowed to a trot because the sun was starting to set.

Aside from the fact that the horses couldn’t keep up that speed indefinitely, Conall wouldn’t risk one of their mounts or men being injured by traveling at such a pace in the dark. They’d have to travel more slowly and with a great deal of care through the night. But they wouldn’t stop. Despite the information in the scroll he’d given her uncle, Conall had no doubt Kerr would have sent men after them. Even if he didn’t, certainly MacNaughton would. From all accounts the man was determined to marry the lass no matter that her father wouldn’t agree to the match.

Conall didn’t really understand the man’s tenacity on this issue. The lass was bonnie enough, he acknowledged as his gaze slid over the waves of strawberry blond hair that framed her heart-shaped face. But she wasn’t so bonnie it was worth going to war with your neighbors over.

“So ye told her who ye are while we were riding?” Payton asked with a surprise that Conall knew was born of the fact that it was hard to talk at the speed they’d been moving. The pounding hooves of so many horses and the rush of wind would have meant having to yell, not to mention taking the risk of biting your own tongue while you did it.

Conall hesitated, but then admitted, “I’ve told her naught.”