What a Highlander's Got to Do

by Sabrina York

  Isobel knew he was sleeping, because his snores rocked the coach.

  It was, indeed, a good thing she was not inclined to sleep as well, because she certainly would not have been able to.

  Idly, she wondered if Nick snored. And then, irritated with herself—because it surely didn’t matter now—she pushed the thought away.

  She’d made her choice, and she’d chosen freedom.

  Hadn’t she?

  As for the child, if she was indeed carrying one, there were no worries there. Her mother had raised her to the age of five without a father in sight, and she’d turned out just fine.

  She’d been a hellion, certainly, but that had hardly changed when her parents met again and finally married.

  Isobel closed her eyes and thought of those days. The first time she’d met Andrew Lochlannach. How he’d saved her and protected her and loved her.

  When he’d entered her life, everything had changed. For the better. Oh, it had been fine before he came, but with him in their lives, it had been magical.

  It was a shame her child—if there was one—would not know the love of a father.

  Surely she was not stealing that from her? Or him.

  Oh, glory. It could be a boy.

  Her hand stole over her stomach and her breath caught. A little boy, just like him.

  Did a son need a father more than a daughter?

  And then, yet another terrible realization. If she did have a boy, she’d be robbing him of more than a father.

  She would be robbing him of a legacy.

  The boy who would one day have been a duke would have no title whatsoever, other than bastard.

  She’d never cared what people called her, in the years before her mother married Andrew. But for some reason, the thought of them disparaging her son—if, indeed, there was to be one—mortified her.

  How dare they?

  How dare they?

  It took a moment for her to remember this was all supposition, but still, her fury remained.

  The world was a harsh place. Even she, as the niece of a duke and a baron, had seen it. Did she have the right to deny any element of safety to her child?

  For what?

  Her own selfish desire to be free?

  She huffed a slightly damp laugh. What was freedom? Was this it? How glorious was it then to be on her own in the world?

  Even her beloved family could not fill the void that Nick’s absence created.

  Everything about him fed her soul. His laugh. His smile. His touch.

  What was it about her that made her want to run?

  Ah. She knew and the realization humbled her.

  It was fear.

  The thing she had always fought, resisted, and despised.

  And it lived within her. Coiled in her belly.

  Controlled her.

  Owned her.

  Would she let it?

  If she continued on this course, she would have succumbed to it. And she would, ever and always, be alone.

  A cold wind blew through her.

  Only now did she realize what a fool she had been.

  When it was far too late.

  But . . . was it?

  Her heart stuttered as she realized it was not.

  She could leave this coach at the next stop—no matter how brief it was—and catch the next coach back to London.

  She could return to him. Beg his forgiveness. Confess the love that terrified her.

  She could—

  The coach took a violent lurch to the right, going up on two wheels. The horses screamed. Isobel slammed into the door and then was slammed again when her companion smashed against her. His weight was suffocating. But then it was gone as the coach went back onto four wheels again with a shuddering thud.

  She’d barely caught her breath, barely registered Mr. Breedlebum’s curses, when the coach began to tip again, in the opposite direction. Isobel fell to the left, thankfully onto that soft cushion, as the coach teetered and wobbled and then, finally, turned on its side with an earsplitting crash.

  And then, all was silent, still, but for the stamping and snorting of the horses.

  Isobel, somewhat stunned, needed a moment. Her head was spinning and there was an ache in her shoulder and a pile of packages on her person.

  With great effort, she pushed them off, against the upturned floor of the carriage. Then she turned her attention to Mr. Breedlebum. Though she called to him and shook his shoulder, he didn’t respond. In the dark of the coach, it was impossible to tell if he was dead, or merely knocked out, but it hardly mattered. There was nothing she could do for him in either case.

  She crawled up onto the pile of packages, opened the side door, and peered out.

  Both the driver and the mail guard had been thrown to the side of the road and were not moving. The horses, frantic and fretful, stamped at the road.

  Her first thought was to get to them and calm them, lest they drag the coach.

  But then she noticed something . . . strange. It was dark, with only a sliver of a moon, but she could make out the shape of something in front of the coach.

  Her heart clenched as she realized what it was.

  Someone had felled a tree across the road.

  She’d read enough gothic novels to know what this was.

  And indeed, at that moment a shadowy figure emerged from the woods and cried, “Stand and deliver.”

  Egads.

  An actual highwayman.

  He spotted her and raised his weapon. A shiver skittered up her spine.

  “You. Girl. Come out.”

  Her blood went cold as an unfamiliar dread coursed through her. Not for her own well-being—she’d never feared for that—but for the child she might be carrying. Nick’s child.

  Suddenly everything was so clear.

  Threat of death did that, she supposed.

  Nothing mattered but the safety of this child.

  Nothing.

  “Yes of course,” she called in a frightened voice, then she feigned a fall and oofed loudly as she dropped onto Mr. Breedlebum. “I’m coming,” she said as she felt around in his pocket for Matilda.

  As her fingers closed on the small weapon, her heart lifted. It wasn’t a bow, but it was something. And he wouldn’t be expecting a helpless girl to be armed. Hopefully.

  Maybe she could take him by surprise.

  He wouldn’t be the first armed man she’d faced.

  But stakes had never been this high.

  “Hurry up, or we’ll come in after you,” a different voice bellowed. Isobel stilled.

  There was more than one of them.

  Blast.

  She had no idea how many bullets Matilda held, if any.

  Ah well. There was nothing for it. She tucked the tiny pistol into the pocket of her traveling dress and levered herself up and out the door, onto the upturned side of the coach.

  “Oh, my,” she said. “It’s so high.”

  One of the bandits muttered a curse and then, grumping all the way, came over to the carriage. He tucked his pistol into his belt and held out his arms. “Jump into my arms. I’ll catch you.”

  “I couldn’t,” she squealed. She hoped it was an approximate reproduction of how a craven girl would sound. She had no clue.

  “Jump, damn it!”

  So she did. She made sure to gore the man with as many knees and elbows as possible and yes, he collapsed to the ground beneath her weight.

  “Bloody hell,” he snapped, pushing her off onto the dirt of the road.

  “How rude,” she sniffed.

  He scrambled to his feet and glowered at her.

  “Are you no’ going to help me up?” she asked, holding out a hand.

  He glared at his companion and then, grudgingly, tugged her to her feet. She sniffed and brushed her skirts.

  “How many passengers?” the first highwayman growled, waggling his weapon at her face.

  She gingerly pressed it away with two fingers. “Just one, but I th
ink he’s dead.” Though she hoped he was not, it was better if they thought it was so.

  “These two are dead,” the other said, kicking the driver, who had unfortunately flown through the air and landed on a stump at the side of the road. The guard, who’d been riding on the back with the mail box, was crumpled beside the coach.

  “Good.” The lead highwayman grinned at his companion. “No heroes today. Let’s see what we have.”

  The second man nodded and bent to fish for the keys to the lockbox from the guard’s pockets. He opened the box and rummaged through the contents by the light of a lamp as the other kept his pistol trained on Isobel.

  As he did, she studied him. He was nothing like she expected of a highwayman.

  Not tall or dark or even remotely romantic, as one would think a highwayman to be. He was short and squat and had a scraggly beard and ragged clothes and was missing some teeth.

  It was a disappointment indeed.

  “Do you do this often?” she asked. Partly to throw him off his guard, and partly because she was interested.

  “Huh? What?”

  “Do you do this often?” she repeated.

  He glowered at her. “Often enough. Now shut up while we work.”

  “We should tie her up,” the other said.

  Isobel scowled at him. “You most certainly will not.”

  He ignored her. “We need to get into the coach and it’ll take both of us. We don’t want her escaping.”

  She didn’t like the way they both smiled. It made her blood go cold.

  “Why do you no’ want me to escape?” she asked.

  The ugly, scraggly one chuckled. “Because you’re a prime piece.” He waggled his brows.

  “And,” the other one said, “we’re takin’ you with us.”

  It hit her then, cold and hard, the realization of the danger she was in. What these men could and probably would do to her in their den or wherever it was they called home.

  As they came at her, one of them carrying a length of rope, it rose up in her, the fear, the horror, the regret. Why had she not just been happy with what she’d had? It had been amazing. It had been wonderful and perfect.

  But she’d turned her back on it, and now this was her fate.

  Bile tickled the back of her throat as the brigands seized her and roughly tied her hands together. It rose and rose, swelling to an unsustainable bitterness.

  She opened her mouth and released it. Mr. Breedlebum’s apples and cheese, and anything else she’d eaten that day.

  She released it.

  All over the highwaymen.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Nick was exhausted.

  He’d been riding for hours, straight through the night. Though he didn’t dare stop at any inns and ask if the mail coach had passed, he did see the occasional bundle of post still by the road in villages. He could only hope this was the road she was on, that he was following the right coach. There were so many.

  He was between Leicester and Nottingham, amid the countryside, when he crested a hill and spotted a coach in a stand of woods, turned on its side. His heart froze. His breath stalled.

  He was visited by the most horrible thoughts in that fraction of a second.

  None of them were tolerable.

  Everything in him urged him to fly forward, but something about the scene was not right. It was difficult to make out the details in the dim light, but he recognized the fall of trees before the coach for what it was. An ambush.

  His pulse skittered and his mouth went dry. He tethered his horse to a tree by the road and, skirting the shadows, moved closer on foot.

  Before long, he was near enough to hear male conversation and laughs, and the thud as one package after another hit the ground.

  “Oy,” one man said. “We should have brought a bigger cart.”

  “Aye,” another said. “But a lot of this is rubbish.”

  “We should load it up anyway, and go through it later. No telling when another coach will come along.”

  A harsh laugh echoed through the night air. “Mayhaps we’ll rob them, too.”

  Both men laughed then.

  Bloody hell. Just as he expected. The coach had been ambushed and robbed. What a damn shame that in his hurry to find her, he hadn’t thought to bring a weapon. He sorely regretted it now.

  Nick edged closer and scanned the scene. There was no sign of Isobel.

  Was she still in the coach? Had she been injured? Or worse, killed?

  Hell, if they’d hurt her, he’d hang them both by their balls. He would—

  “Please!”

  His knees nearly collapsed as he heard her cry out. Her voice was unlike anything he had ever heard. It had a tremble in it that made his gut churn.

  His darling was frightened. She was—

  “I’m telling you, I need to go.”

  “Shut up, you,” one of the men growled. “I’m tired of hearing it.”

  “It’s been hours,” she snapped.

  Ah. This tone he knew. She was annoyed. For some reason, his heart lifted.

  “You should have gone at the last posting house.”

  “The driver wouldn’t stop. Untie me and let me go into the woods. Just for a minute. I swear I won’t run away.”

  A heavy sigh echoed. “All right. You take her.”

  “Me? Why do I have to take her?”

  “Because I’m up here, you dolt.”

  As the highwayman on the ground went to Isobel, who was, apparently, tied to the axle, Nick slipped closer, following the ditch by the side of the road until he came up behind the coach.

  He tripped over something, then realized it was the mail coach guard’s legs. The man had broken his neck in the fall, judging from the angle of his head. Nick dropped to the ground and felt around until he found it. Yes! The blunderbuss tucked into the back of his breeks.

  Stealthily, he slipped it free and checked the powder. A blunderbuss was not an elegant weapon, but one favored by the mail coach guards for its sheer brutality. Hopefully he would not need to use it.

  But he would if he had to.

  He watched as the highwayman led Isobel into the trees, debating whether to follow or wait behind. But in truth, there was no debate, because if he stepped out into the open, he would be seen.

  He gnashed his teeth as he waited for her to emerge and then regretted not taking his chance when a hollo-ballo arose from the woods. A cry, a thump, a thud.

  That it was a man’s cry was gratifying, but it did precipitate a flurry of activity from the other brigand. He cried out and leaped down from the coach.

  And then he stilled.

  As did Nick.

  Isobel emerged from the trees holding something . . . tiny. She held it like a weapon, though it could hardly be one. A muff pistol was his best guess, one that could barely hit the broadside of a barn and would only annoy a beast like this.

  But damn, she looked fierce. Clearly, she had no clue her “protection” was so feeble.

  In response, the remaining highwayman raised his weapon, a Manton—an extremely accurate weapon, one with real bullets—and pointed it at Isobel’s heart.

  Nick set his teeth, sucked in a breath, lifted the blunderbuss, and bounded out from his hiding place.

  “Lower your weapon,” he commanded.

  “Nick!” Isobel called. “You’ve come after me.”

  “Aye. Of course I have,” he snarled, keeping his attention on the bastard with the Manton. He swiveled and pointed his barrel at Nick. Excellent.

  Anywhere but Isobel.

  He smiled, something snaggletoothed and evil. “Lower yours.”

  “Doona point a gun at him,” Isobel snapped at the highwayman. Who, for some reason, ignored her.

  “You should have run,” Nick told her, not taking his gaze from the brigand.

  Her laugh danced on the breeze. “Run?”

  “You should have.”

  “But then I wouldn’t have known you followed me.�
��

  Was she really pouting?

  “Isobel . . .”

  “Go on,” the highwayman said, aiming at Isobel again. “Lower it or I shoot the girl.”

  Something in Nick’s belly fizzled. It was probably rage.

  “Oh, he won’t shoot me,” she said cheerfully. “I’m a prime piece.”

  “What?” Had he thought that previous feeling rage? How naive of him. He raised the blunderbuss higher, and his expression must have warned the villain that he was serious, because the man took a step back. Then the man stumbled, over a rock or a package or something, and his arms wheeled. And then, to Nick’s horror, the Manton fired.

  Not at Isobel.

  A blessing, that.

  But it hit Nick, slicing through his chest in a scream of agony. He fell back, unable to stop his tumble, and hit the road hard. Just before everything went black, he had a fraction of a second to think of her, his Isobel. A fraction of a second to regret the fact that he hadn’t been able to save her.

  * * *

  Isobel stared at Nick as he fell to the ground. A terrifying flower blossomed on his shirt.

  Something descended over her then, a grief unlike anything she had ever known, and a raw fury as well.

  She turned to the highwayman, who held a now-spent pistol. As she approached him, stalked him like a panther, he burbled, “I didn’t mean to shoot him. I swear.”

  But she didn’t care. She couldn’t.

  Slowly she lifted her pistol and pointed it at his chest.

  He took a closer look, then his lips tweaked. He laughed. “You’re going to shoot me with that?”

  It was the laugh that did it. That he could laugh, after what he had done, after shooting the man she loved . . . Oh, he needed to die.

  Her expression hardened.

  He realized that she did, indeed, intend to shoot him and tried to cover himself. But Isobel was a dead shot, with a bow and arrow or a tiny pistol.

  Heart filled with rage, she took aim and fired.

  The sound of the shot reverberated through the clearing.

  His eyes widened. He clutched his chest. His mouth went agape . . .

  But only for a second.

  Then he laughed . . . again.

  Perhaps she should have come closer. Perhaps the bullet was too small. For whatever reason, he did not fall as she had hoped. He did not die.