In Pursuit Of Eliza Cynster

by Stephanie Laurens

Had to assume it was indeed Scrope.

  Jeremy beckoned urgently to Eliza. She joined him without a word, offering her hand. He grasped it. Tipped his head forward. Hand in hand, they sprinted across the highway.

  They raced into the trees on the other side of the road. Jeremy paused briefly to take stock, then urged Eliza on, away from the road. “We can’t afford the time to check the map, but I think these woods stretch all the way to the river. Once we reach it, we can follow it south to St. Boswells.”

  She strode quickly on, deeper into the trees. “Scrope will catch up with the gig, won’t he?”

  “All too soon. Then he’ll be hot on our trail.”

  She didn’t ask anything more, but when they reached older woodland and the trees grew larger, the trunks more widespread, she glanced at him, then started to jog.

  He kept pace with her, glancing back every now and then, occasionally correcting their path so that they continued more or less perpendicular to the road, putting as much distance as they could between them and Scrope.

  The trees did, indeed, run all the way to the riverbank; they halted beneath a large branch, looking down a sharply undercut bank to the swiftly rushing water.

  “Which river is this?” Eliza asked.

  “The Tweed.” Jeremy eyed the distance to the opposite bank. “I hadn’t realized it would be so wide.”

  A sharp but distant crack! came from behind them. They glanced back, but the trees and a dip in the land concealed their pursuer.

  Jeremy tweaked her sleeve, whispered, “Come on.”

  Together they set off at a run, following the river south.

  Twenty yards on, the trees to their right thinned, leaving only a meager line along the riverbank to screen them.

  Jeremy paused under some low-hanging branches and peered back, across the open expanse of some farmer’s paddock.

  “There!” Beside him, Eliza pointed back along the edge of the field.

  Jeremy looked and saw Scrope running down the line of the trees, pistol in hand, ducking and checking under the branches as he came.

  Pistol?

  Jeremy grabbed Eliza’s hand and tugged her on.

  She’d seen the pistol, too. They both ran as fast as they could. With only open pasture to their right and a narrow line of trees to hide them, they followed the river south.

  Then the trees ahead thinned even more. And beyond, between Jeremy and Eliza and the roofs of what had to be St. Boswells, lay a large field, recently plowed.

  Wide-open terrain, with not even a bush to conceal them.

  Jeremy halted. He felt fairly certain Scrope wouldn’t be carrying a pistol just for show. If they ran on … they’d never reach the town before Scrope caught them.

  Jeremy turned to the river. “There has to be some way …”

  Standing on the lip of the bank, sharply carved by winter flood waters leaving a drop of ten feet to the present summer water level, he looked south. The river looped in a large curve just ahead, swinging away to the east and passing out of sight. The bulk of St. Boswells lay along the opposite bank, along the east-flowing section.

  “If we had any sort of craft, we could get out of sight that way.” Eliza grimaced. “Please don’t say we have to swim.”

  He turned and looked north. And grasped her hand. “We won’t.” He kept his voice at a bare whisper. “We’re going to cross”— with his chin he directed her gaze back up the river —“there.”

  Thirty yards back along the river, a collection of four silt islands — the larger two, in the river’s center, thickly covered with scrubby bushes — offered the equivalent of stepping stones.

  Scrope was near enough for them to hear him thrashing branches.

  “He’ll be here soon,” Eliza mouthed. She pointed. “How do we get down?”

  Jeremy crouched, then jumped down to the lower bank, a yard or more of rocks and sand edging the riverbed. He landed easily and immediately stretched up, waving Eliza to him.

  She sat on the edge of the upper bank, then, lips pressed tight, wriggled forward and let herself fall …

  Jeremy caught her, steadied her on her feet, then took her hand and hurried her on ahead of him, back along the river. The rock-strewn sand was sufficiently compacted; they made little noise and the burbling river masked what sound they did make. They could hear Scrope clearly as he continued searching along the upper bank. Luckily, even if Jeremy stood upright the upper bank was high enough — or the level of the riverbed was low enough — to keep them hidden.

  Once he was sure Scrope had passed their position and was continuing to search southward, increasing the distance between him and them as they hurried north along the river’s edge, Jeremy risked murmuring, “He won’t think of us crossing the river, not until he realizes we’re not ahead of him, which he will as soon as he reaches the plowed field. Then he’ll backtrack, but luckily it hasn’t rained recently — we shouldn’t have left any evidence that we got down to the riverbed, and the ground here is so rocky we’re not leaving any obvious tracks.”

  He glanced back, then urged her on even faster. “But when he does realize and comes looking, we need to be concealed on one of those larger islands, out of his sight.”

  The distance they had to traverse might have been only thirty yards, but it was pitted with rocks; they had to step carefully or risk turning an ankle, or worse. They went on in a mad, panicked, but silent scramble, steadying each other as best they could.

  Finally they drew level with the first of the silt islands.

  Jeremy held Eliza back, stepped out into the open, and searched back along the raised bank as far as he could see. Without looking at her, he waved her on. “Go.”

  He sensed her leap over the narrow strip of water onto the first island. Seeing no hint Scrope had yet started to search down at river level, he quickly turned and followed.

  They made it onto the second island, one of the two thick with bushes, easily enough. Jeremy silently directed Eliza around the north edge of the island, keeping them screened from Scrope as best he could.

  The central channel between the two larger islands was wider than the channels closer to shore, and the water was running swiftly.

  “Careful.” He steadied Eliza on the crumbly, rock-and-sand edge of the island, gauging the danger. He had cause to thank Hugo for her breeches; in skirts, she’d never have been able to manage the leap. Glancing up and back at the higher bank further downriver, and seeing it still empty, devoid of Scrope, he drew her to the midpoint of the island’s shore, then lifted the saddlebag from her shoulder. “Pull back a little, then when I say, run and leap.” He pointed to a bush on the island opposite. “Grab that branch if you need to steady yourself, then get through the bushes as fast as you can and crouch down on the other side.”

  She met his gaze and nodded.

  Dragging a breath deep into her lungs, past the constriction fear had placed around them, Eliza focused on her target bush on the other side of the rushing water.

  Sensed Jeremy peering down along the riverbank. Waited …

  “Now!”

  She took three running steps and launched herself across the rushing river. In midflight she had a fleeting moment of wondering what the hell she was doing — she wasn’t the venturesome sort, remember? Then she landed, boots firm on the gravelly soil. She swayed, grabbed the branch as instructed, righted herself, and burrowed straight on through the bushes, her attention already split between what lay ahead — hopefully nothing — and what lay behind her.

  Reaching the other side of the bushes, she crouched in their lee, and, heart thudding, waited. The moments stretched to a minute. She couldn’t see Jeremy from where she was, but that also meant Scrope couldn’t see her.

  She shifted, anxiety rising. She told herself Jeremy was too clever to get caught.

  Restless, straining her ears, she waited …

  She heard a soft thud. A second later, Jeremy pushed through the bushes and crouched beside her.

>   “Did Scrope see you?” She mouthed the words rather than said them.

  He made a show of listening, but no yells or shouts, and thankfully no shots, reached them. He leaned close, whispered in her ear, “He’s there, not far back along the bank, but I don’t think he saw me.” After a moment, he added, “We’ll have to stay here until we’re sure he’s gone.” He tipped his head backward, at the rising bank beyond them. “There’s no way we can get up that without him seeing us.”

  She swung her back to the bushes, slid down until she sat, and studied the bank in question. It was less steeply cut than the one they’d jumped down. Beyond the next silt island, a smaller, narrower one covered in coarse grasses and otherwise bare, the bank rose in a series of narrow terraces; climbing it would be easy enough, but while doing so they would be totally exposed. “Do you know what’s up there, on this side of the river?”

  He shook his head. After a moment, he grimaced. “I checked the connecting roads, and the surroundings of all the roads we were going to take. I didn’t check the land over there. We’ll have to go up, then find someplace to stop and look at our map. Too noisy, too risky, to try it down here.”

  She glanced back toward the bank down which they’d come but could see nothing lower than the trees’ canopies; the bushes hid them well. Leaning close, she whispered, “Once he’s gone, we could find a way back up that side and continue into St. Boswells.”

  Again he shook his head; this time his expression was grim. “Scrope will have left his horse somewhere near. Once he leaves the river, he’ll fetch it — and then he could come upon us fast, on horseback, while we’re on foot. We’re lucky we’ve been able to avoid him this time. We don’t want to meet him again.”

  The sight of the pistol in Scrope’s hand had changed Jeremy’s view of her erstwhile kidnapper from dangerous to insanely dangerous. What manner of man came waving a pistol as he chased an unarmed lady and an almost certainly unarmed gentleman?

  More to the point, what did Scrope envision doing with said pistol?

  They’d been speaking in tones low enough to be inaudible over the whoosh of the river. Two seconds later, Jeremy heard the heavy tramp of boots on the upper bank across from them.

  He glanced at Eliza, met her wide eyes. They remained utterly still, protected from Scrope’s sight by the thick bushes behind which they crouched.

  A minute passed, then Scrope moved on, moved away. The sound of his heavy footsteps faded.

  They both let out the breaths they’d been holding.

  Another minute passed in silence, then Eliza tensed to rise.

  Jeremy clamped a hand on her arm and shook his head at her. Leaning closer, he whispered, “If I were him, I’d draw back and watch, and wait to see if we emerge from hiding. We need to wait for a while before we can risk climbing up and going on.”

  Eliza searched his eyes, then nodded.

  Side by side, they settled on the rocky, sandy ground, to wait out Scrope.

  In an ornamental folly perched high above the southern bank of the Tweed just at the point where the river cut a wide loop and headed east, the laird stood, a spyglass to his eye, and roundly cursed Scrope.

  “What the damned hell does he think he’s doing? Especially with that pistol?”

  After a moment, the laird muttered, distinctly savagely, “Why couldn’t he have taken the hint when I lost him at Gorebridge?”

  He’d been in position since nine o’clock that morning; he was a natural-born hunter — he could always summon patience enough when tracking game. From the vantage point of the folly, located in the gardens of a manor house owned by a family he knew to be in Edinburgh for the Season, he’d been waiting for his fleeing pair to come driving past. Instead, he’d witnessed the entire Scrope-provoked performance.

  Initially, he hadn’t been able to see Scrope, waiting in hiding on the other side of thick trees on the opposite side of the highway from the folly; if he had, he would have been tempted to do something about the man — removing him to the nearest magistrate’s cell, for instance.

  Instead, waiting in the perfect position to watch the pair come driving past, so he could then fall in behind them, he’d had to stand and watch Scrope force them off their course.

  Again.

  “Scrope has become exceedingly tedious.” The clipped words did little to alleviate his temper.

  He’d had the pair in sight from the moment they’d rushed, on foot, across the highway and dived into the cover of the trees. Thereafter, he’d tracked their progress more through Scrope’s blundering down the tree line than by any direct sighting.

  But then the fleeing pair had walked out of the trees to the very edge of the bank, separated only by the length of a plowed field from his own position. A sudden fear had gripped him, that, after all his machinations, he might be forced to watch, helpless, as Scrope shot Eliza’s gentleman and reclaimed her.

  Instead, to his very real relief, the gentleman in question had taken excellent evasive action, jumping down to the riverbed and inducing Eliza to jump down into his arms … that she had so readily spoke well for the trust she placed in him.

  Which trust appeared to be well-founded. Under the gentleman’s guidance, the pair had successfully evaded Scrope.

  The laird watched as, having lingered in the area, parading back and forth along the tree line as if expecting his quarry to fall from the branches into his hands, Scrope finally gave up; head hanging, he started trudging back to where he’d left his horse, near where the pair had crossed the highway and rushed into the trees.

  Swinging the spyglass back to Eliza and her gentleman, patiently and very wisely remaining concealed on the island, the laird waited … another ten minutes passed before, finally, they slowly rose. Carefully, clearly wary, they left their hiding place, leapt across to the next island, then climbed the more graduated eastern bank.

  They didn’t linger but went quickly on, into the grounds of Dryburgh Abbey. From his vantage point, he watched as they slid like shadows from one tree to the next, eventually reaching the ruined remnants of the old abbey. After a moment of watchful study, they slipped behind a ruined wall and went to ground.

  Lowering the glass, the laird considered all he’d seen. Scrope might be a blessed nuisance, but through his interference he’d engineered precisely the sort of situation the laird had been waiting to observe. He’d been able to watch Eliza and her gentleman — watch how they reacted under the threat of real danger, always a revealing situation. And what he’d seen …

  It was the little things that told the story. Like the way Eliza’s gentleman constantly watched over her, seeing to her safety before his own. The way his hand hovered at her back, if he wasn’t holding her hand instead, the way he constantly scanned their surroundings for danger. And Eliza trusted him, implicitly and without reserve; she didn’t question, didn’t argue. She did make suggestions.

  The pair interacted with each other in ways the laird recognized; he’d seen exactly the same manner of physical and verbal communications, of togetherness and shared purpose, between his late cousin Mitchell and his wife. Theirs had been a match made in heaven; the laird saw nothing in the way Eliza and her gentleman behaved toward each other to suggest their relationship was any different.

  On that score, he could rest easy.

  The only complication that remained was Scrope.

  The laird looked again in the direction in which Scrope had gone. Having unleashed the man on Eliza, McKinsey couldn’t very well turn his back and walk away, much as he might wish to. They might manage to escape Scrope on their own; thus far, the Englishman, whoever he was, had shown an aptitude for thinking on his feet and acting effectively. But if they didn’t escape …

  If Scrope reclaimed Eliza, he’d presumably drag her to Edinburgh and offer her up to him, McKinsey, but at what cost? If Scrope harmed the Englishman, possibly even killed him … “What a damned melodramatic tragedy that would be.”

  The very last thing he w
anted was a bride who hated him — who had loved another and lost that other because of a scheme he’d set in motion.

  Quite aside from honor, on its own a sharp enough goad, that prospect convinced him he could not yet leave the pair to their own devices, not until he was sure they’d escaped Scrope’s desperate and patently determined attacks.

  If Scrope hadn’t flagrantly disregarded his orders, he’d have been able to head home to the highlands at this point, to start planning his abduction of the Cynster sister that allowing Eliza to escape with her gentleman rendered absolutely necessary. Lips tightening in frustration, the laird raised the spyglass to his eye once more.

  The pair hadn’t emerged from the abbey ruins. Considering what, if he’d been in their shoes, he would do, he looked further east, searching for a place where they might be able to cross the river.

  “Dryburgh Abbey.” Jeremy pointed to the spot on the map. “The ruins thereof. That’s where we are.”

  Sitting beside him on the ground in the lee of one of the few sections of walls still standing, Eliza studied the map he’d spread across his knees. “So where should we go from here?” She waved toward the river, now lying to their south. “St. Boswells is just there, on the other side of the river, but how do we cross over?”

  “That’s a pertinent question.” Jeremy leaned over the map. “Another is whether we change our route and instead of going through St. Boswells and then south via Jedburgh, we head east from here, through Kelso to Coldstream, and cross the border there.”

  She considered the route he traced. “That’s much further, and by that route, once we get over the border, we’d have even further to go to reach Wolverstone.”

  Jeremy humphed. He took another gulp from his water bottle, then stoppered it and stowed it back in the saddlebag. They’d already demolished the cheese and bread Mrs. Quiggs had kindly pressed on them, saying she knew how young men needed to eat. Had she but known it, young ladies, too; at least Eliza’s appetite hadn’t dwindled with fear.

  Resting his back and shoulders against the cool stone, he glanced at her. She’d seen the pistol Scrope had been waving, had recognized the danger, but other than a heightened tension visible in the way she every now and then checked their surroundings, she hadn’t panicked. For which he was truly grateful.