Arabella couldn't move.
“Let's go,” Richard shouted.
They ran across the flagstones, Arabella trying her best to breathe as Richard dragged her along behind him. She looked round, dazed. They were heading toward the back of the courtyard, where there was a gate where it met the forest.
“Stables...” she managed to wheeze. “To the...stables.”
He stopped. “That way?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “That way.”
They ran.
The stables were quieter. The horses could clearly hear the maelstrom of killing, and mayhap also scent the blood on the air. They were restless and Bronn, the big, dark stallion, let out a snort and tossed his head when he saw them near.
“Whist, Bronn,” Arabella whispered. “'Tis me. Barra?”
She whispered it to her own horse. The name meant “bright”, but her horse was black. She had chosen it more for his personality than for his looks. She whispered to him now.
“Eh, Barra. We're going to have to ride you hard. You'll run for us? Good. Thank you, boy.”
The other horses had smelled the blood now – she saw them start to twitch and one of them screamed, setting the others kicking and stamping in the stalls. They hated this uncertainty. This violence.
“Easy,” Arabella whispered. She let Barra out. Her horse stood firm. “Good boy.”
She waited as Richard, raising a brow at her, mounted up, stepping onto the gate of the stable to help himself up. It wasn't easy – her horse was not tacked up, and they'd need to ride bareback, without reins to guide him, but Richard managed.
“Now,” he whispered. “Your turn?”
Arabella nodded grimly. She usually rode side-saddle, but luckily she'd tried astride a few times when she thought no one was watching her. She bit her lip, stepped onto the gate as he had done, and let him help her up, dragging her to sit before him.
“There,” she said, flushing red and trying to ignore the fact that her body was pressed to his chest, his hand clutching her waist to steady her. She hoped he forgot. “Let's go.”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Off we go,” he added, squeezing with his knees. He wrapped her tight in his arm, nudged their horse forward. They shot off into the yard.
“To the trees!” Arabella yelled.
“Where?” he asked. “Oh, there.”
“Yes!” she shouted. The courtyard was still full of fighting, fierce men. She heard the clang of swords and her heart twisted painfully. This was a nightmare.
“Go!” she screamed as, suddenly, in the space where they were meant to ride, there appeared a man wielding a broadsword, another man struggling with him. The man saw them and raised his weapon, seeing them as fresh foe.
“Yes,” Richard whispered. He squeezed with his knees and Barra, valiant and eager, shot forward, heedless of the steel and danger before him.
They made it.
As Barra's hoofs fell, muted, on the pathway of the forest, Arabella felt her whole self suddenly relax. They had done it. They were safe. They were in the woods.
She felt herself collapse. She slumped forward, as suddenly her head ached and the whole world rushed in, too horrifying and numbing for belief. Had that really happened? Was her home a place of such horror? Her own father so treacherous?
“No,” she murmured.
She felt tears pour down her cheeks. She was leaning on Barra's furry neck, her whole body aching. Why was she so tired? She felt like all her strength was sapped, her whole body numb and insensate.
She could still feel, though, she realized, as a hand gently stroked down her spine. She tensed, but she could also hear him speaking. He spoke as he might to a dog, or a wild horse, gentling it.
“Easy, lass,” he murmured. “It's well. You're safe.”
Arabella let out a shaky sigh, feeling some of her old asperity return. “I was not weeping for myself,” she said tightly. “My home is a slaughterhouse.”
She felt that knowledge sink into her again and sobbed then, and he said nothing, just held her on the horse and let her cry.
After crying for about a minute, Arabella stopped and drew in a long, shuddering breath. Sat up and wiped her face on her skirt. She noticed absently that it was green velvet. That would have been funny, were it not so tragic.
“Velvet,” she said, hiccupping. “It...it was a ball.” The thought was so hideous, so poignant. She wanted to cry.
“Yes,” a voice said in her ear. “You're in the forest now. Look at the trees. Where should we go now?”
She drew in a long, shuddering breath. That was what she needed – a reminder of where she was now. She needed a reason to forget where she had just been. She let the pleat of her skirt fall from her fingers, and sighed.
“We should go to Duncliffe village,” she said. “Down there, beyond the hill. In the valley. Safe, there.”
“Yes,” he murmured. “Yes. We'll go there. Then we'll be safe.”
It was only as they set out on the road that the thought occurred to either of them that the village might not be safe. It was a village loyal to her father. Most of the villagers were Jacobites. If they found an Englishman in their midst, they'd either slaughter him then or ask her father to. Then what would she do? It wasn't safe for her, either.
I have just run away with our enemy. I am a woman of good breeding, alone with a man.
Either way, she was as good as a social outcast now.
She leaned forward on her horse's neck, the enormity of the situation slamming into her like a fist. What was she going to do?
“What?” he whispered.
“I can't go home,” Arabella whispered back. “I can't go back.”
Richard – she still couldn't recall his surname – said nothing. His grip on her waist tightened a moment, and then relaxed.
“Whist, lass,” he said gently, lapsing into the Lowland Scots they both shared. “We'll go to the village you speak of, and set ourselves to rights.”
“No,” she said urgently. “We can't go there. You'll be killed there!”
“Why?” he asked, quite reasonable- sounding, in Lowland Scots. “I'm a Scotsman, a soldier, back from the borders. And my lady wife with me. Nae, lassie. We'll be quite safe.”
Arabella nodded. He was right. She was being foolish.
As they started off again, one of the words stuck in her mind. “Wife?” she said aloud.
He tensed. “In name only, milady. I would not touch you without your willing it. I promise.”
She sighed. “Good,” she whispered.
She was so exhausted that she hadn't the strength to say any more as they headed down, step by slow step, toward the village.
When they arrived, it felt as if they'd been plunged into a bowl of silence. In contrast to the clash of swords and the screaming and shouting, the village was still. Nobody moved, not a carter or a soldier. Even the crier on the street had gone to bed. The place was empty.
Arabella looked round wearily.
“The Barley and Bale,” she whispered, thinking of the village inn. They could stay there.
“Where is it?” Richard asked.
“There,” Arabella motioned listlessly, indicating the main road.
Richard turned Barra and they went down it, the road a space of yawning silence between the darkened houses. Arabella shivered. There was something wildly eerie about a midnight town.
They reached the inn. To her immense relief there was a lamp lit outside it. She sighed.
“Here,” she said.
She slumped forward and felt him slide off behind her. Her body collapsed so that she was leaning on Barra's neck, breathing in the scent of fur and horse-sweat, comforting, familiar, and safe.
She tensed as a strange sensation filtered through – she felt his hands clasp her waist and draw her from the horse. She shuddered.
“Let me help you,” Richard whispered. “There you are. Easy now.”
Arabella tensed as he helped her down. She
felt relieved as she felt the cobbles, firm and stable, under her feet. She took a step and fell forward. Richard wrapped an arm round her to steady her. She twisted in his grasp, turning to look into his eyes.
He looked back. Again, she felt that strange, slow sensation, as if the whole world had stopped and left them alone in it. Here, now, with the sky sapphire above their heads, it could have been true. They could have been the only two people.
If that were so, she thought, blushing, there were many things she'd do. Her body leaned closer to his, as if seeking the warmth of it through her velvet clothing. She leaned against him without conscious thought and his arms wrapped round her, holding her close.
She closed her eyes, leaning on his arm. Here was so safe, warm, and nurturing. Here, there was no war. Only peace. As well as the sensation of warmth and fullness inside her.
She sighed, he sighed, and his lips hovered above her own.
She backed away.
“No,” she whispered. “No. This isn't sensible.”
He looked into his eyes. She was amazed at the slow, steady pounding of her heart, the way her body was shivering a little, though in the autumnal evening in the velvet gown it was not overly cold. She sighed.
He nodded.
“No,” he admitted. His thin lips twisted in a smile. “No. It isn't sensible. Not at all.”
She noticed, though, that he had not moved away any more than she had. She sighed and leaned against him a little longer, reveling in the sweetness of the contact.
Then she stepped back.
“Hie you within, sir,” she whispered. “And find a room for me?”
Not needing to be told, it seemed, that she wished him to find her accommodations separate from his own, he nodded.
“Yes, milady.”
He disappeared inside. Arabella, shivering, walked closer to the wall and leaned against it, shivering with emotions and weariness, while she listened to the low voices from within the chamber.
She could hear him speak in Lowland Scots, and hear the answers, also in the language. So far, nobody suspected him. She waited, tense and with a strange sense of unreality, until he returned.
“I've found two rooms,” he said. “You're my sister. You're to have the last one on the first floor.”
“And you?” Arabella asked, feeling a sudden poignant sadness at their approaching departure. “Where will you sleep?”
“In the hay-barn,” he grinned. “Above the stables.”
Arabella felt her jaw drop forward in shock. He chuckled.
“It's well, lass. I've slept in worse places.”
“But...but?”
“Easy, lass,” he grinned. “Let's help you up the stairs.”
Arabella nodded and, not protesting further, let him lead her up the stairs to the bedchamber. There, she shut the door and sank down onto the bed. She was too tired to move.
Eventually, she persuaded her body to stand, to disrobe, and to wash.
As she slid into the cool, clean bed, between freshly laundered linen sheets, she wondered where Richard was. She hoped he was well.
She was surprised how much it mattered to her, how he was.
Foolish, she told herself.
It was foolish. Even so, she couldn't help hoping he was safe. Or thinking, as she fell asleep, exhausted, about the soft light in those pale blue eyes.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
It was hard to sleep that night. The difficulty had nothing to do with the discomfort of sleeping on a lumpy bale of hay. It had everything, however, to do with his thoughts of her.
This is ridiculous, he told himself harshly. I am a Hanoverian, on the other side of this conflict. Her family just murdered my brothers-in-arms. I cannot be feeling like this. Yet he did.
He wanted her so much. So much that, if he did not have her, he thought he might go mad. His whole body was throbbing with the ache of his need for her, his loins straining to possess her. The fact that she was downstairs across the hallway, in a bed laid against a wall not three feet away, made it no easier to endure. He felt as if he could reach out and touch her.
He did not want to let himself consider what that sweet, curved body looked like under the dress, sure he'd never seen something so beautiful before. He wanted her so badly that his loins throbbed.
“For pity's sake, go to sleep,” he told himself firmly.
It was never easy to go to sleep on demand, and much less so when his poor mind was hopelessly taunted by something else.
He tossed and turned and must eventually have fallen asleep because, the next thing he knew, the light of morning was shining through the window making his eyes hurt.
“Oh, for pity's sake,” he said, as the pale morning revealed to him a room strewn with clothing, dropped here and there during the night in the absolute dark of the room. He located the shirt, and his trousers. Where were his socks?
“Blasted socks.”
Richard groaned and went through the pantomime of trying to find his socks. Where the blasted things went, he had no idea. He got down on his knees, hunting under the makeshift bed – a straw-filled pallet laid on boards – and wished Bromley were there to find them for him.
“Well, he isn't,” he said. His heart ached. His manservant – who was also his friend – would be numbering him among those slaughtered. If anyone knew yet. The thought hit him like a blow. Mayhap he was the only survivor! Mayhap no one else knew of the murders that day.
He needed to go back. One of the commanding officers needed to know of the murder at Duncliffe.
“You chose to run,” he told himself, catching sight of his reflection in the horn pane covering the tiny window. He felt terrible. However, what could he do?
You chose her.
He shook his head, closing his eyes tight. The fact was that he had chosen her. Yet what else could he do? If I had that choice again, he told himself, I know what I would do.
He'd choose the same.
He glanced at his reflection again. It seemed personable. That left only one thing to do. He headed down the stairs to where he'd left Arabella that night. As he reached the door, he felt a sudden tightness in his groin. He wanted her so much it was distracting.
He knocked at the door. “Milady?”
No answer.
He paused, and tried again.
“Milady?”
Nothing.
He frowned. The sooner they set out, the better. If they left now, he might be able to get back to the fort in time to tell his superiors of the carnage. His heart started to pound with panic.
“Lady Arabella?” he called.
When there was no answer, he shrugged. He went down the stairs. He would have breakfast, save something for her and then go and call her again. She was probably still fast asleep. He strode into the inn's dining room, feeling slightly annoyed. She might at least have said something!
“Good morning, Lieutenant.”
He stared. She was in the corner of the dining room. Not only was she awake, she was dressed – in the becoming velvet ball attire – and her hair was styled in a highly-elegant, fashionable style he was sure he'd recently seen in Edinburgh. He swallowed. His own appearance – a uniform with the shirt wrinkled, dusty from a night on the boards, his chin stubbly – was a source of deep embarrassment.
“Good morning,” he mumbled. “You're up early.”
She smiled; a smile laced with some irony. “I often wake early. The calm of early morning helps me gather my thoughts. You slept well?”
Richard chuckled. “I don't look like I did, eh?”
She couldn't hide a smile. “I wasn't going to say that.”
Though the inn was starting to fill with guests – farmers and laborers – they barely noticed. It felt in that moment as if they were the only two there.
He laughed. “Aye. So I said it first to save ye the trouble.”
They had switched into the dialect of the Lowlands – Richard had noticed the innkeeper's wife hovering. He met Arabell
a's gaze and she nodded.
“Milady?” the woman said, as Arabella caught her eye. She seemed, to Richard's eye, somehow protective.
“My manservant came to check on me,” Arabella explained. It would please me if we could eat together in the parlor. I would feel safer that way.”
Richard felt his brow rise. He had almost forgotten the guise in which he traveled. He was sure it was only a matter of time before someone asked why her manservant served in the army, and then their disguise would be up. As it was, the woman simply raised a brow and nodded.
“As you wish, milady. You'd like a sup o' milk with the porridge?”
“Please,” Arabella nodded.
Richard smiled as the woman went away.
“You made a friend, I think?”
“Aye. She helped me with my hair this morning,” Arabella nodded.
“Oh.” Richard smiled. He hadn't thought about the fact that such a hairstyle was probably impossible to achieve single-handed.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. It suits you,” he said, distracted.
“Thank you,” she said.
Her eyes met his and he suddenly realized how intimate the statement was – how he'd never actually given her a compliment.
Again, he had that strange feeling as if time stood still. He stared into her brown eyes and she stared back. He felt his heart thump faster. Her lips were plump and full and seemed to cry out for kisses. He wanted to thrust his tongue between them, explore them and feel her warm, wet lips on him. However, he couldn't.
“We should go,” he said softly.
“Aye.”
She walked ahead of him into the inn parlor. Here, the gentry – were there any gentry visiting – would sit there, away from the rabble who were filling the main dining room already.
While the innkeeper's wife went back and forth, bringing a series of laden plates to their table – one piled with small bannocks, one of cheese, and another tray bearing bowls of oat porridge and a pitcher of creamy fresh milk and butter – they sat in uneasy silence together.
Richard studied his new companion. Her oval face was solemn, those huge eyes half-closed under their big lash-fringed lids. He wanted to smile at her, but she looked so withdrawn that he didn't want to risk it.
The Highlander’s Trust_Blood of Duncliffe Series_A Medieval Scottish Romance Story Page 4
