“We can’t stay here,” he added. “The water will get deeper the longer we tarry.”
She recalled her struggles in the river, thinking every breath would be her last. Helpless, drowning, her body sinking like a millstone no matter what her arms tried to do. She felt her heart racing. She really didn’t want to go back in that water.
“How deep do you think it is?”
He shrugged. “These lands along the river are fairly flat, but there are bound to be some gullies.”
Deep breaths would not ease the sour taste of calamity rising in her throat. But she had to do it. They had no choice. Elizabeth started down the hill. With each step she took, her feet sank into the saturated ground, and her dress and cloak gained extra layers of muck. Before they were half way to the water, her progress abruptly halted when one foot wouldn’t come out.
“Is this your first time wandering down a hillside in inclement weather?” his voice teased.
He was beside her, and Elizabeth had a feeling he was entertained by her misery. So they were going to play this game again. She forced her attention from the watery fate lying ahead to the man beside her. She wasn’t alone. He would help her, save her.
“You call this inclement, Highlander?” she scoffed, hoping the tremor in her voice didn’t betray her anxiety. “I do this every Monday and Friday. And sometimes on Wednesdays, as long as it rains.”
Pulling her foot out, she nearly went headlong down the rest of the slope, but he caught her. He was with her. Alexander was with her. She kept repeating the words in her mind as they continued on. At the bottom of the hill, he stopped and pointed downriver.
“We’ll go in that direction. The bogs that I remember are mostly to the west of where we came ashore.”
“Bogs?” She took a step back from the water, bumping into him. Not just drowning. Disappearing. Getting swallowed up by the earth. How many more things could go wrong?
“We’ll need to be careful, but we’ll come through this.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. She knew it was meant to be a comforting gesture, but she would rather have faced a hundred snakes than this. You can run from a snake; you can’t run from a drowning.
Elizabeth recalled what he’d said last night. In his eyes, she was weak, “unsuitable.” Maybe she was . . . in this situation. She’d never been trapped in a flood before. But she wasn’t about to complain. He was with her. He knew what to do.
“This will be a wee bit arduous for you, I know.”
“I’ll be fine.”
He looked at her gently for a moment. His hand cupped the side of her face, his blue eyes locking with hers. “I’ll be there with you.”
Her silent chants had reached his mind. She trusted him. But fear had too strong a hold on her limbs. She looked at the brown, swirling water. Two dozen steps in the shallows before she reached the waiting disaster. But she had to do it. This was a matter of honor. Courage, she told herself.
“And I’ll be with you,” she said. “Never forget that oar, Highlander.”
He chuckled as she lifted her dress and cloak to her knees and stepped into the water. It was colder today than yesterday.
Alexander held out his hand to her. Not yet, she thought. The branches of a tree spread out on the surface not too far away. It couldn’t be too deep.
“I can manage,” she told him.
The next step put Elizabeth in up to her chest. Panic flooded through her as the current carried her off her feet. Her body responded as she expected. But she was not a millstone—she was the entire mill. Her head went under. Her hands touched the slimy bottom. She opened her mouth to scream, and briny water filled her mouth. Suddenly, he was right there, taking hold of her by the waist and bringing her to surface.
She gagged and coughed up a gallon of water.
“Breathe.”
She clutched at his arm, gasping for breath. He was swimming out into the current and taking her with him.
“Breathe.”
“I am breathing!” she screamed into the wind once she found her voice. She felt for the bottom with her feet, but there was nothing there. Nothing to stand on. She was going to drown. They’d never reach higher ground.
She clawed at his arm, trying to hold on tighter. But it wasn’t enough. Fearing he would lose his grip on her, she struggled to turn around and hold onto his neck.
“Nay, lass. That won’t do. Unless you want to drown us both.” He continued to work his way along, sometimes swimming, sometimes wading.
Breathe. Breathe, she told herself. Close your eyes so you don’t see the Grim Reaper coming for you. But she couldn’t.
“Float beside me. Let your feet come up. I have you.”
Easier said than done. She tried to float, but her feet immediately sank and her face went under. This time, he pulled her out before she could gulp down another mouthful. She tried again to float, but it was impossible.
He pulled her back in against his chest, and she clung to his arm with both hands. “The current is nowhere as strong as what we faced yesterday.”
Easy for him to say. For Elizabeth, drowning was the same—whether it happened in a river, a pond, or a baptismal font.
But drowning wasn’t the worst way to die. She thought about the bogs Alexander mentioned. Even in the castle, she’d heard tales of animals and people wandering into them unawares and dying a horrible death. She’d once heard of a donkey sucked all the way to Hell before you could cross yourself.
He stepped on something and the water reached his chest. Elizabeth felt for the bottom with her feet. Nothing. Hot claws of panic continued to scratch at her. What happened if she lost her hold and they were separated? What if they were crossing a bog and the mud reached up to grab him? What if she had to save him?
She pressed herself closer to him. Moving his arm so he had a better hold on her, one palm ended up cupping her breast. It would figure, the day she was to drown or get swallowed up by a bog, a man touches her breast. And what was her reaction? Hold on tight. Please don’t let me die.
“Regardless of where you’ve lived, lass, you’re still a Scot.” He was talking. She was quivering in terror, and he was talking like they were taking a stroll in the gardens.
“What do you mean by that?” She looked over her shoulder at him.
“How is it you never learned to swim?”
Swim? Swim? He was being critical of her now? “I didn’t have time for it.”
“Too busy with all the court revelry, I suppose? Too much time primping and dressing and dancing, and no time for learning anything useful?”
“If you call knowing one snake from another useful, you’re correct.”
How wrong could he be? She’d never learned to swim because she’d had no one to teach her. And as she grew older, she’d been busy caring for her father, who in turn was always busy with his building projects. It was a fortunate thing that Ambrose Hay was constantly sought after for working on palaces and castles. It was only when she wasn’t at his side that she learned polite manners by emulating the women she came in contact with.
“Probably couldn’t tell a rock cod from a raspberry, unless it was served up for you.”
Eager to respond, she tried to turn and gulped down a mouthful of muddy water for her trouble. Coughing and gagging and sputtering, she grabbed for him. He drew her closer, holding her against him. “Breathe.”
“I am breathing,” she snapped, angry that he would find a moment like this to be disparaging of her education. “Let me ask you this: Can you identify an ogival arch?”
“Aye, I know the man well. Archibald Ogilvie, bishop of Glasgow.”
“Not Ogilvie . . . ogival! Ogives are the intersecting transverse ribs that make the surface of a vault. It is a pointed arch.”
“I’m not so sure about that, lass. Archie has a pointed head, but I don’t think he’d be caught dead intersecting anyone’s ribs.”
“Ha!” she laughed. “So there are a few things you don’t k
now. I don’t suppose you could tell a chevette from a narthex.”
“Are they a kind of a song? Nay, I’ve got it. They’re dances.” He was teasing her. She could hear it in his tone. The nerve of the man!
“And I doubt you could tell me how many columns it takes to support a domed roof. Or how many flying buttresses were needed for the cathedral at Chartres.”
“Useful survival knowledge to have. I am quite impressed.”
He wasn’t.
“I didn’t think you’d know,” she concluded triumphantly. “For your information, I spent most of my time at my father’s side as he built some of the most important palaces in Europe. If I didn’t have time to learn to swim, it was because I was busy. So if you have something else to say . . .”
“Well, I was just going to say, I’ll be happy to carry you all the way to Stirling. But I thought you might want to walk a wee bit.”
Elizabeth looked around her. The rain and wind were still beating down on them, but he was standing on a strip of ground a dozen paces from the water. A pine forest rose up on one side of them, and the flood they’d just emerged from stretched out on the other.
“Put me down,” she said.
“As you wish, m’lady.”
“How did we get here?”
“A miracle, I think.”
“You held me through it all?”
“Actually, with all the talk, I thought you and your father would construct a bridge for us, but alas it was not to be.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“I am.”
She realized now what he’d been doing. Distracting her, making her talk to take her mind off her fears. She gazed out at the watery expanse. It was behind them. She was alive.
Alexander was striding along the water following the line of woods.
“Where are you going?” she asked. “Isn’t Stirling the other way?”
“We won’t make it going that way. Not until this blasted storm stops and the waters recede. We’ll head for Dunfermline and maybe find a place to dry out.”
She hurried to keep up with him. “Thank you for . . .”
The Highlander stopped short and she ran into his back. “And just to be clear on things, a chevette is a wee chapel in a church and the narthex is the entrance. I’d need to know the height and diameter of a dome to tell you how many pillars would be needed to hold the bloody thing up. And I’ve never counted the buttresses at Chartres, but I’m guessing twenty-six. Am I close?”
Without waiting for an answer, Alexander turned on his heel and started off again, leaving her speechless.
Elizabeth couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw him hiding a grin as he strode away.
Devil take him, the man was marvelous.
Chapter Nine
Elizabeth’s shock at his response was priceless. Alexander nearly laughed, and the only way to hide it was to walk away.
Working his way along the water’s edge, he heard her continue to shout at him, but he didn’t want to slow down. She’d made assumptions about him, and he’d done the same. But there was an appeal in correcting her misconceptions a little at a time. They’d be traveling together for a while, anyway. Why dish out all the fun at one time?
“You wait for me,” Elizabeth ordered as he started up the hill on the far side. “You have some explaining to do.”
Alexander continued to climb. Even here, his boots either slipped or sank deeply. He knew the going would be even more difficult for her. Right now, that was a good thing. He needed to put some distance between them, if only to give himself time to cool the growing urge to kiss her.
Blast her, if she wasn’t trouble. She was funny, smart, and—regardless of everything she’d gone through since yesterday—the woman refused to give in. She was holding her head high. He had to respect that. He’d certainly not expected such toughness in her. And then there was her mud-covered face, the tangle of hair that had once been a golden braid, the violet blue eyes that showed the strain of cold and lack of proper sleep. She was beautiful.
And “trouble” was exactly the right word. The more time he spent with her, the more doubts he had about the decision he’d made. Perhaps he’d been too quick in judging what he thought she would be. Perhaps he should have waited and gotten to know her.
Last night, holding her trembling body in his arms, he’d tried to warm her. The problem had been his awareness of what lay beneath that torn dress, and that embrace had become more of a torture for him as the night went on. As she lay there asleep, so trusting, she had no idea of how much he wanted her. As she relaxed, she hugged his hand to her breast and he could feel the strong heart beating there.
Alexander had needed to roll away. If he hadn’t, she would have awakened with a full knowledge of how aroused he was.
He’d lain awake for hours, listening to the battering winds of the storm, thinking of his ships and the ports he’d visited, picturing in his mind the crops in the Macpherson fields. He thought about whether this storm was ravaging Benmore Castle. Forcing himself to consider these other things, he was able to make his body behave. Until the next time she moved or murmured softly in her sleep.
Damn him if it wasn’t the longest, most enjoyably torturous night he’d ever endured.
“Alexander Macpherson, you stop this moment,” she called. “Or I swear I won’t save you the next time you’re flopping around my boat like a dead fish.”
He considered telling her that dead fish don’t flop, but he’d reached the top of the low rise. In the distance, he saw a wee thatched cottage and its outbuildings tucked in against the forest. The fields were under water, and from what he could see the floods had reached the largest shed. But for Elizabeth’s sake he was relieved to see the cottage appeared to be safe so far. He could see no sign of life anywhere.
The woman was now cursing with the enthusiasm of a seasoned sailor. Where in court life had she learned that?
Looking back, he found her mired in the muck, one arm in up to the elbow and her feet completely buried. Working his way back down the hill and through the mud to her, he leaned over and offered her a hand.
“I don’t need your help,” she said. “I can manage.”
Alexander stood back, watching as she pulled one arm out to only have the other one sink into the ground. Her feet were doing the same dance; one went in as one came out. He moved in to help and she looked up, her eyes blazing.
“I said I can do this.”
He crossed his arms and watched until she finally managed to stand up, only to lose her balance and land on her arse.
He couldn’t take seeing her suffer like this. Despite her vocal and rather alarming threats, he looped his arm around her waist, lifted her out, and put her down at the base of the rise.
“I didn’t want your help,” she grumbled.
Now he couldn’t help but smile. There wasn’t a space left on her face, her neck, arms, or cloak that wasn’t covered.
“What are you grinning at?”
“You are without doubt the filthiest-looking woman I’ve ever seen.”
“And you think you look any better?”
He glanced down at his shirt and tartan. He was carrying about bucket full of mud on each boot, to be sure, but wading and swimming through the floodwaters had washed away the worst of it from his clothes. “I definitely look better.”
Elizabeth scooped two handfuls of mud from her cloak, rubbed it on his shirt, and finished with a couple of streaks on his face. He waited silently until she was finished, every nerve in his body telling him to take her in his arms and find her lips beneath that mess.
Happy with her efforts, she smiled brightly, her cobalt blue eyes meeting his. “Now you look better,” she said, stepping around him.
He took a deep breath and shook his head in amusement. He stayed a few steps behind as she made her way up the rise, ready to help if she fell again. Blast her. This was not the Elizabeth Hay he’d imagined. That botched kidnapping was the best
thing that could have possibly happened to them. He lifted his face to the wind and the stinging rain. This bloody storm was the best thing that could have happened to them.
And the worst.
“We’re saved,” she called back excitedly, reaching the top of the hill. “A farm. A building with a roof. People.”
He didn’t want to disappoint her about the last part. They might indeed find someone huddled in the cottage, but it looked more like whoever lived there had either left as the flood waters rose, or had been away from the farm when the storm struck. When they were an arrowshot from the buildings, he stopped her.
“Wait here,” he ordered. “I’ll go first and warn the farmer before you show yourself.”
“Very funny,” she retorted.
Alexander didn’t expect any hostility from the cotter, arriving as they were during stormy weather, but he wanted to be safe. In spite of the river of water running down between the cottage and the sheds, the farm was organized and well kept.
At the door, he called out a greeting but got no answer. Pushing it open, he ducked his head and went in.
As he expected, the place was empty. A cooking fire against one wall was cold, but dry wood had been stacked in the corner. A roughly made table and two blocks of wood that served as stools sat nearby. A spinning wheel and a small hand loom. Overhead, braided bunches of herbs hung from the low rafters. At the opposite end of the room, there was a straw mattress on a rude bed, and a chest of unfinished wood. Opening the top of the chest, he saw neatly folded clothing.
Alexander decided that the folk living here were only away because of the floods. They’d left their belongings behind. But he was equally sure that leaving them some coins when he and Elizabeth moved on would be appreciated.
When he went out to call for Elizabeth, she was standing by the door, a stout stick of firewood in her hands.
“I told you to wait.”
“I did. I waited. But you took so long that I was worried someone might have cut your throat. I came to rescue you . . . again.” She dropped the stick and looked past him into the hut. “This will definitely do.”
A Midsummer Wedding (The Scottish Relic Trilogy) Page 6
