Adeline thought slowly. If Tam knew where she was, then, should anybody ask him for information about her, he would have to either lie, or tell them. She didn’t want her son to have to conceal the truth from anyone – he wasn’t good at it, and it was only a matter of time before they decided to use some drastic means to get it out of him.
“Take word to him that you know where I am,” she said after a while. “And that I am safe, and well, and cared for.”
He nodded slowly. He looked upset.
“Aye, milady,” he said slowly. “I’ll do that.”
“Well, then,” Adeline said, helplessly.
What else was there to say? He had found her, and he knew she was safe. He had given her word from Tam, and she had sent word back. If that was all he came for, he had no reason to linger, did he?
But I do not wish him so soon away.
She shook her head at herself, feeling impatient.
“Well, then,” he said.
He made no attempt to move. Nor did she. They stood together in the silent garden. Clouds had gathered, and, somewhere on the trees above them, a gentle rain fell. They were dry, two strangers in a world cut off from everywhere by the silver rainfall.
“Och, milady, I…”
“When I saw…”
They both spoke together. She coughed.
“Sorry,” she said. “You speak first.”
He smiled. “I do not know what I was going tae say,” he said. He smiled, embarrassed. “Save that, well…take care, milady? And, if ye can, come back?”
Adeline stared at him. His expression was wistful, as if he asked for something too far out of the realm of possibility, yet his eyes were full of hope.
She coughed, her throat suddenly tight with her feelings. “I’ll try, Alexander,” she said. For the second time in ten minutes, she used his name. He smiled.
“What happened to Burrell?”
“Burrell’s for when you’re being good,” she said, before she could stop herself.
He chuckled. “And now? Now I’m not good, eh?”
She shot him a look. “I’ll leave you to be the judge of that.”
He laughed. She smiled at him, and suddenly her heart was full of feelings.
“Take care?” she said, her voice tight and hoarse.
“I will,” he said, his own voice tight. “You too, milady?”
“Me, too.”
They looked at each other and he raised a hand, and hers came up automatically. She let her fingers brush against his, almost a handshake. His clasped hers, briefly. Then he turned away.
“I’ll come back, milady,” he said, his back to her. “Take care, eh?”
“I will!” she called to his retreating back.
Then he was gone, and she was all alone, with a basket of strawberries, in a silent garden.
SECOND THOUGHT
The rain was still falling as Alex made his way between the rain slick boughs towards where he had left his horse, hidden in a deeper thicket.
“Och, I hope those fellers went right past.”
He shivered. The baron and his men had been so close! He had stayed behind them to the best of his skills, but having to dismount and leave his horse here before checking the abbey grounds had meant he had left them a clue.
“It would be one thing if I was nae riding a horse from their own stables.”
He shook his head at himself. He might as well have left a sign up, saying that he was out and about looking for Lady Adeline. All they needed to guess was that Tam or himself had some reason to believe they knew where she was.
Then she’s as good as found.
He shook his head. He wouldn’t put it past that lot to do whatever they had to do, to find the information. In the time since Adeline had left the manor, and the earl had taken command, the place had changed from a grand house to a grim fortress. Just going back there to answer Tam’s summons had made his hair stand on end.
He heard a horse snort from the thicket and felt his heart melt with relief.
“Och, lad! You’re still there, then!”
He beamed and, still beaming, reached up to pat the nose of his horse. The horse shied back, rolling a wary eye.
“Och, ye recalcitrant creature!” He shook his head at the stallion, which was still looking at him askance.
It occurred to him to wonder if this was Burrell. He knew it was the name of one of her horses. He smiled to himself, then felt a twist of emotion grip his heart.
“Stop being stupid,” he told himself harshly. “Lady herself says that she can’t let herself have anything to do wi’ ye. Not proper decorum.”
He made a face. Decorum be damned, he could still feel the touch of her sweet lips. If he thought about it too hard, he thought his whole body might burst into a conflagration of longing. He could still recall how her soft, sweet curves felt, pressed against his chest, still hear the little moan she made in her throat as he held her.
“Stop tormenting me!”
He didn’t know whether he was shouting at his memories, at her, or himself. In any case, the horse shot him a cross glare.
“Och, lad,” he said, shaking his head at himself. “I was nae talking tae you. Come on. We’d best go.”
He reached up and swung into the saddle. His horse seemed to be pleased that they were finally leaving the damp, chilly clearing, for he stepped eagerly out toward the pathway.
As they rode, Alexander felt his heart grow heavier. He was riding away from Lady Adeline, with no certainty of coming back. He didn’t know, even if he did return, if she would still be there when he got there. He thought grimly, he also had no idea whether the rest would find her too.
“If the baron goes to the church, he’ll demand they hand her over.”
He shuddered. Adeline had taken a big risk, clearly, earning these people’s displeasure. The earl, her uncle, seemed as cruel a man as he could ever envisage. The baron was a bully. He’d had enough fights with enough people to recognize the blank, stubborn face of somebody who lived to pick fights.
“He’d kill for the fun of it, that one.”
He shivered. How could her family even think of wedding her to that? It defied all sense.
He rode on, watching the path. Muddied and damp with the continuing rainfall, it was nonetheless churned up underfoot. He could guess that three horses had passed by, in the space of an hour or so ago.
“They came this way, too.”
He felt his heart sink. How likely was it that the three riders – the baron and two of his men – whom he’d followed today, had turned back?
They reached a crossroads, and his heart dropped. Two tracks continued ahead, on the way to the village. One went right, toward the abbey gates.
“They’re checking there, too.”
Alexander stopped on the road. He tried to decide, quickly, the best course of action open to him. He could simply go to the village, find lodgings for the night, and report to Tam that his mother was safe and well, as she’d said he should. Or he could check where the third rider went.
“You’re a fool, Alex,” he said to himself, repeating words his own grandfather had said to him, often enough. “You ought to go.”
All the same, his heart wanted to stay – to find out what had happened.
He turned right, heading back toward the abbey.
When he neared the end of the path, he slowed to a walk. The road was slippery and narrow, but that was not what encouraged his caution. Up at the end of the path, a sturdy pale horse was tethered, the reins looped round the stone ball on the abbey gatepost. He stopped and dismounted.
“It’s his horse, alright.”
He shivered. The baron was here! He had found the abbey. He led his own horse into the shadow of the trees. Found a fence post that marked the boundary of the abbey’s orchards, and looped the reins around it.
“Sorry, lad,” he apologized to the horse, quietly. “I’ll only be a moment.”
He had to find out what
had happened.
He slipped into the shadow of the trees and crept towards the abbey gates.
As he approached, he tensed. Like it had in the garden, some strange instinct prompted him to stay hidden, and to wait. Withdrawing into the shadow of a tall, clipped box tree, he waited.
Someone was talking – he could hear a voice, low, but earnest. Remonstrating.
“My lord,” the voice was saying. “I cannot do this. It would be entirely against my word, and…”
“I don’t concern meself wi’ your word, Father,” a harsh voice said back. “I will have her returned to her family. There’s no arguing about it. It’s within me right!”
“I understand, son,” the first voice replied. “But, in the eyes of the Church, all those seeking sanctuary are to be protected, and that is simply…”
“Sanctuary?” the voice was heavy with scorn. “From a manor full of servants and luxuries? I don’t think much of your definition of sanctuary, priest!”
“We cannot allow you…”
“I’ll allow meself, then!” he said.
From his concealment, Alexander heard the sound of a scuffle. A startled cry followed, and then he heard something which filled him with horror. Adeline.
“Let go of me!”
Alexander ran, then stopped. At this point, if he burst out of the trees, he would be unarmed and exposed against a man on foot, who was almost certainly armed. If, however, he pursued them, he would be a lone man against two people on a horse.
He waited, and stared.
The man he’d heard was the baron, as he’d expected. Just as Alexander froze, he dragged Adeline into the clearing. Her wrist was tight in his hand and, though she struggled back toward the shelter of the abbey, Alexander knew there was no way she could break his grip. Heart in his mouth, he watched.
“Let me go!” she shouted.
“You’re coming with me, where ye belong,” the baron growled.
“You have no right!”
An older man Alexander had only just noticed cleared his throat and was ignored by both of them. Tall and gaunt, wearing white robes, Alexander guessed he was the head of the abbey.
“I warn you…” he began.
“Abbot, keep your face shut, if ye ken what’s good for ye.”
The older man looked shocked. Alexander stayed frozen to the spot as the baron hauled Adeline toward his horse.
“Get up,” he growled.
Adeline looked round. Alexander could guess she was looking for some way to escape. He tensed. If she got onto the horse, there would be a moment when she could ride, and the baron would be on the ground, distracted and vulnerable, ready to attack. He waited as Adeline hesitated a heartbeat, then put her foot up into the stirrup.
“Now.”
Leaping out of the tree line, Alexander threw himself at his enemy. He had the dagger in his hand, and his mouth was open as he yelled.
“Ride, lass!”
Making a remount that would have graced a cavalryman, Adeline did as he suggested, and raced toward the edge of the clearing. The last thing he saw, before he ran at the baron, was her wheeling her horse at the edge of the tree line, riding back toward him.
“Run!” he yelled, but the baron, as Alexander had expected, was a fighter, and he’d thrown a punch at his stomach that winded him, doubling him over in shock. He kept his handhold on the dagger, but the punch had stretched the skin round the wound, making it bleed and ache like nothing he’d imagined.
“Alexander!”
“Ride,” he whispered, as the baron hit him over the head and the dull pain felt like lead, blurring his vision. He could smell blood and hear a ringing in his ears and he could see only black and white.
He heard a scream. He thought it was Adeline’s, and, using the last of his strength, he stood up. That was when he saw that the baron had screamed, and it was not a cry of pain, but one of rage. He saw why, too. Adeline had a riding whip in her hand, and a welt stood out on the fellow’s cheek, red and angry.
Seizing the advantage, he lurched back into the bushes, half-stumbling, half-running, towards his horse.
“You blackguard!” the baron yelled, following it by other words Alexander had not heard for years, not since he’d fought on the dock at Queensferry. He could feel his breath tight in his lungs, heart pounding, feet slipping on the rain wet earth as he plunged ahead, toward his horse.
He could hear all sorts of threats, each more improbable than the last, and his heart was aching terror as he ran. He reached his horse and threw himself up, reaching for the saddle, hoping against hope that he still remembered what his master-at-arms had taught him in his distant, forgotten youth, hoping he could still do an emergency mount.
His hands remembered years of training his brain had forgotten, and clutched the saddle horn. His legs, suddenly finding their strength, obliged too, and he felt his left foot slip into the stirrup, even as the right swung over. He was sitting atop the horse, then, and his foe was still unmounted.
“Whew!” he said, feeling weak and giddy. He was smiling, though he knew it was ridiculous, to be so. He bit the insides of his cheeks to keep the grin off his face, and rode forward, out of the clearing. He passed his foe by inches.
“You bastard!” his enemy yelled. Rendered temporarily harmless, he could only rail from the ground as Alexander shot past.
“Serves you right, too,” he murmured under his breath. He and his horse followed the track back, the ground already churned by the furious hoof beats of Adeline’s mount.
“I only pray I find her again.”
He bit his lip and, the humor abruptly draining away, he rode, with increasing urgency, down the pathway.
He was at the end of it, where it joined the main path, when he heard her. Horse panting, hoof beats slamming into the path, she was clearly riding hard.
“No,” he heard a desperate voice half-screaming. “No. We can’t slow down now…”
“Milady!”
He yelled it, and threw up a hand in greeting, as he saw her and her horse appear into sight. She was riding hard, leaning over the saddle, face red and white, her cheeks red, the rest of her bloodless with shock.
“Whoa!” she yelled, and reined her horse backward, which reared.
Then they stood, shivering with exertion, in the clearing.
“Milady!” Alexander threw one leg over, about to go toward her.
“No!” she said, holding up a hand. She was panting, her face utterly white now, lungs craving fresh air. “Stay up.”
“Milady, he cannae follow us,” Alexander panted. He wasn’t entirely sure of that, of course, but he could hope so. Even if the baron borrowed a horse from the abbey, he was at least ten minutes of hard ride behind them now. He would likely not catch them.
“You don’t know that,” Adeline whispered. “And the others?”
“Gone to the village, milady,” he panted. “Saw the…tracks. Not with him.”
“Good.”
They were both silent, then, the clearing full of the sound of labored breathing. Under him, his horse was panting too, drawing in great shuddering breaths. He could see her horse had his head down, legs wide, gasping.
“We should go slower,” he said slowly. “We should try to throw them off.”
“We can’t stay ahead for long,” Adeline agreed. “Should we double back?”
Alexander considered it. The more he did so, the more he realized what a good plan it was. The last thing the baron would have thought of was them returning to the abbey. He would either simply try to follow them, or seek to regroup with his men in the village.
“You’re right, milady,” he said slowly. “Let’s go back.”
“I think the road that goes left will take us back,” Adeline said, words coming slowly as she regained her breath. “We should ride ahead a way. Then we’ll stand less risk of meeting him on the path as he comes up, towards the village.”
“Aye.”
They looked at each
other. He could feel his head still throbbing, and he knew that his wound had bled – there was something sticky and damp on his side. It ached in a way he could barely describe, even to himself. It was worse than anything he could have imagined.
“Let’s go back, then.”
Adeline nodded. “We’ll go slowly,” she said. “Are you hurt?”
He chuckled. Paused, to spit, and saw his spit was red.
“I’m not going tae die yet, milady.”
Adeline chuckled, though she frowned. “Well, be sure you hold on until we get to the abbey. I’ll tend you then. Or the monks will.”
“I trust you, milady.”
Adeline laughed. She was riding ahead, but she had turned, and he could see her eyes dance with humor. With her hair loose, her cheeks pale, she looked so lovely it stole his breath.
“You might live to regret it.”
They both laughed.
Slowly, feeling more exhausted with every step, they rode up, then turned back as the path forked, heading back to the abbey.
“You…” he paused, shy, as they neared the place they had begun from.
“You what?” Adeline prompted.
“You did a right fine remount, then, milady,” he said. He slipped down to the ground, wincing as his feet hit the hard-packed earth. He was blushing. He had never imagined giving her a compliment, and wasn’t sure how he ought to go about it, or what she’d think of him.
To his surprise, she smiled.
“You think so?”
“Aye,” he said. “I learned it too, as a lad. You did it really well.”
“You did?” She was looking at him, surprised. “There’s not many people who are that well-trained.”
“Aye,” he said.
As they walked their horses round the abbey wall, heading to the rear gate into the gardens, he considered her reply. She evidently thought him a man from craftsmen’s stock, perhaps even something lowlier. To all intents and purpose, he was, now. His family had disowned him.
Not much point in letting her know my story. I’m plain Alexander McRade, now, and that’s all she needs to hear about.
Shrugging, then wincing as his wound pulled again, he followed her to the back gate.
The Highlander's Brave Baroness (Blood 0f Duncliffe Series Book 10) Page 12
