He shrugged. What else could he do?
“Look!” Claudine called.
She was pointing at the mountains in the distance. Snow had fallen in the night, and they were clothed in purest white again, the trees completely covered. Brogan nodded.
“Aye. It's like to be a cold ride today.”
Claudine nodded. “We should reach a larger town by nightfall though.”
“Aye.” He nodded.
They headed on. Brogan kept an eye out as they rode. He didn't see any suspicious followers and his heart lifted. He decided he had to say something to her. After all, it was no good harboring suspicions when he could ask her outright.
Do you really trust her?
“Lass?” he asked, turning toward her.
She smiled. “Yes, Brogan?”
Her smile, as it always did, seared through him. He grinned, almost losing track of what he wanted to say. He cleared his throat. “Um...milady. I...”
That was when the bullet rattled through the trees and her horse reared, bolting for the forest.
CONFUSION AND PURSUIT
Claudine screamed as her horse reared. She clung to the reins, gritting her teeth as her mount's hooves hit the ground, hard.
“Claudine!”
Brogan shouted her name, but she could do nothing to make her horse turn around – the poor creature had bolted in terror, and she couldn't stop her anymore than she could blame her. As they rode, another bullet rattled through the trees.
At any minute, she could be shot, she knew.
She held the reins, grimly, and tried to focus. They were on the path, at least, but going far too fast for safety. If she hit so much as a root in the pathway, going at this speed, her horse could stumble and they would both go crashing to their death.
“Stop!” she called, twisting in the saddle, pulling back the reins. “Please, stop...”
Coming off her horse at this point would be a crueler death than being shot. She knew she could no more halt her horse than she could still her own terror. It wasn't for herself alone that she feared: Where was Brogan..? She couldn't hear or see him – had he been wounded?
“Stop...” she pleaded.
Her horse slowed, by some miracle. The forest grew silent. Claudine sucked in a breath, shaking, and leaned forward against her horse's neck. Her mount was lathered with sweat and she could feel sweat running down her spine, cold in the day's frost.
She looked around. The forest was a patchwork of greens and browns, bare boughs of broad-leafed trees mixed with the green of pines. She had no idea where she was.
A crack of twig made her turn around. Her heart stopped. “Dunstan,” she whispered.
In the clearing, wearing a uniform she was sure was not his, he sat. He rode a tall horse, his long legs hanging down the sides. He leaned on the pommel, hands crossed where he held the reins, loosely. His face was mild.
He raised a brow. “You know me. That's a surprise. It seemed you were so indifferent to me?”
Claudine looked away, heart thudding. If she could get to the edge of the clearing, there were two paths. She could take the lower one and maybe rejoin the main road... “I am not indifferent.”
She looked at him, wanting to believe he had gone mad. She saw no madness in his face, however – just coldness that chilled her.
“Oh?” he smiled. “You seemed to be. I have not forgotten you ran from me.”
“I was frightened. That is not indifference.” She looked around, searching for a means of escape.
Dunstan laughed. “I suppose not. Well, if you are frightened of me, then I shall be content with fear. It is not, as you say, indifference, and that's a beginning.”
Claudine backed her horse away a pace. Two paces. “Dunstan, please...”
His face hardened. “I do not take kindly the news that other people have broken a bargain in my name.”
“My father never made a bargain with you,” she said softly. Who was this man? Where had the charming baron her father had introduced to her gone? It didn't seem possible that this man with his cold eyes and his indifferent shrug was that same man.
Dunstan frowned. “That's how it seemed to me. He rids himself of a daughter, I gain enough money to improve my estate and perhaps invest enough to buy more lands.”
“My father didn't want to be rid of me,” Claudine said softly. She wanted so badly to believe that. She held Dunstan's brown gaze, but it was so blank and unfeeling that she hesitated to contradict it.
“Well, whatever the case,” he said. “I was promised something, and I will take it. Whether you will or no. You will come with me and we will settle this bargain. Then I will take you back to my home. I can't imagine why you're even here.”
Claudine looked around. He was riding toward her. She heard footsteps and another two men appeared, dressed like he was. They looked at Lord South expectantly.
“Stop her escaping.”
Claudine wanted to cry as the two men positioned themselves at the head of the path, making it impossible for her to ride that way. The only way she could escape now was to backtrack the path. Where was Brogan..?
He must be shot. If he was not injured, he would have come to find her by now. She felt sure of it.
She felt her horse step sideways and leaned into the turn, urging her horse round. Claudine could have sung as the relief shimmered through her. Nobody was behind her! She shot forward.
“You're not going anywhere,” Dunstan said, lunging forward as she started back down the path. Claudine screamed as he grabbed her wrist. Her horse reared and she held onto the reins, wincing in pain as her hooves impacted the earth, hard.
Just then, as the other riders converged on her, a voice cried out.
“Everybody! Stop.”
Claudine looked up as the men all paused where they were. Her heart leapt. Brogan! He was here. In the mouth of the clearing, sword drawn, he faced them down.
Brogan. She felt her heart weep, even as hope soared. He had a sword. One of them, at least, had a musket. He didn't have a hope. Even as she thought it, she heard Dunstan's chuckle.
“Put that down, fool,” he said. He was holding a pistol.
Brogan grinned easily. “I don't think I fancy that idea. No, I'll keep a hold of it. It's for you to let go, sir, and for the others to step back. Far back.”
Claudine winced. No, Brogan.
She closed her eyes, terrified that she was about to see him shot. Instead, Dunstan snarled.
“Step back, men.”
Claudine looked at Brogan in astonishment.
“Come on, lass,” he said.
She nodded and eased her horse forward. She felt sweat trickle down her back and expected, at any moment, that a shot would ring out and a bullet would take him, or her.
Slowly, Claudine. Straight back. Don't let him see that you're afraid.
She rode toward the place where the trees grew densely, the only gap where the path passed through, where Brogan sat his horse.
“There we go, lass. Now, get behind me.”
Claudine nodded. He sidled his horse and stepped forward and then she was behind him. She felt him close the gap again, facing the men. He rode easily, the long sword held two-handed before him. She’d had no idea he had brought one with them, had barely noticed the scabbard where he wore it down his back, the sword ready to draw over one shoulder.
“There, now,” he said. “You lot wait there.”
Claudine rode a little down the path, assuming that he intended her to give him room to ride quickly away.
When, a moment later, she heard drumming hoof-beats, she knew she was right. He was racing down the path toward her.
“Right, lass! Let's go!”
Claudine nodded and, gritting her teeth against the pain in her back and stomach, rode hard.
They rode back the way they'd come. They heard hooves catching up with them. Claudine wanted to scream, but Brogan didn't seem perturbed. All he did was lean forward, quickening the
pace.
She gritted her teeth and kept up with him.
They slowed down after what felt like an age, but must have only been a few minutes. Claudine leaned forward, exhausted, and let her horse stop and rest. Her horse stood, head down, breath coming in great gasps. Claudine, exhausted, did likewise.
“Brogan...” she whispered. “You...you took such a risk!”
He looked up at her, frowning. His face was covered in sweat and he frowned. “Risk?”
“They could have shot you,” she said firmly. She still wondered that they hadn't.
“No they couldn't.” He shook his head, smiling. “Those things only take one bullet, or two. No way could he fire at me again without reloading. And he hadn't time.”
Claudine stared at him. He looked so pleased that she had to chuckle too, astonished. “Brogan...”
He shook his head again, and then rode over to join her. “It was nothing, truly. I just thank goodness none of them harmed you.”
Claudine bit her lip. The horror suddenly overwhelmed her. She recalled his hard gaze on her, the flat, cold way he spoke of marrying her to use her fortune. He knew no finer feelings. She could never let herself be promised to such a man as that!
“Come on, lass,” he said. “We should go.”
“Where are we?” Claudine asked.
Brogan shrugged. “We're still on the road. But...”
“But what?” Claudine asked, frowning.
“Lass, we can't risk going that way again. They know where we want to go.”
“They do?” Claudine was astonished. “But how?”
“They've been following us for the last few days,” he said.
“The men...”
“Aye, the soldiers,” he said, shaking his head bitterly. “It was him, and those two fellers. No soldiers.”
Claudine nodded. She was exhausted. She noticed, fleetingly, that Brogan looked deeply upset, as if he regretted something. She couldn't frame the words to ask him what it was. “Come on,” she said gently. “We should go.”
“Aye,” he nodded.
“Brogan?” she asked as they took a path, one that headed back into the trees.
“Yes?”
“Where are we going?”
She was tired, and frightened. It was starting to go dark – the quick, blue dusk of winter, stretching shadows out between the trees. All she wanted was to curl up by a fire and be safe and warm.
“We're going north,” he said. “To my home.”
A BRUSH WITH DANGER
Claudine watched Brogan as she rode behind him on the path. He rode with a swaying ease, as at home on a horse as other people were walking about. She tried to make sense of what he had said, but she knew she couldn't grasp it.
She couldn't go back with him! What would anybody think..?
Then again, at that moment, that made no sense, along with everything. She was riding in the woodlands in a foreign country with a man she didn't really know. She had just been attacked and threatened by someone she thought she knew, and then rescued by this man. Her world could not possibly be stranger so her mind stopped questioning it, and simply accepted.
“We should stop at the nearest place we can to ask directions,” he called back.
“Yes,” she agreed sleepily. Her mind was full of mist, and her thoughts had a hard time drifting through it to reach her. She nodded and held the reins and followed Brogan's horse.
“There's a village near...there must be,” he called back. “I can smell cooking.”
“I suppose,” she called back, though she herself could smell nothing. She let the drowsy gait of her horse, walking, rock her and she didn't think too hard about anything.
I could just stay on this horse forever. Stay in this forest. Perhaps if I cling on for long enough, nothing will happen.
She was almost asleep. The sound of a twig cracking woke her. She heard a rustle and a whistle and Brogan's shout.
She sat up and opened her eyes on a world gone mad, suddenly. Brogan was spurring back down the path behind her, sword drawn. Behind her, Dunstan South charged forward, dagger held out.
The two met too suddenly, and too close. Claudine stared at the long-sword, rendered useless by the close quarters of the fight. Brogan did his best to set his horse pacing backwards, but Dunstan had a grip on his saddle and, as she watched, horrified, he stabbed at Brogan's torso.
“No...”
She was in shock, too tense to move. Then, suddenly, the world was back in a flurry of motion and speed and color and the sound of her voice, screaming. “Brogan!”
She rode forward, cannoning into the back of the man who, until recently, she had honestly thought herself duty-bound to respect. She heard him grunt and felt him twist, but she grabbed him and tried to hold him tight. Her horse stepped backwards and she screamed as she started to slip forward. She could see Brogan on horseback, red sheeting down his side. She fell.
Dunstan, drawn off balance by her weight, fell with her. They collapsed in an untidy tangle on the ground. Claudine's shoulder ached as if someone had beaten it with rods. She rolled over in time to feel Dustan grip her shoulder.
“You doxy! How dare you!”
Claudine stared at him, her mind filling with the fog again. He had hold of her shoulder and he was trying to drag her upright. She resisted, making her body as heavy as she could, not knowing what else to do.
At that moment, Brogan's horse stepped in, making him step back. Claudine glanced up to see how deathly-pale Brogan was, teeth gripped in his lip, swaying where he sat.
“Leave her, you scum,” he hissed.
Dunstan laughed, a harsh sound. “You call me that! I think you have no right to call me anything.”
Brogan tried to smile, but the effort of that seemed too much. Claudine watched, horrified, as Dunstan shook his head and then ran at the horse, and Brogan, dagger raised. He moved so fast that again, Brogan's swing with his sword was slow. He wrapped his arms around him and drew him off the horse and Brogan fell forwards, then, to Claudine's horror, dismounted. He hit the ground with a thud. His shirt was wet with blood.
“No.”
He must have heard her, because he looked in her direction, but then he had no time as Dunstan charged at him again.
This time, he had space to move. He stepped back and, as his opponent surged forward, he thudded him on the back with the heavy blade, making him fall. Dunstan hit the ground, but twisted up like lightning and came to his feet, standing within half a yard of Brogan. Here, on the ground, he could step back, opening up the gap for his sword. He swung it at Dunstan, who was forced to move.
“No...”
Claudine was left watching the two of them, a deadly battle. Brogan was gray in the face now, his long hair in intense contrast to his pale skin. It swung as he whirled around to face the new threat. His brow was sweating and his shirt clung to him in places. He stayed standing.
“You are no fighter,” Dunstan mocked, holding his dagger in his hand. He was poised on his feet, and Claudine was surprised to notice, with the strange fog of shock, that he must have spent hours of every day practicing his skills. He was a keen fighter. It was another thing she didn't know about him.
“No,” Brogan said, stepping back and then in and taking a lunge at Dunstan, which he easily avoided. “No, I'm not.”
“And you don't have enough honor to be insulted,” Dunstan said, brow raised. He stepped toward Brogan, striking out with the dagger as he approached his exposed side, dancing back from the long blade.
“Not...insulted...” Brogan whispered. He was tiring, clearly. His next swing was not as balanced, and it lacked force as it came down.
Claudine wanted to weep. She was standing by her horse, completely unable to do anything to help or to do anything save watch the two men as they took brutal blows at one another.
“You do not consider that an insult?” Dunstan mocked, dancing aside from another arcing cut.
“No,” Brogan said, righti
ng himself from the swing and facing Dunstan, blade held low. “I'm not...a fighter. I defend...what I must. I never...attack.”
At that moment, Dunstan stepped in with a blow that should have caught Brogan full in the chest. He stepped aside. Claudine screamed and ran at him, making him step sideways and slip just as Brogan lifted his blade and held it to his throat.
“Drop...knife.”
Claudine stared as Dunstan, white in the face, stared down the blade. He dropped the knife.
“Good,” Brogan said. “Now. Away.”
Dunstan stepped back. Brogan moved and kicked aside the knife, sending it scudding across the dry earth of the path and somewhere into the brush behind them.
Dunstan's brow rose, and Brogan nodded.
“Go.”
Dunstan stepped back. He took a step, and then another. Then he ran.
Brogan stood where he was.
Claudine stared. She scarcely knew whether to believe Dunstan had really gone. She didn't want to move. Didn't want to breathe.
Brogan stumbled.
“No!”
Claudine breathed it and ran toward him as he went down on all fours. He looked up at her.
“Blood,” he said. “Lost too much.” He was white. Claudine looked into his face and then away, desperate.
“No,” she said. She knelt at his side. “I am not having it. You'll be well.”
She bent down and felt for the wound. It was an ugly tear, and she could feel the blood trickling, sluggish now, from whatever had been cut. She could feel it pumping with the pulse of his heart.
“No,” she said again. Heedless of the sticky red mass coating her hands, she reached for her kerchief and folded it firm, pressing it into the wound. She felt it already growing damp. Desperate, she sat back and tore at the hem of her dress.
“Knife...”
Claudine nodded and ran to where she could still see the handle of the dagger. She gripped it and cut at her dress petticoat, cutting off a long section which she wrapped round Brogan. She frowned.
“Not tight enough,” she said.
“Branch...” he said. “Tie...ends. Turn it.”
The Highlander’s Runaway (Blood of Duncliffe Series) (A Medieval Scottish Romance Story) Page 15
