Rory stifled a curse. Sybil was a skilled rider, and she had a good lead on him.
“Keep our secret,” Rory said, and winked. “Not a word of this to anyone.”
He spurred his horse and galloped out the gate.Please, God, keep her safe until I find her.Wherever she was and however far she’d gone, he would find her. He had no notion how he would persuade her to come back with him once he did, but one way or another, he would bring her home.
Now that he had driven her away, he knew in his heart the only truth that mattered.
Sybil belonged with him.
When Rory came to the river, the trail split in opposite directions. Ignoring the branch that followed the river inland, he turned Curan east toward the sea, where Sybil could seek a boat to carry her away.
He had ridden no more than a half-mile from the castle when he saw her sitting on a rock by the river with her back to him and her horse grazing nearby. She appeared in no hurry.
Since she did not look as if she had taken a fall and injured herself, Rory dismounted and approached her quietly through the tall grass. He did not want to spook her. Sweat glistened on the horse’s back. She had ridden him hard and farther from the castle, but something had made her turn around. He hoped it was him.
When she looked over her shoulder and saw him, she did not seem surprised. He sat down beside her, careful not to touch her. He felt as if she had a protective layer around her that he should not attempt to breach, at least not yet.
“I was five miles down the trail,” she said, staring at the river. “Ye would never have caught me.”
He did not argue the point, though he most definitely would have found her and brought her home.
“I’m grateful ye decided to turn around.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” she said. “I did it for the boy.”
The boy?It took him a long moment to realize she meant the Grant lad.
“I remembered my promise that I would be his friend and mind his back among you MacKenzies,” she said. “So I couldn’t leave yet.”
Yet.The word hit him like a punch in the gut. The fact that she had no place she could go was no comfort.
“Let me explain,” he said.
“’Tis a bit late for that, don’t ye think?” she said. “I believe I understand all I need to know.”
“Ye don’t.”
“Ye have a son, ye refused to wed his mother,” she said, ticking her points off with her fingers, “and now that the poor lass is dead, her family expected ye to make things right through a marriage to her sister.”
“It sounds far worse than it is,” he said. “There’s more to the story, if you’ll only listen.”
“Oh, aye, there’s more,” she said. “I forgot to add that all the while ye were seducing innocent young lasses, ye believed ye were bound to wed me!”
Now she was being ridiculous, but he had the sense to bite his tongue. No man was expected to abstain before the marriage contract was consummated.
“Whether ye listen or no,” he said, “I’m going to tell ye what happened.”
“I can’t stop ye.”
“A few months before we fought at Flodden and I was taken prisoner, my father hosted a gathering of Highland chieftains,” Rory began his tale. “Grant brought his family, including his eldest daughter. I didn’t know at the time that Hector had an eye for the lass and had asked my father to negotiate a marriage between them during the gathering.”
Sybil folded her arms and turned her face away. Still, he knew she was listening.
“The lass was seventeen, beautiful and headstrong. As best I can guess, thinking about it afterward, she met Hector and decided to thwart the marriage plan.”
***
“She wished to wed you instead of Hector?” Sybil’s curiosity got the better of her, and the question slipped out.