He’d called hermy dearin Gaelic, which was oddly comforting, coming from a stranger.
Despite their desperate circumstances, this Highlander was so steady, his movements so sure, that Sybil began to believe he would succeed in carrying her to safety.
She would worry later about how to escape her rescuer.
***
Rory’s leg hurt like hell. Each time the horse lurched forward over the rough terrain, the point of the arrow dug farther into his leg causing a jolt of searing pain that nearly blinded him. Although he had eluded the riders chasing them for the moment, he did not dare stop long enough to remove the rest of the arrow from his leg and rebandage it. He needed distraction, and he had a burning question to put to the young woman for whom he was risking his life.
“Who’s James?” Rory kept his voice even, though he wondered what the hell his pledged bride had been up to.
“Which James?” she asked.
“Which James?” Her answer did not improve his mood. He could see that if she did become his wife, he would have to mind her closely.
“There are so many of them,” she said, “starting with the king.”
He ground his teeth together. Naturally, he had assumed his promised bride was an inexperienced virgin. Perhaps he was wrong.
“I was referring to the James ye mentioned when I found ye under the tree,” he said.
“Oh, him.”
The disgust in her voice eased his concern over that particular James. But then, a woman might react that way if an affair ended badly.
“Who is he?” He stifled a curse as the horse stumbled, jarring his leg again.
“James Hamilton of Finnart, son of James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran,” she said. “He paid me a visit earlier, before you came.”
Rory knew the name. Though a bastard, Finnart was Arran’s favored eldest son. “I thought there was bad blood between your family and the Hamiltons.”
“Oh aye,” she said with a humorless laugh. “The Douglases and the Hamiltons have been at each other’s throats in a fight for control of the crown since the king’s death at Flodden.”
“So what did this Finnart want when he visited ye today?” Rory asked.
“Me.”
Rory’s temper ticked up a notch.
“The man won’t take nay for an answer,” she continued blithely. “He told me that with the men of my family banished and the threat of a long imprisonment hanging over me, I had no choice but to avail myself of hisprotection.”
Rory’s shoulders relaxed. He recalled her words when she mistook him for this James Finnart.I told ye I won’t do it, so go.It was a comfort to know that his bride refused to relinquish her virtue even under such pressure.
“I left my handprint on his face,” she said.
Ach, that was even better. Despite his throbbing leg and the queen’s men tracking them, Rory felt almost cheerful now.
“Once he had me, James’s interest wouldn’t have lasted more than a month,” she said. “And then where would I be?”
“Otherwise, ye would have given yourself to him?” Rory asked, his voice rising.
The lass had the gall to laugh. She turned in the saddle to look at him.
“The prospect of being beheaded for treason does tend to make a lass consider choices she wouldn’t otherwise,” she said, her eyes sparkling with mirth. “Such as running off with a perfect stranger.”
***
“I think we’ve lost them,” Sybil said as she turned to scan the hills behind them yet again.