He got up from their warm blankets and threw on his clothes. It wasn’t like him to panic and run, but he was desperate to get moving.
“I need to check the snares I set last night before we go,” he said as he strapped on his claymore. They were camped in a wood well below the trail, so she should be safe, and he needed to get away from her to clear his head.
“I’ll pack up,” Glynis said, and Alex heard the hurt in her voice.
“Be careful and stay close to camp.” He crouched beside her and touched her cheek. “Don’t go where ye can be seen from the path.”
Looking into her face, with those big, solemn eyes and that sweet sprinkling of freckles across her nose, Alex could not escape the knowledge that he had corrupted a wholesome lass. The fact that she’d wanted corrupting did not excuse him.
This had been a big mistake.
* * *
Glynis gulped in deep breaths as she rolled up the blankets. She should have expected that Alex would tire of her this quickly. In the midst of saddling Rosebud, she paused to rest her head against the horse’s shoulder. She wanted to blame Alex for the hurt welling up in her chest, but he had tried to warn her that she could not do this lightly. She clenched her fists and told herself that once she was in Edinburgh, she would make herself forget Alex MacDonald.
Since Alex was in such a damned hurry to get there, she wasn’t waiting for him to return to water the horses. The walk down to the small loch where they had taken them last night was a bit longer than she remembered, but it was well hidden by the trees.
After letting the horses drink, she tied them at the edge of the nearby clearing where they could munch on the grass, then she took off her shoes and waded into the water. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head back and let the sunshine wash over her. She took deep breaths until she felt calmer.
Her eyes flew open as a sudden unease swept over her.
She turned, and her heart dropped to her stomach. Over the tops of the trees, she saw a man up on the path. He was too far away for her to tell if he saw her, too.
Glynis held her breath and forced herself to move slowly out of the water so as not to draw his attention. When she reached the cover of the trees, she paused, listening hard. But she heard nothing except the birds and the breeze in the branches overhead.
She hid behind a thick bush and curled herself into a ball. Would the man look for her? Her heart thudded in her ears as she waited. Please, God, let Alex return soon.
Glynis forgot about the horses until she heard a loud whinny. She scrambled low over the ground until she could see into the clearing where she’d left them.
“Goddamned beast!” A tall warrior with a claymore strapped to his back was trying to grab Rosebud’s rope, but she was snorting and pawing at the air. “I’ll show ye who’s master!”
Glynis watched in horror as the man brought a switch down on Rosebud’s neck again and again. Now both horses were rearing up and straining against their ropes.
She had to do something. There was only one man, and she had surprise on her side. She picked up a hefty stick from the ground. While his back was to her, she should do it. Still, she hesitated, hoping Alex would burst through the trees.
But the horses were frantic, their whinnies like screams in her ears. She couldn’t bear it. Raising the stick over her head with both hands, she ran toward the man.
Argh! With all her might, she whacked him on the back of the head. It made a sickening thud, and he crumpled to the ground. Oh, God, had she killed him?
“Hush, hush.” She tried to soothe the horses. But their eyes rolled back, and they grew wilder still. Glynis felt a prickle at the back of her neck—and suddenly she knew why the horses were still upset.
She screamed and pulled her dirk as she turned. A half dozen warriors had entered the small clearing.
“Stay back!” She stood in front of the horses, holding the bloodied stick in one hand and her dirk in the other.
Her gaze flew from one to another. God, no. She recognized these men. They were members of Magnus’s personal guard.
“We’ve been looking for ye for days.” The one who spoke was Fingall, a huge man with broken teeth who was known for terrorizing the weak among his clansmen. “Magnus sent men in every direction looking for ye, but we got lucky when we came upon some Campbell fishermen who saw ye.”
“We were beginning to wonder if they lied to us about which way ye went,” another of the men said. “But we couldn’t go back and ask them again because we left them all dead.”
This brought a round of laughter from the others.
“Ye murder defenseless fishermen, and ye call yourselves warriors?” Glynis said. “Ye disgust me!”
“Ye always did have a sharp tongue.” Fingall said. “But we’ll soon wear the fight out of ye.”
He signaled to the others, and they all started moving toward her. Behind her, the horses were rearing and whinnying again.