Hannah Howell (8 page)

“The fiercest storms are ofttimes the shortest. I hope ’tis true this time.” He frowned, hoping they wouldn’t lose time.

“It could bring our enemies closer to us?”

“Nay, if the storm is so fierce that it binds us to this place, ’twill also force them to seek shelter and stay there. This storm could even be to our benefit, as it will surely wash away any trail we may have left for them to follow.”

“Then why did ye frown so when ye mentioned the possibility of being stuck here?”

He rubbed his chin with the palm of his hand as he stared into the fire. “ ’Twould be precious time lost.”

“Ah—time. If the information ye gathered is correct, then we still have six weeks, mayhaps longer.” She could tell by his face that he did not find that comforting.

“Aye.
If
we have six weeks.
If
our information is correct. Even if it is, ’tis still important to get our news to the king as soon as we can. One needs to prepare for battle. True, the king works to gather an army, and all ken that this confrontation is past due, but they canna say just when. A man willna put aside his planting on a guess. No man will risk his family starving come winter because the king ‘thinks’ there will be a battle.”

“Nay, of course not.” She took his hand between her own. “Well, ye have Simon. Ye did feel he would get word to the king.”

His expression lightened slightly. “Aye, he can. ’Tis but difficult to ignore one simple fact. He is in the heart of the Douglas lands and will be riding toward the king. Anyone doing that will be suspect. The Douglases willna let anyone do that if they can stop it.”

“He is but one man. In this wild country that can be a great advantage. There are many places for him to hide.”

“Ye seek to ease my worries.” He smiled down at her. Tess kissed his cheek. “Aye, I do, and ye shouldna cast aside my efforts so quickly. ’Tis a dark time we are caught in. Worrying will do no good. Ye said Simon was clever. Remember that and set aside the matter. I believe we ourselves have more than enough to prey upon our minds. Why add to it by fretting over something ye can do naught about?”

“How very sensible.”

“I thought so.”

Revan chuckled. “By needing to huddle here for a while, I have been given time to think too much.”

“Then mayhaps the answer is to distract you.” She nibbled gently at his earlobe.

“ ’Tis a possibility.”

“If ye prefer sitting and fretting, ye need just say so.” She began to cover his strong throat with soft heated kisses, and the arm he had draped about her shoulders tightened slightly.

“Nay, I believe I should prefer being distracted.”

His hand on the back of her head, he turned her mouth toward his. The hunger behind the kiss they shared startled him a little. After two days and nights in the cave where they did little more than make love, he had expected that hunger to wane some by now. Instead, it was richer, deeper. Knowing the pleasure he could find in her arms only made him want more. It worried him, for he could foresee no future for them, yet the need she infected him with seemed to demand one. Good sense told him to distance himself from her before it got worse, but he could not, would not heed it. Instead, he began to consider glutting himself, of taking all he could before it had to end.

Tess moved her soft, small hands down his body, easing off the loosely secured blanket he wore. He trembled beneath her touch and wished she would be bolder, yet enjoyed her lingering innocence. Revan continued to kiss her, to sit still as she tested her skills, until his desire demanded more. He eased her down onto her back and crouched over her as he opened her blanket wrap. Lowering himself down into her welcoming arms, he began to kiss her throat as he ran his hands over her slim body.

“Was I not supposed to distract you?” Tess found speech a little difficult as he leisurely toyed with her breasts using his hands, his lips, and his tongue to send her passions soaring.

“Oh, ye are, lass. There has never been a woman so sweetly distracting.”

“Well, that was easily done. It appears I but needed to say ‘aye.’ ”

Revan smiled briefly against the warm silken skin of her midriff. “Actually, ye but need to say ‘mayhaps.’ ”

That flattery, spoken in his passion-roughened voice, combined with his caresses to finally rob her of the power of coherent speech. She curled her fingers in his thick fair hair and gave herself over completely to his lovemaking. The only sounds she made were soft, mostly mumbled assertions of how much delight he gave her. Even that died, choked off by shock, when the hot touch of his lips and tongue slid upward from her inner thighs.

She bucked in rejection of the deeply personal caress only once. He grasped her by the hips to hold her still, and an instant later she had no wish to retreat from the intimacy. Tess melted to his will, opening to his intimate kiss and arching greedily as her passion grew. When she felt her release draw near, she called to him, crying out with pleasure as he swiftly united their bodies. She clung tightly to him as he drove them both to the full gratification of their needs.

It was not long after Revan had briefly left the bed to wash himself, then return to gently bathe her that Tess began to feel embarrassed. He took her into his arms, and she kept her cheek pressed against his broad chest, unable to look at him. It was difficult to meet the gaze of a man who had just seen her behave with such a lack of restraint and, she feared, perhaps even in a manner better fitted to a common whore.

As he combed his fingers through her thick, lightly tangled hair, Revan frowned. Tess was holding herself a little tensely. He hoped he had not shocked her too badly. The last thing he wished to do was chill the heat of her passion by expecting too much of her too quickly. Her desires matched his in strength, and he had trouble recalling that he still needed to go slowly with her.

“Is that a whore’s trick?” Tess whispered, finally pushed to voice her greatest fear.

“Nay. In truth, any man with sense would hesitate to give one of those wenches such loving.” He grasped her by the chin and turned her face up to his, smiling faintly at her blush. “Ah, but ye, wee Tessa, are very sweet.” He grinned when she blushed even more, then brushed a kiss over her mouth. “Ye tempt a man to be very creative.”

She shook her head before resting it against his chest again as she tried to smother a yawn. “Creative, is it? I had meant to distract you.”

“Ye did that very well, lass.” He saw her try to hide another yawn and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Get some rest, loving. Dawn isna so very far away.”

Tess groaned and ignored his soft chuckle. “That is the second thing I promise to myself,” she muttered. “As soon as we are safe, I shall sleep late for a week. In fact, I believe I will simply stay abed.”

“Aye, that does sound a fine idea.” He gently smoothed his hands up and down her slim back. “But ye said that was the second thing ye promise to yourself. What is the first?”

“Ah, the first.” She curled herself more comfortably around him, yawned, and closed her eyes. “The first is a sumptuous feast, and I shall eat so much that they shall need to carry me to my bed. I shall have fruit and cream and cheese and meat. Aye—a great deal of meat.”

“Well, porridge does grow a bit tedious.”

“I meant no criticism.”

“I ken it. But I may be able to satisfy at least one of your wishes. If we wake early enough and the storm has cleared, I shall go hunting.”

“Would that be wise? Or safe?”

“As wise or safe as it will ever be until we reach the king. Our enemies hadna found us ere this storm descended, and it has washed away our scent. I will get us some small fowl or meat, and we can prepare it for cooking ere we ride away.”

“I can wait until we are with the king.”

“Aye, but I can see no true harm in pausing a moment to supplement our meager fare. ’Twill do us good, give us some needed strength, and”—he grinned—“I ken that ye will be most grateful to me.”

She briefly looked at him with mock disgust before closing her eyes again. “Aye, I would be grateful, but
how
grateful shall depend upon the fare.”

“How grateful would ye be for a nice plump grouse?”

The mere thought of it made her mouth water. “Very grateful, indeed. So much so that I need to think long and hard on a suitable reward.”

“Ye mean to go to sleep.”

“Aye, but if ye bring me back something heartier than porridge, ye will soon see that I can think whilst asleep. I need not stay awake all night to decide upon a reward.”

“Intriguing. Sleep well, then. I may bring back a full brace of birds.”

“One will do. And pray that ye dinna bring back any two-legged carrion trailing at your heels.”

“Dinna worry. For a wee while I mean to be the hunter, not the hunted.”

After setting the saddle packs by the doorway, Tess frowned and hooked up the stiffened hide that served as a door. She stood on the worn threshold stone and stared out toward the wood encircling the small cottage. What fields may have once been cleared had become badly overgrown. But she was only partly aware of the rain-washed beauty around her. It had been hours since Revan had left.

Revan had set off when the sky was only faintly lightened by the coming dawn. The moment he had left her sight, she had wanted him back. She was unable to think of anything but the dangers he might face. Although they had seen no sign of their pursuers, even Revan had been unable to say that they were safe. Suddenly she wanted to be gone from the cottage, wanted to be fleeing toward the king again.

Sighing, she went and sat by the fire. She had dressed, packed up their meager supplies, and now could only wait. After yanking off her cap, she finger-combed her hair and began to braid it. It would probably not fit her cap and have to be undone, but she badly needed something to keep herself busy.

When she was only halfway done with her braid, she tensed. A soft sound like a boot scraping across stone distracted her. Even as she looked up, she knew it was not Revan. He would have announced himself in some way. She was not surprised to see her uncle’s man, Thomas, but alarm quickly seized her.

Tess cursed and leapt to her feet, but she was a moment too slow. Thomas, followed by Donald, swiftly crossed the room. She eluded them, but when she turned to bolt for the door, she found her way blocked by two more of her uncle’s men-at-arms. There was no chance of escape. Her only clear thought was to delay until Revan returned. Although she was not sure what Revan could do against such odds, it was her only plan.

Thomas lunged for her again. She ducked out of his reach. There was not much in the tiny poor cottage, but she grabbed what little she could and hurled it at them, including the peat and wood Revan had brought in for the fire. It kept Thomas and Donald at a distance as she pelted them with all she could put her hands on, but it afforded her no opportunity to flee. The two men swore and called for their companions in the doorway to aid them. That pair answered with hoots of derision and laughter.

The moment she ran out of things to throw at them, both Donald and Thomas charged her. Tess danced out of Thomas’s reach, but Donald was able to trip her. She hit the packed earthen floor hard, and before she could catch her breath and scramble to her feet, the bulky Donald sat on her. It took her a moment to catch hold of enough breath to speak.

“Get off of me, ye great hulking oaf,” she snapped.

“Ye stay right there, Donald,” ordered Thomas as he crouched before Tess and grabbed hold of her wrists, yanking her arms in front of her.

“Ye canna take me back to Uncle Fergus,” she protested as Thomas tightly bound her wrists together with a length of coarse rope.

“I can and I will. She is secured, Donald. Ye can get up now.”

Donald hopped to his feet, and Thomas dragged her to hers by the rope about her wrists. Tess tried to kick him, but he held her at a safe distance from him. She knew she would get no sympathy or mercy from the man. However, she decided to test his love for his own skin by reminding him of how he was aiding her uncle in his crimes.

“Ye will be a party to murder, Thomas.” She felt her brief hope die when he just smiled.

“ ’Twill be your fine knight who is blamed for whatever fate befalls you.”

“My
uncle
is the one who wants me dead.”

“Canna say I much blame him for that,” muttered Donald.

“Ye willna find it such a great jest when ye are dangling from the gibbet for this crime. Aye, hanging like carrion and without having enjoyed any gain for all you did.”

“ ’Tis your pretty Sir Halyard who will hang,” snapped Thomas as he dragged her toward the doorway.

“Aye, Sir Thurkettle has it all planned,” agreed Donald as he fell into step behind them.

The two men in the doorway stepped back outside. Tess cursed viciously as she was tugged out of the cottage, stumbling over the threshold. The fools thought her uncle so clever he could consistently thwart justice. She tried very hard not to think about how often her uncle did just that.

“My uncle will be caught some day, and ye will both fall with him.” She tried to drag her feet, to slow Thomas’s dogged march toward the tethered horses. “He would throw both of you to the dogs without hesitation if he thought he could save his own hide.”

“Shut your mouth, wench.” Thomas picked her up and roughly set her on a horse as Donald and the other two men mounted theirs. “Ye willna talk us out of this, and if ye keep trying, I will shut your mouth for you.” He briefly shook his fist at her before mounting behind her.

Tess decided to be quiet. She did not know what sort of hold her uncle had on his men. It could be a simple matter of their believing that they were already so deeply involved in her uncle’s plots that they could not untangle themselves now. They could also believe that Sir Fergus could do exactly as he pleased, especially since Fergus had already broken many a law over the years without suffering in the slightest. Unless she knew why they would not heed her, she could make no substantive arguments. Even if she did know, it might not do her any good anyway. Her uncle could have as deadly a hold on these men as the Douglases had on him.

“He means to drag you into treason against the king,” she said. She wanted to make one last attempt to sway them from blindly obeying her uncle.

“I told you to shut your mouth.”

She gasped and quickly grasped the pommel of the saddle when Thomas suddenly kicked his horse into a gallop. As her four captors made their somewhat reckless way through the wood, she chanced a brief glance over her shoulder. The cottage was almost out of sight. Thomas cuffed her offside the head, and she faced front again, her head throbbing slightly from the blow.

It puzzled her a little that the men were not setting a trap for Revan. She knew her uncle wanted Revan as much—if not more—than he wanted her. Tess prayed the four men she was with were all there was, that no more waited out of sight at the cottage for an unwary Revan. It was important that Revan remain free, important for Scotland. She was but one tiny cog in the wheel. Her life was nothing compared to the need to stop the Douglases from grasping all of Scotland. That would be the way Revan would—indeed,
had
to—see it.

A sense of utter defeat washed over her. She fought to push it aside. It was true that Revan could not risk himself to save her, that he had to think of Scotland and King James before her, but that did not mean she was ultimately doomed. She was still alive. Where there was life, there was hope. That was the thought she had to cling to. She must not let despair weaken her.

Tess forced her attention to studying the trail they took. She knew she had an abominable sense of direction, yet knew she would have to find some scrap of one to depend upon. If she was able to extract herself from her predicament, she would have to make her way back to Revan or to her father’s kin. She tried her utmost to keep her full attention upon the route they took and not on the fact that she might never see Revan again.

 

 

Revan pulled his mount to a halt and stared harder at the ground. For several moments he had been watching the mossy damp ground beneath his horse’s hooves. Now, with a thrill of alarm, he realized what it was that had caught and held his attention—hoofprints. Since he was certain they did not belong to his mount, it could only mean that someone was or recently had been in the area.

The joy he had felt over catching two birds faded immediately. Whoever had drawn near
could
be an innocent traveler, but Revan dared not trust in that. There were far too many people hunting him and Tessa. While still out of sight of the cottage, he dismounted and secured his horse to a stunted hawthorne tree.

When a closer inspection of the tracks revealed that four horsemen had approached the cottage, Revan’s alarm grew. As he crept up to the tiny house, being careful to remain hidden, he searched for some sign of the intruders themselves.

By the time he was able to see the cottage, Revan was certain that whoever had ridden up to the house was no longer nearby. He remained watchful as he hurried across the clear front yard. The moment he stepped inside the tiny cottage he knew Tess was gone. He discarded caution as he searched the place and its surrounding lands to gain some idea of how she had been taken and in what direction.

It was easy to see from the devastated house that Tess had gone unwillingly. Tracks outside of the cottage revealed that she had briefly dragged her feet from the threshold to the men’s waiting horses. The men had then ridden southward, back over the trail he and Tess had ridden, back toward Thurkettle. There was only one thing Revan was able to find some comfort in—there was no blood, no sign at all that Tess had been hurt. As he scooped up their belongings and hurried back to his mount, he used that knowledge to calm his fears. He may yet have a chance to save her.

Once mounted, he followed the men’s trail. They had made no attempt to hide their tracks; the damp muddy earth was clearly marked by their passing. When he was certain there were just four men, Revan began to plot.

Although he felt a twinge of discomfort over turning his back on the king for even a short time, Revan decided he had no choice. Without his help Tess would die.

 

 

“We will camp here,” announced Thomas as he reined in his mount and looked around.

Tess almost thanked the man but told herself not to be such an idiot. They had ridden all day over rough and dangerous terrain. She was relieved to be through with that for a while—but not grateful. After all, if these curs had not kidnapped her, she would not have had to suffer through the uncomfortable ride, she thought crossly. She glared at Thomas, who, after he dismounted, roughly yanked her out of the saddle.

“Be careful, ye great boar,” she snapped as she fought to stand despite a trembling weakness in her legs.

“I would watch how ye talk to me, woman.”

“Would ye, now? And just what can ye do to me? Ye are taking me to my execution. There canna be much worse than that.” Tess struggled to maintain her haughty calm when Thomas narrowed his beady eyes.

“I can make your last miles pure hell, lassie.”

“Since I have to make my journey within sniffing distance of you, I would say that ye have already done that.”

Thomas flushed as his companions snickered. “Shut your mouth and go sit by that tree.”

“What tree? We are in a forest, fool. There are dozens of them.”

He shoved her toward a stunted pine that was more dead than alive. “Sit there.”

She decided to do as she was told. It gave her some mild satisfaction to insult and harass the man, but it was dangerous. Carefully, her bound wrists making it a little awkward, she sat down by the gnarled tree. For a little while she rested, paying no heed to the four men setting up camp. Then her attention was firmly caught by what they were saying.

“He
will
come after her,” Thomas insisted as he squatted by the newly made fire and took a long drink from his wineskin. “A man like Sir Halyard will believe it his duty.”

Donald shook his head, his stringy dark hair swaying with the movement. “He has to get to the king. That is what his duty is. He willna set that aside for some wee brown lass.”

“Nay, but he is arrogant and will think he can rescue her without losing much time.”

“Well, ’twillna hurt to be ready,” grumbled one of the two men Tess did not recognize. “None of us can say for certain what the man will do.”

Thomas nodded vigorously at this sign of support. “Heed our friend John, Donald. I may be wrong to think we can entrap that knight by holding the lass, but we canna take any chances now. Time is running out. Thurkettle is getting very nervous.”

“So, how do we set this trap?” asked Donald. “The man willna just walk into our grasp. If he is after the lass, he will be wary. Halyard has enough wit to ken that we will try to use her to reach him.”

“Aye, but there are four of us and only one of him. Two of us will keep watch just beyond the campsite. And two of us will remain close to the lass. We can change watches every few hours.”

“And when do we sleep?” demanded John.

“There willna be much of that, I fear,” admitted Thomas. “But if we gain hold of both Halyard and the lass, Thurkettle will be certain to reward us well, indeed. A night without sleep willna kill us.”

Tess battled to hide her fear. Incompetent though they were, they did have the advantage of numbers. No matter how good a soldier Revan was, he would be but one man against four. She prayed she had been right when she had decided he would not come after her, that aiding the king and Scotland would be the path he chose to take. Tess shuddered at the thought that she might be the cause of Revan’s capture and, far worse, of his death.