Highlander's Ransom (6 page)

Quickly, Alwin reached up under her skirt and undid
the ties on her left stocking, then rolled it down past her knee. “Alright,”
she said quietly when she was ready.

But only Robert turned back around, the other men
still pretending to be preoccupied. He crouched in front of her again, his eyes
locking on her exposed skin. Just as she had expected, her left knee was a
purple and blue mess. He reached out a hand toward her knee with deliberate
slowness, seemingly trying not to spook her, then gently prodded the swollen
knee. She could feel heat rising to her face at his touch. She clamped her eyes
shut, attempting to block out the image of his large, callused hand on her bare
leg and instead focus on the discomfort that his poking and prodding caused.
When his touch disappeared, she opened her eyes and realized that yet again she
had been holding her breath.

“Just a bad bruise. Doesn’t look like any permanent
damage,” he said gruffly. Then he coughed and it almost sounded like he was
uncomfortable. “I noticed you are favoring your left hip as well. I assume it’s
more of the same?”

“Yes, just a bruise, probably,” Alwin blurted out.
There was no way she was going to let him give her hip the same inspection he
had just given her knee. Not waiting for him to turn away again, she swung around
on the saddle so that her back was to him and quickly reached under her skirt
once more to pull up and retie her stocking. When she turned back around,
Robert had stood, and his gaze flickered from her face to her neck.

“The rest looks to be scrapes and scratches,” he said
of the marks the tree branches had left in her first attempted flight. She
nodded, lowering her eyes and feeling even more warmth in her cheeks than
before. Why did she feel so uncomfortable under his scrutiny? Although he
emanated coldness and calculating distance, it seemed to Alwin that his raw,
animalistic strength and masculinity lingered just under the surface whenever
his pale eyes bore into her.

“Very well.” Turning from her, he spoke to his men in
Gaelic, and they all started to rise and prepare to leave. One kicked dirt over
the fire, while others went to their horses and began saddling up. Turning
toward her once again, Robert extended a biscuit and a piece of dried meat in
one hand. Alwin realized all of a sudden that she was starving. She took the
proffered food and set into it quickly while he watched her. In only a few
minutes, she had devoured everything he had handed her. He offered his
waterskin, from which she pulled several long swigs. She handed it back to him,
but before he could turn away, she said, “How long have we been here?”

Robert considered her for a moment before answering.
“A few hours. You slept deeply.” He said this with the lightest touch of
teasing in his voice, which she found disconcerting for some reason.

“Why must we leave so soon?”

“You ask too many questions,” he said flatly, all
trace of lightness gone. He began to turn away, but she reached up and touched
his arm. “Please—I—I’m not going to cause trouble, I just—” She trailed off.
The begging in her voice frustrated her, but she was desperate to know anything
about what was going to happen to her.

He froze and stiffened under the light pressure of her
fingertips on his forearm. Turning back to her, he considered the pleading look
in her eyes, and after a second, said, “We are still on your betrothed’s lands.
We have already overstayed, and it will be safer for us all if we keep moving.”

She gasped, her hand dropping from his arm. “How do
you know about Lord Warren?”

Her response appeared to confirm something for him.
“Most Highlanders know of Warren. His cowardice and deception claimed the lives
of many, and he profits off of making war between our two countries.” She had
thought she had seen his anger already, but the intense hatred in his voice
eclipsed the coldness and annoyance he had shown thus far, shocking her.

And then there was what he was saying about Lord
Warren. Granted, she knew next to nothing about her intended husband, but
certainly Robert’s accusations couldn’t be true. Lord Warren was an Englishman,
after all, and bound by honor and nobility. She couldn’t blame the man for
wanting her dowry; her father had made sure that everyone in Northern England
knew of the money that would accompany her, but that didn’t make Warren greedy—no
more than every other man who had sought her hand in marriage. The thought of
all those people Robert claimed Warren had killed, however, made her picture
the scene of the slaughtered guardsmen on the road the previous day. For some
reason, she very much doubted that death was something Robert talked about
lightly; would he lie about something so serious?

Registering the disbelief on her face, he gave her a
look of scorn. “So, you haven’t met the man, have you? If you had, you would be
begging me to take you away from him. As it is now, you’ll just have to trust
me.” He put heavy sarcasm on the word “trust”; the ridiculousness of her
trusting him, her kidnapper, apparently wasn’t lost on him. With those words
spoken, he lifted her by her elbow off of the saddle on the ground, then picked
up the saddle and walked it over to his stallion and began fastening it to the
animal. She was left standing there, stunned by his accusations about Warren
and suddenly unsure of what to believe.

Chapter 9

They rode at a brisk pace as the hours stretched on.
Alwin was at first so lost in her swirling thoughts that she hadn’t noticed the
fact that Robert had not bound her wrists or gagged her this time, for which
she was grateful. She became very aware of his presence behind her, though. She
could feel every small squeeze he gave to the horse beneath them with his
rock-hard thighs. His torso was like a wall behind her, yet heat radiated from
his body and into her back. She could not see his face, but she could picture
the strong line of his jaw, likely clenched in concentration as they traversed
the tangled forest. Since she had first laid eyes on him more than a day ago,
his jaw had become increasingly covered in the dark shadow of the beginnings of
a beard. She wondered absently what it would feel like if she were to brush her
palm against it, and then was horrified at the wanderings of her own mind.

She could feel him glancing up every few minutes now.
About an hour into their ride, the temperature had noticeably dropped and a
light snow had begun to fall. In the last half hour or so, as the light had
started to fade, the snow had begun to cling to the trees, and some of it even
managed to settle onto the forest floor where their horses’ hooves churned it
in with the mud.

After checking the sky yet again, Robert made a sound
of annoyance, then whistled to his men. They halted reluctantly, glancing at
each other with concern.

“Why do we stop?” Alwin asked softly.

“The snow won’t be letting up any time soon, and if it
keeps sticking, we might as well roll out a carpet for anyone trying to follow
us,” he responded, frustration tightening his voice.

“Oh,” was all she said back. In theory, she should
want someone to be following them, and for their movements to be easily trackable
by the slushy, muddy path they left in the snow. But she did not relish the
thought of another battle, especially if she were going to be in the middle of
it. She had seen enough bloodshed—or at least its aftermath—when Robert and his
men attacked her procession to last a lifetime. Though she had lived near the
border her whole life, she had always been sheltered from seeing the worst
results of warfare. She inwardly acknowledged that being the daughter of a
nobleman had granted her the privilege of such naiveté. The more time she spent
with Robert and his men, the more she realized that perhaps she didn’t know the
world as well as she thought she did—and perhaps she wasn’t as brave, either.

The smallest sliver of her also didn’t like the idea
of Robert, Burke, or his other men dying out here in the forest, to be covered
up quietly with falling snow and forgotten like they had never existed. She
shivered at the image in her head. No, surely it was simply that she did not
wish for
anyone
to die; these particular men were nothing to her.

Robert dismounted behind her, pulling her out of her
morbid thoughts. Reaching up, he took hold of her around the waist and drew her
from Dash’s back and onto the ground.

“We will wait here.”

Alwin wanted to ask what they were waiting for, but
figured that he wouldn’t answer her, and might even gag her again for asking
questions. She noticed, though, that neither he nor his men removed the saddles
from their horses, and seemed to stay on alert. Some took out their weapons to
clean or sharpen them. Robert pinned her with a look and said, “Stay next to
Dash,” then stepped over to Burke’s side so that the two could talk in low
voices. Shortly, he returned to her side.

“Will we have a fire?” she asked, rubbing her arms.
She was still wearing Robert’s plaid, but the cold penetrated deep, and the
frigid air kept slipping up around her ankles.

“Nay.”

She gritted her teeth in frustration at his brevity.
Instead of pushing him with more questions, however, she walked around him and
approached Burke. Perhaps the apparent second in command could set an example
for his lord in how to be more polite, she thought with a twinge of smugness.

“How much farther is it to your land, Burke?”

A faint smile touched his mouth, “Oh, a ways off
still, my lady. We ride to the farthest northeast corner of the Highlands. If
we encounter no problems and the weather cooperates, it is perhaps another
week’s ride away.”

“Oh.” She felt her face fall.

“My lady, Roslin is beautiful. It is worth the effort
to travel there. At least, I have always found it so,” he said, and to her
surprise, he winked at her. She couldn’t help the little smile that formed on
her lips.

“And when the Laird isn’t spending all of his time
scowling, he is a beloved leader of our clan,” Burke went on, merriment shining
in his deep blue eyes. Alwin gasped at his boldness, then covered her widening
smile with her hand. Suddenly she felt as if she hadn’t smiled in years, and
was grateful to Burke for his touch of humor and kindness. Finally able to
straighten her face, she lowered her hand and asked, “And why does your Laird
scowl so much at present, Burke?”

Burke’s smile slowly faded. “These are dangerous
times, my lady, and we are in dangerous territory. But rest assured, while it
may seem hard to believe just yet, Robert will not harm you, nor would he let
someone under his care come to harm. He is honorable.”

She frowned at that. “But he kidnapped me, and he has
yet to tell me what he plans to do with me. How do I know I will be safe?” she
asked in a low voice. Even as she said the words, she felt a part of her resist
the idea that she wasn’t safe with Robert. Burke’s firm declaration in Robert’s
defense surprised her. All men spoke of their commander’s strength and courage,
but Burke seemed to know more of Robert’s character. After all, he was his
closest companion, from what Alwin had seen. And, she admitted somewhere inside
herself, she had sensed as much about Robert even in the short time she had
known him. He was rough, yes, but for some reason she
did
feel safe with
him. At least her head was still attached to her shoulders and her virginity
was still intact. Of course, she was still a captive. But he wasn’t acting like
the savage she imagined all Scotsmen to be.

“Aye, he is planning something,” Burke said
hesitantly, “but he is a leader and a good man at heart.”

“He is your Laird, and I do not doubt that he cares
for you and all his people,” she said, surprising herself by meaning it, “but
what if what is best for your clan is not what is best for me?”

Before Burke could answer, Robert strode over to them.

“See to your horse,” he snapped at Burke. Startled,
Burke gave him a questioning look, but obeyed, leaving them. For some reason
Robert seemed to be furious, though all Alwin and Burke had been doing was
smiling and talking in low voices with their heads together. He turned the full
force of his dark frown on Alwin as she watched Burke leave. Suddenly all those
whispers inside her about the quality of Robert’s character didn’t seem to
matter. Instead of being frightened by his scowl, though, she felt her ire
rising.

“You don’t have to be rude. Burke was only trying to
reassure me of your honor, though if your behavior thus far is any indication,
I doubt very much that I should believe him,” she said tartly.

“I care not what you think of my honor,
my lady
,”
he said stormily, “just that you remain quiet so as not to broadcast our
location to anyone with a pair of ears within a twenty mile radius.”

She snapped her mouth closed on another retort, and
settled for glaring at him. He seemed unaffected, though, and went back to
fiddling with his saddle and the sword strapped to his hip.

There was nowhere to sit, since the snow kept falling
harder, blanketing the forest floor in damp whiteness, so Alwin tried to busy
herself by walking around the small group of horses and men. Most didn’t look
at her, but a few gave her little nods with their eyes down. They were all
enormous like Robert, and appeared to be capable warriors. Their ruggedness stood
in stark contrast to the orderly English soldiers whom she had seen back at her
father’s estate, and who had been escorting her to Lord Warren. She pushed
thoughts of those men and Warren aside, still not sure what to make of all that
had happened and all that Robert had said. By her fifth lap around the group,
however, she needed something else to do while they waited, or else her mind
would begin to go in circles just like her body.