The Scot and I (23 page)

“Murray!” Mahri breathed out.

Alex answered softly, “Let’s move.”

He touched his heels to his mount’s sides and broke into a canter. Mahri followed him.

Sixteen

All she had to do was follow him.

Mahri screwed her eyes closed then opened them wide in an effort to stay awake. She didn’t know how long they’d been traveling, but she thought it must be for hours. Though the light was fading, there was no mist here to obscure her vision. Not that there was much to see—no mountains, no castles—only rolling hills and various cottages they passed on the way. Evidently, they’d moved well out of the river’s reach, because there was little sign of flood damage here.

When she felt herself slip from the saddle, she quickly righted herself. She wasn’t going to let Mr. Secret Service Agent know that she was just about all in. He’d hardly said two words to her since they’d set out.
Keep up
seemed to be the only words in his vocabulary. He wouldn’t believe a word she told him, and that made her spitting mad. After all she’d done to keep them all safe, a few words of praise wouldn’t have come amiss.

There was another reason for her bout of misery. She still stank of the filth in the root cellar. The smell clung to her clothes, her skin, her hair. Why couldn’t he see her, just once, all prettied up and at her best? She sniffed back a snort. It wouldn’t make a bit of difference, except to her vanity. According to Juliet, though Alex Hepburn could have his pick of the beautiful and accomplished women he met in the salons of London, his heart still belonged to Ariel.

He had a heart? No one would have believed it if they could see how he maltreated her.

She was falling asleep again.
Stay awake. Don’t complain. He’ll only tell you to keep up in that obnoxiously superior voice of his.

 

 

Alex looked back to assess how she was coping. She was doing just fine. He didn’t know another female who could have lasted this long. He’d set a grueling pace. He didn’t expect to meet many patrols so far from Balmoral, but Demos’s agents were another matter. They wanted Mahri, either to rescue her or to punish her for breaking ranks. Which was it? The question gnawed at his mind, making him by turns suspicious of her and impatient with himself.

He heard her muttering to herself.

“What is it now?” he asked.

“What is it now?” she mimicked. She sounded tearful. “I’ll tell you what it is. My last meal was a bowl of lumpy porridge. I’ve been set upon by thugs, chased by soldiers, and captured and carried off by an agent of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. And he asks, ‘What is it now?’”

She reined in and started to dismount, all the while muttering to herself.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

She bawled the words. “I have to use the facilities!”

“The what?” His brow cleared. “Oh, I see.”

They’d stopped at a wooden bridge with a stream rushing over rocks beneath it.

He took the reins of her horse. “Don’t try any tricks,” he warned. “We’re in my neck of the woods now, and I know every inch of it.”

He could hear her muttering to herself as she climbed down the incline to the underside of the bridge. A moment later, she gave a startled shriek.

His heart lurched. Quickly tethering the horses to a rail on the bridge, he leaped down the bank. Mahri was doing a little dance, hopping from foot to foot, her hands fluttering as she swiped at her shirt and trousers. Her coat was draped over a bush. She wasn’t in danger as far as he could tell.

Because she had frightened him, his voice was harsh. “What in Hades is the matter with you?”

“Maggots!” she cried. “My clothes are teeming with them. Ugh!”

“Maggots?” Hands on hips, he frowned down at her. “Is that all?”

His words had no effect on the horror that seemed to grip her, an irrational horror, in his opinion. After all she’d come through, how could a few harmless maggots bring on this fit of feminine vapors?

With quick, impatient movements, she pulled off her shoes, then her stockings, and went tearing into the water. He watched as she submerged herself time after time, as though her clothes were on fire.

“Mahri!” he said sternly, hoping that the tone of his voice would bring her to her senses. “You’re a grown woman. Act like one.”

She gasped, spluttered, and emerged from the water, then advanced toward him. He couldn’t help noticing that her white shirt was open to the waist, revealing the creamy swell of her breasts. He was fascinated by the way her hard, plump nipples thrust against her shirt. Her waist was no bigger than a man’s hand span, and her dripping-wet trousers sheathed her hips and legs.

His mouth went dry, and the inevitable happened. His groin tightened painfully against the fabric of his trousers.

He was exhausted; every muscle in his body ached; he’d had a hellish day. How could he possibly have these carnal fantasies about a woman who showed her disdain for him in every possible way? He must be insane. He was a rational man, he told himself, but the hardness in his groin was telling him how primitive he really was.

A word penetrated the fog in his brain. “What did you say?”

Eyes spitting fire, she stared doggedly into his face. “We can’t all be like Ariel,” she flung at him, “with never a hair out of place. I don’t suppose she ever saw a maggot in her life.”

“Ariel?” he replied, as though he’d never heard the name before. Those creamy breasts were jiggling with every angry breath she took. He fisted his hands to make sure that he didn’t reach for her. “What has Ariel to do with anything?”

She took a step away from him, then swung back to face him. “You expect every woman to be like her. Oh, Juliet told me all about her, how she was picture-book perfect and always immaculately dressed. Well, some of us are not so lucky. We get abducted and locked up in maggot-infested cellars, then some boor makes fun of us.” The spate of words dried up. Then, squinting up at him: “Are you laughing at me?”

“No. I swear it.” His nose wrinkled. “You smell as though you’d bathed in a sewer.”

Her sense of injury boiled over, and she gave him a mighty shove. He teetered on the edge of a rock but could not find his balance and fell heavily on his rear end. Mahri took off like a rocket.

“Mahri! Get back here!” he bellowed.

She ran like a frightened deer, jumping over small obstacles in her way. She was too angry to think clearly about where she was going or what she would do if she managed to outrun him. She hated him so much in that moment that she never wanted to see his arrogant face again.

She leaped onto a spur of rock, and something cold and squiggly moved beneath her bare foot. She leaped off that rock as fast as she’d leaped onto it. An adder raised its head and uncoiled its sinuous, twitching body. It was ready to strike. Slowly, carefully, she eased away from it, then made a sudden feint to the left. When the adder struck, she pounced and seized it by the neck. Alex caught up to her just in time to see her throw the creature into a clump of heather well off the track.

“Good God,” he said, awed. “Who taught you that trick?”

“My brother,” she said simply.

“Did it bite you?”

“I don’t think so. It wasn’t expecting to be stepped on.”

“Let me see.” Adder bites could be fatal. He pushed the fearful thought from him and went down on one knee. He lifted one foot and gently probed with his fingers. “Tell me if it hurts,” he said.

It didn’t hurt. It made her ache. It made her dizzy. It made her want to weep. She felt herself melting and put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. He was the most perverse man she had ever encountered, and she did not know why his good opinion should matter to her, but it did.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she said, injecting some starch into her voice. As her sense of ill-usage receded, she began to take stock of her position. She didn’t know where she was or where to turn for help. A woman on her own with no money, no clothes except for the stinking weeds she was wearing was bound to attract attention. She had to stay with him. She had no choice.

“Give me your other foot.”

His voice sounded strange to her ears, hoarse, as though he were coming down with a cold.

“No,” she said, “that wasn’t the foot that stepped on the adder.”

She yelped when he gave a hoot of laughter and suddenly scooped her into his arms. “You’re fearless with poisonous snakes,” he said, “but turn into jelly over a few paltry maggots. Explain it to me.”

“There’s no explaining it,” she said crossly. “Some people are afraid of spiders. I’m afraid of maggots. They make my skin crawl. Aren’t you afraid of anything?”

His answer was instantaneous. “I’m afraid of innocent young women who think they can take me in with their winsome ways. They never do, you know.”

She thought, for a moment, that he was paying her a compliment. Realizing her mistake, she said caustically, “You have a high opinion of yourself. No female in her right mind would try to win you over. You’re as winsome as a block of marble. Well? What do we do now? I’m soaked to the skin, and you’re not much better off than I am. We need to find shelter. We need to dry off our clothes. I’m hungry, but more than that, I’m tired, so tired that I’d be happy to present myself at the first tollbooth we come to and beg them to lock me up. At least they would give me a bed.”

“What we’re going to do,” he said, “is stop at the first inn we come to, rest, clean up, eat, and go on from there.”

“And who is going to pay the shot?”

“Why, I am, Mahri, with the fat purse I found in the pocket of your coat. You know, the coat that one of Murray’s people left in that hovel?”

Her emotions had worn themselves out, and she felt resigned, or as resigned as anyone could be under the circumstances. She was in dire straits, but she wasn’t alone. The man who held her so confidently as he struck out along the track made her feel safe and protected. The warmth of his body took the chill from her own frozen limbs. Maybe she was clinging a little too desperately, but she needed that warmth. She needed his strength.

She restrained a sigh. If only he weren’t so stubborn and pigheaded, she wouldn’t have run from him and wouldn’t need to be carried.

“Thank you,” she said when he helped her into the brown coat once more. “It was good of you to carry me. I don’t think I could have walked barefoot along a track where adders lie in wait.”

He hoisted her into the saddle. Looking up, he said, “If you weren’t so stubborn and pigheaded, there would be no need to carry you. Don’t you know that adder bites can be fatal?”

There was a moment of silence, then Mahri chuckled. The chuckle swelled and she gurgled with laughter. “Stubborn and pigheaded,” she got out. “Oh, that’s rich.”

Alex was struck with the thought that she didn’t laugh nearly enough to suit him. He experienced an odd softening in his midsection. Disregarding it, he said with a frown, “If you’re over that bout of insanity, I suggest we get moving.”

 

 

Seems like déjà vu,” Alex said.

They were in an upstairs bedchamber that overlooked the stables in the Feughside Hotel. Mahri had bathed and washed her hair, and the fragrance that perfumed her skin had wafted to every corner in the room.

Alex was well aware of why she’d doused herself in the bottle of lavender water she’d found on the washstand. Now she smelled as fresh as a spring morning.

He set down the tray he was carrying, a late-night supper of cold meats, plenty of fresh bread and butter, and a rhubarb pie.

“Déjà vu?” Mahri shook her head.

She was kneeling in front of the fire, fluffing out her hair to dry it. Alex couldn’t tear his eyes away. Tiny curls of glossy dark hair framed a face that had the purity and delicacy of a cameo brooch. She looked fragile, but he knew how misleading her looks were. Though she could not match him in strength, she was as slippery and agile as the adder she had stepped on.

And he, and only he, was going to tame her to his hand.

Where had that insane thought come from?

Frowning, he tore his eyes away and concentrated on dividing their meal onto two plates. He gave one to her with only a fork to go with it.

“It’s not the same at all,” she said. “This is luxury beyond imagining.”

And it was. Though the room was small, it was furnished with good pieces, a fire had been lit to take the chill off the air, fresh clothes had been found for them and their ruined garments taken away to be burned, and finally, the landlady had provided this handsome supper to fill their empty stomachs.

Mahri reached for a chicken drumstick and daintily bit into it. She didn’t know what story Alex had fabricated to explain their situation, but she heartily approved. She was now clothed in a woman’s fine lawn nightgown and a warm wrap to go over it. Laid out on the chair was a set of woman’s clothes to tide her over till they reached the next stop on their journey, all courtesy of their landlady, who said that the garments were left behind by careless guests who had never returned to claim them.