They’d turned onto the main road and Heather was breathing a sigh of relief when she heard the enraged voice of Brom.
“Oy, Heather, you chit! You get back here or I’ll tan your hide when I reach you.”
“Nowcan we hurry?” Heather gasped, pressing closer to Niall.
He answered by muttering to the horse and pressing his heels to its flanks. The black stallion shot off down the road like a bullet.
They left the village behind a moment later, the astonished faces of the people in the street blurred and indistinct. Heather gave an involuntary squeak of alarm. She’d never gone this fast on a horse in her whole life, and the streaks of green trees and grey rocks and earth-brown road made her dizzy. Surely she was riding to her death. Either Niall MacNair was insane and he was going to get them both thrown, or Brom would catch up and snag her right from the saddle. To prevent that second event from happening, Heather clung to the massive body, her right hand curled tight around Niall’s shoulder, the left clutching the lapel of his jacket.
Niall rode fast but well, controlling the horse with the confidence of someone born to it. His arms held her firmly even while he was concentrating on riding, and Heather relaxed a little, since it seemed she wasn’t going to be thrown to the ground.
When another track intersected the road, Niall took it, turning left.
“Where are we going?” she gasped.
“Anywhere off the main road. Don’t worry, I never get lost.”
That was the least of her worries right now. In fact, Heather wouldn’t mind being lost to the world. That way, her uncle couldn’t find her.
Niall rode for some time, turning from one path to another to another, seemingly at random. After a while, he slowed the horse’s pace, conserving energy. Niall’s arms dropped a bit, the reins now held only loosely in his right hand. His left came to rest on her shoulder, cradling her to his chest.
“You holding up?” he asked.
She nodded, then realized that his chest was heaving in the aftermath of the chase, and his body was hot against hers. She breathed in the scents of horse and leather and sweaty human male, the last being totally foreign to her.
Salt. Musk. Something else. Her nostrils flared, trying to identify it. Not unpleasant, exactly. Intriguing…
“Where are we?” she asked, it being the most pertinent question (and a distraction from his more physical presence).
“Who knows,” he replied.
“You said you never get lost!”
“I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I always know where I am.”
She pulled away—or rather, she tried to, but there were limits when one is on a horse, encircled in the arms of a strong man with bluey-greeny eyes. “I have no patience for riddles, sir. I think it would be best if you put me down, now, and I will trouble you no longer.” Then she added hastily, “Though it was very kind of you to help me get away from Brom. I do appreciate your efforts, especially as they must come at considerable inconvenience to your own plans.”
His lip twitched in amusement. “Youarea proper miss, aren’t you? But then, you must know that the one thing I can’t do is to leave you on the side of a track in some unknown corner of the country. It would be like leaving you to the wolves.”
Heather frowned. “Then what will you do?”
“I’ll continue on until we reach a suitable spot. With luck, my driver Tavish may even meet us soon.”
“But we’re lost.”
“Not at all. Tavish and I have a method should we be separated. Two lefts, one right. Follow that pattern every time you come to a place in the road where there’s a crossing or fork, and you’ll never get lost.”
“Oh, that’s clever. Wait. Why have you ever devised such a method in the first place?”
“Nothing wrong with being prepared,” he replied (rather evasively, in Heather’s opinion).
While this discussion was going on, the horse continued to trot, and then Niall pointed to a right fork. “See? This is our right turn. The following two will be left. Understand?”
“Perfectly, since I’m not an idiot,” Heather replied in a frosty tone. She felt something about this situation ought to be cool, since she was still conscious of the heat between them.
“Never said you were. But now that we’ve some leisure to chat, I think a few more details about your…adventure…are in order,” he said.
Fair enough. He did gallop through seemingly half the shire on Heather’s account.
