Page 31 of Sins of the Highlander

He strode out of the house, dragging Elspeth along by the wrist. “Step lively, girl, or I’ll throw ye over my shoulder again.”

Angus lumbered after them. “The only trouble with leaving now is we haven’t the current with us. It’ll make for a nasty start.”

“D’ye mean to say it’s impossible to sail to Lochearnhead now?”

“No, just slow. We’ll have to row till the wind and water changes. And we’ll no’ be making much headway at that. Then when the current comes about, we must keep our wits about us, ye ken, for that’s when the each uisge rears his head.”

“A water horse?” Elspeth asked, owl-eyed.

“Aye, it came here to Loch Eireann from—”

“Spin your tales later, Fletcher,” Rob interrupted. “Now we row.”

“Angus, ’tis no’ too late for ye to help me.” Elspeth dug in her heels and made it difficult for Rob to drag her along. “Ye’ve been naught but kindness itself to me. My father will be grateful. Honestly, he will.”

“Keep quiet, wench.” He picked her up by the waist and half-carried, half-walked her toward the shore. She pummeled his arm with her fists.

Angus frowned, and Fingal seemed to sense his master’s disapproval. The deerhound bounded alongside Rob, yipping and growling.

“There’s no need to be so harsh to the lass, is there?” Angus asked.

“Me, harsh?” Rob said. “Of the two of us, which is trying to do the other damage just now?”

The pounding of distant hooves made all their heads turn. A group of men on horseback broke through the trees, plying their whips.

“’Tis my father!”

“That’s why I’m harsh to the lass, Angus. She brought this down on us. Now come on.” He scooped a squirming Elspeth up and over his shoulder and ran the rest of the way to the longboat tied up at Angus’s dock. Fingal loped after them, his tongue lolling, his mouth lifted in a doggie smile as if pleased to go for a pleasure sail.

“Please, Rob,” she begged. “Let me go, and I’ll convince them no’ to follow ye.”

“I said quiet!” He hustled her into the boat, and the deerhound scrambled after. While Angus hoisted the big striped sail, Rob untied the lines. He gave the hull a shove and leaped aboard as the wind caught in the canvas and boat quickened.

The riders drew nearer. Rob counted four of them—Drummond, Stewart, and two retainers. He unshipped the forward set of oars and put his back into the long strokes.

“Father!” Elspeth waved her arms over her head. Fingal barked as though in sympathy.

“Sit, lass, before ye fall,” Angus ordered. Rob was mildly irritated that she obeyed his friend without question, perching on one of the bench seats, meek as a dove. The dog settled beside her, obviously deciding she needed his head in her lap. “And ship those oars, Rob.”

“But—” Rob began.

“When we’ve land beneath our feet, I’ll be pleased to follow your orders. Now that we’re sailing the loch, ye’ll answer to me,” Angus said pleasantly but firmly. “We canna go the way ye wish for the now. No’ if we want to get away quick and clean.”

A crossbow bolt thudded into the hull a hand’s span north of the waterline, as if to punctuate Angus’s point.

“Bloody fool!” Rob glared at the bowman kneeling on the shore. He might have easily hit Elspeth with the bolt. “Get into the cabin,” he ordered her.

There wasn’t exactly a cabin on board. Angus’s boat was too small for that. Rob meant the portion of the deck covered by a wooden roof. There was room to sit upright beneath the low covering and space to lie on the pallet Angus had prepared, but it was little more than a place to get out of the wind and weather.

But it would still protect Elspeth if there were more crossbow bolts headed their way.

When another bolt tore through the sail, Elspeth obeyed without a word of protest.

Fingal followed but stopped when she disappeared into the enclosed space. Obviously, the cabin was forbidden to deerhounds, but Fingal turned several circles outside the open forward end of the cabin and plopped down to guard his newly chosen favorite person.

“Very well, Angus,” Rob said as the boat’s prow turned east.

The boat seemed to lift in the water once it fell in line with the prevailing current. The waves divided before the prow like a pair of wings, poised for flight. The men on the shore fell swiftly astern.