AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Much more than like.
Damn him. Damn him to hell.
With a gasp, her head snapped up, her eyes on the back of the door.
She had to leave Wolfbridge.
And she had to take what she came here for.
~~~
Sloane waited until the stable boy slipped out the back of the center stable and found himself a sturdy tree to lean against for a midafternoon snooze.
She’d seen him do it twice before on the days she and Vicky were outside in the afternoon sun. His habit was her opportunity.
Reiner had said she could leave Wolfbridge at any time, but she wasn’t about to test his words. Not now when she remembered exactly what she was doing at the castle.
She slipped into the stable, looking along the stalls for Biscuit. Four stalls from the back entrance, she heard a whinny she recognized. Biscuit smelled her before she found her mare. Sloane glanced around. Her sidesaddle was hanging across from the stall.
She shoved the satchel she’d found and strapped across her body to her backside, and a sharp corner of the book inside jabbed into her spine. As fast as her hands would allow, she saddled Biscuit and led her horse out of the rear of the stable.
A quick glance to the trees at her left verified the stable boy was still snoozing. She tugged on Biscuit’s reins, leading her onto the trail that veered into the woods at the north side of the stable. With any luck, it would meet up with the trail she’d originally taken into Wolfbridge.
Five minutes and she found the main trail and mounted her horse. She waited not a breath to send Biscuit thundering down the path.
Setting her gaze forward, she didn’t dare to give the castle a backward glance. She couldn’t afford to. Not if she was to escape now.
Two hours later she was dragging her maid out of the coaching inn in Caistor. Milly had waited in place as instructed, especially after she had learned from a passing Wolfbridge servant that a woman of Sloane’s description was now in residence at the castle.
Sloane hated to set Milly on a horse with her fear of riding, but her maid would have to suffer it until they reached Doncaster where she could arrange travel north.
With the bundles of the few items that had come to Caistor with them now secured on the back of the horses, Sloane looked at the sky just outside the village. There had to be enough daylight to reach Doncaster. She would have to push the horses, but they could make it. Make it and then she could book passage on the first coach she could find. Post chaise. Mail coach. Stagecoach. She didn’t care. Just as long as they disappeared amongst the travelers moving north.
They had to get lost.
For if they didn’t and Reiner found her…
She cringed.
No. She couldn’t think on that possibility. Couldn’t think on what would be his rage.
She set Biscuit into a manageable trot, refusing to glance over her shoulder for fear he was already on her tail with vengeance in his eyes and descending on her like a demon from hell.
If he found her…if he caught her. She didn’t want to see it coming. She wanted it quick. Painless.
She managed to keep her gaze forward.
A mistake.
For if she had, she would have noticed two rough brutes quickly saddling their horses at the livery stable on the edge of the village, their hooded eyes watching her and Milly ride from town.
{ Chapter 9 }
“Dom, I need to get in and out without my grandfather or Lachlan knowing.”
“Curse me bally, lass. I should have known not to trust that stable boy dragging me out here.” Two full heads taller than her, Domnall, the brawniest Scotsman Sloane knew, glanced over her head, searching in the dark shadows of the main stable. “Where’s Milly?” The low rumble of his voice seeped into the cool night air, echoing in the furthest crevices of the stalls.
“At a coaching inn. I didn’t want to bring her and get her involved if my brother finds me here.” The Deerhound next to Domnall’s leg approached her, nose twitching, and she held her palm under its snout. One sniff and it nudged her, looking for a scratch. Sloane obliged, sinking her fingers into the fur behind its ears. “This is a new one?”
