Authors: Leigh Greenwood
“She’s upstairs,” Colleen gasped. “She’s taken no harm.”
“You’d better be telling the truth,” Gavin said, and released her so suddenly Colleen staggered and nearly fell. “Show me. I have no time to waste.” He forced Colleen to go before him, half-running and half-stumbling, until she opened one of the bedroom doors. Pushing her roughly in before him, Gavin’s eyes had found Sara even before he entered the room. He crossed the space separating them in an instant, and swept her up into his arms before she could utter the cry of happiness that trembled on her lips.
“Are you all right?” he asked, as soon as he could trust his voice. “They didn’t do anything to hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” Sara assured him, unwilling to leave the comfort of his paralyzing embrace. “The only discomfort I suffered was having to sleep alone.” She managed a smile. “No quantity of quilts can keep me warm like you can.
Then Gavin started kissing her all over again. She had become used to his kisses when they made love, but this was the first time he had kissed her with such fierce possessiveness, and it was the first tune he had done so in front of anyone else. But Sara didn’t think of any of that just then. She was too busy responding to Gavin’s kisses, exulting in the knowledge that he had told her more with each kiss than any words.
“How did you find us?” Colleen asked, breaking the magic spell of their embrace.
“It was easy, once I started thinking with my head instead of my heart,” Gavin said, putting his arms around Sara and holding her close. “I knew that old termagant would do anything for Ian.”
“Where is old Peg?”
“Still feeding her chickens, I guess.”
“She will turn that dog on you if she sees you! Even I can’t leave here without her help.”
“The dog is locked in the buttery, undoubtedly upsetting everything inside. Do you have a horse?”
“There’s the carriage horses.”
“Then you’ll have to wait until your uncle comes for you. I can’t get to them without being seen.”
“No,” cried Colleen. “The old witch will kill me. She hates me as much as anyone else.”
“My horse can’t carry three people.”
“Can’t you try to get one of the horses?” Sara asked.
“She helped kidnap you. Why should you help her?”
“You can’t leave her here, not if that woman will hurt her.”
“I’ll try,” Gavin said, giving in, “but if that beast gets out, we may all be torn to bits.”
Gavin helped Sara and Colleen mount his horse and made them swear to head for Estameer without waiting for him. He lingered until they had started down the lane, and then turned back toward the house.
The dog was still in the buttery, barking furiously at being closed in, and wild to get at the man who had imprisoned him. Old Peg had finished her chores and was heading toward the house. Gavin sprinted behind a low wall, climbed through a cow lot, stoically ignoring the squishing sound beneath his feet, and reached the barn unseen. He was putting halters on the two horses when he heard a rapid crescendo in the hysterical barking of the dog; it told him Old Peg was approaching the house. She probably couldn’t hear the dog’s barking, but it would be difficult to ignore the movement of the door. The huge dog virtually knocked the building off its foundations every time he threw his body against the door.
Gavin changed his mind about looking for saddles. The dog was hysterical now, and he expected it to be released any minute. He was leading the nervous horses out of the barn when a dramatic increase in the volume of the nerveracking howls told him the dog was free. It would only be a matter of seconds before he would reach him. Gavin flung himself on the back of one of the horses and kicked it vigorously in the side, urging it to its utmost speed, but these were coach horses, bred for strength and stamina rather than speed, and they considered a fast trot fast enough. When the deer hound rounded the corner and bounded after them, they broke into a canter, but Gavin knew they could never outrace the dog. These hounds had been known to bring down deer and elk armed with a full rack of deadly antlers. He would have little trouble with these domesticated horses.
As the hound bounded nearer, Old Peg rounded the corner of her house, shouting encouragement, her hate-filled soul furious that Gavin had escaped her fury. The hound leapt for Gavin’s leg as he pulled it atop the horse, but the hound’s fangs left a bloody slash down the horse’s side. The horse screamed in agony and bounded forward into a clumsy gallop, but not before the hound had slashed at its hindquarters, barely missing the hamstring.
Gavin was struggling to stay on the horse, determined not to let go of the second horse in case the hound brought the first one down, but he knew there was a good chance both horses would go down under him. He doubted he would be able to get to his feet
twice
before the dog was upon him. He dared not think what would happen then. He cursed himself for not being more heavily armed, but he had left most of his weapons behind when the Frasers agreed to help with the search. What he sorely needed was a pistol, but he had only his dirk. Driven by fear and the smell of blood, both coach horses were in full gallop now. Holding both reins as best he could with one hand and keeping his legs high, Gavin managed to take out his dirk; he was in the process of considering whether to chance a throw or save it in case he went down, when he saw his own stallion racing toward him, Sara and Colleen still on its back.
Gavin’s blood ran cold.
“Go back!” he shouted, but they paid him no heed. Gavin knew that his stallion hated dogs so fiercely, he would attack the hound on sight. This might save him from a savage mauling, but Sara and Colleen were bound to be thrown from his back. On the ground they would be at the dog’s mercy. Determined that Sara should not sacrifice herself for him, Gavin forced the terrified coach horses to race straight into the path of the oncoming stallion.
The horses came together with a terrible impact, and in the ensuing melee, the hound was unable to mount a lethal attack, but his slashing attacks at their hindquarters were cutting the carriage horses to ribbons. Colleen was able to slip onto the back of the second carriage horse, but they had to find some way to escape before fear drove the horses totally beyond control. Gavin also had to reach his own stallion, before the smell of the hound reached his nostrils and hate drove the huge animal beyond control. Even now, Sara was just barely managing to stay in the saddle.
Suddenly Gavin’s stallion threw his head up; his nostrils distended, and his entire body started to shake. The next moment he whipped around until he saw the dog. Then with an ear-splitting scream of rage, he charged, teeth bared and enormous hooves ready to aim a killing blow. Sara clung to his mane with all her strength, but the bucking and whirling of the stallion unbalanced her, and she began to slide off. Without hesitation Gavin jumped from the back of his fear-crazed mount, just in time to reach Sara as she fell. Only the stallion’s lightning whirl and attack with bared teeth prevented the hound from plunging his teeth into Sara’s throat. Gavin thrust her behind him, and drawing his dirk, turned to face the hound.
The hound was vicious and cunning, but he was ponderous, and his great size was a handicap in close fighting; for Gavin’s mammoth stallion, it was an advantage. The infuriated horse’s teeth had grazed the hound’s back when it had tried to attack Sara. Turning in snarling fury, the beast found himself scrambling frantically to avoid a lethal blow from a platter-sized iron-shod hoof. But the stallion was faster; turning with incredible speed for such a large horse, his front hoof struck the hound a glancing blow on the shoulder. Gavin doubted the blow did any great harm, but it stunned the hound long enough to give the stallion time to whirl and aim a mighty kick with both hind feet.
The thud of impact failed to mask the sickening sound of breaking bones as the hound went flying through the air. He had barely landed before Gavin’s stallion was upon him. With a savage scream, the horse rose above the stricken hound. Even as the lethal hooves descended, the hound uttered a vicious growl and tried to rise once more, but he sank under the hammering hooves of the stallion.
A moment later, all was still.
Gavin turned to Sara, relieved that his broad back had hidden the terrible scene from her view. He closed his arms about her, holding her tightly in silence. He remembered the fear which had nearly paralyzed him when he saw Sara driving his stallion straight at the hound. His limbs trembled; his grip on her was vicelike.
“Why did you come back?”
“Colleen said the dog had been let out. She said the horses would never be fast enough to escape. Gavin, your sword was on your stallion. You couldn’t defend yourself!”
“I had my dirk. You had nothing at all.”
“I couldn’t just leave you, not when Colleen said your horse hated dogs enough to attack the hound.”
“Colleen talks too much.”
“I’m sorry if you’re angry, but it was all I could think of.”
“You’re safe, that’s all that really counts, but don’t ever do a thing like that again! You don’t even know how to ride. How could you expect to stay on that stallion?”
“I didn’t think. I just knew I couldn’t leave you.”
Colleen rode into view, Gavin’s carriage horse in tow. Both horses were still wild with fear and bleeding from the hound’s attack, but Colleen was a notable horsewoman, and she had them under control.
“I see what you mean,” Colleen said, her eyes missing none of the significance of Gavin’s hold on Sara. “They do prefer the one who must ride in a carriage.”
“What is she talking about?” Gavin asked, his anger at Colleen deflected by the enigmatic statement.
“It’s just woman’s talk,” Sara told him, hiding a bleak smile. “You wouldn’t be interested.”
“Well, I would be interested in knowing what possessed you to help Ian kidnap my wife?” Gavin demanded of Colleen, forgetting the women’s cryptic exchange.
‘That was a mistake,” Sara intervened. “She was sorry almost from the first, weren’t you?” Colleen had the good sense to nod unhesitatingly. “She did it to help Ian, but she took very good care of me.”
'That crazy old woman—”
“She never came near me.”
But Gavin wasn’t mollified. “That note …”
“She does want to be friends with us again,” Sara interrupted again. “She truly does, and we find that we like each other quite well.”
Gavin could see that Sara was determined to defend Colleen, so he reluctantly abandoned that losing battle. “When I get my hands on Ian Fraser, I’ll break his neck.”
“You’re perfectly free to do anything you want to him,” Sara said, hoping his rage would have calmed down by the time he saw Ian again. “I don’t think he was at all sorry about kidnapping me, and then he left us with that terrible old woman. He said he would be back in two or three days. He seemed to think you wouldn’t find us.”
“He didn’t mean for the ransom note to reach me so soon, but I knew why he had kidnapped you. It was only because I was his closest friend that I even thought of Old Peg.”
“Ian said no one would dare come here.”
“Now you know why,” Gavin said, and all their gazes silently turned to what was left of the hound.
It was a silent cavalcade that wound its way through the hills to Estameer. Each was occupied with their private thoughts, each aware that once they reached Estameer, there would be no time for thought for a long time. Colleen’s thoughts were not happy, and her expression was a heavy one. Gavin’s thoughts were of the revenge he would take from Ian, and his expression was ferocious.
Only Sara rode with some degree of contentment. She was still angry at Ian for kidnapping her, she might never forgive him for putting Gavin in danger, and she was still weak from shock, but she was also blissfully happy. She knew unquestionably that Gavin loved her. He still might not know it, but it would only be a matter of time, before he would discover it on his own. Everything she had dreamed of was within her reach at last, and knowing she carried Gavin’s child within her womb added to her sense of fulfillment. They had come through a vale of trouble and had survived danger, but they
had
survived, and her dream was about to come true.
She suddenly thought of her father, and she longed to be able to tell him that she understood now what he had felt for her mother, and that she was sorry for her jealousy. She had sometimes thought that he didn’t
try
to get well when he came down with the mysterious fever, but if that had been the case, she understood now. She would not have wanted to live without Gavin either.
A week later Sara was stunned to receive an urgent message from Colleen Fraser to come down to the great hail. Ian had been seriously injured in the siege of Blair Castle, and she had brought him to Estameer.
“Why didn’t you take him to his father?” she demanded, when she saw Ian lying upon the stretcher like a corpse.
“He willna take him in,” Colleen replied, bitterness and anger in her voice. “Either of us. He says we have shamed him and disgraced the clan, and he willna have anything more tae do with us. He willna allow anyone tae help us either. Ye are the only one left.”
“But Gavin … I don’t know … Do you know Cumberland heard Gavin called his men into service? Only he thinks Gavin plans to join the rebellion. Gavin left for Aberdeen this morning, to explain that he was looking for me.”