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Coll glanced up at the tower window as they mounted, wondering if Ginny were up there watching...waiting for them to depart. What had he expected? A mournful farewell?
“I confess I would have appreciated to sleep an hour or two more before we set off once more,” the prince said as he settled himself in the saddle.
Coll couldn’t argue with Charles Edward. These past days had taken a toll on them all. Some of their party would get a reprieve. Sir Thomas Sheridan, Sir John MacDonald, and the marquis, William Murray, were too elderly to take on the rigorous travel ahead. Aeneas MacDonald would arrange transport for the prince once they reached Arisaig while George Kelly and Francis Strickland carried messages back to the prince’s generals. Only O’Sullivan, Burke, and their host’s son, a Catholic priest, would continue on while the rest of the men remained behind here or would return to Ruthven to act as messengers. They spurred their horses into motion.
“Wait! Wait for me!”
They all turned in surprise. Even the horses reared and stomped their feet to protest, being spurred into motion and reined in almost simultaneously. However, no one could be so astonished as Coll when Ginny ran out of the castle.
“What is this, Miss Hughes?” Charles Edward was the one to ask the question they all thought. After all the hours she spent trying to bargain for her release or simply run away, he couldn’t conceive what had brought on this sudden reversal. “I granted you permission to take your leave and if I may say, you seemed eager to depart.”
She stopped and dropped a hasty curtsey, her cloak pooling in the dust as she did so. “I know, your highness, and I am most grateful for your kindness. Nevertheless, it has...rather, that is, I have seen new dangers ahead for you. I thought the best solution would be for me to accompany you so I might help steer you away from any trouble as it presents itself. I’m at your disposal, if it pleases you.”
Coll had never heard such nonsense in all his days. Beyond the fact that they both knew she was no seer, it was clear to anyone with ears that she improvised the tale as she spoke. She had no more foresight about what going to happen in the days to come than he.
Why then would she now insist on joining them? What purpose drove her?
“Very well,” the prince decreed without demonstrating an iota of Coll’s reserve. “Have a horse prepared for the lady.”
“She will ride wi’ me.” Coll circumvented her protest by adding, “Miss Hughes confessed to me yesterday that she disnae ride well and we will need to proceed at a good pace.”
“So be it. Let us be away.”
Coll reached out a hand to Ginny who stared at it as if it were a snake waiting to strike. “Hurry on now, lass. Our prince awaits.”
“Of course.”
When she hesitated as if she couldn’t determine how to proceed, he flexed his foot up impatiently. “Step up, lass.”
“Allow me, lassie.” Burke dismounted and went to her side, cupping his hands. “Up wi’ ye now.”
“Thank you, Mr. Burke.”
She favored him with a smile and accepted his aid. The attempt was so clumsy, Coll would have thought she’d never ridden pillion before. Without time for a tutorial, he settled her on his lap. She clutched first the horse’s mane then the pommel, bouncing stiffly with each stride that carried them away.
Questions raced through his mind, vying to be the first to reach his tongue. Better to think of those rather than to give undue consideration to the soft bottom once again nestled against his groin.
“Calm yerself, lassie,” Burke said as he reigned in beside them. “He willnae let ye fall.”
“You’ll excuse me if I don’t have utter faith in him.”
There it was again. That hint of bruising wit she’d exhibited the previous night. Ever stoic, Burke’s lips twitched. Coll had a more difficult time swallowing his amusement.
“I willnae and I hivnae yet said something to ye that I dinnae mean. I cannae say the same for ye. Did ye no’ a half hour past beg for yer freedom? Ardently declare yer need to return to yer loved ones? Yet here ye are. I cannae help but wonder what has changed yer mind.”
“It’s just that I find your company so very enjoyable, I couldn’t help myself.”
There was such a wealth of irony in the words, this time he couldn’t help but laugh.
“Ugh, how did I get here?” she mused under her breath.
The question hadn’t been meant for him, yet he answered it anyway. “I get the impression that ye’re precisely where ye mean to be.”
“Ha, there are so many other places I’d rather be, believe me.”
She canted to the side and Coll righted her, holding her securely with his free arm as he caught up with the others. “My God, was my claim prophetic? Have ye never ridden a horse at all?”
“Of course I have.”
“Ye are a miserable liar, lass.”
“And you’re an utter asshole,” she shot back. “Hear any truth in that?”
Burke chuckled openly at that. “Has she got ye pegged, lad?”
Amusement again swelled in Coll’s chest and in his heart, the sensation a far cry from the ponderous weight that he’d carried with him this past year. The weight that should be upon him this very moment as Charles Edward was once again exposed to potential danger.
Burke rode ahead to scout the area. Coll waited for Ginny to address this question with something other than sarcasm. To explain the danger that had changed her mind and compelled her to carry on with them. As with all his questions, he was left wanting.
Without conversation, even argument to distract him, Coll’s mind traveled no further than the warm bottom in his lap as he sought something else to focus on. Unless it was the curve of her waist beneath his hand or the scent of her hair. A steady breeze lifted her curls until they danced upon the wind to tease his cheeks and chin like feathers. He fought the urge to bury his face in the crook of her neck and find out if her entire body carried that fresh, floral smell.
He forced himself to concentrate on the potential danger ahead. Chances abounded for them to be caught before he could see Prince Charles Edward safely aboard a French ship yet every thought circled back to Ginny. Though he wasn’t yet satisfied with her explanation of how she knew of the royalist outposts, he trusted that they existed as she had marked them. He appreciated the security her knowledge allowed them. Removing one risk factor from those eased his mind considerably.
And allowed him more time to dwell on her.
“If ye were a true Scotswoman and no’ a colonist, I’d say ye should take comfort in knowing yer sacrifice is being made for the greater good,” he said if only to distract himself. “Because of yer assistance, however reluctant, there is a greater guarantee that we will survive to fight again. The cause will carry on.”
“The Stuart cause.” She craned her neck to look back at the prince. A sigh softened her rigid posture. “Bonny Prince Charlie. In spite of this entire mess, I still can’t entirely believe that’s him.”
She hadn’t known. That made her fortuitous appearance even more curious.
“He’s so...so...” she paused with a shake of her head. “I don’t know. Young?”
Her appalled emphasis on the word brought a smile to his lips. “We are of an age, the prince and I. Six and twenty years.”
“Really? You seem far more mature.” Her accent moderated once more. “I suppose that’s the difference between a pampered life and a normal one.”
“What makes ye think I’ve no’ led a pampered life?” he asked with a jolt of amusement. “I may have been cosseted wi’in an inch of my life for all ye ken.”
“No one would ever look at you and think you spent your life in a plush Italian palazzo being waited on hand and foot.” A husky chuckle filled the air and shot straight to his groin. “I’ll be interested in seeing how the prince copes with the hardships of a hasty escape. I have to say, there’s a general lack of urgency among you all given the potential danger of the situation.”
Her comment roused an aspect of her involvement Coll hadn’t considered. Their risk had become hers. The peril they faced now encompassed her. As greatly as she vexed him, he would never forgive himself if she came to any harm. He didn’t express the breadth of his concern. Rather he narrowed it to the most immediate situation. “How will ye cope? We need to move with haste across inhospitable terrain. The journey to Arisaig will be an arduous one.”
“I will manage just fine, thanks.” The assurance was crisp, tinged with offense he hadn’t intended. “It doesn’t appear that you’re planning to go follow the loch down to Achnacarry or even Torlundy before turning west. Why not? Wouldn’t that be the easiest way?”
“Do I appear too dull to ken the easiest way?”
“I don’t think you want me to answer that.”
He stifled a laugh, once again taken by her salty wit. “Och, definitely no’.”
If he wasn’t mistaken, there was a hint of a smile curving her lips as she turned her head to brush a strand of hair from her cheek. She caught the curly mass in its entirety and lifted her arms behind her head to swiftly braid the long length. Once done, she removed a thick, black string from around her wrist and secured the ends of the plait. He frowned. No, she didn’t tie it. Rather she twisted it and pulled the hair through several times even though it already appeared to be as tight as possible.
“What path do you mean to take from here?” she asked as she pulled her braid over her shoulder, removing the curiosity from his sight.
“Given yer timely premonition of danger, should ye no’ be the one to tell me?” he taunted her. “Where is this danger ye’ve foreseen, if it exists a’tall? Ye’ve yet to explain yer change of heart. Mayhap ’tis naught to fear and ye simply couldnae bear to part from my company in truth?”
Her chin lifted. “Your brand of charm is the sort that repels women, not attracts them.”
God help him but he enjoyed her tart humor. Enjoyment warred with obligation. Bugger it all, he couldn’t let it go. She was an enigma. One that he couldn’t help but want to solve. “I should warn ye, I feel it my duty to begin our interrogation again. What would lead ye to suspect danger ahead for the prince? What is it?”
“I don’t know exactly.” A sigh lifted her shoulders. “I know it’s a big ask, but I need you to trust me. Trust that I want nothing more than what you want.”
A big ask indeed.
“If ye want my trust, lass, ye maun gi’ me something. Some truth. Let’s begin wi’ the easiest. How did ye ken where the encampments are?”