Chapter Eight

The persistent rain accompanied them for two days and nights while they slogged over soaking hillsides—cold, spring rain that made the journey miserable and difficult. With their supply of food all but gone, Mara began spending the coin Laird Elliot had given her for just that purpose, stopping by dwellings in the smallest villages on her own while Ramsay waited on the hillside. To the householders with whom she bargained she always alluded to pursuing a most secret mission, hinted that she guided a personage vital to the future of the Highlands.

By the widening of their eyes and the parting of their lips, she could tell they took her meaning. She believed most of them loyal to the bone, yet one old man living alone in a shieling, so weak he could barely stand, asked her if she had heard of the great price the Crown had set on Prince Charles Edward’s head.

“Not that anyone would betray the bonny lad,” the man had added, his gaze fervent. Yet the hair stood up on the back of Mara’s neck, and she had to remind herself this was the very reason they had set out on their journey—to court pursuit and take the heat from the true Prince.

She also told herself she must now be doubly on guard against being tracked and captured. For surely news of their passing must reach the wrong—or was it the right?—ears soon enough. So far they had caught no glimpse of any Crown troops, save once at a distance when they passed the large town of Dingwall, giving it a wide berth.

They spoke little, and not at all of what had happened back in the rowan copse. Mara did not even have the heart to chastise Ramsay for wearing his own plaid—identifying as a beacon— since it kept off the wet. But those moments spent in his arms remained constantly bright in her mind and, she suspected, Diarmad’s. For he avoided looking her full in the eyes, and when they bedded down he made sure to lie as far from her as he could arrange.

And so Mara went over the hills cold, wet, and frustrated. She still wanted Diarmad Ramsay so much she ached with it. Now her natural tendency to express her worry and fill the time with chatter had once more been stunted.

While she should have been concentrating on the dangers all around them and on staying ahead of pursuers, her thoughts instead danced in her mind, contemplating things she wanted to ask him but did not dare. Had he a woman waiting for him in his home glen in the far north, someone to whom he was promised? Might that explain his rejection of her, Mara?

For it still stung. She might not be beautiful like her older sister, Flora, long married and gone from the family home. But men of her acquaintance tended to find her worth the chasing. Many had looked after her with interest.

She had bared her breasts for few.

Upon that thought she now turned and shot a look at the man who followed her through the wet without complaint. His soaking plaid lay about his face, nearly obscuring those eyes that seemed to see right through her—or would, if he actually looked at her. Several days’ growth of beard gathered about those fine lips of his, making Mara long to touch.

She did love a man with a beard.

“Hie,” he whispered suddenly. “Someone is coming.”

So there was. Mara’s heart leaped sickeningly. On point and supposedly guiding him, she should have seen them first—or at least heard them. But she had allowed herself to become perilously distracted.

Ramsay caught her arm, pulling her off the faint trail they had been following and down into the young bracken.

She could hear them clearly then—almost on top of her and Ramsay, coming out of the mist and rain. Horses, the jingle of harness, a gruff word or two. A small troop of English guard hove into view, and Mara stopped breathing.

Do not let them look aside. For she and Ramsay lay only poorly hidden. Even upon the thought she felt his arm, draped protectively over her shoulders, press her down. At the same moment he eased his stolen sword from its scabbard.

One, two, three, four—she lost count of the company, but they made more than eight, all mounted—clearly a detail out combing the hills for someone.

For the lass of whom they had heard, guiding a man who just might be Charles Edward.

Abruptly the captain riding at their head held up a hand. The company halted just past the place where Mara and Ramsay lay.

“Did you hear something?” the captain demanded of his men.

Surely his ears could not have caught the whisper of Ramsay’s sword being drawn. The sound of the falling rain must obscure nearly everything.

Mara squinted at the man, squat on his horse and about forty years of age. Possibly he followed an instinct, as Da said the best warriors did—even Sassenach warriors.

None of his men immediately responded. They looked thoroughly wet and far from eager to chase any quarry through the bracken.

At last the man who rode behind the captain—his second in command?—ventured, “Deer, sir? I see some over there.”

The company all looked away to the west. Ramsay took the opportunity to shove Mara’s bright head farther down.

“Yes, no doubt,” the captain decided. “We will ride on to the nearest town and see can we find a dry place to spend the night.”

They moved off with a clatter, but the pressure of Ramsay’s arm kept Mara flat in the bracken long after, until she began to squirm.

“Let me up. They are gone.”

“I am no’ so certain. That captain looks to have a sharp eye and a sharper mind. They may just double back.”

Mara subsided, taking advantage of his nearness to lean into him. His hair brushed her cheek, and she caught the beguiling scent of him even above that of peaty soil and damp vegetation. Her body began to tingle in response.

Warm he felt, amid the wet. An irresistible haven.

She strained her ears, listening. Distraction with the fine Ramsay had nearly cost them dear. She could not allow that to happen again.

“I am that sorry,” she whispered when it became plain the troop would not return. “I was on point and should have heard them.”

He made no reply but gazed at her from mere inches away. Even in the gloom of the day his eyes shone clear and blue-gray.

What did he see when he looked at her? A poor excuse for a guardian? A foolish lass? A wanton? Cursed if Mara cared. She wanted to press her lips to his so badly it hurt.

“You no longer look much like the Prince.” She waved a hand. “Not with that beard.”

He grimaced and rubbed his jaw with long, brown fingers. Those fingers had been inside her. For an instant, the memory turned Mara faint.

“Do no’ say you are going to make me shave. Surely even your sacred Prince would let his beard grow out here.”

“Perhaps.” Unable to resist, she gazed at his pleasing features. “Tell me something, Ramsay: have you a betrothed at home?”

He hesitated. Still gazing into the depths of his eyes, she saw a shadow pass. “Nay.”

“Ah. Is there someone perhaps not promised, yet dear to your heart?”

He turned his head and stared away, which benefitted Mara little since she found his profile equally pleasing.

“There is a lass.”

Mara’s heart sank like a rock.

“But she is betrothed to another.”

“I see. A pledge of convenience, or one of the heart?”

His lips twisted in a rueful smile. “You ken, I could never tell. A woman of duty, Una keeps her true feelings close to her breast.”

Una, eh? The lovely Una, no doubt a woman of grace and pleasing propriety, sharing absolutely no characteristics with wild Mara MacIvor. Well, whoever she might be, how could she fail to love and desire this man?

“Aye,” she said through a suddenly tight throat, “and to whom is she betrothed?”

That made him shoot her a rueful glance. “My brother, Cainnech, no less—he who is now Chief in my father’s stead.”

“But I thought—that is, Master Elliot said your brother did not survive the battle. ’Tis why you took his place, is it not?”

“He did no’ come away with the rest of us. That does no’ mean he did no’ survive. He could lie injured somewhere—he might have been taken prisoner. I think if he were dead, I would know.”

“Are the two of you very close?”

“Aye. He has always been a hero to me, and the perfect older brother. As long as I can remember I ha’ looked up to him.”

And so would never think to charm away the woman destined for him. But if Cainnech had fallen, the place of Chief would come to Diarmad. And Una with it?

Mara squirmed uneasily in the wet bracken.

Diarmad jerked his head toward where the troop had disappeared. “They will get word of our passing soon enough and, perhaps, come after us.”

“Those who ha’ seen us may be too loyal to speak.”

“But is that no’ the point of this mad undertaking? As I asked you before, what good the hare if the hounds do not glimpse him?”

“Aye,” Mara admitted unhappily. Endangering him had seemed a different prospect before she met him, touched him.

Kissed him.

“Either way,” he told her unequivocally, “we had better move on.”

****

The rain ended soon after dark, and a magnificent sky opened up, cleared by a chilly wind. A reef of stars emerged overhead, and Mara paused at last by the shore of a lochan.

Just where were they? Somewhere north of Dingwall and west of Tain, as alone in this wild place as two people could be.

Mara shivered where she stood; two days spent drenched to the skin and now a chilly wind. It would be a cold night.

“Do you mean to layover here?” Ramsay had taken pity on her halfway through the day and shouldered one of the packs. He set it down now, and she gave him a searching look.

“Are you very weary?” she returned. He had not complained about the long hours trudging and seemed as if he could walk forever in his stolen boots. Twice had Mara doubled back in an effort to see if they were being followed, but the hounds had apparently not taken their scent.

Now she wrapped her arms about herself and wondered for the first time if, as the Ramsay repeatedly said, this venture might be doomed. What did she accomplish out here with him? What, besides stoking the fire of her desire with his nearness.

Suddenly the world seemed an unimaginably dreary place—death behind them and perhaps ahead. What would become of her?

“I am willing to rest or go on,” he told her. “No matter. But you are cold.”

“I wish we might have a fire. I dare not.”

His arm came around her shoulder, and he drew her close against his side. Damp and as chilled as she, he nevertheless felt marvelously warm, a comforting presence.

“Come, I will build you a nest.”

He led her a few steps to a cluster of pines. There she stood very like a lost child while he pulled bracken and piled it to make a bed beneath the boughs.

“There now,” he told her. “You burrow in. I will find some food in the pack and take first watch.”

Wordlessly, Mara obeyed. The young bracken fronds cut the wind, and when she burrowed inside as instructed, Ramsay spread his plaid over all.

Aye, and a good thing he had kept the half-ruined thing after all.

“We are running low on food again,” he observed in a low voice, knowing as well as she how sound carried on a clear night. Mara could hear the waves lapping at the edge of the lochan, and she was all too aware of Ramsay’s every movement. When he at last came crawling into the nest, her senses reared to attention.

“Here.” He placed a chunk of stale bannock in her hand. “Eat that. You will soon be warm.”

“Aye.” She felt better already with his body so close. “Where did you learn this trick for making a shelter?”

“Out hunting with Cainnech, back in the days when I ne’er dreamed my life could come apart at the seams. Tell me, Mistress MacIvor, have you been begging this food from the holdings we pass?”

“Nay, Laird Elliot gave me coin with which to buy provisions. The Prince would have a surfeit of coin, would he not?” All at once the welfare of Charles Edward did not seem so immediate and vital. Not when Mara could feel Ramsay’s shoulder pressed to hers and the length of him all down her side.

He grunted. “I wonder if these Sassenachs have put a price on his head.”

“They have,” she admitted reluctantly, remembering the words of the old man with whom she’d bargained for provisions. The oldster had not actually named that price. It could be as little as five pounds, yet seem a king’s—or a Prince’s— ransom to him. “A right high one, I expect. But ’twill not matter, for no one will betray him, whatever the price.”

“You think not? Do you ken how many men died in yon battle, back there? Their bairns and widows will be starving—as if they were not beforehand.”

“Still, their hearts will remain true,” Mara insisted.

“We shall see. Finish your supper and get some sleep. ’Tis what you need, lass. I will keep watch.”

Was that kindness Mara heard in Ramsay’s voice? Obediently, she hunkered down and closed her eyes, her weary body easing for the first time in days.

She would worry about the morrow when it came.