Susannah's brother. He has not said.' In fact, he hadn't said a single word since she'd called him that nasty name.
'Oh.'
'Do you want me to ask if I am right?'
'No. I'm sure you are. It was a clever guess, but I was too busy trying to think of ways to escape to work it through. I should have figured out he was the laird anyway. It's obvious now that you say it.'
Cait had to smile at her friend's chagrin. 'Do not be too hard on yourself.'
'I'm so smart I got both of us kidnapped. If I hadn't, I could have raised the alarm and gotten your brother's warriors in pursuit all the faster.'
Cait felt badly that Emily had been kidnapped, too, but considering the way she and Talorc got along, Cait didn't think the other woman being left behind would have been an improvement. Especially if she didn't succeed at escape. And, in her condition, she had very little hope of doing so.
'By the time you had walked back to the keep, we would have been too fat ahead to do me any good. Remember, we had ridden a fair way before the laird was prepared to release you. As it is, Everett has raised the alarm, I'm sure.'
'I hope you're right and that no wild animals got him.'
'He is no unprotected human.' Cait grimaced at her slip, but Emily didn't seem to notice.
She was too busy looking around her. 'Why did we stop here, do you think?'
'To get in the boat.'
'Boat?' Emily asked, going pale. 'What boat?'
'The Balmoral clan live in a fortress on an island. Once we are in the boat, it will be much harder for my brother to rescue us.'
'There will be no rescue, lass,' Drustan called in a hard voice from a distance away.
Emily gasped in shock even as her whole body shook with fear at the prospect of being dragged onto a boat. 'How did he know we were talking about that?'
'He could hear us.'
But Emily shook her head. 'We're too far away and we've been speaking in undertones. He must have made a clever, guess.'
Cait looked as though she were going to argue. 'Emily…'
'What?'
Then Cait shook her head. 'Never mind. Do you speak Latin?' she asked in that language in a bare whisper.
'Yes.'
'I'm hoping they don't.'
Emily understood immediately. In case one of them did have particularly good hearing, it wouldn't hurt if she and Cait spoke in a foreign tongue. She would ask another time how her friend had learned Latin. It wasn't an uncommon accomplishment for women of her status in England, but she'd always heard the Highlanders lived near barbarianism.
Though, so far, that belief had been shown up as a gross exaggeration.
'What are we going to do?'
'Keep pretending that you are debilitated by the ride.'
'That should be easy,' Emily said with a grimace, her sore muscles making it not much of a pretense.
'We have to steal some horses.'
'But they will only follow us.'
'Our one hope is to stay ahead of them long enough to meet up with my brother.'
'If he is following.'
'He is. Trust me. Do you notice how they are letting the horses drink without a guard?'
Emily looked to the water's edge where all five horses drank. The men were busy readying the boat Cait had mentioned and some kind of contraption that she thought might be for the horses. It looked like a floating raft, but with openings for the horses to be harnessed to it, so they could swim behind the boat, but be kept afloat? At least that is what it seemed to her.
'We need to get closer to the horses and when they have two of them harnessed for crossing the sea and are busy with the third one, we will grab the last two and run. We must be swift.'
Emily nodded and then had an inspiration. 'Laird?' she called.
He looked at her, his expression thoughtful.
'Cait and I need a moment of privacy.'
His dark brow rose, the only indication he gave that he heard her.
She felt a blush climb her cheeks. 'To, you know…'
Lachlan had to bite back a smile, which was a very different reaction for him. He wondered if he should tell the women he spoke Latin as well? Not yet.
Since he knew their plan was to try to steal horses, he wasn't concerned about allowing her the moment of privacy she asked for, but he did wonder what she thought it would gain her.
'Be quick,' he barked.
She jumped, nodded and turned to hurry into the bushes. Cait was right behind her.
He listened to them as they left.
'He's awfully surly, isn't he?' the Englishwoman asked.
'He's laird,' Cait replied.
'And that's his excuse for rudeness? I don't know why I'm surprised. It's your brother's as well.'
Mention of her husband, the Sinclair laird, irritated him and Lachlan scowled.
'They're spirited lasses, aren't they?' Drustan asked from beside him.
'That is one way to put it,' Lachlan growled.
'Cait called me a horse's backside.'
'I heard.'
Drustan laughed. 'I'll have her apology tonight, along with other things.'
Lachlan nodded. 'Be gentle with her. She's carrying.'
'The Balmorals don't hurt women.'
'I know that.'
'They don't bed other men's wives either.'
A warning growl rumbled low in Lachlan's throat. 'I know that as well. But if her husband has bedded her, I'll bury my claymore. She's too damn innocent.'
'And that bothers you?'
'Yes,' he bit out.
'Would it be easier to keep your hands off her if she weren't, do you think?'
Lachlan had no answer. He had never anticipated wanting an Englishwoman and would sooner tear out his own throat than bed another man's wife. But he wanted this purple-eyed spitfire… enough to make his body rigid with desire and his sex ache.
'I should have left her in the forest.'
'You could still leave her. The Sinclair is probably only a couple of hours behind us.'
'If that.'
'So, leave her.'
'I can't.'
'Hell.'
'My thoughts exactly.'
'If you kill him, she would be a widow,' Drustan said helpfully.
'I'm still not convinced she is a wife.'
Chapter 4
