“Leith will be up to get me soon,” she murmured as she turned to dress again. No water had been sent up but she didn’t mind it. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she put on a dress from her sack and put on her shoes. Combing her hair out, she was in the middle of braiding it when the knock came at her door.
“Be-mphrrght- oot,” she said over the comb clenched in her teeth.
With her hair done, she shoved the rest of her particulars into the sack and hurried to the door. Tugging the door open with an apology on her lips, she was met with a tray of tea on the floor and three oatcakes. Taking the tray in, she sipped the warm milk and ate an oatcake as she was hungry but stuffed the others in her coat’s pocket.
Ready, she got to the lower level just as Leith came in. His hair looked freshly washed as it was curling at the ends just over his collar. His cheek was dusted with the stubble of a few days’ growth of beard, but it did not take away his handsomeness.
“All set, lass?” he asked, as his eyes dipped down and trailed back up unhurriedly. She could feel the look trail over her skin as much as the tactile touch of fingers would.
“I am,” she said. “You were able to wash?”
“Aye,” Leith said as he nodded to the innkeeper and guided her down the way to where the horses, both saddled and ready were, “There’s a small stream from here.”
Huffing, Mary grumbled something under her breath about men who were too lucky for their own good and that when she had a chance, she would sink into a pool of water and soak all this road grime away. Leith only chuckled.
“When are we going to get to your home?”
“With all being fair,” Leith said turning his horse to the road, “in a day-and-a-half. We’ll stop along the way to eat and rest just as the horses need to eat but we best not tarry. If we continue through the night, we can put many more miles between us and our destination, but if we run our mounts into the ground, it’d do us nay good.”
“What if we ride part of the night?” Mary asked. “Wouldn’t that get us there faster?”
Eyeing her with light surprise and suspicion, Leith asked, “Are ye up for that lass?”
Her smile was sly, “We’d have to see, now wouldn’t we?”
* * *
“God’s blood, lass,” Leith called over as they descended the last hill toward Clan Balloch in the Highlands of Lenichton territory. He slid his eyes over to Mary who had ridden with the aplomb of a man, taking the rugged Scotland mountainous terrain without a cry of protest. “We’re almost there.”
They had left the inn a day ago and though Leith had wanted to take her through the low-lying lands that were undeniably easier on her, Mary had asked him to take her to the quickest way. That way was over vertical mountainsides and rocky ridges. He’d known the lass could ride but damn, she was good.
He held out an arm to her, signaling for her to stop they came to a section on a ridge. “Look yonder…that’s me home.”
He traced her eyes as she looked over the wide valley below, with fields of wheat and corn were laid out like mismatched patches on a blanket. As the fields tapered off, the town began. Almost indistinguishable from the forest around it, the wooden homes gleamed golden under the early morning sunlight. He smiled as her eyes lifted to the castle, which was similar to how the town was made, was carved from the rocky mountainside behind it. The dark castle looked far too menacing for the light hearts that rested inside it.
“Or, perhaps not,” he mumbled under his breath, considering the troubles he was facing there with his father.
As the descended the incline to the valley below, he began to rehearse what he was going to say when he got to the clan’s home. They needed to make the ruse believable. As they got the flat, he caught Mary’s eyes and jerked his head to the right.
There was a trail through the forest that took them up to the castle that cut away from the town. There, he could pretend that he had found her unconscious. Mary looked at him with questioning eyes but she followed his lead still. The smell of spring moss and heather was heavy in the air, and Mary wrinkled her nose from the smell. As they traveled through the woodland, he began to explain his plan.
“We’ll have to get rid of the horse, lass, as I will be finding ye lying unconscious at the somewhere between here and the castle. There’s a nifty little rocky ridge that is over a river where I can say I found ye as I had found ye in a ravine. The next thing, ye will have to lay as dead in me arms as ye can and dinnae even move at all. Ye’ll have to become a performer lass. Ye ever played dead when ye were a child?”
“No,” Mary shook her head.
“Never?”
Mary eyed him, “Never.”
“Good lord, lass,” Leith snorted, “What did ye do a child? Dinnae ye play?”
“My childhood was a church. The only ‘death’ I’ve been privy to is the tale of the crucifixion,” Mary said dryly.
“I truly pity ye,” Leith commiserated. “But the past is the past. Now we need to ken about what’s ahead of us. The first part is the most important, getting them to believe ye are injured. It would help even more if ye pretended to forget who ye are and where ye came from. It would give them more cause to nae seek a place to send ye back to and lastly, keep mute.”
“I understand,” Mary replied as the urged