The Touch 0f Her Hand (Highlander Heroes Book 1) Read online

  She would pay dearly for this, she knew, but she had to try. With no plan, no destination in mind, and while her stomach turned at her daring, she hastened her step, concealing herself within the shadows of the stables. A furtive glance left and then right revealed its emptiness. Perhaps the stable hands and farriers were even now in that loud and cheering group of spectators. She moved quickly, ducking low as she went from stall to stall, finding most were empty. Near the end of the long row of stalls, Tess found a small palfrey mare tethered within, the gate open. She marveled at her luck.

  There was no saddle, nor any time to consider one. She'd ridden bareback before—well, once, anyway. Tess slipped into the stall beside the animal, who gave only a slight nicker at her company. Crouching now out of sight, Tess considered her options. The inner gate and the larger, outer portcullis were usually open during the day, certainly while the soldiers trained outside the walls. Her heart raced inside her chest; she could feel it pounding against the hand pressed there.

  "Think. Think," she insisted to herself. She knew that there were woods in which to hide herself not more than a quarter mile beyond the gate. There were few mounted riders near the gates to give chase, though the soldiers on the practice field outside the castle walls could quickly overtake her and there would be many of them—the beast included—presently atop a horse. She needed only to reach that forest at the far side of the heath in front of Inesfree. She didn’t believe for one minute that she could outrace anyone, certainly not riding bareback on a little palfrey, but if she could find someplace within that forest to conceal herself, she need only to wait until the beast grew tired of his fruitless search. And when he gave up, she would ride for home.

  Before she lost her nerve, Tess straightened, tipped a bucket of straw upside down, and mounted the mare.

  "I can do this," she said to herself and kicked the animal into motion, thankful at least that a bridle had been left on the horse. In a few moments, she exited the stables and jerked the animal hard left toward the two gates. People still crowded around the combatants, but the noise level had shrunk, intimating the fight was over. She saw Ezra frantically spinning around, only now noticing her absence, just as she sailed through the first gate. The stunned guards atop the gatehouse watched in motionless amazement as she passed. Someone had the foresight to shout, "Close the gate!" as Tess picked up speed. Whether too stunned, or too afraid to challenge a fast moving animal, no one barred her way. In truth, a path was cleared as Tess charged toward freedom, eyeing the now-lowering outer gate and the distance between her and it.

  She would make it, she knew. It was heavy and old, rolling downward at a fascinatingly slow speed and in another second, Tess was safely through.

  Amazed, she turned to look behind her as she cleared the outer gate. Guards atop the wall shouted, pointing, and running along the ramparts. The gate was still being lowered as Tess heard frustrated calls. "Open the gate!"

  Tess would have cheered her success, but it was not won yet. Facing forward again, she applied greater force to the surprisingly fast mare and soon, the edge of the woods seemed not so impossible a goal after all.

  She kicked the animal again to spur her on as behind her, the portcullis reversed direction and began to rise. The alarm bells were rung, the hollow sound echoing over the heath and across the sky. Hooves thundered behind her, and Tess was sure the entire force of the MacGregors must be in pursuit. She chanced another glance over her shoulder and saw an army of soldiers emerging from the open gate to join the group coming from the practice field, led by the enormous figure of the beast.

  A small terrified gasp escaped her. She was nearly to the forest and she had to act fast. At best, she had a quarter mile advantage. She rode as far as she dared, quite a distance within the wood, but soon the density of the forest slowed her.

  Tess drew up the mare and jumped down quickly, the fear rendering her limbs useless. She fell immediately to the ground as her legs refused to support her. Gathering strength and courage she'd not known she possessed, she stood and turned the mare east, swatting her hard on the rump to send her racing away. Tess then picked up her skirts and ran as fast as she could in the opposite direction.

  The stitch in her side became unbearable just as she was aware of the crashing of hooves charging into the woods, though still quite a distance behind her. She bit her lip and turned in a circle, looking for a place to hide. Ahead, she spied a rise in the terrain. Ignoring the pain in her side, she dashed toward the rise, sure it might prove a den or lair in which she could hide.

  It was neither, just a lifted piece of earth that was narrow and shallow, forcing her to crouch and squeeze into it, her backside first. She pulled her skirts around her, her chest pressed almost upon her legs, her face only a foot from the ground. She managed to pull some brush and leaves about the mouth of the opening to shroud its existence.

  And she waited. For them to leave or for them to find her. She listened, as still and as silent as the sun, her breath quiet little gasps for air. The sound of the pursuit, which had seemed to have been growing closer, now seemed distant and Tess thought that maybe they actually had followed the horse, which now would have them mayhap almost half a mile away.

  I just need to outwait them, she thought, an actual glimmer of hope teasing her.

  She was cramped in the little cave she'd pushed herself into, kneeling upon the soft underbrush. It wasn't long before her foot began to fall asleep and then a cramp began to throb in her calf. But Tess ignored this.

  I just need to outlast them.

  Soon, the sounds of the search party drew nearer, she thought, but could not be sure; even if she could see out from behind all the debris she’d arranged around her, she was still facing the wrong way, as the searchers would come from behind her. However, soon it became clear that the beast and his men were indeed closing in on her. The cramp in her calf worsened and were she not in hiding, she might have howled with the pain. Tess clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out just as she heard his voice.

  "WILLIAM! DONALD! SPREAD out!" Conall called over to the two young knights, riding side by side. "You will no find her whilst holding hands!" He gritted his teeth, having long ago lost his patience. He'd known! He'd just known as soon as he'd heard the alarm sounded that it was Tess. But he had imagined she'd hidden herself somewhere within the walls—until he and the soldiers training had witnessed her flight upon horseback into the forest.

  She couldn't have gone far, he decided, his brow furrowing deeper with each step his horse took. They had overtaken the mare she'd stolen which meant that she was on foot against a mounted army. The odds of her escaping their notice—he truly didn't expect her to be running still—were near impossible.

  Twenty minutes later Conall sent twelve men out in four directions to catch up with her should she in fact still be running while they meandered around the forest looking for a trace of her.

  One hour later, Conall's short temper had been completely annihilated.

  "That little witch," he cursed sharply, bringing Mercury's slow gait to a halt.

  "The brush is too thick," his captain, John Cardmore, said for possibly the tenth time. But it was worth repeating. In certain sections of the wood, there was simply no way for man and horse to proceed. The brush, heavy thickets of intertwining and twisting undergrowth, sometimes as tall as Conall atop his steed, was thwarting their efforts. Sometimes the brush was so thick a man could not see another only ten feet away.

  Conall looked up as one of the detachments he'd sent off earlier returned.

  "No sign of her, laird," reported Gilbert MacDonnell, and was glad of the distance between himself and the MacGregor when a little muscle at his temple, and one again on his neck, began to tick synchronously. "We rode out north, a good few miles yet. No footprints to belong to one so small nor even a trace of that hair."

  Conall lifted a brow at this, at the curious phrasing of the soldier. "That hair?" He watched Gilbert—who, on
any given day, was plagued by cheeks that were always colored—shrink a bit in embarrassment as his face reddened yet more.

  "Well now, laird, 'tis such—'tis all that gold in it, you ken?"

  Conall only nodded. One would think that hair might make their hunt a wee bit easier, the color being so extraordinary. Conall himself had seen Tess this morning as she'd come into the bailey, escorted by Ezra for her outing into the garden. He'd stopped on his way to the practice field for just a glimpse of her. He had no intention of approaching her, but he could not completely temper the longing her beauty had wrought.

  He’d thought then of the dastardly deed done to her the day before and the other several days before that—his anger at finding Ezra’s hands upon her might have cost the soldier life or limb, but for John’s hand on his arm. She’d been terrified then, understandably so as Ezra practiced well his menace, but that had not wrecked him so much as her tears of yesterday. She might not have even known that she’d cried then. He had noticed, it had torn through him, though in truth not nearly as much as the forlorn words she’d put to him. Later he’d taken himself to task for having any sort of emotion toward her that wasn’t relevant to her position as a pawn. This was a short-lived rebuke, however; she might well be the bravest person he’d ever met in such a small package, but her heart was too unspoilt for these meanspirited offenses brought against her. For the first time, he felt a pang of remorse for his part in entangling her in his own mercenary pursuit of vengeance. She didn’t belong here.

  But maybe just now she’d succeeded in absconding after all. If she were successful in this attempt to be gone from him, all Conall's plans for a near bloodless return to Marlefield were for naught. It was unlikely that Tess of Marlefield would fall twice into his hands. Presently, however, Conall damned himself for worrying more over the possibility of her wandering these woods alone for even one night, let alone days or weeks, trying to escape. The forest was not friendly, and neither were the creatures within, but the cold at night and the sheer size of this vast wood was what concerned Conall the most.

  With greater determination, Conall turned around and faced his men.

  "Dismount!" he called and listened as his captain repeated the order three more times until the men, those at the rear of the party, too, had done so.

  "Captain Cardmore, get these horses out of here," he directed as he, too, jumped to the ground. "We'll search on foot. I want every inch of this forest dissected. We'll concentrate from here backward. I dinna think she'd have gotten farther than this."

  Conall abandoned the clearer path where the horses had an easy time of it and used his sword to hack his way through the dense brush. "I will strangle her when I get my hands on her," he promised, actually thinking of the harsh scolding he would subject her to when he found her.

  If he found her.

  Birds and small critters scurried to be out of the way, dashing for cover in hollowed logs and knobby tree holes and into underground dens. For the next few hours, until it was nearly dusk, the wood beyond Inesfree was systematically dissected. More than fifty men, never more than six to ten feet apart, about the tedious chore of inspecting every inch they trod upon, their intense gazes never forgetting to consider the wiliness and desperation of an escapee. Thus, their search included not only that which was below but also that which stretched above.

  But never was there even the smallest hint of Tess of Marlefield.

  Conall, near to seeing red, called off the search just as the sun began to set, bathing his soldiers and the wood in a burst of orange. He walked through the forest as the detail made its way back to Inesfree, giving instructions to John Cardmore to have the horses ready at the edge of the wood. There, the men mounted and without a backward glance, trotted off, the hunt immediately forgotten, their minds doubtless filled with images of supper and ale and their favorite wench.

  His anger still not having abated, Conall sent one last glance into the trees and shook his head at the improbability of fifty men unable to find one slip of a lass.

  She was here. Close by. He could feel it. Even had the logistics not been on his side—it would have been near impossible for her to have outrun them on foot—he just knew she was near.

  She was waiting. Waiting for this. For Conall to call off the search and relinquish the forest to her.

  When—not if, but when—he got his hands on her, he would throttle her soundly for her ignorance. For daring to brave the forest alone, in the cold and dark. For risking her safety on the minute chance that she would survive the day long journey to Marlefield—provided that she traveled in the correct direction, and did not succumb to starvation if lost, or to cutthroats if set upon, or to creatures of the wood if hungry and hunting. “Better hope ‘tis only me that finds you, lass," he murmured into the encroaching darkness. His anger only grew. Not because she had dared to escape him, but because she did so in a thoughtless and dangerous manner, mindless of her own safety.

  Conall hovered just outside the forest, setting himself up to outwait a seemingly fortuitous and patient Tess.

  CHAPTER 8

  Tess, still crouched in her concealed niche, had heard the beast's order to halt the search. She was aware of the fading sounds, the increasingly distant swish of the swords cutting deep into the forest, the waning pitch of the beast's voice as he moved farther and farther away. She was numb and cold and extremely cramped and that was all that precluded her from screeching aloud her joy at this success.

  Twice, the company had moved past her. She'd felt them walk around and over her small den. Once, the tip of a sword had made a cursory sweep of the leaves she'd closed in around herself, the tip of the blade slicing across her folded knees, ripping easily through the linen of her kirtle, taking plenty of her skin along the way. Amazingly, she'd not cried out though her surprise had been great. Mayhap the firmness of bent knees, which gave not at all at the attack, was taken for hard packed earth, whereas had it been an arm or heaven forbid, her neck or face that the unknowing assailant had struck, she would have instinctively recoiled and this movement would have been felt along the line and hilt of the sword. As it was, she thought her limbs, which had been numb for hours, was all that had kept her from crying out; she’d felt only a pinch as the blade cut her.

  Surely, it had been more than an hour now since she'd heard any tumult or racket raised by nearly a quarter of an army walking amid the forest. Now, she was only aware of the clamor of her beating heart, but even that had ceased to pound in her ears, settling down to a less strident pitch.

  Very slowly, Tess crawled from her borrowed den, her legs from thigh to toe protesting every movement of her laborious crawl. She did not rise immediately as this would have proven impossible on numb limbs. Taking advantage of the only limbs that presently did cooperate, Tess used her arms to drag herself into a soft clearing, plopping herself onto her rump. She stretched her legs out before her and tried to work the kinks from her muscles, slightly unnerved by the complete and utter darkness of the forest, now more than an hour past sundown. If there was moonlight, it would be of little use filtered so sparingly through the trees. Concentrating on her weakened state, she spent the next few minutes massaging her legs, aware of the sticky wetness at her knees, no doubt her own blood, though presently she was still too numb to feel much pain. After a while, she finally rose and immediately collapsed back onto the leaf strewn earth. A few more minutes had passed, and she tried again, this time with greater success, loping over to the nearest tree, against which she leaned heavily for support.

  The slice across both her knees cut exactly across the middle and therefore, now that feeling had returned to her limbs, each step was excruciating as the open skin stretched and pulled and tore yet more to accommodate her movements.

  But Tess was determined and soon was limping awkwardly but at a clever pace from tree to tree.

  She'd covered no more than fifty feet when she first heard the noise, not unlike things she might have heard earlier w
hile the search was underway, being of a metallic nature, not borne of any creature of the forest.

  As quickly as her legs would allow, she ducked behind a tree, peeking about to find the source of the noise. But she was able to see only darkness even as the sound drew nearer, even as she identified it as the jangle of a harness there was no movement to discern its exact whereabouts. Tess lurched forward, pushing away from her crutch, the tree, into an ungainly sprint, feeling as if her knees were sliced anew with each step she took. But pain was easily ignored when one's fear was greater. Branches and leaves smacked her in the face as she ran. Twice, she fell, tripped by protruding and gnarled roots and quickly picked herself up, knowing she cost herself any advantage every time she glanced behind to gauge the distance between she and her still unseen pursuer.

  Soon the pounding of hooves became all too near, sounding as if any second she might be trampled as she ran. She was sure she felt the eerie hot breath of the beast on her neck and cried now as she continued to run and then suddenly the harness jangled no more, the galloping hooves ceased. Above the roar of blood pounding in her ears, above the heaving of her own breath and the clumsy trod of her own foot, she heard the heavy stamp of two feet hitting the ground and then the purposeful thud of those feet in pursuit, gaining on her, surrounding her.

  She screeched as a weighty paw thumped onto her shoulder and turned her around with such force she crashed into the solid wall of a chest.

  "Damn you, Tess!" she heard the beast's voice then, void of the level of anger she would have expected of him. Tess looked up but could barely discern his features through blurry eyes in this darkness.

  Desperately, she turned her head to one side and bit deeply into the paw that detained her.

  "Arrgh!" He raged and pulled his hand away as the other simultaneously took up one of her free hands in his. And then came the anger she'd anticipated. "Try that again and I'll turn you over my knee!" he promised in a hiss, shaking her imprisoned hand to enunciate.