The best-laid plans often came to nothing though, and his plan was far from best laid. After three hours or so of riding, when they were once again in a stand of scrubby woods that covered a few square miles, his horse stumbled and then started to limp. On inspection, he discovered that it had managed to lose a shoe.
He cursed under his breath. They were going to have to keep going on foot. Well, Sophia could ride and he would lead his horse. He wasn’t going to abandon the damned thing in the middle of the woods. Sophia’s horse wasn’t large enough to carry both of them, at least not for any length of time. If his memory served, there was a largish farm near where the road to the portal he wanted forked from one of the other main roads. They could leave the horses there and continue on.
They moved off again, but as they reached the edge of the woods, it started to rain. Heavy, soaking rain accompanied by a biting wind. Sophia started to shiver after about twenty minutes or so.
Dust of the goddess. There was no point continuing on if she was going to catch lung fever from being dragged through the rain.
So, new plan. Find shelter.
Another mile or so down the road, he spotted a stone structure in the distance. It was small and very basic. Four walls and a roof and what was revealed as they came closer to be a half-rotted wooden door. He wasn’t sure if it was a shelter for humans or animals, but no one seemed to be using it currently, so it would have to do.
They halted in front of the hut. Cameron swung down from the saddle and peered through the rain. There was still no sign of any occupant, human or otherwise, so he opened the ruined door carefully. The room was empty of furniture, but there was a stone floor to go with the walls, even though it was damp in spots where the roof was letting in some of the rain.
There was a small stack of firewood tucked in one corner and a rudimentary hearth in another. Maybe it was a shepherd’s shelter. The farmers in this part of the country ran both sheep and cattle. Even the odd goat. But whomever it belonged to, it didn’t matter now. The hut would give them shelter and, if the wood would light, some warmth. Enough to stop them from freezing half to death in the rain.
He leaned back out the door and beckoned for Sophia to join him. Her dismount from the horse wasn’t graceful, and she looked pale as she came into the hut.
He made a fire, then went back out to get their saddlebags, which held their other clothes. He told Sophie to change back into her dress, which would be dry at least, and occupy her for the time it took him to make sure the horses were secured in a good spot. When he came back in, she had done so and had wrapped her cloak around herself. She’d laid her breeches and the woolen jacket by the fire. She was still shivering but maybe not so hard.
Cam pulled off the jacket he’d bought at the market and put his uniform jacket back on. It was a bit warmer inside, but the building let the wind in somewhat. Dry clothes helped, but what they really needed was something hot to eat and drink. Whoever had left the firewood hadn’t been kind enough to also leave a kettle or any cooking utensils, however, so he sliced bread and used a damp stick to toast it over the fire.
Sophia ate it in silence and looked better having done so, some of the color coming back to her face as she warmed up.
“Do you think the rain will last?” she asked.
“Hard to tell this time of year.” Summers in Kingswell were mostly dry, but as the season went on, the counties in the middle and north of the country were prone to storms. Some of them bad. So far there hadn’t been any thunder or lightning, but that didn’t mean they weren’t coming. The driving rain and wind were bad enough. “We’ll stay here until it stops.”
If that was much longer than another hour, they might as well spend the night. It would be starting to get dark, and by foot he wasn’t sure they could reach the portal before it was full night.
Sophie pulled the cloak tighter around herself and stared at the fire. He wondered what she was thinking. Tomorrow was her birthday. If they’d been back in Kingswell, tonight she would have been having a feast with her family and then spending the night in the castle’s shrine to await her fate in the morning.
“Are you warmer, milady?” The small fire was as hot as he could make it, but he couldn’t risk building it up to be any larger.
“I think you should call me Sophie,” she said. “Every time you say ‘milady’ like that, I start looking around for my mother. And we’re hardly in the situation to stand on ceremony, are we?”
He smiled. “No. All right, then. Sophie. You don’t like Sophia?” She was Lady Sophia at court though he had heard Eloisa’s ladies calling her Sophie at times.
She shrugged. “There’s nothing wrong with Sophia, but my family always called me Sophie. I’m named after my mother’s mother, and she was still alive when I was little and living with us. I think they called me Sophie to make things less confusing. Lady Sophia still sounds odd to me.”
Cam couldn’t remember which family Sophie’s mother came from, so he wasn’t sure which Sophia was her grandmother. It was a common enough name amongst the court, and there had been several dowager Lady Sophias that he could think of who seemed to be about the right age. Not that it mattered. “Sophie it is, then. Which I guess means I’m Cameron.”
“But ‘lieutenant’ sounds so dashing,” Sophie said with a sudden grin. “That’s what the princess’s ladies call you. The dashing Lieutenant Mackenzie.”
“Do they? Goddess, how appalling. All the more reason to call me Cameron.”
“Better dashing than some of the names they call the other officers.”
He held up a hand. “I think it’s better if I don’t know.”
“Perhaps,” she said. “But some of them are quite amusing.”