Keeping her gait casual, she started toward the gate. Halfway across the compound, a high-pitched shriek caused her to jerk her head in the direction of the scream. Two children raced across the courtyard. Phoebe shoved her hands into her pockets and slowed her pace. The open gate was only a few feet away. Easy, she told herself. A man stepped from the battlements as she crossed the gate’s threshold. He glanced at her, but she kept her gaze straight ahead as if not having seen him. She felt his gaze linger on her and her heart sank. But he didn’t call out, and a third of the way down the hill she couldn’t refrain from quickening her pace.
Upon reaching the village, she spotted two women she'd met the night of the fire. They smiled. By heavens, they intended to stop her. Phoebe gave a cool nod and one woman flashed her a disgusted look. Phoebe winced inwardly, but kept walking. The minutes it took to reach the stables ticked by with the sluggishness of a nightmare. She reached the stables and slipped inside. A quick inspection of the horses revealed two stallions, a mare, and two geldings. She backtracked three stalls to the first gelding, a nice looking chestnut.
Phoebe ran a hand along the strong back of the animal. “Your brethren in the keep’s stables are finer than you,” she cooed, “but pay them no mind. We have the element of surprise and will outrun them.”
With a precision born of practice, she had the gelding saddled in ten minutes. Phoebe took a deep breath. “Ironic. Of all the villains I have had to escape, it is a duke insisting I marry his son that makes me quiver in my shoes.”
Leading the horse toward the rear door, she halted at the squeak of a wagon wheel halting at the front of the stable.
“There, there,” a raspy voice called.
The creak of wood indicated the wagon’s driver was dismounting. She would have to make a run for it after all. Phoebe urged the horse the final paces to the rear door. She shoved the door open and, yanking her skirts past the point of propriety, vaulted into the saddle. She dug her heels into the stallion’s belly just as light streamed into the stable from the other end.
“What the—" Phoebe heard behind her as the beast lurched forward into the morning light.
The ride through the lane was finished in seconds. She shot past the last cottage, and the young boy who stood on its step staring after her.
Phoebe didn't slow the gelding when the forest thinned, but kept him at a cantor as she glanced up at the early afternoon sun. Four hours had passed since she’d fled Brahan Seer and only one hour since she’d spotted three riders half a mile behind her. Her stomach churned. Despite the fact that she'd circled north before heading south, they had picked up her trail. Phoebe urged her horse up the hill she had been riding alongside the past fifteen minutes. His neck muscles strained with the effort.
“That’s it, laddie,” she said. “Let’s have a look.”
They topped the summit and she brought the horse to a halt beneath the cover of trees. She surveyed the sparsely treed terrain directly below, moving her gaze northward where the forest thickened. Her gaze snagged on shadowy movement within the trees and her pulse jumped. She couldn't discern the men's faces, but there could be no doubt who led the men: Kiernan MacGregor. Phoebe yanked the reins and whirled the horse around and back down the hill.
“Easy,” Phoebe instructed the gelding as he tried to veer west and deeper into the forest.
She estimated the border to be about two hours south. Darkness had fallen and, though she would have preferred the cover of thicker foliage, she feared getting lost without the aid of the moon and stars which, thankfully, shined bright that night. The horse neighed loudly.
“Quiet.” She pulled back on the reins.
He neighed again, this time, succeeding in veering off course. Phoebe distinguished the soft rush of water and realized the horse's intent. She relaxed her grip on the reins and the gelding quickly broke through the foliage and into a small clearing. Phoebe spotted a stream ten feet away, glistening in the moonlight. The horse trotted to the water’s edge. She dismounted as he bent his neck and drank. She lowered herself to her knees and did the same. A rustle of leaves beyond the brook caused her to pause.
For a moment, the faint sound remained lost in the babble of the brook, then slowly distinguished itself as the light tread of a horse. Had Kiernan MacGregor separated from his men? Or maybe this was one of his men. Phoebe pulled her skirt calf-high and jumped noiselessly across the brook. She crept to the nearest tree and listened. The rider’s approach was still faint. She glanced at her horse. He grazed contentedly beside the brook.
Phoebe stole deeper into the forest following the discerning the horse's step. She stopped behind the trunk of a sprawling chestnut tree. The moon sliced through the branches in thick stabs of light and she was rewarded with the sight of a rider picking his way through the trees. This short, stocky man was not Kiernan MacGregor. Two men on horseback materialized from the shadows of a large oak beyond the rider.
Phoebe started, then her heart skipped a beat. None of the men wore kilts, but instead, wore the loose fitting trousers and badly cut woolen coats worn by the lower class English.
“Ain’t but three o’ ‘em,” the man she had followed said in rough English accents.
“You sure?” another demanded with authority.
“I can count," the first retorted.
A twig snapped in the darkness beyond the men.