Chapter 8
Elspeth sheltered behind Rob, her insides quaking. The panting sound was unmistakable now.
Then she heard a sharp whistle and a shouted, “Ho, Fingal, dinna range so far ahead, laddie.”
A thin, shaggy deerhound appeared around an outcropping of rock.
The set of Rob’s shoulders visibly relaxed. He lowered his knife and chuckled. The hound loped toward him, teeth bared in a doggie grin.
“Ye know this beast?” Elspeth stiffened as it sniffed her with thoroughness, Fingal’s great head higher than her waist.
“Aye, and he’s meek as a kitten so long as ye pose no threat to his master.” Rob ran a hand over the deerhound’s spine from neck to tail. Then he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Angus, ye great bear! Come claim your dog, or we’ll fit him with a saddle and ride him back to your house.”
“I wouldna, if I were you,” came a gravel-throated reply. “I gave him leave to eat the last fellow who tried it.”
A man as shaggy as his dog rounded the same rocks. His hair and beard were the color of an old bird’s nest, and Elspeth suspected he might be hiding one or two in the tangled mess. As he came nearer, she realized that he topped Rob by half a head, and the MacLaren was a very tall man. His ugly face split in a snaggletoothed smile that might have terrified her if she hadn’t lived through the events of the last few days.
“What are ye doing in the forest instead of waiting for us by your boat?” Rob asked.
“Well, ye’re no’ there yet, are ye, and ye said ye would be,” Angus said. “I thought ye might need some help. Where’s Falin?”
“Halfway home, I expect. We ran into a spot of trouble with a wolf pack.”
“Ach, I thought I heard the demons early this morning.” The big man turned to Elspeth and bowed. “And ye must be the Lady Elspeth. Angus Fletcher, at yer service.”
“Ye know me, Mr. Fletcher?”
“Aye, but only by hearsay, ye ken. Robbie said ye’d be making this trip with us, but he didna mention ye were so comely.” The big man’s hairy ears blushed rosy red. “We’ve no lasses near so pretty as ye hereabouts. I’d be beholdin’ to ye if ye’d call me Angus.”
This giant was the first person she’d met since Rob abducted her. Elspeth decided to take a chance.
“Sir…I mean Angus, ye seem a gentle soul. I dinna know what your friend has told ye, but if ye would truly help a lady, then know that I have been taken against my will by Rob MacLaren,” she said, taking care to hold the gap in her skirt closed as best she could. “A boon I beg ye, please. Return me to the bosom of my family, and I promise ye’ll be rewarded for it.”
Angus glanced at Rob and then back at her.
“Weel, Robbie lad, ye’re no’ a liar. She’s a lady, right enough. Talks a fair treat, aye?”
“Talks a lot, ye mean,” Rob said sourly. “And she’s cast a shoe and needs to be carried. D’ye think ye could manage it, Angus? I’m fair done in just carrying myself.”
Without another word, Angus scooped Elspeth up, not slinging her over his shoulder as Rob had, but cradling her in his beefy arms as if she were a bairn.
“Now wait a moment, Mr. Fletcher—”
“Angus,” he corrected.
“Angus.” There was no point in antagonizing him if she wished to convince him to come to her aid, so she wouldn’t complain of the way he carried her. It was certainly better than the undignified way Rob had, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of meal. “Doing the MacLaren’s bidding is no help to me.”
“Och, I canna go against Rob. I owe him a debt, ye see.”
“My father will see your debt paid if ye help me.”
“I owe Robbie for a life, ye see, and no one can pay that debt but me. I know ye’ve had a miserable time of it, what with the wolves and all,” Angus said, “But I expect ye’ll sing a different tune, my lady, once we get ye back to my house.”
“Oh?” That sounded vaguely threatening. “What’s at your house?”
“Weel, since the pair of ye canna have broken your fast, I expect ye’re right sharp set. I’ll fry up some of the good haggis and see if the hens have left us some eggs.”
Just the thought of a hot breakfast made Elspeth’s mouth water.
“And while I do that, ye can…weel, not that ye need it, mind”—Mr. Fletcher’s cheeks pinked above his beard—“but if ye wish it, I suppose I could heat some water for ye to have a bath.”
At the mention of the word “bath,” Elspeth decided she could forgive Angus Fletcher anything.
Even refusing to help her get away from Rob MacLaren.
***
Rob stripped off his filthy clothes on the loch’s shore and left them in a pile as he walked to the water’s edge. He squatted down and splashed himself all over, sucking a breath over his teeth at the cold.
Normally, he’d have skipped a bath in this weather, but Elspeth was getting clean somewhere inside Angus Fletcher’s cluttered, wattle-and-daub two-story home. He didn’t want to smell like a boar pit beside her.
The sun was moving steadily across the southern sky. He’d hoped to be sailing across the loch by this time, but they’d missed the narrow inland sea’s “tide,” according to Angus. His friend knew more about Loch Eireann than any soul alive, so there was nothing to do but wait till the wind and water were more favorable to their cause.
Rob scooped out a dollop of soap from the stone jar Angus had loaned him and smeared his whole body with it. He even gingerly sudsed up his hair, working out the matted blood and hoping not to reopen the gash left when he knocked himself out in that fall against a log.
The savory smell of richly spiced sausages frying wafted out to him.
He turned around to look at the house. Elspeth was behind one of the vellum-covered windows. Did she wonder where he was? If it had been high summer and the windows left uncovered to let in a breeze, would she have peeked out at him as he stood on the shoal, naked as God made him?
He soaped up his groin. Just the thought that Elspeth might spy on him at his bath made part of him happier than it ought to be, considering the temperature.
A cloud covered the sun, and the air cooled even more.
Rob turned and dashed into the loch, the chilly water snatching his breath as he ducked under the waves to rinse off the tallow soap. Then he splashed back out to the shore and rubbed his body briskly with the cloth Angus had lent him.
He sincerely hoped Elspeth wasn’t looking now. After a November dip in Loch Eireann, no man was at his best.
“Ye half-wit,” he mumbled to himself as he pulled the fresh thigh-length shirt over his head. It was an old one of Fletcher’s, so it was a tad long and worn thin in spots, but at least it was clean. “Ye muckle-headed blatherskite!”
Why should he care whether she looked or no’? She was his prisoner, not his sweetheart.
If he muddled that fact, he was destined for trouble.
He wrapped one of his friend’s plaids around his waist and cinched it with a belt. There was plenty left to sling over his shoulder.
And he still had plenty of rage left for Lachlan Drummond. Unfortunately, it was becoming increasingly hard to connect Elspeth Stewart with her betrothed. She was a bonnie lass with more courage than half the men he knew. She certainly showed her quality when the wolves surrounded them. Most lasses—hell, most men—would have shite themselves.
But if his plan for revenge was ever to work, he had to keep thinking of her as Lachlan Drummond’s bride.
He suspected he wasn’t thinking clearly from lack of sleep. During that brief nap with Elspeth in the cave, Fiona hadn’t come to him. He’d merely sunk into a black oblivion. His dreamless slumber hadn’t rested him one whit.
The sausages called to him again, a greasy, flavor-ripe summons.
He followed his nose back to Fletcher’s house.
Some folk said the Scots race had a miserly streak that ran wide and deep. Angus Fletcher would have argued he was merely thrifty. And because of this, he never threw away anything. His home was crammed to the ceiling with bits and pieces of broken tools, moldering animal hides, and scraps of wood that used to be a chair or an ax handle—things he fully intended to repair someday. A body never knew when something might come in useful.
Rob found his friend squatting by the fire. Plump sausages sizzled in the iron skillet bedded in the low flame. Angus speared them and flipped them over to brown both sides.
“Och, laddie, ye smell almost human again,” Angus said with a laugh.
“I dinna think ye’ve been over concerned about bathing yourself, from the looks of ye.” Rob thought it wise to refrain from mentioning that his friend smelled a bit like damp wool.
“I had me bath just last month, thank ye kindly, and won’t be due for another again till spring.” Angus slanted him a sour look. “Unless I spend a night like the one ye just had.”
Rob chuckled. A lifelong bachelor, Angus Fletcher kept his home in an order only he understood. In contrast, his boat, an echo of an old Viking longboat, was as spotless as any goodwife kept her hearth, but Angus was indifferent on the matter of personal cleanliness.
At least when the weather turned cold.
“Water is powerful wet stuff,” Angus warned. “Best applied in small doses.”
“I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Aye, and while we’re jawing about your mind, I’ve got to wonder if there’s aught in it.”
“What d’ye mean?”
“Stealing away a man’s bride.” Fletcher shook his grizzled head. “Ye told me ye’d be bringing along a Stewart lass, but ye didna tell me she’d be comin’ as your prisoner.”
Rob filched a bite of sausage from the skillet and popped it in his mouth. It was near to scalding, but the thin skin burst in a rush of flavor that set his tongue dancing.
“Does that mean ye willna help me?”
“No fear of that, lad. Angus Fletcher honors his debts. But if ye want my help, it might make things easier all around if ye tell me all.”
“Soon, friend.” Rob laid a hand on Fletcher’s shoulder. “Where is the lass?”
“Upstairs. Tell her the breakfast is ready.”
Rob headed for stairs so steep, going up them was like climbing a ladder. Most folk with such small houses didn’t bother with more than one floor, but Angus always complained his feet got cold if he couldn’t heat the room beneath his bedchamber. The main level of the house boasted a new slate floor. He’d gotten tired of trying to sweep dirt clean, Angus explained. No matter how hard you packed it, there was always more to sweep. But upstairs, he claimed his wood floors always felt warmer under his bare feet.
Rob’s head cleared the ceiling of the main floor, and his eyes adjusted to the dimmer bedchamber. This room was less crowded with things. An oversized string bed, to accommodate his oversized friend, dominated the space. There were a couple trunks and small table that held a ewer and pitcher.
Elspeth was standing with her back to him, next to the table. She poured water from a kettle into the ewer. Steam rose before she added cold water from the pitcher. She dipped a cloth into a basin, unaware that Rob was watching her.
He prayed that happy state would continue.
She was naked as Eve in glory.