Page 10 of Taming the Highland Misfits
“I’m sorry, but I think it is best you don’t know that, Maura,” Isla replied. “For your own safety.” This was a lie. The truth was that Isla had no idea where she was going herself.
Maura nodded and continued to pack the one small bag Isla was taking with her before Isla handed her a small, jingling pouch. “Leave early,” she said as she reached out to touch her maid’s cheek. “It has been a pleasure and an honour to know you, Maura.”
“I should be sayin’ that, Mistress.” Maura’s eyes were once more full of tears. She stepped forward, and against all the rules of polite society, she hugged Isla tightly. But then, they had broken so many rules that evening it was of no consequence.
4
Isla could not sleep. Every time she closed her eyes the image of her father and Maura appeared in her mind’s eye and she felt a hot surge of rage. She tossed and turned so much that her sheets became tangled around her body and she was so uncomfortable that she kicked them off. She lay in the darkness trying to order her thoughts into some kind of plan for her escape.
First of all, where would she go? Then, where would she stay? She had enough money to last for a few months, but she would be a fugitive, so staying at an inn was out of the question. It would be the first place they would look.
At last, she sat up in bed and shook her head, as if by doing so she could clear the confusion of her thoughts and impose some kind of order on them. Then she laid her head on her pillow again and tried to sleep, but that too was futile, so eventually she rose from bed and went to the window.
During May in the Highlands there was very little in the way of nighttime. It was only fully dark just before midnight, and the first hint of dawn began only a few hours after that. By five o’clock it was almost full daylight. This was normally a blessing, since Isla loved to ride early in the morning, but today it made escape very difficult, since she could be easily seen by anyone in the mansion.
Isla knew she had not much time before it was light enough for her to be fully visible, so she threw on the clothes Maura had laid out for her, drank a cup of ale and took a last look around the room she had slept in her entire life. It had been her nursery, then her playroom, and now it was her boudoir. She had never slept anywhere else. Where would she be sleeping tonight?
She shook the thoughts from her head, since she knew that moping would do no good at all; she needed to move, and fast. Isla tiptoed out, saying a silent goodbye to Maura, who was sleeping in her little adjoining room.
After a last look around, she crept downstairs and made her way to the stables. As she saddled Raffy she whispered, “We’re on our way now, girl!”
Raffy whickered in acknowledgement, and a moment later Isla climbed on her back and they trotted out of the big wrought iron gate. As soon as they had put the estate behind them, Isla urged Raffy into a gallop.
“We’re free, Raffy!” she yelled. “Free at last!”
As if she understood, Raffy whinnied and leapt into a gallop. Isla gave the horse her head, and soon they had put a mile behind them, then, confident that they were not being followed, Isla slowed down a little. There was nothing to fear any longer—she hoped.
* * *
A few hours later they stopped by the side of a small loch so that Raffy could drink. Isla was ravenously hungry and furious at herself for not thinking of bringing some food with her. She cast around to see if there were any nuts or berries she could eat, but the trees would not bear fruit until autumn, and that was still a long way off. She could see mushrooms growing underneath the trees, but she had no knowledge of which were poisonous and which were not, so she decided not to try her luck and eat them.
She sat for a while listening to the rumblings of her stomach and wondered what to do, then as she sat looking at the surface of the loch, which was shivering slightly in the breeze, she saw a fish leaping up above the water. She had no idea what kind of fish inhabited it, but she was determined to find out. She had once been impressed by one of the local lads who had fashioned himself a fishing rod out of a stick, a piece of twine, and a hook made out of a bent nail. He had caught three big trout.
‘How difficult can it be?’Isla thought. She looked around and saw a broken tree branch about six feet long and just the right thickness to serve as a rod. Then she took out the ball of twine that she had brought to hobble Raffy if she had to spend the night outdoors, and tied a length of it to the end of the stick. Lastly, she removed one of the pins in her hair and bent it into a hook shape, then dug into the earth with her hands to find some earthworms to use as bait.
Her hands were clumsy since this was a new exercise for them, but at last, she was finished. She looked at her handiwork and smiled, pleased with herself. It took a few fruitless attempts before she managed to cast the makeshift line and hook properly, but after only a few minutes she felt a tug on the line. She lifted it up the rod and then pulled on the twine, clumsily dragging her catch back to the shore. To her astonishment, a large silver fish about a foot long had taken the bait, and was now wriggling energetically on the hook. Isla thought it might be a carp, but her knowledge of these things was limited to the extreme. Whatever kind of fish it was, it was edible, and that was all that mattered.
Isla impaled the fish on a stick, gathered a few sticks together to make a fire, then knocked two pieces of stone together to create a spark, and in moments she was roasting her catch. Her mouth watered at the delicious aroma.
She was amazed by her own ingenuity. Clearly, this experience was teaching her many new skills, but she still had dozens of other problems to face, such as where she was going to sleep that night. She looked up at the sky as she waited for the fish to cook; at least it was not midwinter, so if she had to sleep somewhere under the stars, she would not freeze to death. However, there was always the possibility of rain. Scotland was quite generous with that particular commodity!
Presently the fish was cooked, and she set about eating it ravenously as if she would never have the chance to eat again. She had heard a saying that hunger was the best spice, and now she found that it was true. The fish was without doubt the best meal she had ever eaten. When she finished, she sat back to savour the feeling of having a full belly at last; her hunger would return in a few hours' time, she knew, but by that time she planned to be in a village or town.
Suddenly, she heard the sound of rustling in the bushes. She tensed; there was always the possibility of bandits, and she had no defence against them at all. Without thinking, in a complete panic, Isla ran towards Raffy and almost leapt into the saddle, then wheeled her around and urged her into a gallop. A moment later, however, she saw the form of a mother deer and her fawn near where she had been sitting, and realised that she had never been in any danger.
She laughed to herself and breathed a sigh of relief before she slowed Raffy down to a walk.
Her relief was short-lived, however. A moment later, she saw two riders galloping towards her at considerable speed, and her heart lurched. Both of them looked to be male, and they had obviously seen her since she heard a shout, then saw one of them pointing at her. They shifted direction slightly so that they were heading straight for her, and Isla, terrified, wheeled around and galloped away in the opposite direction.
Raffy was a fast horse, but the ones behind her were bigger and stronger, and after a while, Isla realised that they were gaining on her. She dug her heels into her horse’s sides to try to coax a little more speed out of her, but the mare was already giving her best.
They rode onto a patch of land that was liberally strewn with boulders and many smaller stones, and that was when disaster struck.
Raffy stepped on one of the smaller boulders and lurched sideways in an effort to keep her balance. Isla felt a sudden jolt, and the world suddenly became a jumbled blur of colours as she was thrown off her horse’s left side. For a moment, she was giddy, disoriented and had no comprehension of what was happening to her. She hit the ground with a thud, and only narrowly avoided hitting her head on one of the boulders. The impact shuddered through her whole body, and the slamming pain and shock that assailed her rendered her unconscious in seconds.
* * *
Finley had seen the two horsemen as he was on his way back from Inverleith after buying some food. They were a couple of the most brutal of all the bandits he knew, and when he saw them bending over the prone figure on the ground, he spurred his horse on to intervene. These two men would take advantage of anyone, whether they were conscious or not, and he was determined not to let it happen as long as he could do something about it.
