Page 2 of Stealing Sophie
Turning, he motioned. Neill and Andrew ran ahead and dropped to lay flat behind boulders, and grabbed hold of the stout ropes that snaked through grass and heather, the far ends tied to the bridges.
Connor watched as the Highlanders in the escort stepped on the first bridge. The women followed on their horses, the riders recognizable by the long drape of gowns and cloaks. One of them shone like a star, her bright gown reflecting the scant light. Behind them at a bit of distance came the dragoons, their red coats dark now, their white vests, breeches, and cross-halters pale in the mist.
Connor listened for the thud of hoofbeats on the planks. He heard voices—a man speaking, a female whining what sounded like a complaint. The other female answered, light and sweet. His heart bounded. Her voice was soft, magical.
His bride’s voice. He lost his focus for an instant. Soon he would hear that lovely voice in his own house, upon his pillow, God save him, and forever in his dreams.
Her voice was fey and alluring. The MacCarrans of Duncrieff had fairy blood, so it was said, with magical abilities passed down through generations. Connor did not believe in such things, but the girl’s voice sounded like an enchantment. A shiver went through him.
Just a trick of the mist, he told himself.
Wrapped in fog, he stepped forward cautiously. The women’s horses cleared the bridge planking and struck out over the moorland toward the second watercourse. The two Highlanders walking ahead of the women reached the next bridge at the same moment that the dragoons’ horses stepped onto the first bridge, old planks creaking.
The women were isolated in the middle ground between the burns.Now.Connor gave a low owl’s hoot, and his comrades whipped the ropes taut in the grass, pulling.
The bridges groaned and began to collapse, planks crashing into the water. Men shouted, the Highlanders falling into the water and onto rocks, while the dragoons’ mounts neighed and stumbled into the water of the first burn. On the turf, the women cried out, their horses sidestepping, turning, while the women tried to control them.
Connor surged forward through the darkness.
Sophie MacCarran pulledon the reins as her horse whirled. Somehow the men in her escort had fallen into both burns—somehow, the bridges had collapsed. In the confusion, unsure if her companions were safe or hurt, all she could do was try to calm her horse. Beside her, Mrs. Evans shrieked, her companion’s age and nervous disposition making it more of a challenge to control her sidestepping mount.
“Mrs. Evans, hold tight!” Sophie called, while her horse circled back and forth so that she could not reach the other woman to help her.
Gripping her horse’s reins, Sophie tried to look around but could see little through the gauzy vapor. She could hear her cousins, Allan and Donald MacCarran, crashing in the water, swearing in Gaelic. Behind her, the English dragoons splashed and shouted, struggling to help the horses, men, and beasts scrambling to gain a foothold on scattered rocks in the fast-flowing water.
As her horse whirled, Sophie fought to hang on and discern direction. Sound and commotion seemed to come from all sides. Where were the two burns, how far away? She could not risk her horse stumbling down a bank. Her riding skills, basic at best, were quite rusty after six years spent in a convent.
Controlling the animal took all her concentration. She pulled on the reins, calling reassurances, tilting back with the effort, nearly sliding off as the horse spun again.
“Steady, lass.” A deep, strong voice—then a firm grasp on her waist as a man reached up to help her regain her seat. Then he flashed out a hand to grab her horse’s bridle, stilling the animal with a gentle murmur, a soothing hand for a frenzied horse. Through the fog, she saw broad shoulders draped in plaid, dark hair, the side of an unshaven jaw.
“Allan? Donald?” Her Highland cousins must have emerged safely from the water. Sophie felt relieved—but when her savior turned his head, she saw a stranger.
He took the bridle and led her horse forward, and Sophie was sure then that some nearby tenant farmer had heard and had come to help. “Thank you, sir!”
The man looked back—a piercing glance, a sweep of dark hair, a plaid—and turned away without an answer.
“My horse is fine now,” she said. “Leave me here. My companion needs assistance now, and so do the men in the water. I will wait.”
He said nothing, drawing the horse along by the bridle, leading them away. Did he speak only Gaelic? She had spoken it some in childhood, but could not recall much now under duress.
“Tapadh leat,” she managed. “Thank you. My companions need help if you will,” she continued in English.
Now the Highland farmer was running, taking her horse deeper into the swirling fog, putting distance between her and the watercourses so that she could no longer see her escort floundering about, although she could hear them. Mrs. Evans, certainly, was shrieking and moaning, her horse evidently out of control.
Alarmed, Sophie leaned back, pulling on the reins to try to stall her horse. The animal whickered, sidestepped, torn between the man’s command to move forward and the woman’s signal to hold back.
“Let go!” she called to the Highlander. “Stop!”
Not even a backward look. Only a strong fist wrapped around the leather bridle, only a muscular arm draped in a linen shirt, the broad shoulders and dark head turned away from her. Silently, steadily, he moved forward.
She saw the gleam of weapons in his belt. Dirk and pistol. A brigand.
Dear Lord.Returning to Scotland only days ago, she had already heard tales of the rebels and outlaws who lived in the Highland hills, some of them renegade Jacobites, some lawless men entirely. Sir Henry Campbell, the magistrate who had hosted dinner for her at Kinnoull House, had warned her not to cross the length of the glen that night.
But she had felt safe in the company of her brawny Highland cousins and the two soldiers assigned by the magistrate. She and Mrs. Evans were weary from their travels and anxious to reach Duncrieff Castle that night. And Sophie had been a little anxious to depart Sir Henry’s company as well. Her father, before his death, had promised her to Sir Henry Campbell in marriage, no matter his daughter’s protests. Once Sophie had finished her education in a Belgian convent, she had returned to Scotland, sent by her widowed mother to keep her father’s promise to marry a man she despised.
Now she wished she had stayed at Kinnoull House at Sir Henry’s invitation. The magistrate’s dire warning about brigands earlier that night had proven true.
