Page 26 of The Hawk Laird
She saw thunder in his eyes. “I meant no harm through my visions. I forget the prophecies as soon as I say them. I amsorry if whatever came from me harmed you and yours. I want my prophecies to help people.” She looked up at him with true regret. “Mayhap that will bring you some sense of peace.”
“Hardly,” he muttered. He yanked firmly on the leather and she let go. Her horse stepped forward to follow his and she rode in the wake of his silence like a boat in a storm.
“If Ralph does house your lover at Wildshaw,” she said, after a while, “then let me go there and I will ask him to release her. Then we will both have what we want, without all this fuss of ransom and anger.”
“We will not talk more of this now,” he said over his shoulder. “We will wait until you are rested and less irritable.”
“Irritable! You are the ill-willed one here.”
He said nothing, his back to her. The steady footfalls of the horses filled the silence. She watched him for a long time, seeing the wide strength of his back, the power in his arms and thighs, the beautiful strands of gold that threaded his hair—and the invisible iron rod that seemed to form the core of his being.
She remembered his gentle words, his warm touch. All that was irretrievably lost between them. She felt the disappointment of that like a betrayal.
“I thought I could trust you,” she said. “I was wrong.”
“You will not be the first to say that of me,” he replied.
He kneed his horse to a canter, drawing her along behind him. Isobel gripped the horse’s mane and glared at the man’s back, even as she tried to keep her balance at the pace he set.
Profound weariness, made heavier by fear and anger, settled like a lead cope over her shoulders. As they rode on, she grew too exhausted to even think about arguing with him. She rode in a daze, her body aching with fatigue, her wounds burning, her thoughts and emotions in a thick muddle.
When James slowed to silently hand her an oatcake that he took from a pouch at his waist, she said no word of thanks. She ate woodenly, hardly tasting it.
The sky was almost fully dark as they reached a narrow wooden bridge over a river. The moist air and the loud, white-capped rush of the water below them revived her senses, and she guided her mount across the bridge. They left the riverbank and rode across a moor, entering the rim of the forest.
The trees seemed to swallow them in rich darkness. James slowed their pace, for only silvery strands of moonlight lit the earthen path. But he went steadily forward, as if he saw through the night, as if he knew this track blinded.
Isobel frowned at the thought. Her misery—physical, mental, and emotional—increased as the horses’ hooves thudded onward. She did not want to ride any farther; she did not want to be held hostage by this infuriating outlaw; she did not want to feel the deep aches of pain and fatigue any longer.
She did not even care to gain her freedom in this moment. All she wanted was to rest, and oddly, she longed to be held like a child. Her thoughts could barely go beyond simple yearning for someone who cared about her, soothed her, as her parents had done; both were gone. James Lindsay did not seem willing to offer her comfort.
Tears pooled in her eyes and she dashed them away, then she let them slide down her cheeks, too tired to hold them back. A hiccoughing sob escaped from her, and James glanced at her. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then turned away, his jaw set tight.
As they reached a fork in the path and turned left, Isobel uttered a small, involuntary cry and slumped forward, collapsing in raw exhaustion. She hardly knew, or cared, if she fell or was lifted down. All she wanted was sleep.
She heard him say her name as she melted into a black void.
Chapter Eight
Kee-kee-kee-er.
Pearled light filtered through the overhead leaves as James opened his eyes. Certain he had heard the cry of a hawk, he scanned the clearing in which they had spent the night, but saw no hawks overhead or in the trees. He glanced down.
Lady Isobel lay stretched out beside him, wrapped in his cloak, still asleep. He had dozed with his back against the wide trunk of an oak tree, while a sturdy root, covered by his cloak, served as her pillow and his armrest. She slept deeply, curled warm against his thigh, serene and lovely. But her snores created an earthy contrast that made him smile.
He remembered how his older brother had snored like that in the bed they had shared as boys. James had pinched and pushed at him to gain quiet, and his brother often returned a solid, sleepy punch before rolling over. At the thought of his brother, killed on the bloody, tragic field at Falkirk seven years earlier, James lost the smile.
Kee-kee-kee-keer.
Again he heard the unmistakable cry of a hawk. But it was an agitated kakking rather than the long, clear cry of a hawk in flight. To his practiced falconer’s ear, the bird sounded distressed. James sat straighter, careful not to wake the girl. He looked around the glade but saw no hawks.
Beside him, Lady Isobel blew out a long, loud breath. James patted her shoulder gently. She inhaled and sighed out another noisy snore. He touched her jaw, petal-soft yet firm beneathhis fingertips, and she turned her head. The shift quieted her breathing. He rested his hand on her shoulder and continued to look around for a hawk.
He had only dozed, yet felt alert. Years of living as a forest renegade had taught him to rest warily, his weapons close at hand. In the weeks since Wallace had been taken and his own name had become an anathema, that ability had served him well.
He leaned back his head to look at the dense texture of the trees, pierced by shafts of light. The forest at dawn had a sleepy silence where sounds carried clearly. He heard the soft, steady rush of a burn close by, the rustle of ferns as small creatures slipped past, and the whirr of wings among the leaves.
Odd, that. He frowned and glanced about again, his eyes, sharper than most, as keenly attuned to the forest as was his hearing. A handful of larks scattered into the early sky, a sure sign that a predator, perhaps a hawk, was nearby, even without the kakking he had heard.
