Page 49 of The Highlander's Captured Bride
I feel like a coward.
Every fiber of his being was thrumming with the urge to turn back, go home, be with his father, put their heads together and fetter out this murderer. But, one look at the woman riding beside him knew that he could not do it. The best it could do—even though it felt like salt rubbed into his wound—was to be far from the scope of this murderer and make sure Violet was out of harm’s way.
“In here,” he said, nodding to a line of forest that they were approaching. “The path is narrow so ye will have to follow behind me.”
Her head twisted and he noticed her nod, before he faced the overgrown dirt-path again. The hunting cabin was a childhood luxury. When he, Finley, and his father would come up here, once or twice in as many years, it was treated as a sanctuary from the troubles at home.
A memory flashed over his mind, that of his father showing him and his brother how to skin a rabbit, how to kill a deer and eventually, as they grew, how to tan a boar’s hide. The river nearby was their playground, one where he had caught fish in, swam in and nearly drowned in. The trees were always laden with abundant fruit and with the summer in high season, he could bet his name that they were ripened and sugary-sweet to the taste.
The slow plod of the horses’ hooves up the slight slope was rhythmic and steady. Only under a mile, they would arrive at the low wooden cottage, that might be hemmed in with bushes. Which might be in their favor as any passerby—or the man who was after him— might think it was abandoned.
His father had sent them off with food but in case they ran out before he sent word for them to come back, he could always buy what they needed from the coins he carried. Ethan’s mind was mostly back with his father at home, but he was still able to smile at a fox using her nose to nudge her sleepy pups awake.
I wonder what father is doing now, and if the diversion worked.
When Mister O’Cain had said the best thing for them to cover his and Violet’s movement was to send people who looked similar to them, in the opposite direction, it sunk in how dire the situation was. If they had to put others at risk for their safety, how determined was this murderer?
The sight of a gabled roof, made of simple thatched dried heather, had relief calming some of the turmoil inside him. They had arrived. As he neared, his suspicions about the cottage being hemmed in with bush were right. Thick bushes nearly covered the rough-cut stone walls but thankfully, the door was clear.
The path widened a little and Violet came to a stop beside him. While gazing at the old house, where a good portion of his best memories had come from, Violet tugged her cowl down and her eyes ran over the cabin, taking it all in with one look.
“Could do with some upkeep,” she mentioned.
“Aye,” he said while slipping from the saddle and walked forward. “And some de-bushing too.”
The two wide, flat stairs were made of stone so there was no fear of him or Violet crashing through rotten boards. He got to the door’s handle and fingered the heavy, rusted, cast-iron lock resting there, another English appropriation from his uncle. Tugging the key out from his pocket, he slid the key in and had to wrestle the thing to turn. With a tinny grate, and screech the lock popped open and he sighed in relief.
Pushing the door in, he took one step in to scan the room. The floor was board resting over tightly packed dirt and stone and the windows were shuttered. The room itself was bare, with a central firepit, a few chairs and stools, and a shelf where their old bedrolls were placed at the far end. He nearly dropped the key. Damnation! They had packed so quickly that they had not remembered to carry bedrolls, only sheets. Another reason he wished this murderer would just topple over dead. It would be nothing less than a miracle if those bedrolls were serviceable.
“It’s nay much,” he said, while moving to the open a window. “But we’ll have to make it work for the time being.”
Violet silently moved to the firepit, trailing her hands over the iron spokes fixed just so high that a pot holding food or water could dangle over the coals without touching them. “Did ye spend a lot of time here?”
“Aye,” he said, glancing at the backdoor where he had nearly tumbled through when was six. “These four walls hold a lot of fond memories…” his eyes shifted to a section of the wall where Finley had held him trapped because he had stolen the last piece of honey-cake and was forced to laugh, “…not much but those I have, I’ll cherish to the day I die.”
“Some were from Finley, I suspect,” she said while tugging her cloak off and folding it over her arm. He did the same and hung it over.
“Most were,” he added. “See what ye can dae about…anything in here while I go get the horses set around the back. Up there are the bedrolls we used, but that was years ago. If, by any miracle, they’re nae infested with critters, we may be able to put them to use again with the sheets we carried.”
“I’ll see what can be done,” Violet nodded.
Striding out, he unpacked the horses first, dropping the bags on the tiny porch then grasped both horses by their leads and forging a trek through the bushes. He managed to lead them to the backyard where there were enough trees for cover and grass for food.
There was one oak tree in particular that had a lot of memories. Tying them on different sides of the tree he looked beyond to where the land dipped to a slope, where at the base, ran a river with enough water and fish for them to use in the next few days.
Taking the saddles was easy and he managed to rest both on low-lying but sturdy tree limbs. His hand then drifted to the trunk where the crude knife marks of his initials and Finley’s still were. His fingertip slid in the jagged groove where Finely’s ‘F’ was slanted, a product of a nine-year-old’s tenuous grasp on a knife’s handle.
“I’ll revenge ye, brother,” he whispered. “I swear it.”
Going back to the backdoor, he paused a moment before he knocked on it. Was Violet singing? He rapped on the door quickly and in a moment, he heard the latch slid back and the door swing in. She stepped away but on the floor near her, he saw the old pallets open and surprisingly intact.
“I suppose they have some use after all,” he murmured.
“Aye.” She pointed to a window. “I couldnae get that one open, can ye?”
It was then he realized the windows were open, the floor looked swept, the bags of clothes and food were nearly aligned and there was coal dumped into the firepit. Had she done all this in the short time he had been outside?
She did say she took over the household duties when her maither died…
