Page 25 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
“Well, it’s a day’s good gallop to the border and to where folk are friendly to Scotsmen. Then another four days on top o’ that to where me people dwell in the Highlands.”
Edward packed his meager possessions into his saddlebags, tied Charlotte’s basket to the saddle skirt and pulled himself into the saddle. He reached down his hand, Charlotte took it and he pulled her easily up behind him.
“Hold tight to me now, lass,” he told her.
He tried to keep his cool as he felt her hands slip around his middle. Then he clocked his tongue at Cogar and said, “All right, lass, let’s show this Sassenach the meanin’ of swiftness!”
9
Adair Bolton ripped back the canvas flap to his daughter’s private quarters, an enraged grimace contorting his features. His ice-chip eyes glittered malevolently in his face as he prepared to rebuke her for lying in sloth for all the morning. It did not reflect well on him that he should have a daughter prone to lethargy and idleness.
“Girl, you–” he began.
The words died on his lips. The tent was empty. Not a sign of his daughter.
Captain Bolton’s shrewd, cold eyes flicked around the room, as observant and calculating as any predatory animal’s had ever been. The bed was fastidiously made––his daughter had always been self-sufficient in that matter––and everything was as neat and orderly as it usually was. He looked over to the corner where she habitually kept her boots and saw that they were gone. Then he strode to the wardrobe, wrenched the door open and peered inside.
The heavy midnight blue cloak I bought her is gone.
One last look about the room convinced him that that damned foraging basket that the girl was so prone to lugging about with her was gone too. Captain Bolton’s top lip drew back from crooked, white teeth in a silent snarl.
Gone, and without even a word. Even after my explicit warnings last night.
He whirled around, his red captain’s coat swirling in his wake and barged his way out into the weak Scottish sunshine.
“You!” he barked at one of his aides that was always close at hand to do his bidding.
“Yes, sir?”
“Get a party of ten men together and find my damned daughter,” ordered Captain Bolton.
“Yes, sir,” the man replied immediately. “Any notion as to where she might be, sir?”
Captain Bolton, never a man who any would have said was possessed of much in the way of sweetness and light, stopped mid-stride and turned slowly to face the unfortunate aide.
“I––I––I just m-mean, sir, that if you had any idea as t-to where she might have––”
“If I knew where it was that she might be,” the Captain said, in a voice as sharp, dangerous, and full of potential pain as a stiletto laid across a throat, “do you not think I should be looking there already, hm?”
The aide stuttered something incomprehensible.
“Quite,” said the Captain, in the same silky voice. “Now,” and he put a long-fingered hand on the trembling aide’s shoulder, “go and round up some competent men and find my daughter, before I have you flogged. There’s a good chap.”
The color could not have drained faster, nor the man’s feet move any quicker, had Captain Bolton screamed directly into his face.
“Y-y-y-yes, sir!” he said, saluting and almost tripping over a stack of firewood in his haste to obey.
Captain Bolton watched the man go. Only when he was well out of sight, and Adair knew that he was alone, did he give a savage and powerful kick to a sack of grain nearby.
He was poring over a map of the local area, fifteen minutes later, when the guard outside his door cleared his throat, stuck his head in and told him that the aide had returned.
“Let him in, then,” Captain Bolton commanded curtly.
The aide ducked through the tent flap and bowed.
“Well?” Captain Bolton said, without so much as looking up from the map he was studying. “Have you found my recalcitrant daughter?”
“No, sir,” the aide said, with evident discomfort.
