Page 33 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
“And you’d mostdefinitelyremember seeing that Miss Bolton, wouldn’t you? A fine young filly that one,” Savage leered, in a way that would have made the coarsest infantryman look away.
“Yes, indeed,” Hirst said, in his refined, educated accent. “I’d be inclined to believe in what they told us.”
These three unassuming scouts and trackers were the trio of men that Captain Bolton had entrusted with the safe delivery of his daughter, and the violent dispatch of the man that had taken her. They were feared along the borderlands––feared not just by the Scots, but by their fellow Englishmen too.
“I suggest we look about these parts and see if we cannot find us a trail,” Savage croaked. He was sat in his saddle, tamping tobacco into his pipe. “Chances are this big, daft, abducting bugger would have made a dash for it, and not been too bloody scrupulous about not leaving tracks.”
“I’ve a feeling you’re right, Savage,” Hirst said. He climbed sedately up onto his own sleek mount.
“Well then, gents,” Sheppard said, in his deep, slow, sonorous articulation, “let’s hunt this scallywag down so that we can convey our captain’s displeasure, shall we?”
Savage grinned and kicked his steed into a walk.
“I should like that,” he said. “I should like that very bloody much, indeed.”
“Now, now, Savage,” Hirst said to his colleague. “You must remember to keep a check on that tongue.”
Sheppard smiled a chilling smile. “That’s right, Savage. There will be a lady present soon enough.”
* * *
Edward and Charlotte spent another rather taxing day riding through the woods before emerging once more out into the open countryside.
As they had ridden, Edward had been aware of the press of Charlotte’s body against his, just as a man is aware of the position of the sun by its heat on his back. In the silences that enveloped them as they trotted along, her face would swim to the forefront of his mind. Then he would look down and see her small hands clasped around his middle and allow himself a little disbelieving smile.
They stopped not far from the edge of the wood to take a little refreshment. As Edward took care of the horses, he watched Charlotte from the corner of his eye. The young woman removed her cloak and hung it on a branch to air, then she stretched her aching shoulders and back and neck. She moved with a swaying grace that put Edward in mind of a willow tree moving in a breeze.
The way that those unruly curls of hers flick about her face like fire, the way her eyes are full o’ curiosity––a curiosity that, despite the abuse she has suffered––has nae been beaten out of her.
As the son of a Laird, Edward had met many fine Scottish ladies––women of high standing and repute, daughters of fellow Lairds and the like––but never had he met one that drew his eye, nor quickened his pulse, as Charlotte Bolton did.
He frowned as he hobbled the horses, trying to figure out what it was about her that intrigued him so. Then, it came to him, as abruptly as lightning through a bank of storm clouds.
It is the passion in her. A passion covered in a layer of decorum that only wants setting free. A passion for life that mirrors the wildness of the Highlands that I love so.
He realized that he had been staring at the lass and that she was returning his look with fearless blue eyes.
“Is everything all right, Edward?” she asked him, running her fingers through those wavy curls, sparking within him a desire to run his own fingers through them.
“Aye,” he grunted, nodding. He wondered whether he would ever have the courage, or the eloquence, to tell her how incomparably beautiful he found her. “Aye, everything is just fine, Sassenach.”
Compared to the dark, secret closeness of the woods, the lush rolling greenness of the grasslands was like a breath of fresh air, not just to Edward’s body, but to his soul too.
“Ah,” he said, pushing his hood back from his face and taking a deep breath of the peaty air, as they stepped out of the shadows of the wood’s eves. “Is that nae the very smell o’ life? Does that nae smell like growin’ things to ye, Charlotte?”
To his eye, it seemed that the landscape struck just as strong a cord with her as it did with him. Her eyes were wide, and they shone with a light that looked to him, very much like the light of adventure.
She looks like a woman who has, in an instant, seen her horizons expand tenfold.
“It is like nothing I have ever seen before,” Charlotte replied, her eyes moving slowly over the grass that rippled and undulated like an emerald sea as the wind moved across it. “It’s so…untamed.”
The moors were ripped and creased by craggy valleys and cliffs as they disappeared into the misty horizon. The hills to the west, as high and intimidating as little mountains, marched northwards, their heads shrouded in mist and low cloud.
“Ye ken what else the air smells of, Sassenach?” Edward asked her, his eyes still closed as he breathed in deep lungfuls.
“What?” Charlotte asked.
Edward opened his eyes and nodded out to the east, where a slate-gray line sat heavy and threatening on the horizon.
