Page 4 of Heather and the Highlander
If Niall MacNair could make a deal with the devil to make the coach go ten times faster, he’d have done it in a heartbeat. His business in London had been depressing and inconclusive, leaving a foul taste in his mouth (or was that the inferior whisky he’d been drinking?). He cursed all bankers and lawyers. He cursed bookmakers, moneylenders, and gamblers. He cursed London, all Englishmen, and men in general, just to make sure he wasn’t missing anyone.
He couldn’t wait to get back home to Carregness in the highlands. The air was purer, the people kinder, the world more peaceful. He wouldn’t be constantly worrying about the precarious state of the family’s wealth, at least not for a while. He had plenty of coin with him now, thanks to selling off some jewels that made the buyer’s eyes gleam.
Niall fidgeted with the ring in his pocket. It was set with a sapphire, and he had intended to sell it with the others. But when the moment came, he couldn’t bear to part with it. It had been his mother’s.
He pulled the ring out and looked at it for the thousandth time. It was gold, etched with a design of leaves, and in the middle, like a flower emerging from a bud, the deep blue sapphire glowed with an inner light. Niall put it on—it fit only on his pinky finger, and then only to the knuckle. He smiled to himself, thinking how small a woman his mother had been, and yet such a force to be reckoned with.
Niall cautiously stretched his legs, using all the available floor space in the coach to do so. Not that the coach was full—in fact, he was the only one in it. But Niall was a big, lumbering ox of a man, and he had a track record of bumping and breaking things unless he was very careful. His childhood and adolescence were marked by a string of clumsy accidents. His mother had rolled her eyes with every new report of a ripped seam, or broken vessel, or dented wood.
He cherished those eye rolls now. Yes, he needed money, but he refused to sell his memories. Not yet.
“Niall my lad, you’re growing so fast you don’t know where you end and the world begins,” she’d say. “Will you only take a look before you leap, darling?”
He promised that he would. And he tried. He truly did. But young boys are not the most temperate of beings, and he continued to leave destruction in his wake.
He’d improved over the years. But it was still difficult, being the bull in the china shop of life. Niall looked out the window at the passing English landscape. Green and lush, the very end of summer, when the long, lazy days turned to the earliest bustle of the harvest. He saw a few more buildings than before, and hoped that it heralded a town along the road.
“If the next village has a decent inn, stop there,” he called to the driver, who nodded. Niall leaned back and sighed. It would be good to stretch his stupidly long legs, even if it meant delaying his return by a few more moments.
Soon they rode into a little crossroads town, with a smattering of buildings to cater to the needs of locals and travelers alike. The coach pulled up into the courtyard of a posting inn with a sign of two swans hanging above the door. Niall stepped out, grateful for the open air.
“See to the horses, Tavish, and grab a quick meal for yourself and more food for the coach. After we get back on the road, I don’t want to stop till nightfall. Now I need a walk. Won’t be more than a quarter hour.”
“Aye, sir. I want to look at that front wheel, anyway. It’s wobbly and I don’t like it,” Tavish said, accepting the coins Niall handed him to cover the costs.
Then Niall passed through the courtyard entry and headed down the high street. He walked fast, swinging his arms as much as he could. Not exactly the picture of a gentleman, but no one knew him here. Who would care? He was just another traveler.
The town wasn’t very big. Just as Niall was about to turn and head back to the posting inn, he glanced down a side street and saw something odd. A group of men surrounded a woman whose stance was like a cornered cat. Her dress was shabby, dated, and fit badly. Perhaps it wasn’t her dress at all. Was she some sort of escapee from a local asylum? He took in her unbound blonde hair and bare feet. More than that, he caught the animal fear in her face.
His blood heated and his muscles tensed, reacting to that primal emotion. No one should ever have to be stalked like prey, least of all a young woman who obviously needed help in the first place.
“Get away from me!” the woman warned the circle of men, her voice rising clear through the air all the way to Niall’s ears. She raised her arms, her hands curled into fists, as if a butterfly decided to turn prizefighter. She looked commendably fierce, but one girl against a gang of men? Not exactly a fair fight.
This is no good, Niall thought, sensing the anger and jumpiness in the mob. Any second now, things would turn violent. Unless he could stop it.
“Ah, there ye are, my girl!” he called out, surprising everyone—including the girl, whose wide brown eyes locked on him.
“Where’ve you got off to, lass?” he continued, easily pushing past the spectators as he made his way toward the center of commotion. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Come on, we’ve got to go. Spent enough time on your account. Comeon,” he repeated, taking her by the elbow.
She gasped in indignation, but didn’t actually get any words out, perhaps too flummoxed to reply to his nonsense.
However, one of the men who’d been taunting her stepped up to Niall.
“You know this woman?” he asked, his breath fogged with the smell of gin. “You ought to keep a better eye on her. She’s been wandering up and down the high street begging for a ride from any man she sees, and all the while dressed like a wh—”
Quicker than thought, Niall lashed out with one arm, grabbing the man’s shirt in his hand and pulling him toward Niall.
“Best not say that word in front of me,” he warned in a cold tone. “Or her.”
“Then you’d best take her out of this town. We got standards here.”
Niall sneered at the man. “I can see the sort of standards here, ye radge. Stinking drunk before noon, harassing young women who can’t fight you off.”
Just then, he sensed the girl move, trying to slip away while his back was turned. He reached out and took her by the hand without looking.
“Right you are, lass,” he said, ignoring the girl’s struggle to extricate herself from his grip. “We’d best be on our way.”
Niall pivoted and stepped close to her, both to shield her from the other men and to ensure that she wouldn’t bolt.
