Ann Lethbridge - Regency Proposal

Damn it to hell. It was too hard a choice for any daughter to make. She owed Ian nothing and her father everything. But marriage? ‘There must be another way.’

Angus looked grim. ‘Your brother Andrew cut a swathe through the lasses in every glen from here to Edinburgh, but you are the Laird and she is a lady. Have you no honour?’

Resentment at the distaste in the other man’s tone fired his temper. ‘I haven’t touched the lass.’ He flushed red as he recalled their kiss and was glad of the poor light. But it was only a kiss. ‘I didn’t ask her to follow me tonight.’

McIver sighed. ‘But she did. Will you let her suffer for trying to help? You are not the man I thought, if you do not do the right thing.’

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus, to see his way clear. He needed time to think. Time to plan. ‘I will take her to her friend, but that is all I will do.’

McIver shook his head as if disappointed. ‘Think on what I have said, lad. In the meantime, travel as far as you can from here before it is light. You’ll find a welcome in the glens until you get far enough south. Do not dally. There will be a price on your head by morning.’

Reeling with the conflicting thoughts in his head, Ian returned to Selina with McIver on his heels.

‘Well?’ she said.

Ian gave her a rueful grin. ‘I will take you to your friend.’

She turned to McIver. ‘Are you sure this is the only way?’

Angus nodded. ‘Go with Gilvry or your help will have been for nothing.’ He plucked a saddlebag off the rocks where they’d first seen him. ‘There’s water in here, oats and supplies, some coin. Enough to see you on your way. Get a message to your brother, Laird, when you have things in hand.’ He emphasised the last word with a hard look.

Ian didn’t like McIver’s glibness. He seemed to have thought everything out, as if he had some purpose of his own. But he couldn’t see any alternative.

Certainly not marriage.

He looked up. Dawn was reaching into the sky and he could see Selina’s features more clearly and the anxiety in her eyes.

‘We need to go. Now,’ he said.

Wearily, she nodded her agreement and let him throw her up on Beau. She clung there looking down at him with worry and trust.

If anything, it made him feel worse. Somehow he had to find a way out of this mess. For them both. He mounted before her and looked down at Angus. ‘Tell Niall I will send word.’

He turned Beau around and dug in his heels.

Selina had no choice but to cling to the firm waist of the man before her as he turned across country. A dull ache filled her chest. In trying to help Ian, she’d ruined her own future. If only she’d stayed in London, none of this would have happened.

And Ian would have been caught.

It was all the fault of that stupid man Ranald. If he would have just taken her warning to Ian, she could have gone home and no one would have been the wiser.

She looked back over her shoulder at the keep, its outline already distinguishable against the sky. Was she now doing the right thing in going with Ian?

While her heart had said ‘yes’, which was why she hadn’t given them too much of an argument, her head thought it a huge mistake. She had learned a long time ago not to listen to her heart. A cold feeling sank into the pit of her stomach as she realised she was putting her faith in a man she barely knew and had absolutely no reason to trust.

But if Dunstan was threatening to charge her with complicity in smuggling, she needed an alibi. Someone who could vouch for her presence elsewhere.

Alice had been the only person she could think of. But her husband, Hawkhurst, might well not approve. Selina had always had the feeling he didn’t like her very much.

They travelled west, away from the sea and the keep. After an hour or so, Ian slowed the horse to a walk. The beast’s head hung low, foam white around the bit.

He threw one leg over the horse’s withers and jumped down. He lifted her off. ‘We’ll walk for a while.’

She rubbed at her thigh, easing the stiffness that always beset her after sitting for too long. It felt good to be off the horse and on her feet. The doctors had advised lots of walking to strengthen the muscles in her leg, though nothing would cure the hesitation in her step. She was lucky Dunstan hadn’t cared that she was no longer a diamond of the first water, no longer the perfect pocket Venus, but then money solved many problems.

‘Where are we headed first?’ she asked.

He grinned and grabbed the bridle. ‘Into the glens. Where the Scots always go when plagued by the English.’

She matched his pace. ‘That I know. But where?’

‘There is a place I know where we can spend the night, if we can reach it before nightfall. It is a long hard walk, so save what you can of your breath.’

She stumbled on a rock hidden in the heather.

He caught her arm before she fell. ‘Be careful. I always forget what a little bit of a thing you are.’

‘I’ll try to be taller.’ She took bigger steps.

He laughed. ‘You are a surprising woman, Lady Selina. Any other lady of my acquaintance would be twisting her hands together and bemoaning her fate.’

‘If hand-wringing would do me any good, be assured I would put it to good use.’

He glanced over his shoulder. ‘We are far enough from Dunross that we can slow our pace, I think.’

‘I’m not an invalid. I am perfectly capable of walking.’

‘I see that.’

Still she couldn’t help but be aware that he had adjusted his stride to match hers. She decided there was no point in saying anything. It clearly wouldn’t do any good. He saw her as crippled, no matter what she said.

After what felt like hours, with the sound of the curlews and the wind the only noises, he stopped by a stream. ‘We will let the horse drink and then ride for a while.’

She tried not to sigh with relief at not having to walk as she sank down and she scooped up water in her hands and enjoyed the cold trickle down her parched throat.

He drank, too, once he had seen to the horse, then crouched down beside her. ‘It would be better, if we meet anyone, if you do not give your real name.’

A pang tightened her chest. Of course he would not want it known he was in her company. She smiled brightly. ‘Who shall I be? Mary Queen of Scots?’

He frowned. ‘The cousin of a friend, on her way to her family. I don’t suppose you speak any Gaelic.’

‘A word or two, but I can speak with a Scottish burr,’ she said in broadest Scots.

He nodded. ‘Och, I remember you doing that before. It was days before I realised you were English.’

‘I’m like a chameleon,’ she said with a laugh that was a little more brittle than she intended. ‘I fit in with my surroundings.’

It wasn’t true. She fit in London. Not here.

‘We can say you have been away to school in England and lost the Gaelic. Come, we must keep moving.’

‘How long do you think it will be before they give up looking for us?’

He shrugged. ‘For you? Until you send them word you are safe, I assume.’ He bent and laced his fingers together beside Beau.

‘And you?’ she asked as he tossed her up.

‘With no evidence, there will be no point in them looking.’

Once more she found herself clinging to Ian’s waist, thoughts churning around in her head.

She just wished she could be sure she was doing the right thing running away with Ian instead of seeking out her father and denying it all. Unfortunately, that kind of blatant lying was not her forte.

If only she could think of a logical explanation for being gone in the middle of the night. Something that would not leave them suspecting her of betraying what should have been a confidence, though no one had specifically asked her not to speak of it.