Page 23 of My Highland Love

Campbells.

Elise faced Allister. The young man stared back at the Campbells, eyes narrow with fury. Dear God, she hadn't believed them to be a genuine threat, but in an effort to buy time when she didn't return to Brahan Seer, she had asked Allister to accompany her to Michael's. If anything happened to him—

He yanked the dirk from the leather scabbard strapped to his horse and snapped his eyes onto her. “Ride.”

She kicked violently into the mare's belly. The mare lunged forward alongside Allister's gelding. The sound of pursuing hoof beats bore down upon them. She hugged the horse's neck, urging the mare into a harder gallop down the mountainside.

The heaving horses closed in from behind. Elise's heart thudded in unison with the pounding of her mount's hooves. Tears stung her eyes as she clung to the horse, the jerky rise and fall of the animal's neck jolting her body with each swift stride. Allister's horse nosed ahead and Elise knew the young man was restraining him in order to keep pace with her.

From the corner of her right eye, she glimpsed the nose of a horse gaining—then a flash of metal and a man's cry as Allister's dirk found its mark. The other men shouted and her heart leapt into her throat. She cracked the reins over the rump of the horse, then suddenly pitched forward. She tumbled over the horse's head as the mare hit the ground nose first. Allister shouted her name.

The mare somersaulted over herself, and Elise saw the hooves bearing down on her as she and the mare plummeted downhill. The wind gushed from her lungs, then a splitting pain shot through her head when she thudded to the ground, grinding her cheek into the hard, rocky soil. The blurry figure of the horse landed a few feet away, rolled, then jumped up, and disappeared.

A shot sounded.

“Bloody animal got away,” a man muttered as horses drew up alongside her.

Booted feet appeared at her side.

“She's broken her neck,” another said.

“What of the boy?” another asked.

Fingers gingerly probed her forehead, then temples.

“Dead.”

“She's hit the front of her head,” said a deeper voice—not Marcus's voice, but who—Sudden pain registered through the fog as she was rolled to her side. She groaned.

“She's not dead,” the deep voice said.

Fingers ran along her spine.

“She hasna' broken her back. She'll live.”

Arms slid beneath her, then lifted her from the ground and pressed her against a warm body. She opened her eyes, but her blurry vision made out only the wall of flesh her face was shoved against.

“Leave her,” said the other. “If we bring her back damaged, it'll be our heads.”

“Toss the saddle over the mountain.” The speaker shifted her in his arms. Pain splintered through her back “Round up the gelding,” the man said, “and throw Greig's body over his back. Damn the MacGregor dog who killed him. If he wasn't already dead, I would kill him myself.”

Shock reverberated through Elise. Young Allister was dead?

* * *

As Marcus approached the village stables, he glimpsed movement through the open door. He yanked aside his steward Harris as a rider burst from the stables. The youth riding the horse seemed not to notice he had forced them from his path and galloped toward the village.

“Youth,” Marcus muttered, and entered the stables. “I want Gaelan's, Logan's, Sloan's, and Neal's places finished by summer's end.” He strode along the line of stalls.

Harris made notations in his notebook. “We can have them patched by month's end.”

“Patch Sloan's,” Marcus said. “The others, replace.”

“That'll take 'til Fall, and we will need materials.”

“Order what you need from Edinburgh. In the meantime, get started on the minor repairs for the other cottages. I want you back in Ashlund by month's end. I don't plan on returning for”—he thought of Elise in his bed, her hands on him—”for some time.” Marcus halted at the stall that housed the horse he wanted to examine. “Gerald,” he murmured to the gelding, who stood, head hanging over the stall door. Marcus rubbed Gerald's nose while he unlatched the door and stepped inside. “Getting along in years, are you, lad? Harris,” Marcus called.

Harris entered the stall.