Beloved Rogue by Penelope Williamson

Author:Penelope Williamson [Williamson, Penelope]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Scan; HR; Scotland; fued; abduction
ISBN: 9780380755288
Publisher: Avon Books
Published: 1988-04-10T16:00:00+00:00

❧

Their hands touched as they reached simultaneously for the empty flagon of wine. Jamie looked up and met her eyes, and his own crinkled at the corners with his smile.

Alexia put the flagon into the basket and laced the lid shut. Jamie got to his feet, stretching.

"I have to be getting back to the fields," he said. "Big Jock will be thinking I fell in with a pack of Johnstones, God rot 'em."

Alexia stood up, shaking leaves and bits of grass off her skirt. "Knowing Big Jock, I suspect he'll already have a hot trod organized so that you can be rescued before your abductors even have a chance to write the ransom note."

Jamie laughed. "Do you want me to go back with you as far as Caerlaverock? I know you're perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, but if there is a Johnstone or two running around loose—"

She kissed his cheek. "Nay, Jamie. I want to ride through the hills a bit and clear my head."

His arm tightened around her waist. "Alexia ... I meant what I said. I do love you."

She started to tell him that she loved him too when she was seized with a ridiculous panic that tightened her throat so that the words wouldn't come out.

Jamie waited and then his face hardened and he released her, turning away from her.

It seemed it took only bare seconds for him to mount his horse and ride away. She started to call after him and then changed her mind. For some reason it had never been easy for her to say those three simple words. Even during the love-filled weeks at Kilchurn Castle she had only said the words once, and she'd had to qualify them even then, saying "I think I love you," not "I do love you." But she promised herself that tonight, when they were alone together in their bedchamber, she would tell him she loved him. She would tell him a thousand times if necessary, until she was sure he was convinced of the truth of it.

She gave the mare her head and they galloped across the fields. The hot wind buffeted her face and lifted her hair into a sail that billowed behind her. They approached a stone fence and Alexia leaned over the mare's neck, urging her to take it. The mare gathered her legs beneath her and soared up and over, and Alexia laughed out loud.

She reined in when she got to the edge of the forest. They began to climb into the hills, following the path cut by a fast-flowing brook. When she arrived at a small knoll, she stopped and looked down in the direction from which she had come, down into the valley.

She saw a lone man, riding hard as if his life depended on it. At first she thought it was Jamie, but the man's horse was too dark to be Jamie's, and then she saw the sun strike off the steel bonnets of a pack of riders following him, about two miles behind but gaining fast.

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