In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster (38 page)

Noon came and went as they climbed. They had to start pacing themselves, walking when they felt sufficiently screened. Their scrambling up shaded clefts grew slower, but they forged on. The next hours passed in tense endurance; they couldn’t risk halting, didn’t know if Scrope was still on their trail, or if he was close. Close enough to threaten them.

All they could do was labor on.

Eliza had long since forbidden herself to ask even herself the question of whether or not they would ever make it safely over the border; she had to believe they would.

They climbed and climbed, then climbed and walked some more, over a landscape that appeared to have been created by a giant’s hand pushing the earth aside so that it crumpled in a series of ever-rising folds, like a tablecloth shoved roughly to one side. She was beyond thankful that of necessity she was still wearing her youth’s riding boots beneath her gown. By Jeremy’s side, she sloshed through numerous small burns and skirted a narrow lake. The ground was drier up there, possibly because it was rockier. The air was fresh and clear, and carried the tang of the wild, but it grew increasingly cold as slate-gray clouds blew up from the west, roiling and swelling to take over the sky, then rolling steadily toward them.

Even though it was still midafternoon, the light was waning.

The sun had disappeared early in their climb, but enough of its light shone from behind the clouds to guide them. Jeremy had again and again checked their direction and kept them heading steadily east.

Finally they reached the crest of a ridge that appeared nearly as high as the next ridge along, which itself wasn’t that far away … and beyond that next ridge lay a view over fields and forests that seemed to stretch to infinity.

“England.” Jeremy stared at the panorama. “But we can’t get down the escarpment except at certain places.”

“Like Windy Gyle?”

He nodded. They were both breathing hard.

Eliza was frankly amazed she’d made it this far; walking had never been high on her list of favored activities, but apparently the striding across country she’d been doing with Jeremy over recent days had built up some degree of stamina. She glanced at him, saw him looking along the escarpment, following it further east. “So where is it?”

Raising a hand, he pointed. “There. That peak.”

She turned and looked. Moved closer to make sure the rounded peak she could see was the one he was pointing at.

“Clennell Street goes down the escarpment just this side of Windy Gyle.”

Measuring the distance, deciding there was still an hour or more walking to go, she blew out a breath. “Well, at least we don’t have to go around it.”

With that, she looked down and started walking. Trudging along, one foot in front of the other.

Jeremy turned to follow her, but then stopped and turned back. Retracing the few paces to the edge of the steep slope they’d just climbed, he looked down, back along their track … softly swore.

Scrope was still there, still coming on.

Turning, Jeremy joined Eliza, who’d halted a little way along.

“Scrope?”

Jeremy nodded. “But he’s quite a way back. With luck, now we’re out of his sight he’ll lose us completely somewhere along the way.”

He waved her on and she turned and went.

Tramping in her wake, he hoped he was right in thinking Scrope was no great tracker. Both he and Eliza were flagging, but from what he could see, so was Scrope. As long as they stayed out of pistol range, they should be safe.

Should be. He would have felt a great deal more confident over their situation had it not been for the question niggling at the back of his mind.

Where is the laird?

Looking ahead, he told himself it was pointless speculating. All they could do was flee as fast as they could and pray they reached one of Royce’s holdings before either Scrope, or his employer, caught up with them.

They were mad, the lot of them. “Daft as ale-addled gits.”

Then again, they were English, all three of them, Scrope included. Presumably that explained it.

The laird swore and strode on through the gorse as fast as he could. Scrope was between him, and Eliza and her gentleman. Worse, contrary to his every expectation, Scrope was willing to shoot, presumably to kill.

Admittedly, when he’d first seen Scrope waving a pistol while bailing up their fleeing pair north of St. Boswells, he’d had that odd premonition about having to stand by and watch Scrope shoot Eliza’s gentleman. Later, however, he’d convinced himself that that thought had been irrationally fanciful — Scrope was a professional; he would know better than to kill a man he hadn’t been hired to kill. He’d concluded Scrope had intended merely to use the pistol to intimidate.

But today Scrope had shot at his quarry. Twice. He hadn’t shot into the air to frighten; he’d shot directly at them. He’d hit the gig on both occasions, confirming the laird’s opinion of Scrope’s prowess once outside a town. Shooting a pistol at close quarters in an alley the man might manage, but in the country on horseback he was out of his element.

What worried the laird to the depth of his soul was that on both occasions Scrope could just as well have hit the girl as the man.

Which didn’t bear thinking about.

Neither
outcome bore thinking about.

He had to catch Scrope and put a permanent end to the man’s obsession with Eliza and her gentleman.

And it certainly appeared to be an obsession.

He’d been watching Scrope near the bridge over the Jed Water, waiting to step in if Scrope halted the pair. The pistol itself he’d expected; Scrope’s use of it he had not.

Unfortunately, he’d been too far away to immediately intervene, and so he’d found himself chasing Scrope — who proved to have found himself a decent horse.

Hercules was a Trojan, but he wasn’t built for speed, and with the laird on his back he was no match for Scrope’s gray. Frustrated, furious — and fearing he wouldn’t reach Scrope in time to stop the man putting a ball into someone — the laird had ridden as hard as he could after Scrope.

Once they’d hit the hills, however, the terrain had changed, and the laird had steadily closed the distance.

He’d been out of earshot — and he carried no pistol — when he’d seen Scrope riding hard toward Eliza and her gentleman as they’d scrambled on. He’d seen the gentleman send Eliza ahead and turn to face Scrope.

Luckily for the gentleman, the laird had a fine arm and excellent aim. He’d vaulted from the saddle, scooped up some flinty gravel, and sent a few sharp shards flying at Scrope’s horse. The stones wouldn’t have hurt the horse so much as stung it, which had proved enough to unseat Scrope.

An outcrop of rock had hidden him from the fleeing pair as they’d raced on. Scrope, for his part, had stared after his spooked horse, sworn, then swung around and rushed after his quarry; he’d never looked back, so he hadn’t seen the laird.

The laird had had to take the time to tether Hercules before resuming the chase on foot. Now he forged on, pressing on as fast as he could.

He was closing on Scrope, yard by yard, but at the same time, Scrope was closing on Eliza and her protector.

And the laird was seriously questioning whether, in the matter of Eliza Cynster and her rescuer, Scrope was entirely sane.

Under his breath, the laird muttered a prayer that he would catch Scrope before Scrope caught them.

He couldn’t stand by and watch them die.

Jeremy’s hand on her back was all that got Eliza to the top of the next narrow ridge. She stepped away from the edge and slumped over, hands braced on her knees as she dragged air into her lungs. Bent over, all but wheezing, she looked ahead.

Directly in their faces rose a solid wall of rock, too high to climb. To their left, the ridge ran on, a long fold in the earth’s crust, a sheep track leading along the windswept crest. Further on, the rock wall ended, but she couldn’t see what lay around it.

“Follow the track.” Jeremy, also breathing hard, came up behind her. “It’s not that much further.”

Thank God!
Eliza didn’t waste breath saying the words, but straightened and got her feet moving. At a shambling run, they followed the narrow track on along the ridge.

They’d reached an elevation where the views back into Scotland were spectacular, but she had no mind left to register the sight. Just how high they were was emphasized when the left side of the ridge fell away in a cliff, increasingly precipitous the further along they went. She slowed and glanced over.

At her shoulder, Jeremy did the same, then urged her on. “Quite a way down.”

It had to be hundreds of feet. “Did you see the rocks at the bottom?”

“Yes. Luckily, we’re not going that way.” Jeremy turned her from the precipice. The rock wall had ended; he pointed across a steep, narrow valley, almost a ravine, to the next ridge. A sheep — or at this height was it a goat?— track zigzagged down, then up the other side. “We have to climb up there, and get through that gap.” He pointed to the top of the next ridge, to a narrow cleft between two huge boulders. “Then it’s down the other side to Clennell Street.”

Windy Gyle towered before them, directly ahead. The ridge that lay before them was the last before they reached the peak itself, hence Clennell Street should lie exactly where Jeremy had said — in the upland valley beyond the next ridge.

With that prospect before her, Eliza drew in a deep breath and set off down the track as fast as she could. She’d kilted her skirts and petticoat some time ago, leaving her booted feet freer, her strides less hampered. Still, she was tired and had to watch her feet.

When she reached the bottom of the dip, she called over her shoulder, “Scrope?”

“Still behind us,” came the grim reply.

“Anyone else?”

“Not that I can see, but given our direction, I can’t see how the laird might have outflanked us. If he’s around, he’s at least as far back as Scrope.” Who, Jeremy didn’t bother mentioning, had put on a burst of speed and was gaining on them.

As they started up the other side of the narrow valley, he glanced back to the ridge they’d left, then, unwelcome premonition prickling once more, looked to the top of the rise they were climbing … and inwardly swore. He hadn’t noticed earlier how very close the two ridges actually were, but from the bottom of the ravine, the direct distance, or lack thereof, was evident.

Placing a hand on Eliza’s back to steady her, he leaned nearer and said, “We need to push hard to get through the gap between the boulders.” Hearing the sudden desperation in his voice, and guessing she would too, he added, “Until we do, we’ll be within pistol range of the last ridge.”

Eliza shot him a glance over her shoulder, looked back and up at the last ridge, then turned and scrambled on faster.

But they could only go so fast. The track, such as it was, was rocky and gravelly; any unwisely placed boot could slip and slide. He was panting, and Eliza was gasping and pressing a hand to her side, when they finally scrambled onto a rocky slope, a reasonably gentle incline that led upward to the twin boulders and the gap between.

Straightening, Eliza took a step and staggered.

Wrapping an arm about her waist, he pulled her up and on.

Their feet seemed heavy as they covered the last yards. “Once we’re through and can get going down the other side,” he told her, “we should reach Clennell Street and be heading down into England before Scrope —”

“Halt!
Stop
!”

They swung around. On the ridge they’d left, Scrope stood, feet spread wide, swaying a little as he fought to train a pistol on them.

Slowly, Jeremy and Eliza straightened. The options they had left to them flashed across Jeremy’s brain.

Surreptitiously, he nudged Eliza. Without taking his eyes from Scrope, he murmured, “Keep edging toward the gap. Slowly.”

They stared at Scrope, and Scrope, chest heaving, stared wild-eyed at them.

Sliding her boot sideways, Eliza edged half a step along the incline.

Beside her, Jeremy edged the opposite way; the space between them widened.

Scrope snarled, “Stop! I told you to stop!”

Jeremy took another step away from Eliza, away from the safety of the gap between the boulders.

Scrope swung his pistol back and forth between them. They were near enough to see the burning intent that distorted his features, the maniacal gleam in his eyes. The indecision as he struggled to decide whom to shoot.

Jeremy had assumed the answer would be him. He tensed to spring to his left, further away from Eliza, hoped she would know to run for her life when the pistol discharged —

Scrope’s lips lifted in a soundless snarl and he swung the barrel toward Eliza and steadied.

“
No
!” Changing direction, Jeremy flung himself at Eliza.

He hit her as the pistol discharged — felt the rake of hot coals, a searing heat, across the back of his upper left arm — then he and she landed on the rocky ground.

They both lost their breath.

The sudden pain of the wound momentarily stunned him.

“You’re hit! You’re wounded! Damn it, you’re
bleeding
!” Eliza felt close to hysterical, but with a form of fury, rather than fear. Instead of freezing her, it infused and inflamed her, and gave her a strength she hadn’t known she possessed.

She wrestled Jeremy back, pushing until she could wriggle from under him and ease him back into a slump on the ground.

He caught her hands before she could examine his wound. “No — we need to run.
Now
.” He started to struggle up.

“Don’t be stupid — one pistol, one shot.” But his jaw clenched with pain, he insisted on getting to his feet. She found herself helping to haul him up. “Oh, all right. Be my hero, then.” Her mouth was running on without her mind; she didn’t care. “If it’ll keep you happy, we’ll go through the gap, down Clennell Street, and on into safety, and
then
—”