swallowed hard, responding carefully.
“Lawrence does not answer when I call him,” she clarified, sitting up straighter, trying to hide her fear the same way she would when meeting a fierce hunting dog or a spirited mount. “Where is he?”
The dark gloom around them seemed to deepen, the silver mist on the trees glistening brighter in response. What caused that strange glow?
“Your driver stopped to answer the siren’s song of some soulless she-devil in the wood.” The stranger threw his hands in the air as if the very idea disgusted him. “If you aren’t careful, you’ll go moony-eyed for a poetry-spouting spectral yourself, so hurry lassie, before one of them kisses the sense right out of you and you’re turned into a wood nymph to plague me for the rest of my days.”
“Excuse me?” Her heart pounded faster. He ranted nonsense like a lunatic. Perhaps he’d escaped the asylum.
“The sidhe are coming.” His voice grew more urgent as he waved her forward. “Can ye not see their enchanted light all around? We must flee and fast.”
Surely he was crazed. Yet the only thing that gave her pause was that Lily had described seeing a man like this, in a forest like this one. Except no one but Lily had been able to see him.
“But I’m on my way to see my friend, Lillian Desalles, at Invergale. Once I retrieve my driver—”
The Highland menace leaned right into the carriage, his shoulders a hair’s breadth from hers so that she could feel the warmth of all that brawny flesh.
“That’s Lily Darroch, these days,” the man corrected her. “Yer friend is my new sister-in-law and ye have her to thank for sending me on this fool’s mission to bring ye to her!”
And with that cryptic warning, the man’s hands landed on her waist and hauled her toward him.
“No!” she cried out, shoving at his thick slab of shoulders even as he pulled her from the carriage, her skirts snagging on the door handle.
“We must hurry,” he urged, dodging a blow she aimed for his head. “Did ye nae hear? Lily sent me!”
He hefted her against his chest and she heard the fabric of her ruffled traveling gown shred down one seam. The horses danced backward at the commotion, or maybe it was the unnatural stillness of the forest that spooked them. Whatever it was, the animals bolted with the empty carriage, reins dangling.
“No!” Her bag was still strapped to the gleaming black cabin quickly disappearing. “Release me,” she huffed and struggled, twisting in her captor’s iron grip.
A noise rose up behind them. The sound distracted her, a distant hum on the breeze like a thousand bees swarming past her ear. The light in the forest grew, concentrating into a pinpoint of brightness so intense she would have shaded her eyes if she didn’t hold onto the Highlander’s shoulders for dear life.
“By the saints.” She gripped the man’s arms tighter, suddenly grateful for the breadth of his warrior’s body between her and that spinning white light as he pitched forward in a blazing sprint.
The humming sound exploded in her ears. The light blinded her. She ducked her forehead against the stranger’s shoulder, hiding from whatever was happening out there in this unholy place.
Eyes squeezed shut, she tried to block out the light and the sound and the fear. She concentrated on the man’s solid chest against hers. The feel of strong arms holding her tight.
Moments ago, she’d been afraid of him. Now, she understood that he kept her safe.
He ran like the wind. Maybe it was just another mad illusion since her perceptions all felt skewed. She focused on his steps, listening for his footfall on the dead leaves of the forest floor. She timed her breaths to his every fourth step. Then, as they moved farther away from the light and the peculiar nature of the forest clearing, her breathing slowed more.
Her captor had saved her.
Elizabeth acknowledged as much by the time he pulled up short and settled her on her feet. The cool feel of the dirt and pine needles came through her lightweight leather shoes and she curled her toes against a sudden chill now that the man no longer held her.
“Thank you.” Feeling off-balance in every way possible, she glanced up at her rescuer with new eyes.
He blinked fast, the nuances of his expression more difficult to see now that they’d moved away from the unnatural brightness of… whatever had happened back there. Still, she had the sense her gratitude caught him off guard as he whistled softly to a huge horse that emerged from the trees.
“It was but a moment’s work.” He waved away her thanks as if he didn’t know what to do with it. “I have been at the job for many a year.”
His Scots brogue was softer now. Less noticeable. Still, he would never pass for a noble lord at Balmoral. And thank goodness for that. A lord from her auntie’s party probably would have left her to her own devices in that clearing and fled with the carriage horses. The man was pleasing enough to look upon though. Strong features gave his face a rough-hewn appearance with prominent cheekbones and a chiseled jaw. Dark slashes of eyebrows did nothing to soften his expression. Elizabeth felt a pinch of guilt for noting his looks given how much she resented being judged by her own.
“Well, you have my thanks. And my apologies for the scuffle I caused.” Remembering it, she peered down at her skirts and noticed the tear up one side. Thankfully, an inner layer of her petticoat remained intact beneath her traveling gown. “I’m Elizabeth Harrison, by the way. And I’m still confused about how you know my friend Lily or how you knew to look for me here.”
She had no idea where “here” was.
“I’m Magnus Darroch.” He nodded in a way that was just a slight incline of his head. Yet the way he held himself, the straight spine and chin tilted up, made it look like a courtly bow of a bygone era. “And your friend wed my brother a fortnight ago.” He waved her closer. “Can you ride astride in that…er… garb?”
He studied her dress as if it was a great mystery. In the meantime, she hadn’t heard anything past “your friend wed.”
“It cannot be.” She shook her head, unable to digest the words. Lillian’s parents were still in New York.
“Very well.” He nodded. “You can ride in front of me.”
Once more his broad hands clamped around her waist and he lifted her high onto the back of the monstrous horse.
She made a small, undignified shriek, but the horse did not even twitch as she landed sideways on the beast’s back. In a trice, Magnus Darroch flung himself beside her without the help of a stirrup or even—goodness—a saddle.
“We will fall off,” she protested, grabbing a fistful of mane in one hand before the man—Magnus—scooped her up and dropped her across his hard thighs as easily as he might handle a sack of grain. “Oh!”
“I’ve been riding horses for even longer than I have been dodging sidhe,” he proclaimed, wrapping an arm around her waist and clamping her tight to his chest. “There is nae a chance you will fall on my watch.”
He
