Highland Honor. Hannah Howell
and smiling at her blushes, “yet I was suddenly alert to the danger coming our way. I would say that I heard a sound, for I truly thought I did, yet the riders were too far away for anyone to hear. I ken that now.”
“Someone watches over you.”
“It would seem so, although I am awed by the loyalty of that unseen ally. I havenae been much worth saving for many a year.”
Gisele felt a twinge of sympathy for him, then told herself not to be such a fool. He was a grown man. He had chosen his path. She did concede that he deserved some praise for finally seeing how deep he had sunk into the mire. And, although she might not agree with all he had done, she had no trouble in sympathizing with a broken heart.
“It might be that unseen ally who finally pulled you out of the quagmire you had sunk into,” she suggested.
“Aye, it might have been. And, who is to say that, mayhap, saving your bonny head wasnae why he saved mine.”
She laughed softly and shook her head. “I cannot believe your angel works to save your life just so that you may save my unworthy hide from my enemies.”
“Ah, weel, since we are both so unworthy perhaps ’tis an angel who works his wonders out of pity.”
“How very sad,” Gisele murmured. Then she laughed. “Whatever causes you to be so quick to sense danger, I pray it does not desert you. You are right. The DeVeaux are now most ardent in their pursuit. If something had not warned you of those men approaching we would have been an easy kill.”
Nigel simply nodded in agreement with that grim truth. She had not reproached him for not keeping a closer watch, but she did not need to. He was doing it himself, thoroughly and passionately. It had been foolish and dangerous to become so completely distracted. He wondered if he already depended too much upon his strange gift, a gift that could desert him as quickly as it had come to him on the day he had been knighted. It had weakened, even failed him, from time to time, as if to scold him for his carelessness and arrogance. Using his own wits and skill he had escaped danger then, but now it was not just his own life at risk. He had sworn upon his honor to protect Gisele, and he needed to do a better job.
“Do you think we have lost them?” she asked, interrupting his self-castigation.
“Nay, we have just put some distance between us and them,” he replied. “If we can hold that distance for a while longer, then I will steal some of that precious time to try to hide our trail.”
“Let us pray that one of them does not share your gift for sniffing out the enemy,” she said quietly, chancing one look behind her before she followed Nigel in nudging her horse to a faster pace.
Gisele grew silent, all her thoughts and strength used for one thing only—eluding the DeVeaux. When Nigel took the time to disguise their trail she nervously stood watch. Although she had been successful in her escape for nearly a year, the chase was growing so fierce she began to feel helpless. The fact that she really needed Nigel to keep her free and alive also made her feel helpless, for she had now lost what few choices she had had. With each step they took, each time he saved her life and kept her out of her enemy’s hands, she became more dependent upon the man, and Gisele found that somewhat alarming. What would happen to her if she lost Nigel, either through death or injury or in finding some proof of her occasional fear that he would betray her as so many others had?
The only way to soothe those fears, she decided, was to learn all she could for as long as she was with Nigel. Instead of simply allowing him to lead, she would closely watch everything he did. She had no hope of being suddenly blessed with his strange gift of sensing danger long before anyone else could, but she could learn all of his skills. If fate were unkind enough to leave her alone again, she needed to know how to follow a trail, to best choose a hiding place, and hide her own trail from those who pursued her. That would at least give her a fighting chance against her enemies.
Throughout the afternoon they played a tense game of hide-and-seek with the DeVeaux. They spent so much time hiding their trail that Gisele was surprised the DeVeaux were not now in front of them instead of still dogging their heels. Just once did they draw near enough for her to see them, yet Nigel acted as if at any moment the DeVeaux would burst through the surrounding trees and cut them dead.
At only one time during the afternoon did they take what might be called a rest. They paused so that Nigel might hide their trail yet again and try to lay a false one. Gisele tried very hard to pay close attention, thinking the trick a good one to know, but slumped against her mount, surrendering to her weariness. Nigel suddenly appeared and, without a word, dragged her into a cluster of boulders at the base of a hill. There he secured their horses, then pushed and pulled her up the hill until they reached a smaller grouping of rocks.
“Are they here?” she asked when he pushed her inside and tugged her down with him as he crouched behind one of the larger rocks.
“Nay, not yet,” he replied in a tense whisper, not taking his gaze from the trail they had just deserted.
“Then why are we hiding?” she asked in an equally soft voice. “Why do we not just ride away?”
“I need to see how easily they can be fooled.”
She thought that was a useful thing to know, and started to rise up enough to peer over the rock, then gave up. As she rested against the rock and closed her eyes she decided Nigel would be a better judge of such things, anyway. There were still several hours of daylight left, several more long, exhausting hours of running and hiding. If she were going to survive it, she felt that a little rest was far more important than seeing for herself if the DeVeaux could be fooled into heading the wrong way.
It seemed as if she had only just closed her eyes when she felt Nigel shaking her awake. “Cease, I am awake now,” she grumbled as she rubbed her eyes. “Are they gone?”
“Aye,” he replied as he pulled her to her feet and led her down the hill. “For a moment I feared one sharp-eyed mon had seen our horses, but he hadnae. They just rode along the trail I laid for them.”
“Then we are safe.” She could not fully hide a grimace as she pulled her stiff body into her saddle and nudged her horse into following Nigel.
“Aye, for the moment. ’Twill take them a wee while to see that that trail goes nowhere. I hope to regain the time and the distance we lost in making it.”
“I thought you were trying to shake them free.”
“I was. I am. But one shouldnae rely on such a trick working that weel. They have held fast to our trail for this long. That means that at least one of them has some skill.”
Gisele did not find that news very comforting. She wanted reassurances. She wanted to be told that their enemies were gone, well and truly lost in the wilderness, never to haunt them again. As she struggled to quietly follow Nigel, Gisele wondered if he grew as weary of this game as she did.
When Nigel finally chose a campsite for the night, Gisele nearly cheered aloud. She was weary to the bone and not at all sure where they were after all the twists and turns Nigel had indulged in to elude the DeVeaux. After they had spent from dawn to dusk running for their lives, she also wondered how and when Nigel had decided they were safe enough to stop for the night.
She tended to her horse and slipped into the shelter of the surrounding wood for a moment of privacy. As she spread her bed out she glanced at the fire Nigel had built, and frowned. It was a small fire, well sheltered by encircling stones, but such a light could still be easily seen from a distance in the night. When he returned from stealing a moment of privacy for himself, Gisele sat down on her bedding and looked at him. She blithely ignored his brief but telling glance at her bed, which she had spread out on the same side of the fire as his.
“Are you certain we should have a fire?” she asked. “Welcome though it is, is it not a beacon for our enemies to follow?”
“They are too far away to see this wee light,” he replied.
Gisele blinked slowly, and stared at him hard for a long