LITMIR.BIZ

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in a place she could easily see him. His horse whickered, sensing something, or someone. “Ellen?” he whispered again.

      Still no answer.

      He stayed quiet. Listening. Wondering if she’d been caught as she left the house. He hoped not. If she’d been caught her father would give her no freedom. Short of leading a military assault on Pembroke’s home, he would not be able to get her out then.

      The horse shook its head, rattling its bit, and snorted steamy breath into the cold air. The chill of the winter night seeped through his clothes. There would be a hard frost. He hoped she’d dressed in something warm.

      He’d have to buy more clothes for her before they sailed. She would need garments to keep her warm in the sea breezes she’d face on their journey to America.

      There was another sound.

      “Ellen?”

      “Paul?”

      How did this woman manage to make his heart beat so erratically whenever he saw her? He could run into battle and not be so affected.

      She looked even more beautiful in the dark. Ethereal.

      A band of silver light reached through the scudding clouds and caught her face.

      He let go of the horse’s bridle and instinctively moved forward. He’d never held her. In the summer there had been no moments alone, she’d been strictly chaperoned and even when she’d come to meet him she’d brought the groom and her sister. When they’d met a fortnight ago, she’d still brought a groom. For the first time they were alone. “Ellen.” He stepped forward and embraced her. In answer her arm came about his waist. It was the most precious feeling of his life. He would always remember this day. She was slender and delicate in his arms.

      She slipped free, but he caught her nape and pulled her mouth to his, gently pressing his lips against hers. It was her first kiss, he knew; he could tell by the way her body stiffened when he‘d pulled her close. He let her go, a tenderness he’d never known before catching in his chest.

      “Come.” He took the leather bag she carried. “Will you ride before me, or would you rather sit behind my saddle and grip my waist?”

      “Would it be easier if I ride behind you?” Her voice ran with uncertainty. She was giving up everything to come with him.

      “Do what feels comfortable for you, Ellen.”

      She nodded, not looking into his eyes. “I would prefer to ride pillion.”

      “Then you shall.” He warmed his voice, hoping to ease her discomfort.

      Turning to the horse he slipped one foot in the stirrup, then pulled himself up. “Did you have any difficulty leaving the house?”

      “No, the servants’ hall was quiet, and the grooms had all retired.”

      He rested her bag across his thighs, then held a hand out to her. “Set your foot on mine and take my hand. I’ll pull you up.” He watched her lift the skirt of her dark habit and then the weight of her small foot pressed on his, as her gloved fingers gripped his. She was light, but the grip of her hand and the pressure of her foot made that something clasp tight in his chest, and the emotion stayed clenched as her fingers embraced his waist over his greatcoat.

      He shifted in the saddle, his groin tightening too. A few more days. Just days. He had been waiting months. As he turned the horse, Ellen’s cheek pressed against his shoulder.

      “Did you tell anyone you were leaving? Your sister? Or your maid?”

      “No, I did not want them to have to face Papa knowing the truth. He would be able to see they’d lied, and then who knows what he might do.” Paul urged the mare into a trot as Ellen continued. “He made me spend the day on my knees reading the Commandments because I refused to marry the Duke of Argyle.”

      “Today?” He wished to look back at her but he could not.

      Her father had been diabolical to Paul, sneering as though he was nothing when he’d done the decent thing and offered for her. He could not imagine the way Pembroke treated the girls.

      He had to get Ellen to Gretna before her father caught them, so she never had to come back and face his retribution.

      He stirred the mare into a canter. Ellen gripped his waist more firmly.

      “Yes today,” she said, leaning to his ear. “He came to my room this morning, to ask if I was repentant.”

      If she was repentant? She’d done nothing wrong, as far as her father was aware. He’d not told her father they’d been communicating since the summer. He’d expected to be refused, and he’d not wished their pathway of communication closed. All she had been guilty of, as far as her father knew, was that her presence and her company in the summer had attracted a man her father deemed unworthy. She bore no guilt for being beautiful and charming.

      God, how had Pembroke brought up this untouched, unscarred girl? “Did you tell him you repented?”

      She laughed; a low soft sound he hadn’t heard before. “No.”

      He smiled. It had taken him so long to make his offer because he’d wanted to feel sure she could cope as his wife, that she had the strength to follow the drum. She had it. She had a core of iron. She would survive. He would make sure she did; though he didn’t doubt his way of life was going to come as a shock to her. He’d tried to warn her in letters, preparing her, but he could tell from her responses it was all whimsical rather than real. It would become real.

      He stopped the horse suddenly, and strained to look over his shoulder, as it restlessly side stepped. “You’re sure of this, Ellen? I mean, if you are not, I can take you back.”

      In answer, her fingers slid further about his midriff and gripped him harder. There was a pain in his chest and his groin again. “I am sure.”

      I am sure too.

      “Then let us hurry.” He kicked his heels and set the horse off at a canter, his mind on the treacherous tracks they were likely to encounter on their journey north. This was a race now.

      The ground was hardened by frost, and slippery. The horse’s breath and theirs rose as steam in the air.

      They had a few hours lead, but–

      “Papa, said I was to have nothing to eat either, at least he played into our hands. I told Pippa not to bring me any food.”

      Then perhaps their head start would be twelve hours to a day, but even so it was the wrong time of year for haste. He hoped the cold weather and frost would hold, better that than rain and mud bound routes when carts, horses and men became bogged down. His head had already begun ordering the flight like a bloody military campaign.

      “The coach is waiting for us at the inn. It will be ready. I’ve hired a yellow bounder.”

      “A coach and four?”

      He smiled at the tone of excitement in her voice. “Yes. You sound as if you fancy driving them?”

      She laughed again, that low heart-wrenching beautiful sound. “No, I wouldn’t have a clue, but I have never ridden in a fast carriage. It sounds exhilarating.”

      Exhilarating? This girl was so wonderfully innocent. But that was another thing that had drawn him to her, her naivety, it was such a contrast to his own knowledge of the world; she knew nothing of the horrors he’d lived through, though he was only a little older than her. She was here to wash his soul clean of war and brutality.

      They had to pass through a gate, but he did not dismount, he merely leaned down to open it, and then they were in the woods, where the frost had not yet settled.

      Here the darkness reigned. It left him reliant on the eyes of the horse as they kept low to avoid tree branches, and he had to slow and keep the horse at a trot.

      When they reached the clearing at the bottom of the ridge

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