Dawn broke swiftly over the serene camp.

Half the men at a time had slept on makeshift pallets round the fires; the other half had conducted watch. The scents of the campfire still fell heavy on the summer air from the night before.

Because Dirk believed that well and truly everything could go wrong, he was pleasantly surprised that their first day of traveling toward Bute was uneventful. In fact, he found himself impressed with Lady Lilias’s skill with her mare and still a bit stunned at her honesty and bluntness with him.

Save for his father and grandmother, no one had ever spoken to him so frankly, not even his mother. While he was certain Fenella had a way with seeing that his father had done what she asked, with her son she’d been nothing but indulgent.

Dirk surveyed his men dismantling their camp from the night before. Throughout the night, after their excursion in the forest, he’d expected Lady Lilias to attempt an escape, but she seemed to have slept peacefully, for not once had she emerged after he safely deposited her. When she’d first poked her head from beneath her makeshift tent, he’d pretended to keep sleeping just to see what she’d do. Seeing her stretch her arms up to the sky, lengthening that gorgeous body, had almost been enough to do him in. Even better was being able to tease her, to enjoy the fiery snap of her bossy tongue. Most women would have spilled tears in order to get him away, but not her, she’d stomped her foot and threatened to do damage to his ballocks.

Even now, the memory made him smile. Hell and damnation. He scrubbed the smile from his face. He had to push Lilias from his mind. She was not his.

As the men, his mother and Lady Lilias finished cleaning up, Dirk signaled for everyone to mount up for the second day of their journey.

Having traveled much with his father, his mother was used to riding and camping out, and for a moment he worried over Lilias, until he recalled the tongue blistering she’d given him in the day before. Every time he thought about it, a hint of a smile took over his usual frown. Dammit! Not a good sign. She was his ward, and yet he found himself overly interested in her comfort and eager to speak with her. As such, he’d barely said a word to her since dawn.

He watched her when she wasn’t looking, and caught her doing the same to him more than once. The elegant way she moved was mesmerizing. Long legs glided and rounded hips sashayed, fluid on the horse as well as the ground. Her arms swayed with grace, even when she lifted them to tuck her wayward hair back into place. A slight tilt to her head when she spoke showed her refinement. Though he supposed most could be taught such poise, Lilias’s elegant movements seemed to come natural to her, born of self-confidence. He only had two concerns: her spark of defiance and her eating habits. During the feast at the castle, she’d barely eaten, nor had she come down to breakfast. Last night, he’d watched her pick at a rather minuscule piece of fish. There was naught he could do but attempt to tame the rebellious part of her. And as she’d confessed to him her nervous state, he chalked her lack of appetite up to that, but he’d have to be certain she ate more today than she had the day before. Wouldn’t do to have the woman fainting from lack of nourishment. Or deliver her as a waif.

Dirk steered his horse toward Lilias.

“Good morning, my laird,” she murmured, meeting his gaze, though a blush crept over her the arch of her cheeks.

“I trust ye slept well?” he asked.

“Aye.”

“Eat.” He didn’t wait for her to argue, but tossed her an apple, which she deftly caught.

When he continued to stare at her, she bit heartily into the fruit, then mumbled, “My thanks,” as she chewed.

Dirk grinned, then took his place at the head of his two-dozen heavily armed warriors, and the women.

“Ride,” he called out.

Throughout the morning as they rode, he continued to turn in his saddle to check on the women, partially because it was his duty, but also because he needed to. Whenever he caught himself with the desire to be closer to her, he ignored it and her. In fact, he forced himself to ignore her most of the day, answering only in grunts, nods, or shakes of the head, hoping that by doing so he’d be able to push aside whatever this interest in her was, but it wasn’t working. If anything, his awareness of her grew.

Ballocks!

“My laird.” ’Twas her. She rode up beside him, back straight, legs astride.

A fleeting and damning vision of those thighs wrapped around him assaulted his senses. How could he be jealous of a horse?

“My lady?” Irritation dripped in his words.

The lass raised a brow, acknowledging his surliness, but then ignored it. “If it is not too inconvenient, I would like to stop soon for a brief respite.”

They’d been riding hard for four hours straight and were due for a break, but Dirk had wanted to forge ahead, hoping to make up time incrementally to shorten his delivery of the bride. A sennight was proving too long. Already on the second day of the journey, he was resisting the urge to—

What? Kiss her? Ravage her?

Dirk glanced at Lady Lilias and gave her a brief nod—a mistake, given he was momentarily stunned at the way riding gave her cheeks a flushed look, her dark hair flying wild around her face. The lass was absolutely stunning. Perfection.

Ballocks! Ballocks! Ballocks!

If he’d not known better, he might have thought that his mother and grandmother had chosen her specifically to torment him. For, he wanted her, no doubt. Even now, his body was growing taut with need.

Dirk blew a whistle and two scouts rode ahead to find a good, safe place to stop, which they discovered only a mile ahead, alongside a trickling burn. Though he watched her dismount, the sway of her skirts tightening for just a moment over her round bottom, he did not approach her. In fact, he did everything he could to stay away. Gathering wood, getting a drink from the burn, wiping down his mount.

No one seemed the wiser to the torment going on inside him. The men set to brushing down the horses, giving them water, and allowing them to graze, while they did much the same to themselves.

The two women, chatting as though they were old friends, wandered behind a wall of thick brush for privacy. Dirk assigned several men to watch, while the rest ate and relieved themselves. They’d not be here too long. An hour, maybe two, at the most.

Tilting back a waterskin to drain it down his throat before he refilled it, the hair on the back of Dirk’s neck rose. He studied the camp, taking note that his mother and Lilias had not yet returned. Two of the men who were on watch stood on the perimeter, unbothered, and the other two were in the woods, to the right and left. He could just barely make out their frames. Straight ahead, was where his mother and Lilias had sauntered off to—and he couldn’t make them out, not even a difference in the way the branches moved.

The niggling sense that something was wrong clawed at his spine, and he headed for the brush. He’d hurry the women along. Wouldn’t do for them to be back there for too long.

Dirk had not gone more than six steps when his mother broke through the tree line, her face ashen, eyes wide, hands clutching at her skirts.

“Dirk.” Her voice quavered.

“What is it?” He reached for his sword, the men in the camp also immediately on alert.

Fenella opened and shut her mouth, wavering on her feet, then finally managed to draw in a breath and gush out, “Men… They… They took her!”

* * *

One minute she had her skirts up around her waist, and the next minute, someone clobbered her over the head. At first, Lilias had looked up at the sky, expecting to see the jagged edges of a tree branch that had cracked and fallen on her head. After all, that would be just her luck wouldn’t it?

Doomed to a marriage she didn’t want, and beaten on the way there?

But, as it turned out, her fate was to be even worse than that, for as soon as she looked up, she didn’t see the cracked end of a dead tree limb, but the rough, mean faces of three hungrily grinning outlaws.

A quick search of the surrounding area did not reveal Lady Fenella, who she prayed stayed behind the privacy of her bush or ran away.

She opened her mouth to scream and they stuffed a rag inside that made her gag so hard tears came to her eyes. Kicking, and flailing her arms, they lifted her up, and when she squirmed so vigorously after being tossed over one vagrant’s shoulder, he dropped her to the ground, knocking the wind from her. Gasping for breath through her nose, as she couldn’t manage around the gag, was difficult and painful. Everything hurt.

For what felt like a full minute, she lay there trying to catch her breath. She stared up at the sky as the men tied her ankles together and her wrists in front of her. Why was this happening to her?

Who were these fools?

Was this what she was to expect for many years to come given who she was marrying? Was that what it was about? Or were they three foul men who happened to catch sight of her relieving herself and thought her easy prey?

By now, Lady Fenella should have gone back to camp and told Laird MacDougall what had happened, right? The lady had been near her doing the same thing, and she wasn’t with her now. So she couldn’t have been taken. Or were there more?

Lilias frantically looked about, rolling onto her side, she determined to crawl away if she could, even if she had to inch away on her belly.

A solid boot jabbed her in the shoulder and rolled her to her back. “No more trouble, ye dumb bitch,” the man who’d dropped her hissed. “Else we start cutting off parts ye wish to keep.”

Lilias stared at him wide-eyed, fear snaking through her at his threat, but there was something false in his scheming, watery eyes. He wasn’t going to cut any part of her. She was worth something to him. These were not ordinary outlaws, but hired ones. Mercenaries. Sent to do someone’s bidding. That meant, though she was hurting, there would be some level of protection before she arrived at her final destination. She just had to make sure she never made it wherever that was.

Pretending to believe him, she nodded.

If they were hired to take her, then someone was expecting her. They’d not do more harm to her, than they had already. Perhaps that was why her wrists were not tied as tightly as they could have been, they didn’t want to put marks on her skin. Even the clobber on her head hadn’t been hard enough to knock her out, or to bleed for that matter. Aye, the place where they’d hit her smarted, but it was that pounding ache one felt when a lump was forming.

Escape would be easy. All she had to do was work at the ties at her wrists until they were loose enough, and then when they least expected it, she’d spring free.

The men lifted her up, tossing her over the back of a horse, one stinking outlaw in front of her. They didn’t tie her down, which meant, she could leap off, but with her ankles tied, she’d not make it too far before they jumped down to retrieve her.

They took her toward the river and when they rode through it, the icy water climbed painfully over her feet and calves up to mid-thigh. All the way up her arms on the other side, and she lifted her head to keep her face from skimming the water. Saints, but it was like riding through a frozen loch. At least the horse’s body was warm enough to keep her centered.

As soon as they reached the other side of the water, Lilias caught sight of a jagged branch and reached toward it, hooking her sleeve on it, hoping against hope it would rip a piece of the fabric off, leaving a clue for Dirk and his men.

Never before had the tearing sound of one of her gowns given her such joy. The men didn’t seem to notice, kicking their horses into a gallop on the wooded road. If only she were good at directions, she might be able to figure out just which way they were going—west toward Oban, north, south or east. But, alas, like always, she’d gotten herself turned around. Didn’t understand how during the day some people could follow the position of the sun and at night, others could follow the stars. Landmarks she understood.

Near Castle Cameron, she knew that when she went for a ride, she’d pass the large rock that looked like a two-headed cow, the tree split down the middle during a massive storm, the ancient stone cairns and their intricately placed piled stones. The cairns near Cameron were built by generations of their people. Every time a warrior was lost at war, they placed a stone on the pile. Knowing the meaning of it brought tears to her eyes to see how the sheer amount of stones had grown over the years.

“They follow,” one of the men growled. “Keep moving.”

They follow? Dirk’s men were coming after her! A great flood of relief filled her chest. She kept her head up, looking behind her but not seeing anything. She didn’t hear anything either. How did they know?

A sudden dread shot up her spine. What if the men her captor referred to as following were actually a part of the outlaw band? Or another pack of rebels? Or the English!

Her belly managed to drop to her feet even from the prone position over the horse. Perhaps she shouldn’t be so excited quite yet.

With that in mind, she held out her arms to another branch, letting a tiny broken off limb tear another piece of fabric from her sleeve.