He scowled again, frustration beating an irritating staccato down his spine.
It would take hours to reach shelter by coach. At least two hours on horseback, too. However, Deri could make the hunting lodge—the only accommodations within twenty miles—and wholly inaccessible by any sort of traveling vehicle. In fact, when stocking the lodge—more a small cabin than grandiose accommodations—he used pack horses to carry the supplies.
As he stood upright, Liam eyed the mucky road then the rising river with a practiced eye.
So much for making it home by nightfall.
This thunderstorm made reaching Eytone Hall impossible. He released the team before returning to Emeline. It would be cruel to leave them harnessed in this weather. God only knew how long it would be before someone could return for them. Days mayhap.
At once, the pair dashed toward the haven the woods provided. Smart animals.
“I’m goin’ to put yer aunt inside the coach,” he gently told Miss LeClaire. “I’ll send my men for her as soon as the wynds are passable again.”
Uncertainty and a hint of fragility in her gaze, she searched his eyes. Even sopping wet and strain etched across her face, he couldn’t help but notice her refined features. He was still a healthy young man in the prime of his life, after all.
High cheekbones, a dainty, slightly upturned nose, almost too full lips, and unusual treacle-colored eyes, much too big for her face, met his perusal. Fingers curled into the fabric of her gray and burgundy traveling gown, she gave a stiff, barely discernable nod before presenting her rather aristocratic profile.
He sighed in relief that she hadn’t fought him on the matter. He’d have moved her aunt, with or without her consent, but he’d wasn’t keen to rile her temper.
Over four hellish years of marriage had provided him a lifetime’s worth of shrewish female behavior. The result was he had minimal patience for petulance, histrionics, and most especially, female wiles.
Emeline leaned down and kissed her aunt’s forehead. “I’m so verra sorry,” she whispered brokenly before signaling Liam with a slight flexing of her eyes she was ready for him to take the dead woman.
“Ye have my deepest condolences for yer loss, lass.” It was hard enough to lose a loved one but to witness their murder—“I’ll see ye are kept safe until ye reach yer home.”
Och, mon, shut yer damned wheesht. She’s nae yer responsibility. Dinna make promises ye canna keep or that might lead to misunderstandin’s of a romantic nature.
He booted his recriminations to the roiling river. He was simply helping an unfortunate lass in desperate circumstances. Nothing more. Common decency demanded he do so.
Once he’d wrapped the dead woman in her cloak and placed her in the vehicle, he dragged the coachmen beneath the conveyance. Someone might recognize them, and that could lead to the person who hired them to kill Miss LeClaire.
At least he knew their names. Hamish and Walter. Two verra common Scots names. Nevertheless, that proved very fortunate and might help a great deal.
It was too soon to ask her who had cause to wish her dead, but it was a conversation they’d have to have. Either with him or the authorities. Probably both. Except, she’d claimed she had no enemies. None she kens about.
He swiped his forearm across his brow, not that the gesture brought any reprieve. As if he weren’t bloody uncomfortable enough, a combination of sweat and rain ran in irritating rivulets down his forehead and temples. Into his eyes, too. The salty sweat stung, further obscuring his visibility.
He strode to Miss LeClaire and, hands on his hips, regarded her forlorn form. She hadn’t moved. Likely shock had set in. Just what he needed—an incapacitated female miles from the nearest town and anyone who might aid them.
Hells clanging bells. Now he was breaking rule number three: Never offer assistance to an unwed female.
A dark stain marred the ground before her and, for the first time, he noticed the crimson smeared across her chest. Pray God it was her aunt’s and not hers. He knew next to nothing about tending wounds.
The earsplitting roaring grew louder. Alarm bludgeoned him as he finally comprehended what the unearthly rumble meant. Shite! Giving a shrill whistle, he summoned Deri. He grasped Emeline’s arms, pulling her unceremoniously to her feet. Peering into her blank umber eyes, he gave her a sharp shake.
“Lass! Flash flood!”
Every ounce of color drained from her already wan face. She gasped, jerking her attention behind him to the river.
“God above,” she choked out, her voice thin with terror.
Deri trotted to Liam and tossed his head.
Liam brusquely lifted her onto the destrier, legs astride, and grabbed the reins. “Scoot back,” he yelled, leaping into the saddle. “Hold on tight.” He kicked Deri hard. “Go, lad! Go!”
The horse needed no encouragement. He bolted up the incline as the wall of fulminating water tumbled down the riverbed, sucking anything unfortunate enough to be in its path into the brownish-black, undulating mass. Leaning low, Liam urged the straining horse upward, away from the frothing, churning, deadly tumult.
Not a hair’s breadth between them, Miss LeClaire clung to him, her wet head pressed into his back, her hands fisted together at his middle. Violent shudders shook her as her breasts scuffed his spine. Her breathing came in harsh little pants in between what, he suspected, might be supplications to The Almighty. Good. They needed all the help they could muster, divine or otherwise.
What seemed like hours later—in reality, only a mere handful of minutes had crawled passed—the gelding at last, crested the hill. His sides heaving, he snorted and jerked his head up and down.
“I ken, laddie. I ken. Ye did verra well.” Liam ran a hand down the horse’s lathered neck. The poor beast needed a reprieve from this devilish tempest, too. “Ye saved our lives, ye did.”
He relaxed a fraction as he dismounted then turned to survey the heaving, unforgiving waters. Had they been even five minutes later, the flood would’ve caught them, too.
Of the coach, there was no sign. Likely, the three corpses would never be found now. At least not in identifiable condition. He’d not voice that unpleasant truth, however. The knowledge might prove more than Miss LeClaire could bear in her fragile state.
“Are ye all right, lass?” He glanced over his shoulder.
As all right as any woman who found herself in this dreadful situation might be. Despite the seriousness, he couldn’t help but admire her long, milky white legs, bared to just above the thigh.
He wasn’t dead, for God’s sake. Nor a monk. Just a man who deliberately steered clear of innocent maidens.
Face pale as death, she raised her head, that umber-tined owlish gaze round and uncertain. Her pale pink lips parted. “I…” The next instant, her eyes rolled back into her head.
Arms outstretched and uttering an oath, Liam lurched toward his horse and caught her limp form.
Chapter Two
Emeline gradually awoke, becoming aware she lay on her side atop an unyielding surface. A nagging sense that something was horribly wrong prodded her awake. Simultaneously, another part of her insisted she surrender to sleep’s blessed forgetfulness once more.
Feeling as if bricks weighted her eyelids, she edged them open. God save her, the effort was almost too much.