Page 40 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
“Yes. It might be worth our while to…interviewthis kidnapper before we dispatch him into the care of the good Lord on high,” Sheppard said.
“Why?” Savage asked, through another pungent cloud of smoke. “Why not just kill the bugger and be done with it?”
“Because, it might be prudent to determine whether or not the Captain’s daughter can be trusted to stay put once we have returned her,” Hirst said, twirling the knife he had been using to clean his nails dexterously through his fingers before sheathing it.
Sheppard nodded. “My thoughts precisely, old friend.”
Savage tapped out his pipe against the pommel of his saddle.
“Bah, I’d rather be on my way home back across the border to a comfortable inn, but I suppose it’s better to be safe than sorry. Besides,” he added, grinning his yellow-toothed smile, “the way Mr. Hirst questions someone, I doubt we’ll be talkin’ to this poor bastard for very long.”
* * *
Edward opened his eyes to find a high, clear, washed out dawn sky above him. The birds were just beginning to clear their throats; he heard the unmistakable gurgling, clucking chuckle of a pheasant somewhere out in the thin morning mists, the piping songs of lapwings, and the chattering of Scottish crossbills.
With a soft sigh, Edward rolled from his side and onto his back. It was very early, that much was obvious from the faded pink that still diffused the sky and the last clinging mauves of night time. He sat up and stretched his arms, looked over at the fire to see if it was still living and able to warm a bit of the venison he had in his saddlebags.
And saw that he was not the first awake.
Charlotte was sitting, huddled in Edward’s blanket and watching the blue grow stronger out on the eastern horizon. The Scottish Highlands, at that hour, were softened from the hard, stunning lands that so many people saw and imagined into a soft, ethereal landscape swathed in golden mists. The thin veils of fog gave the impression that the jagged tors were coated in snow, the light of the rising sun suffusing everything with a pleasant golden glow.
From where he sat, Edward could just make out Charlotte’s profile, could see that she was sitting with her eyes closed and a slight smile on her face. As the sun raised itself over the far hills, and the first of its light began to spill properly over the hills and fill the valleys, Edward saw Charlotte’s mouth open in a smile of pure delight as the sunrise touched her face. She took a deep breath, exhaled and opened her eyes.
Edward coughed gently and the Englishwoman turned to face him. Despite the heaviness of the preceding evening’s conversation, she looked––and Edward could think of no other word to describe her––radiant.
“Good morning, Edward,” she said brightly.
“Good mornin’ to ye, Sassenach,” he replied.
“And what a morning it is!” she exclaimed happily.
Her mood was infectious and Edward could not help but unknit his eyebrows when he looked at her. “Aye, that it is,” he said. “Promises to be a hot day, once this mist clears.”
“For some reason, the idea of the Highlands being hot does not seem to make sense in my head,” Charlotte said to him, looking back over the gorgeous country that stretched away from where they sat on the hillside. Emerging from the fogs, Edward could now make out a lovely patch of waving heather.
“Ah, well, ye shall see if I do not speak the truth by the time the sun sets, won’t ye, Sassenach,” he said, putting a few strips of dried venison into the embers of the campfire to toast.
He looked up at her and raised the eyebrow that had a notch through it. “We shall have to make some serious headway today, Sassenach,” he told her. “I was dwellin’ on this last night afore I slept. If yer faither is as canny as ye make him sound, he will have sent men after us that will be able to pick up our trail. We have nae been very careful in hidin’ it. The forest will slow them a little, but once they hit the grasslands…”
He was grieved to see the effect that his words had on Charlotte’s sunny mood. The smile that illuminated her face faded somewhat. The effect was like the sun going in behind a cloud.
“You fear that they will catch us?” she asked.
Edward shrugged, but it was clear that Charlotte could read the unease in his eyes.
“I can tell ye this, lass,” he said to her. “That if any of yer faither’s men attempt to take ye by force––and if ye do not want to go back wi’ them––then I shall do everythin’ in me power to stop ‘em.”
His hand moved down to rest upon the pommel of his basket-hilted broadsword.
Charlotte hitched a smile onto her face, with obvious difficulty. Something seemed to be troubling her. Edward tended the strips of venison, turning them and turning them again, as she struggled with whatever it was that niggling her.
Once he had picked the strips of dried meat out of the dull embers with a couple of sticks and passed a couple over to her on a cloth, she seemed ready to voice what was bothering her.
“You know these hills well, Edward?” she asked him.
Edward took a bite of his own venison and gave a single nod. “Aye,” he said through his mouthful of deer meat.
“And you will be able to move us swiftly through them?” Charlotte asked him. “As swift as any man is able––even with me slowing you down?”
