Free The Scot and I by Elizabeth Thornton

have given him the slip, but Gavin would know, when he had not turned up at their rendezvous, that he, Alex, must be in trouble. Gavin would come looking for him.
    And where was his muse? It should be showing him a way out, not tempting him with lewd thoughts. Hell and damnation, how much longer before they reached Inver?
     
     
    The cart had stopped moving. He raised his head and listened. Horses stamping and neighing, the jangle of harness, men’s voices. The tarpaulin was removed, and someone untied the knots on his bonds. Alex feigned unconsciousness, fearing that he would get another thump on the head if he tried anything. When nothing happened, he flexed his stiff fingers, fisted them, then rolled onto his back and cleared the cart with an almighty heave. His eyes weren’t accustomed to the light, and he swayed on his feet.
    “Here, Kenneth,” said a voice Alex didn’t recognize, “gie me a hand with the poor man.”
    A friendly hand steadied him, Alex blinked to clear his vision and took a moment to get his bearings. He was in the stable yard of a small inn surrounded by a group of stable hands. He didn’t take time to answer any of the questions that flew at him. He was scanning the stable yard and its environs for a sign of the boy or Dugald. There was nothing.
    “I’m Jock Ogg,” the man holding his elbow said, “the proprietor of this alehouse. Och, but you’ll soon come to yourself. Come away in and get warm. A fall from a horse is no laughing matter.”
    Alex had already come to himself and was impatient to go after the girl. “Where are they?” he demanded. “The man and the boy? Which way did they go?”
    Mr. Ogg frowned and shook his head. “There was no man, only a boy, and he rode off to fetch the doctor. You were lucky you didna break your neck in the fall. No one who knows the moors would dream of jumping blind over a stone dike. You never can tell what is on the other side.”
    So that was the story she’d told them, that he’d taken a tumble from his horse. But how had she managed to disappear so quickly?
    Mr. Ogg was still talking, but Alex had stopped listening. His mind was working like lightning. She’d said that she would get medical attention for him, but he doubted that she’d gone for the doctor. Dropping him off at this small country alehouse among friendly yokels was the only medical attention he was likely to receive. She was mounted. He’d bet his last farthing that Dugald was mounted, too, Where had they got the horses?
    “The lad was mounted, you say?”
    “Not when he arrived. He brought you in on the cart, but a Highland pony was tied to the back. He was that upset that he told us very little before he went haring off. The nearest doctor is in Ballater, so it will be some time before the lad returns. Now come along in and have a bite to eat while ye wait. It wouldna hurt to brush off your clothes and tidy yourself.” Mr. Ogg chuckled. “I think the cart you borrowed must have carried a load of peat at one time or another. So—”
    “I need a horse,” Alex said, breaking into Ogg’s monologue. “You hire out horses, don’t you?”
    “Aye, but are ye sure you’re well enough to ride?”
    “I’m well enough.”
    The man called Kenneth cut in, “Have ye no heard about the trouble up at Balmoral?”
    “I’ve heard.”
    “Well, ye won’t get far. They’ve set up roadblocks on all the roads from Braemar to Aboyne and are questioning everybody who tries to pass. We’ve all been warned to stay off the roads unless we have a very good reason to be on them.”
    “Roadblocks?” Things were beginning to look up. The girl was too canny to be caught in a roadblock, but it would suit his purposes. She couldn’t move freely. She and her cohort shouldn’t be too difficult to track. “I’ll take my chances. I’m known up at the castle. That’s where I want to go.”
    He was swaying on his feet, not so much from the punch from Dugald’s hefty fist, but