Into The Hinterland
Already out of breath, Adelina despaired of keeping up with Mandeville. On the verge of collapse, she was suddenly lifted off her feet by two foul-smelling men. She screamed and struggled until one of them rasped her name. It was as well her feet were in mid air because her legs might have buckled with relief. “Terric,” she gasped.
“Why is the fool running uphill away from the water?” her brother panted when they paused.
She swallowed hard. “He doesn’t realize you came by sea.”
“Let him go,” her Montbryce cousin suggested. “We’ll head for the galley across the dunes.”
“No,” she exclaimed. “He has my dowry.”
“Dowry?” Terric asked.
Adelina looked directly at her brother, to be sure he understood. “The proceeds from the sale of Melton Manor.”
The anger and shock in his stern gaze broke her heart, but she had to smile. “You look like you’ve wrestled a pig,” she teased.
Terric smirked. “Roland and I were imprisoned in the piggery. We had a bit of a tussle freeing ourselves.”
For the first time, she turned her attention to her cousin. “I knew you would come, Roland.”
Her Montbryce hero was covered in muck and didn’t smell too sweetly but his wry smile caused a peculiar pulsing in a very private place.
An unspoken bond formed as they stared at each other for long moments. She’d seen lust in a man’s hungry gaze before, but the adoration in Roland’s ice blue eyes was humbling. And something else—vulnerability?
“Shall we just stand here and let them catch us?” Terric interrupted.
Roland bent the knee. “On my back,” he urged.
Sensing it would be useless to refuse and admitting inwardly she’d never make it up the steep hill Mandeville had climbed, she accepted her brother’s help to mount Roland’s broad back.
She put her arms around his neck as he looped his arms around her thighs and stood. She flattened her breasts against his back, inhaling deeply when her woman’s place pressed against him and pleasant sensations spiraled into her womb. She and Terric had played piggyback as children, but this was different—more intimate. The emotions flooding her heart and loins were definitely not sisterly. They set off in pursuit of the stolen dowry, her bearer loping along as if she weighed nothing at all.
* * *
Perhaps it was the warmth of Adelina’s most intimate body parts pressed against him that renewed Roland’s strength. Or was it a hatred of injustice spurring him on? Whatever the case, power surged into his leg muscles as he climbed, barely out of breath. He refused Terric’s repeated offers to take Adelina onto his back.
At the crest of the hill, they paused. He set Adelina on her feet and looked back. There was activity in the compound in front of the house. Gesticulating wildly, two women appeared to be screeching at a handful of men swarming through the palisade’s gate.
“The big woman is Bertha,” Adelina explained. “I discovered the maid who accompanied me is the illegitimate daughter of Bertha and the baron. They’ve lived off the dowries of women lured here under false pretenses.”
“And what role did Mandeville play?” Terric growled.
“I believe he had no idea what was going on until the actual ceremony this morning.”
His hopes plummeting, Roland grasped her arm. “You’re married?”
She shook her head. “I believe the man I was supposed to wed is dead. Another took his place. It was so dark I couldn’t see anything properly. I spoke no vows in any case and neither did he. If the major hadn’t killed his guard and given me an opportunity to flee…”
Incensed by the fear in her warm, brown eyes, Roland gathered her into his arms, elated when she melted into him despite his rank state. He stroked her hair as she sobbed. “I will avenge you,” he swore.
“First, we must elude them,” Terric reminded him. “I’ve lost sight of Mandeville.”
“He must be up ahead somewhere,” Adelina replied, easing away from Roland. “I appreciate being carried, but I can walk for a while.”
He thought to protest that she wasn’t a burden, but the steely glint in her gaze bespoke courage and determination. He took her hand and led the way further into the daunting hills.
* * *
His lungs on fire, Harcourt dropped the chest and fell to his knees halfway up the second hill. Unable to rise, he rolled onto on his back and looked up at the clouds. Rain might not be a bad thing. He’d simply open his mouth and let nature slake his raging thirst.
He turned his head, exasperated when there was no sign of Adelina below him. On the other hand, the first hill he’d climbed obscured any glimpse of Waterthwaite.
Eventually, he managed to sit up and survey his surroundings. All around him, in every direction, steep hills loomed, the tops shrouded in mist. The terrain was nothing like the rolling downs of his native Sussex. He struggled to recall what little he’d learned of the Cumbrian hinterland from fellow soldiers who’d been stationed in Carlisle—endless, boulder-strewn and heather-clad moorland that eventually led to the border castle built by the Conqueror’s son. Reaching it was his only hope, though he had no notion of the distance he would have to cover.
He staggered to his feet, contemplating leaving the chest where it lay beneath a gorse bush. He didn’t want or need the blood money that had probably cost Adelina her life.
However, the contents would serve to bolster the truth of his tale when he arrive in Carlisle. It was almost too diabolical to believe. King John might look upon his failure more favorably if the coin was recovered.