Amanda Scott Read Online Free PDF Page B

edge. He was confident that if he and the lass could remain silent and motionless long enough, none of them would see him.
    But Waldron had extraordinary instincts to match his extraordinary skills as a warrior. Where he was concerned, they could take nothing for granted.
    Isobel scarcely dared to breathe. The men below had fallen silent at their leader’s command, and nothing they had said before then indicated that they suspected aught except that their quarry had hurried on ahead. Still, with no idea how far the passage would take them before it ended, she had no confidence that she and Michael would remain undiscovered.
    When the footsteps below passed and faded in the distance, and her companion moved, a temptation to grab him and order him to stay still nearly overwhelmed her. She was glad she had resisted when he turned and murmured in barely audible tones, “There were five of them.”
    Just as quietly, she said, “I heard only four.”
    “Aye, but I could see them, Waldron and four others.”
    “Then only one waits elsewhere.”
    “They must have left him to guard their horses.”
    “Whatever he is doing, we cannot get out of the cave the way we came in.”
    “We don’t know that,” he said. “We know only that he’s not with the others.”
    “So you think we should go back through that passage.”
    “I would willingly consider any other suggestion, mistress, but surely leaving that way would be wiser than following them, or do you disagree?”
    She could not argue that, but neither could she deny the instinct screaming at her that they were safe where they were. “We could just stay here until they leave,” she said.
    “Nay, mistress, for as safe as it feels now, I ken Waldron fine, and he’ll not leave whilst he believes we are still inside this cavern. Once they reach the end of yon passage and return to wait outside, we’re sped.”
    “But we’ve no light. And in any event, how can we get down again?”
    “We’ll get down the way we got up,” he said.
    And to her further astonishment, he shifted his weight as he spoke and moments later, she was alone on the ledge and could hear nothing to indicate that he had been anything more than a spirit beside her.
    The blackness consumed her, weighing so heavily that she wanted to cry out to him to make certain he had not abandoned her. Her body felt as if it had turned to stone, so resistant that she feared she would be unable to move and wondered briefly if someone hundreds of years in the future would find her—or the mound of dust she had become by then—still lying on that ledge. When he hissed from below, he nearly startled her of her skin.
    “I dare not show a light,” he whispered, “but if you slide to the edge and over, I shall hear where you are, and if you fall, I believe that I can keep you from suffering any injury. But try to find a foothold or two as you ease your way over the edge, until I can grasp your feet.”
    “But I cannot see a thing,” she protested.
    “The only other choice is for you to remain hidden here whilst I try to escape and summon aid for you,” he said reasonably. “If that is what you’d prefer—”
    “No! I’ll do as you say.” She did not even have to think about it, because the decision made itself. She ached for sunlight and freedom.
    Second thoughts assailed her as she inched to the edge, but knowing that haste was essential, she forced herself to lie on her stomach and dangle her feet and legs over the precipice into space.
    Her skirts caught on the rough rock face but she ignored that detail, focusing on finding blind footholds until she rested on her forearms and elbows with only her shoulders and head still above the ledge. The rest of her felt perilously heavy.
    “Just a bit farther, lass, and I’ll be able to reach you,” he said.
    Wondering how on earth he could know such a thing, and muttering a brief prayer that the Almighty would not let her fall on him, and either kill or injure