Outlander aka Cross Stitch - Gabaldon Diana - Страница 14

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“What the devil do you mean by running away like that?” he demanded. A thick lock of dark-brown hair had come loose and curved across his brow, making him look even more disconcertingly like Frank.

He leaned down and grasped me by the arms. Still gasping for breath, I struggled to get free, but succeeded only in dragging him down on top of me.

He lost his balance and collapsed at full length on me, flattening me once more. Surprisingly enough, this seemed to make his annoyance vanish.

“Oh, like that, is it?” he said, with a chuckle. “Well, I’d be most willing to oblige you, Chuckie, but it happens you’ve chosen a rather inopportune moment.” His weight pressed my hips to the ground, and a small rock was digging painfully into the small of my back. I squirmed to dislodge it. He ground his hips hard against mine, and his hands pinned my shoulders to the earth. My mouth fell open in outrage.

“What do you…” I began, but he ducked his head and kissed me, cutting short my expostulations. His tongue thrust into my mouth and explored me with a bold familiarity, roving and plunging, retreating and lunging again. Then, just as suddenly as he had begun, he pulled back.

He patted my cheek. “Quite nice, Chuck. Perhaps later, when I’ve the leisure to attend to you properly.”

I had by this time recovered my breath, and I used it. I screamed directly into his earhole, and he jerked as though I had run a hot wire into it. I took advantage of the movement to get my knee up, and jabbed it into his exposed side, sending him sprawling into the leaf mold.

I scrambled awkwardly to my feet. He rolled expertly, and came up alongside me. I glanced wildly around, looking for a way out, but we were flush up against the foot of one of those towering granite cliffs that just so abruptly from the soil of the Scottish Highlands. He had caught me at a point where the rock face broke inward, forming a shallow stony box. He blocked the entrance to the declivity, arms spread and braced between the rock walls, an expression of mingled anger and curiosity on his handsome dark face.

“Who were you with?” he demanded. “Frank, whoever he is? I’ve no man by that name among my company. Or is it some man who lives nearby?” He smiled derisively. “You haven’t the smell of dung on your skin, so you haven’t been with a cottar. For that matter, you look a bit more expensive than the local farmers could afford.”

I clenched my fists and set my chin. Whatever this joker had in mind, I was having none of it.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about, and I’ll thank you to let me pass at once!” I said, adopting my very best ward-sister’s tone. This generally had a good effect on recalcitrant orderlies and young interns, but appeared merely to amuse Captain Randall. I was resolutely repressing the feelings of fear and disorientation that were flapping under my ribs like a panicked flock of hens.

He shook his head slowly, examining me once more in detail.

“Not just at present, Chuckie. I’m asking myself,” he said, conversationally, “just why a whore abroad in her shift would be wearing her shoes? And quite fine ones, at that,” he added, glancing at my plain brown loafers.

“A what!” I exclaimed.

He ignored me completely. His gaze had returned to my face, and he suddenly stepped forward and gripped my chin in his hand. I grabbed his wrist and yanked.

“Let go of me!” He had fingers like steel. Disregarding my efforts to free myself, he turned my face from one side to the other, so the fading afternoon light shone on it.

“The skin of a lady, I’ll swear,” he murmured to himself. He leaned forward and sniffed. “And a French scent in your hair.” He let go then, and I rubbed my jaw indignantly, as though to erase the touch I still felt on my skin.

“The rest might be managed with money from your patron,” he mused, “but you’ve the speech of a lady too.”

“Thanks so much!” I snapped. “Get out of my way. My husband is expecting me; if I’m not back in ten minutes, he’ll come looking for me.”

“Oh, your husband?” The derisively admiring expression retreated somewhat, but did not disappear completely. “And what is your husband’s name, pray? Where is he? And why does he allow his wife to wander alone through deserted woods in a state of undress?”

I had been throttling that part of my brain that was beating itself to pieces trying to make sense of the whole afternoon. It now managed to break through long enough to tell me that however absurd I thought its conjectures, giving this man Frank’s name, the same as his own, was only likely to lead to further trouble. Disdaining therefore to answer him, I made to push past him. He blocked my passage with a muscular arm, and reached for me with his other hand.

There was a sudden whoosh from above, followed immediately by a blur before my eyes and a dull thud. Captain Randall was on the ground at my feet, under a heaving mass that looked like a bundle of old plaid rags. A brown, rocklike fist rose out of the mass and descended with considerable force, meeting decisively with some bony protuberance, by the sound of the resultant crack. The Captain’s struggling legs, shiny in tall brown boots, relaxed quite suddenly.

I found myself staring into a pair of sharp black eyes. The sinewy hand that had temporarily distracted the Captain’s unwelcome attentions was attached like a limpet to my forearm.

“And who the hell are you?” I said in astonishment. My rescuer, if I cared to call him that, was some inches shorter than I and sparely built, but the bare arms protruding from the ragged shirt were knotted with muscle and his whole frame gave the impression of being made of some resilient material such as bedsprings. No beauty, either, with a pockmarked skin, low brow, and narrow jaw.

“This way.” He jerked on my arm, and I, stupefied by the rush of recent events, obediently followed.

My new companion pushed his way rapidly through a scrim of alder, made an abrupt turn around a large rock, and suddenly we were on a path. Overgrown with gorse and heather, and zigzagging so that it was never visible for more than six feet ahead, it was still unmistakably a path, leading steeply up toward the crest of a hill.

Not until we were picking our way cautiously down the far side of the hill did I gather breath and wit enough to ask where we were going. Receiving no answer from my companion, I repeated “Where on earth are we going?” in a louder tone.

To my considerable surprise, he rounded on me, face contorted, and pushed me off the path. As I opened my mouth to protest, he clapped a hand over it and dragged me to the ground, rolling on top of me.

Not again! I thought, and was heaving desperately to and fro to free myself when I heard what he had heard, and suddenly lay still. Voices called back and forth, accompanied by trampling and splashing sounds. They were unmistakably English voices. I struggled violently to get my mouth free. I sank my teeth into his hand, and had time only to register the fact that he had been eating pickled herring with his fingers, before something crashed against the back of my skull, and everything went dark.

The stone cottage loomed up suddenly through a haze of night mist. The shutters were bolted tight, showing no more than a thread of light. Having no idea how long I had been unconscious, I couldn’t tell how far this place was from the hill of Craigh na Dun or the town of Inverness. We were on horseback, myself mounted before my captor, with hands tied to the pommel, but there was no road, so progress was still rather slow.

I thought I had not been out for long; I showed no symptoms of concussion or other ill effects from the blow, save a sore patch on the base of my skull. My captor, a man of few words, had responded to my questions, demands and acerbic remarks alike with the all-purpose Scottish noise which can best be rendered phonetically as “Mmmmphm.” Had I been in any doubt as to his nationality, that sound alone would have been sufficient to remove it.

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