Parris Afton Bonds Read Free Page B

as Enya ’s guard, rode ahead of and behind her coach. With a jerk, it and its team of six grays set out at a fast clip down the double row of oaks. Haste was needed if the bride was to reach Glasgow by nightfall. The ship was to sail with the tide.
    The coach ’s three occupants were silent, each already missing Ayr and Afton House. Each was wondering what the future would bring. The sounds of horses’ hooves, harnesses, and carriage wheels were the only noises as the coach traveled the byroads through glen and dale.
    After they crossed the Brig o ’Doon spanning the Ayr River, the countryside sped past the coach window: manicured hills with flocks of sheep, patches of daffodils and violets and the delicate lavender heather, stone dykes separating small tenant farms, and country estates lavish with ferns and flowers.
    The sp lendid summer sunlight was waning, the high-piled clouds pink with sunset, when the galloping grays stopped at a coaching inn. An ostler came running out to tend the horses.
    "M ’lady, I have need of the . . . privy,” Mary Laurie said. She was a priggish lass who nonetheless was desirous of finding herself a learned husband. God knew where she would find a learned man in the Highlands. Their Gaelic tongue was the rude speech of a barbarous people who had few thoughts to express.
    "Ayrshire plowboys want only a wife to cook and clean the mud from their boots,” she complained often enough in her Scots Braid, akin to Old English.
    Enya nodded her permission. "Elspeth, accompany Mary Laurie, will you? A posting inn ’s common room isn’t always the safest place to pass through."
    Rather than seek out the inn ’s private parlor, Enya elected to remain in the coach. As she understood, a pause of only a quarter of an hour was allotted before the bridal journey would be resumed.
    What she didn ’t understand was the dark silhouette that swung suddenly inside the coach and clapped a callused hand over her mouth to stifle her startled "What—?”

 
    Chapter Two
     
    “ D uncan!” Enya jerked away the hand covering her mouth. “I might have known it was you. What do you think you are doing?”
    His grin momentarily broadened his narrow face. One of his front teeth slightly overlapped the other. "Servin ’ as yer escort for yer bridal journey, m’lady.” He plopped down in the seat opposite her. “Tis verra dangerous roads yell be a’takin’. And without that Wakefield to—”
    Her eyes narrowed. “ Sir Oliver Wakefield? You put something in the proxy’s drink to make him drunk, didn’t you?”
    His expression was one of affronted innocence. “ The old goat would have bored ye to tears.” She reached across and clasped his roughened hand. In the confines of the coach, the smell of the sea and salt spray emanated from him. ‘"Tis no good, Duncan. What we have belongs to our childhood.”
    In the gathering darkness, the shrug of his thin shoulde rs was almost imperceptible. *'l dinna ken if I can let ye go 'til I see for meself that ye are in good hands, Enya.”
    The ache in his voice was an echo of her own at leaving all that was familiar and dear to her. Duncan had given her her first and only kis s. His father had been the castle blacksmith, but the hammer and forge and fire were not for Duncan. No, the open sea and freedom were his desire. And, of course, her.
    He propped his booted feet next to her on the seat. The heels were run down and the leat her cracked and reeking of a briny smell. "So, me darlin', if ye canna stomach yer husband, will ye summon me to your bed?”
    She thumped his boot with her fan. “ I have no taste for the English gallows, Duncan, and that’s where ye’ll be keeping company if ye continue to ply your smuggling trade.” Too often, she found herself lapsing into the Scottish brogue when talking with Duncan, whose accent was as broad as the River Clyde. He pronounced his r’s with a trill of the tongue that Scottish bards had practiced for centuries