Cait shook her head. Was it Emily's Englishness or the fact that she was a human that made her so prim? Cait would never have spent such a grueling ride trying to maintain propriety, but then she was a wolf and they were taught from the cradle to be more practical about their bodies than the human members of her clan tended to be.

"How did you know my captor's name?" Emily asked. "Have you seen him before?"

"No, but he's obviously the leader and he spoke possessively about Susannah, so I'm guessing he is the laird of the Balmoral clan… Lachlan. He could be her brother, but if I'm to be kept by Drustan, I can't help thinking he's Susannah's brother. He has not said." In fact, he hadn't said a single word since she'd called him that nasty name.

"Oh."

"Do you want me to ask if I am right?"

"No. I'm sure you are. It was a clever guess, but I was too busy trying to think of ways to escape to work it through. I should have figured out he was the laird anyway. It's obvious now that you say it."

Cait had to smile at her friend's chagrin. "Do not be too hard on yourself."

"I'm so smart I got both of us kidnapped. If I hadn't, I could have raised the alarm and gotten your brother's warriors in pursuit all the faster."

Cait felt badly that Emily had been kidnapped, too, but considering the way she and Talorc got along, Cait didn't think the other woman being left behind would have been an improvement. Especially if she didn't succeed at escape. And, in her condition, she had very little hope of doing so.

"By the time you had walked back to the keep, we would have been too fat ahead to do me any good. Remember, we had ridden a fair way before the laird was prepared to release you. As it is, Everett has raised the alarm, I'm sure."

"I hope you're right and that no wild animals got him."

"He is no unprotected human." Cait grimaced at her slip, but Emily didn't seem to notice.

She was too busy looking around her. "Why did we stop here, do you think?"

"To get in the boat."

"Boat?" Emily asked, going pale. "What boat?"

"The Balmoral clan live in a fortress on an island. Once we are in the boat, it will be much harder for my brother to rescue us."

"There will be no rescue, lass," Drustan called in a hard voice from a distance away.

Emily gasped in shock even as her whole body shook with fear at the prospect of being dragged onto a boat. "How did he know we were talking about that?"

"He could hear us."

But Emily shook her head. "We're too far away and we've been speaking in undertones. He must have made a clever, guess."

Cait looked as though she were going to argue. "Emily…"

"What?"

Then Cait shook her head. "Never mind. Do you speak Latin?" she asked in that language in a bare whisper.

"Yes."

"I'm hoping they don't."

Emily understood immediately. In case one of them did have particularly good hearing, it wouldn't hurt if she and Cait spoke in a foreign tongue. She would ask another time how her friend had learned Latin. It wasn't an uncommon accomplishment for women of her status in England, but she'd always heard the Highlanders lived near barbarianism.

Though, so far, that belief had been shown up as a gross exaggeration.

"What are we going to do?"

"Keep pretending that you are debilitated by the ride."

"That should be easy," Emily said with a grimace, her sore muscles making it not much of a pretense.

"We have to steal some horses."

"But they will only follow us."

"Our one hope is to stay ahead of them long enough to meet up with my brother."

"If he is following."

"He is. Trust me. Do you notice how they are letting the horses drink without a guard?"

Emily looked to the water's edge where all five horses drank. The men were busy readying the boat Cait had mentioned and some kind of contraption that she thought might be for the horses. It looked like a floating raft, but with openings for the horses to be harnessed to it, so they could swim behind the boat, but be kept afloat? At least that is what it seemed to her.

"We need to get closer to the horses and when they have two of them harnessed for crossing the sea and are busy with the third one, we will grab the last two and run. We must be swift."

Emily nodded and then had an inspiration. "Laird?" she called.

He looked at her, his expression thoughtful.

"Cait and I need a moment of privacy."

His dark brow rose, the only indication he gave that he heard her.

She felt a blush climb her cheeks. "To, you know…"

Lachlan had to bite back a smile, which was a very different reaction for him. He wondered if he should tell the women he spoke Latin as well? Not yet.

Since he knew their plan was to try to steal horses, he wasn't concerned about allowing her the moment of privacy she asked for, but he did wonder what she thought it would gain her.

"Be quick," he barked.

She jumped, nodded and turned to hurry into the bushes. Cait was right behind her.

He listened to them as they left.

"He's awfully surly, isn't he?" the Englishwoman asked.

"He's laird," Cait replied.

"And that's his excuse for rudeness? I don't know why I'm surprised. It's your brother's as well."

Mention of her husband, the Sinclair laird, irritated him and Lachlan scowled.

"They're spirited lasses, aren't they?" Drustan asked from beside him.

"That is one way to put it," Lachlan growled.

"Cait called me a horse's backside."

"I heard."

Drustan laughed. "I'll have her apology tonight, along with other things."

Lachlan nodded. "Be gentle with her. She's carrying."

"The Balmorals don't hurt women."

"I know that."

"They don't bed other men's wives either."

A warning growl rumbled low in Lachlan's throat. "I know that as well. But if her husband has bedded her, I'll bury my claymore. She's too damn innocent."

"And that bothers you?"

"Yes," he bit out.

"Would it be easier to keep your hands off her if she weren't, do you think?"

Lachlan had no answer. He had never anticipated wanting an Englishwoman and would sooner tear out his own throat than bed another man's wife. But he wanted this purple-eyed spitfire… enough to make his body rigid with desire and his sex ache.

"I should have left her in the forest."

"You could still leave her. The Sinclair is probably only a couple of hours behind us."

"If that."

"So, leave her."

"I can't."

"Hell."

"My thoughts exactly."

"If you kill him, she would be a widow," Drustan said helpfully.

"I'm still not convinced she is a wife."

Chapter 4

"What's the matter?" Emily demanded of Cait.

All of a sudden, her friend looked ready to cry.

"I don't want him to kill my brother."

"Who?"

"Lachlan… the laird of the Balmorals."

"Why would he kill him?"

"To have you."

"Don't be ridiculous."

But Cait wasn't listening. She was like she had been earlier… intent on something Emily could get no glimmer of.

"What is it, Cait?"

But Cait just shook her head.

"Don't you think it is odd they did not send a guard with us?"

"We could never outdistance them and they know it."

"But if we hid… perhaps we could delay their departure until your brother caught up with us."

Cait's face leached of color. "I do not want that to happen."

"What? Why?"

"The Balmoral laird could kill Talorc. I'm not even sure that Drustan couldn't. It wouldn't be a given, but it is possible. I don't want to lose my brother."

"But won't there be a battle when we meet up with them with the horses?"

"I am hoping they won't follow once we get away. They will know their attempt at taking us has failed."

"I don't see Lachlan avoiding a fight."

Cait's eyes filled with tears. "I don't either."

Emily put her arm around her. "What do you want to do?"

"If we don't escape, my brother will come for us on the island. And there is an even greater chance he would be killed then."

Although the cranky laird's death would solve her own problems, Emily wasn't tempted in the least to wish for it. First, because it would be a terrible sin, but second because it would hurt her dear friend. "Then we must escape."

"Yes."

"But you do not wish to run and hide now?"

"Hiding would never work." Cait bit her lip. "They could find us no matter how good our concealment."

"You speak as if they are gods. They are merely men, Cait."

"No. They are not. They are more…" She made a sound of distress. "I wonder if they heard our plans, perhaps they can hear us even now…" Cait shook her head. "No, I think we are far enough away to be out of earshot. I don't hear them anymore. We did walk a good long distance."

"If we don't return soon, they are bound to come looking for us."

A pained expression came over Cait's features. "They already have. We must return now."

Emily nodded, unwilling to argue with her distraught friend. If she said the men were coming, she must have heard something. She'd certainly heard them before Emily had at the lake.

However, her pretense had not been all deception. "I still need a few moments of privacy."

Cait looked startled and then laughed jerkily. "Me, too. I've found pregnancy makes this aspect of life quite challenging at times."