Page 14 of The Iron Earl

She couldn’t be any more beholden to him than she already was. And she couldn’t have him hurt on her account. She would just have to conjure up another way to escape these two.

One that didn’t involve Lachlan.

“He’s not my man,” she said, looking down at Mr. Fitzgibbon. “I am to be part of his household, that is all.”

Mr. Fitzgibbon nodded and a bright smile strained the tight skin across his face. He looked to Lachlan. “Well then, that settles it. Ye won’t be mindin’ if we take her for a spell? We can bring her to yer camp come morn.”

“I’m afraid we’ll be long gone from the area by then.” Lachlan’s hand slapped onto the pommel of his saddle. “So unfortunately, no, that will not do.”

“An hour then?” Mr. Fitzgibbon jabbed his thumb in the air over his shoulder behind him. “Yer camp must be back there? We can deliver her right quick.”

Lachlan shook his head, a frown crossing his lips. “Regrettably, that will not do either. I will just be taking her now, if you please.”

“That don’t please us none, sir.” The cousin jabbed the tip of the blade into her side with the words.

She twisted, trying to avoid the dagger from impaling her and she fell back against the jutting bones of Mr. Fitzgibbon. He’d moved closer, securing the trap. And the blade hadn’t moved from her side.

In a flash of sparking fire, Lachlan kicked his horse into motion and aligned himself next to the front right side of the wagon, his broadsword drawn and the tip of it pressing into the cousin’s neck. “Well, it would please me. And I am the one with a longer sword.” His words still nonchalant, he could have been talking about buttering his toast.

The cousin grabbed Evalyn’s forearm, twisting her closer into the blade.

Lachlan’s sword jabbed inward, the tip indenting the skin on the cousin’s neck. “You are positive you would like to try me, sir?”

A grimace crossed the cousin’s face, breaking through the mottled red outrage splotching across his pale forehead.

Lachlan’s sword jabbed further into the cousin’s neck. “This is about a wench, nothing more, sir. Make sure you’re willing to die for it.”

A long, breathless moment passed. Not a muscle by any party moved.

The cousin’s hand dropped, the tip of the dagger slipping from Evalyn’s side. He released her arm.

“Get on my horse, Evalyn.” Lachlan held the sword hard against the cousin’s long neck.

Evalyn scrambled across the cousin’s lap, under the long sword, and awkwardly threw her leg up and parted her skirts. She slipped onto the saddle in front of Lachlan.

Once she was seated, Lachlan pulled the reins, nudging his horse away from the wagon with his sword still held high. His eyes never left the cousin.

Ten long strides of his horse and Lachlan set the steed to a trot.

He didn’t look back.

Evalyn attempted not to be mortified by her legs spread wide, her calves fully exposed, and her backside jarring into the rock hard torso of Lachlan with every jostle of the horse.

But even through her humiliation, relief swept into her bones.

For what she had been facing with Mr. Fitzgibbon and his cousin, she recognized full well she was in safer hands with Lachlan.

At least for the moment.

Ten minutes passed and Lachlan yanked up on the reins.

She looked around at the surrounding trees and the unearthly shadows from the moonlight making the forest glow. Not the slightest whiff of campfire in the air. They were nowhere near the camp yet.

“Get off the horse.” Lachlan’s words were low, simmering with rage.

“What?” She twisted in the saddle to face him.

A mistake, for the full blast of the fury seething on his face hit her. “Get off the blasted horse or I’m going to push you off.”