Read Online Folly's Reward by Jean R. Ewing - Free Book Online

primrose.
    A lump rose in her throat. She was about to pass through the country of her childhood, and she had never left Scotland before.
    It took more than three hours to reach Lanark. Hal drove steadily, accurately, and fast, but the road took precipitous turns through the craggy country.
    While the horses were being changed, Prudence bought a large basket of provisions at the inn, while Hal indulged himself with venison pie and a bottle of wine.
    “Now,” he said, smiling down at her. “Why not let Bobby sit up here with me?”
    “Yes, please!” the boy squealed. “Please!”
    Prudence frowned up at Hal. “Not fair!”
    “Please, Miss Drake! Please! I’ll be a very good boy.”
    “Yes,” Hal said. “Not fair. So why don’t you sit up here with us, as well?”
    “I have no other choice, do I?” she said with justifiable anger.
    The little boy clambered up onto the box.
    She followed, then leaned to hiss in Hal’s ear. “You shall not get away with this again, sir. To use the child to trap me like this.”
    Hal only grinned. “Shameless, I know. But worth it, even if you frown all the way to Carlisle. This is your country, after all. And just look at it!”
    And yes, it was worth it.
    Hal drove up across the bleak, treeless tops of the Southern Uplands, past Crawford and the gold and lead-rich Elvan Water, the great peak of Lowther Law rising ahead. Water sparkled everywhere, for these open wastes were the headwaters of both the Clyde and the Nith.
    At last they left the straggle of heather-thatched mining villages behind, and trotted on past Ballencleuch Law, looming threateningly to the left as a shadow cast by the high floating clouds darkened the peak for a moment.
    Magnificent, wild, lovely country! Her own.
    Yet Prudence choked down a renewed rush of fear. What had she undertaken to do? When she had promised old Lady Dunraven to take Bobby away into hiding, she had never thought for one moment that deadly pursuit might be so close on her trail.
    She glanced down at Hal’s beautiful hands, so very competent and powerful, as he guided the horses. It was madness, perhaps, but she knew a rush of gratitude that he was with her.
    The sun blazed out once again, throwing a shaft of golden light across her skirts. The carriage rocked as Hal pulled up the horses.
    “Below us, if the directions of our kind chaise-owner are correct, is Nithsdale, and it’s all downhill from here,” he said. “Shall we have a picnic dinner?”
    Prudence thought of that long scar running down below an eye-patch.
    “Must we stop? I wish we might hurry.”
    “Good God, angel, we are hurrying. It is usual, I understand, to make Glasgow to Carlisle a two-day journey. I need a break, and so do the horses. We’ll still be in Carlisle well before midnight. Isn’t that good enough?”
    Prudence colored. Hal had been driving for over nine hours, counting the time in the pony cart. It would take another seven or eight hours, at least, to reach Carlisle. There were several roads south out of Glasgow.
    Even if the man with the eye-patch had discovered that a woman with a blond boy had been trying to get a seat on the Carlisle coach, he could not know which way they had gone. Hopefully, his inquiries had taken some time. The innkeeper hadn’t seemed the type to easily volunteer much information.
    She gazed away across the hills and found without surprise that she was close to exhaustion herself. Then she saw why Hal had stopped in this particular spot.
    A scattering of huge granite boulders lay beside the turn of the road. Several trees were growing in their beneficent shelter. It was a perfect spot to bait the horses and sit in the sun for a picnic.
    For below them stretched a wide glen and—magically claiming her attention—an ancient castle, isolated and ruined, towered at the mouth of a narrow gorge, where a stream fed snowmelt from the peaks into the valley. Water leaped and foamed, throwing spume high against the moss-covered