of hours in order to rest his horse and depended mostly on the meager rations in his pack, but he was finally beginning to think he had a chance at catching them.
The sign reading Gretna Green, six furlongs ahead ought to have brought relief but instead, sent a bolt of urgency through him. Forgetting the frustrations of the journey, Stone spurred the horse beneath him into a run.
If he’d been traveling in a carriage, as they would have been, and had not met with a shoeless horse, a broken wheel, and a hobbled outrider, they would likely be arriving right around now.
If they hadn’t already.
Judging by the position of the sun, it was likely one or two in the afternoon.
They would stop at an inn, freshen up, perhaps take a meal, and then go to the nearest blacksmith.
A thin stream of smoke snaked up and into the sky just ahead, and Stone reconsidered his assumption.
With a blacksmith so handy, at the edge of town, would Culpepper be more inclined to secure his wife and dowry first?
He clenched his fists. The duke would be feeling anxious at the length of the journey. Culpepper might be a money-grasping nobleman but he wasn’t a fool.
Running all out for a few minutes now, his horse was beginning to perspire. Leaning forward, Stone rubbed her neck. He was pushing her too hard. “Just a little farther, Poppy, and I promise you a thorough rubdown and then the finest oats in all of Scotland.”
The horse faltered, causing Stone to glance up.
A lone figure approached, walking toward them in the center of the road.
He wiped the sweat off his brow and squinted.
Because the figure was a petite, feminine one, and she was struggling to carry a medium-sized valise. She wore a floppy green bonnet, a dark overcoat, and a mint-green dress, the hem covered in mud.
Was he hallucinating?
The girl made a smoothing motion down her skirt.
He was not hallucinating. She was talking out loud and shooing at something behind her. It was obvious she had no idea who he was.
But he was certain it was Tabetha. A stubborn set to her mouth, trudging along the muddy road, looking more than a little skittish. A young woman, alone, in the middle of nowhere—she could hardly have put herself in a more vulnerable position.
But she wasn’t alone. Who the hell was she talking to?
And then he saw it. By god, it was the ugliest cat he’d ever seen in his life.
“Go back, Archie!” Tabetha waved in the direction from where she’d come. “Go on now.”
She never should have fed him. The mercenary little fellow’s eyes never once left her reticule, in which she carried five pounds but more importantly, the cloth wrapped around the biscuits she’d procured from breakfast earlier that day.
“Tabetha!”
She halted. It wasn’t Culpepper’s voice, and it wasn’t coming from behind her. A rider up ahead. Fear and then relief nearly had her knees buckling.
And then embarrassment.
Even from a distance, and with the beginnings of a beard on the lower half of his face, she had no difficulty recognizing Stone Spencer. Of all the people who would come to her rescue, why did it have to be the one person who would not be averse to chastising her over this tiny little error in judgment?
He was riding toward her purposefully too, sitting atop a thick gray mare, his hat askew and his clothing more wrinkled and soiled than her own. She hated that even though he had circles under his eyes and looked as scruffy as a wicked henchman, her heart skipped a beat. Stone Spencer had no business looking so roguishly handsome while she looked like something that had been dragged through the gutter.
She was going to have to be grateful to him because his arrival meant she was not going to have to find her way home alone after all.
Something, if she were to be honest with herself, she hadn’t thought through properly.
She halted her march and, without thinking, lifted Archie off the ground and hugged him to her chest. Stone slowed his horse, dismounted with agile grace, and closed the distance between them.
“Fancy meeting you here, My Lady.” His voice held a trace of humor but something else as well. Irony? Insult? “Or is it Duchess, now?”
She shifted her gaze and studied an apathetic cow grazing in the nearby field as though he was the most fascinating animal imaginable. “Not Duchess.”
“Oh?”
“I… er… changed my mind.”
His lips twitched and then he chuckled. “Where is Culpepper?”