Page 18 of The Guardian's Bride

“Do not call another guard in here,” he growled.

“I am just looking out.” Standing on tiptoe, she looked through the small, barred opening in the door and saw an empty table and a flickering wall torch. She turned. “No one is there. He must have been alone.”

“Saw his chance, the rat.” He kicked the guard’s boot.

“Leave him be.”

“Soft-hearted damsels invite trouble,” he muttered, and hunkered down to tug the man’s helmet away. The guard’s head, covered in a quilted cap, flopped to one side.

“Good, he will be more comfortable,” she said.

“Soft heart,” he repeated, and snatched the cap as well, pulling it over his head, earpieces dangling. Then he set the bowl-shaped helmet over it and crammed it down. A wealth of wild, waving brown hair fluffed out beneath.

“Tiny wee head,” he grumbled.

Rowena felt a twinge of alarm as he slid the man’s broadsword from its sheath. She feared he might lop off the guard’s head then and there, but he thrust the handle toward her. “Hold this.”

She gripped the hilt, blade point down, and watched as the Highlander divested the guard of the red woolen surcoat sewn with yellow lions rampant. He worked the surcoat free with a muttered curse. The fellow’s arms, encased in chainmail, thunked down.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Escaping. You and me.” He stood. “I will leave his armor. It would never fit.”

“Escape?” she squeaked.

He removed the helmet, set it down, and pulled the surcoat over his head. “With this, we have a chance. Damn,” he said, voice muffled, head covered, one arm through the wide opening of one sleeve, the other caught.

“If you keep pulling, it will rip.” She set the broadsword down to go to his aid. “Stop stretching it. This is too tight. He is a smaller man than you.”

“Most are. Make it fit. Do whatever women do to make things fit.”

She tugged at the cloth until his arms popped through, then gave it an extra pull as she straightened it over his wide shoulders and chest. Then she stood back.

“What do you mean, escape?”

“I mean, I am getting out of here and you are coming with me.”

“I am not leaving with you. I do not know you.”

He jabbed a thumb toward the door. “Do you know them? You do not. They will take you to Berwick and show you the same courtesy that cretin did. And then you will wish you had fled with a stranger this sorry day.”

“I will ask them to take me to the king.”

“That is foolish.”

“Why? I saw the king weeks ago. He will listen to me.”

“Hah!” Picking up a wide leather belt, he strapped it over his hips. Rowena noticed the empty sheath looped there; they had taken his dagger. He wore a sporran attached to the leather belt he had fastened over tunic and trews. When he pulled the surcoat over that, the red cloth strained to cover bulky clothing and brawny man.

Fixing the guard’s leather strap across his broad chest, he raised the sword and slid it behind him into the strap’s sturdy back loops. “Good enough,” he grunted. “I need a bigger sword.”

“Sword or not, we could be caught as soon we step out of here. We could be hanged for this.”

“I have been planning this escape. We will be fine.”

“When were you making plans? You were sleeping off the drink.”

“I was thinking and listening. Nor would I leave a woman alone here while I dance out disguised as a guard.”