The Highlander's Maiden. Elizabeth Mayne

pressed the blade into Robert’s palm instantly.

      Robert plunged downward, swimming back to the bottom, feeling the length of her legs for her feet. He found the trapped foot and the skate wedged into the rocks, and, pushing the billowing wools aside, slit the laces of her boot clean to the top and hauled her foot free of the shoe.

      Her arms floated out at her sides as he again gripped her chest, drawing her close, then he kicked for all he was worth and rose to the surface. Their heads broke water. Robert gasped for air as she fell limp against him. Fluids ran from her nose and mouth. Her lungs rattled in a faint reflex as Robert tightened his arm around her chest, expelling fluids.

      There was no fight left in her. None. Her arms were limp and legs wooden as Robert gripped her chest securely and cut the heavy cloak loose before it sank them both. He let the cloth drop, then tossed the knife back to Alex and conserved his strength to keep them next to the firm edge of ice.

      Alex had his own finely woven tartan stretched out like a rope for Robert to grasp. The men from the farm had planks laid out across the unstable ice and rope to finish the rescue.

      Sweet Jesus save us, Robert prayed fervently as he moved the woman enough to tie the rope around her chest. If she was breathing at all, it was as shallow as a sleeping baby.

      Robert knew why, too. The icy cold did that, robbed the body of all its strength and numbed the brain worse than 100-proof whiskey. His own deft fingers slowed down to abominable dexterity.

      “Here, now!” he commanded. “Wake up, lass! We’ll have you out of here in a trice.” He grasped her chin, lifting her face, and marveled over her sweet, freckled beauty. Her cheek fell against his shoulder and water lapped at her jawline. They had to get out of the icy water soon. Alex hauled on the rope with all his might but it wasn’t enough to pull her out of the water—not in her sodden woolens. It was taking too long!

      Some other sense told Robert to lend her what he could of his own supply of warmed breath. Her slackened mouth offered no resistance as he covered her full, colorless lips and filled her flooded lungs with his own warmed breath.

      That action roused her more than his underwater rescue. Her eyelids fluttered open, her gaze fixed on his eyes and remained there. Again, Robert laid his mouth upon hers and breathed for her. That awoke her from her numbed lethargy, bringing forth a cough and a veritable flood of water bubbling up from her chest.

      “Good, good!” Robert let her head rest on his shoulder. He stroked her cheek and throat encouragingly, treading water between breaths.

      When the bubbling cough stopped he gripped her chin fast and breathed again into her mouth, giving her the only warmth he could under such intolerable conditions. The same gurgling expulsion of the pond’s water from her chest followed.

      Alex held his place, flattened out on the planks of wood stretching across the ice. “Robert, they’ve got the ropes secure, man. Can you hold on? Is the woman tied?”

      “Aye!” Robert released her chin and let her head fall to his shoulder as he adjusted his own hold on the rope and the familiar plaid of his companion. “Tell them to pull us out, now. Quicklike. You know how much I hate cold baths.”

      “Aye,” Alex muttered to himself, backing off the ice on hands and knees, knowing that when the horse pulled, all hell was likely to break loose on this ice.

      He was right, too, to anticipate that the whole pond would shatter at the intrusion of the horse-powered rescue. Euan MacGregor cracked his whip. His lead horse lurched, then pulled, pushing the remaining sheet of ice backward up the bank till it wedged on rock and the weighty human burden at the end of the secure rope came free of the water and slid across the ice, cracking what was left all the way to the shore.

      Horror etched Euan MacGregor’s broad face as he knelt over his young sister-in-law, untying the tightened bad knots under her limp arm.

      “Get my children away from here,” he said over his shoulder to his men. “Cassie’s dead.”

      “Nay, she isn’t.” Robert let go of the heavy blanket someone had thrown around him and reached for the woman one more time. “She’s just frozen, the poor brave thing.”

      He gathered Cassie into his arms once more, opened her slackened mouth and kissed her with life and breath once more. Her fingers fluttered over her sodden dress, then her arm lifted to reach up and touch his face softly before weakly pushing him away so that she could cough and breathe on her own again.

      Without the slightest compunction, Robert turned her over and helped her to expel more water onto his lap. His efforts were rewarded by her first sputtering intake of breath. Granted it was no more than a short, choking breath that was followed quickly by another deep and raucous cough. The involuntary motion was started anew and continued, one labored breath after another.

      “She’ll be all right,” Robert said confidently. His large hands rubbed between her cold shoulders blades to warm and soothe her. Her eyelids fluttered and her cheeks began to pinken, losing the bluish color of drowning.

      Euan MacGregor laid another blanket on her. That helped greatly, but Robert knew getting her out of the wind and the elements would help best.

      Euan sat back on his heels, realizing that a miracle had taken place before his eyes this day. He kissed Cassie gratefully on her cheek, thanking her for his son’s life, then gathered her and the layer of horse blankets into his huge arms and lifted her out of the lap of her savior.

      “Bring the wet traveler along and his friend,” he briskly told his men as he moved his sister-in-law to the bed of the wagon. “He’s earned a place at my board whenever he wants for a hot meal.”

       Chapter Three

      Robert Gordon and Alex Hamilton jumped off the hay cart when it came abreast of the two packhorses tethered to the trees right where Alex had tied them. Cassandra MacArthur, as he now knew the young woman’s name to be, was conscious and on the road to recovery from her icy submersion.

      It was the tidbit of bona fide information regarding her name, conceded by her solemn brother-in-law, that made Robert smile wryly as he watched the hay cart roll away.

      Euan MacGregor paused only long enough to repeat his heartfelt extension of hospitality. Wrapped in rough wool, Robert thanked him for his kind offer and promised he and his companion, Alex, would be down directly. By the same token, Robert refused to be treated as some vaulted, kingly guest—accepting honors that he didn’t deserve and that these austere Highlanders would resent giving, heroic deeds or no. He’d only done what any thinking man should.

      On the other hand, Robert would be grateful for a warm meal at this day’s end, provided he owed MacGregor no more than he was willing to give.

      Taken back, Euan paused a moment longer, eyeing both strangers intently, understanding exactly where they stood. He was like that, too, a renegade of sorts from the eternal bonds of the Highlands’ all-pervasive feudal system of loyalties. Euan also preferred to stand on his own two feet, his word of honor his sole moral code after the word of God Almighty.

      “Then ye are welcome to sit amongst the free men at my table if ye pitch the hay that was dumped from this cart into the pigs’ byre where it was intended. Do ye finish the task before sundown, the barn is free for yer beds this night. A fairer offer I couldn’t make any strangers this time of the year.”

      “That will be sufficient to our needs, and I thank you again, sir.” Robert nodded his acceptance.

      As the farmer’s cart rolled noisily off, Alexander Hamilton moved to their saddlebags and Robert huddled under the weight of the dry woolen blanket draped over his shoulders. Alex tucked up Robert’s weapons and handed his shivering friend a dry sark and kilt and dug in a pack of rolled garments for dry stockings.

      In this part of Scotland, Alexander