as she could. Shivering like a nervous racehorse as full darkness brought the threatening chill of night with it, she hesitated in mid-stride and tripped over a protruding root and fell awkwardly into a heap of felled logs waiting to be split by the forester she was trying not to disturb. She tried her best to get up as she flailed around to find a prop in the dark and grasped yet another bramble instead.
With hot pain from her new scratches bringing tears to her eyes she made herself splay her hands palms down to push herself up and discovered she couldn’t endure any weight on her ankle as agony shot through it and she couldn’t hold back a grunt of pain. At last tears were streaming down her face unchecked at the misery of it all and she couldn’t seem to stop now she’d finally got started. Conscious of a huge and probably fearsome dog baying to be let out, so he could fight off the clumsy idiot come to attack him and his, she decided all she had left in her to do was to curl up as small as possible and hope she wasn’t about to be savaged.
Sure enough, the vast-sounding hound was unleashed by his probably terrified owner and she could hear him howling with eagerness. Now she heard the soft pound of huge paws on the echoing floor in this dry part of the forest and she let herself breathe in the surprisingly sweet scent of old leaves, lichen and earth in case it was the last thing she ever sensed. Almost wishing the rest of her senses hadn’t sprung into action now the darkness rendered her eyes useless, Freya heard the dog panting between growls and knew her fears were about to come true. Suppressing an irrational plea not to hurt her, she stiffened and waited as it bounded up to her and at least terror had stopped her crying. Almost resigned to feel its huge teeth close on her flesh, she heard a gentlemanly snuffle, then a puzzled whine as the huge beast lay down beside her and sniffed politely at her wildly disordered curls where she had buried her face in her arms in instinctive defence.
Chapter Two
Daring to raise her head half an inch from her sheltering arms, Freya ventured a hesitant look in the direction of a vast sigh, as the large hound decided it didn’t understand humans at all and seemed about to go to sleep. She couldn’t actually see much, but it was enough to know the animal was as large as its bark indicated. Wishing she knew more about dogs and her mama hadn’t been so afraid of them that she wouldn’t have the smallest lapdog in the house, Freya wondered how you made friends with an animal the size of a small horse.
She hesitantly held out a still-shaking hand and he sniffed it obligingly before putting his head on his paws and sighing once again as if all the cares of the world lay on his doggy shoulders. Biting back what she assumed would be a hysterical chuckle, she risked pushing herself up on to her knees before the shock of pain in her ankle made her collapse in an inelegant heap and wish she was brave enough to cuddle up to this apparently benign dog for comfort.
‘What have we got here then, Atlas old boy?’ a deep voice rumbled out of the darkness and nearly made Freya jump out of her skin.
‘Who the devil are you?’ she snapped, finally feeling anger burn away the tears and shock of these last horrible hours.
‘I think it’s the host’s prerogative to ask that question,’ he replied with lazy indifference to a lady’s plight and she wondered if that burst of fury had been such a good idea when her safety and possible future might lie in this man’s hands.
‘You can ask, but I’m not promising I’ll answer,’ she muttered, supposedly to herself, but from the deep chuckle it won from him, he had amazing hearing.
‘Let’s start with what you’re doing lying in the middle of my favourite coppice and work it out from there, shall we?’
‘No, I didn’t have the least idea it was yours and you should keep it in better order if you don’t expect strangers to trip over things in the dark and do themselves an injury.’
‘Had I known you were coming, my lady, I would have made sure everything was shipshape and neat. As it is, you’ll have to excuse a working man for being just that.’
She almost leapt at that satirical ‘my lady’ and asked how he knew who she was, but stopped herself just in time when she realised her normal haughty manner had sparked his sarcasm and she should be more conciliatory, under the circumstances.
‘I’m sorry, it’s been a very long day,’ she managed more graciously.
‘Clearly, so let’s get you inside and at least fed and watered, even if comfortable is beyond hope for a lady such as you with my slender means. It’s far too dark to put you on the road to wherever you were going before you got lost now,’ he said gently, as if he could hear the fear and horror in her voice despite her best efforts.
‘I can’t walk,’ she explained blankly.
‘I hesitate to ask how you got so far from civilisation then,’ he teased as if it didn’t really matter how she got here, here she was and he would deal with her as best he could.
‘I fell over,’ she explained earnestly and wondered why it felt so tempting to give up fighting at last and let him take over.
‘Better for you perhaps if you’d done so sooner,’ she thought she heard him mutter, but it was lost in the sensation of his touch, as if he was learning her by feel since he’d failed to bring a lantern with him.
‘Where does it hurt?’ he asked and she marvelled that the authority in his voice had her pointing to her ankle, feeling more foolish than ever when she realised he couldn’t see her in the dark.
‘My ankle,’ she said gruffly and yelped as he found out for himself which one.
Atlas whined his puzzlement that his master was hurting the surprise human he’d found him, then settled at a soothing word.
‘I hope you’re not heavy,’ the man said as he rose to his haunches beside her and it felt as if he was towering over her as he insinuated strong hands under her legs and shoulders and lifted her in his mighty arms.
‘Goodness!’ Freya managed weakly as she found herself airborne. ‘If you’d only let me lean on your shoulder, I’m sure I could manage to walk.’
‘It would take all night,’ he told her and strode along the forest path with her in his arms as easily as if it was clear daylight.
‘It’s unladylike,’ she muttered as she listened for the almost silent pad of Atlas’s feet on the forest floor, surprised to find she already liked the huge animal and wanted his warmth and proximity as she didn’t dare covet that of his master.
‘Probably, but we don’t worry too much about such delicate notions out here in the wilds,’ he told her as if familiar with the dictates of polite society, which seemed unlikely.
Come to think of it, she’d taken him for one of her own kind when he first spoke and perhaps that accounted for this feeling she could finally relax and let a gentleman take care of her. It had been a very trying day, she assured herself, and she was probably wishing the world was how she wanted it to be. If she got through the night in one piece, no doubt it would lurch back to its proper order by morning. For now it felt oddly pleasant to be borne along in a strong man’s arms. She could feel powerful muscles and sinews few gentlemen of her acquaintance could boast as she settled against his broad shoulder with a contented sigh.
‘There,’ he said at last, as he rounded what seemed a deliberately serpentine last twist in the path and the faint glow of a small curtained window made her open her eyes wider. ‘As well it was no further, perhaps, or you would have been fast asleep,’ he whispered as he shifted her to open his door.
‘What a cosy room,’ she managed sincerely as she took in the still-glowing fire and companionable-looking chairs on either side of the fire.
Clearly his wife had gone to bed and that was why he was murmuring, for fear of waking her after a long day of hard work. She admired his consideration and let herself envy his lady for a moment, surprised how appealing the notion of being cared for by a very masculine husband at the end of a tiring day seemed to someone who’d never done a hard day’s work in her life.