The Scent of Jasmine by Jude Deveraux Read Free Book Online

out a crack. In the next instant he was beside her. “Old man Yates is coming and he has someone with him. We must go.”
    Cay had just seen the food on the table and her stomach rumbled in response.
    “No time to eat now, lass,” Alex said as he pushed her toward the back of the barn. When she nearly tripped again, Alex grabbed the piece of bread and shoved it inside his dirty shirt. In the next second he was in front of her and he set the wall boards to one side. Someone started pounding on the big double doors. Sounding angry and sleepy, Alex called out, “Whit dae ye want?”
    “Say it in English,” Cay hissed at him. She was already outside, and it occurred to her to run to the front of the barn and give herself up, but she thought of the Scotsman’s words of a double, or triple, hanging, and she hesitated.
    “What do you want?” Alex shouted as he slipped through the open place in the wall. But the seam of his trousers got caught and he couldn’t pull free.
    It was only then that Cay realized she was still holding his knife in her hand. She raised it and for a moment Alex’s eyes met hers—and Cay knew he thought she was going to stab him.
    Swiftly, she brought the knife down by his side, cut the seam to his trousers, and released him. The look of thanks in his eyes almost made her blush.
    “The horses are under the oak tree. It’s just a short distance down the road, but we can’t go that way. We need to go through the fields and quickly. Can you run, lass?”
    “I can escape brothers,” she said, as though that was an answer to his question. Hitching up the cloak and the bottom of her gown, she flung them over her arm.
    Puzzled by what she’d said, Alex began to hurry across the fields, and Cay stayed with him. After they’d been running in a zigzag pattern for nearly twenty minutes, Cay was tempted to remove the cloak and her gown and run in her underwear. And if she did that, she’d use the Scotsman’s knife to cut her corset strings. Right now she needed to breathe deeply more than she needed a tiny waist.
    Once, they had to cross a wooden fence. Alex went first, then lifted his arms to help her down, but when she nearly fell on him, he staggered backward.
    “You are a very weak man. I’ve leaped on my brothers from tree branches and not taken them down.”
    Alex opened his mouth, as though he meant to defend himself, but he closed it again, and began running, Cay close behind him. But she heard him muttering to himself and saw him shake his head a few times. That she’d managed to annoy him made her smile. It was the least she could do when he was causing her so much discomfort.
    When they finally reached the horses, she halted in surprise. He’d told her they were under the big oak tree, but hearing that and seeing them were two different things. She stopped, her clothes bunched over her arms, her drawers damp and clinging, her stockings torn and filthy. “When did you do this?”
    “No time for questions now, lass,” Alex said. “We must leave here.” When she didn’t move, he took her hand and pulled her forward. “Must I throw you into the saddle?”
    “You?” she said, coming out of her shock. “My youngest brother is stronger than you are.”
    “Tally?” Alex held his hands together, she put her foot into them, and vaulted into the saddle. “That boy is more likely to throw mud at his enemy than hit him.” The instant he said it, he regretted his words. He was referring to something Nate had written about his younger siblings when Nate and Alex were just boys.
    Cay stared at him with her eyes wide. “How do you know that?” Her father still laughed over the huge mud fight she’d had with her youngest brother when they were three and four.
    Reining his horse around, Alex tapped his temple. “Have you no heard of the Second Sight, lass? I can read minds.” He gave her a smile, showing even, white teeth, then ducked and led his horse out from under the overhanging