“Not according to you. You think I look like a boy as it is. I guess you want me to hide my hair under a wig.”
When he didn’t answer, she saw that he was studiously working on packing his horse. She drew in her breath. “You want me to cut my hair, don’t you?”
Alex mounted his horse and after a cowardly moment, he met her eyes. “I’ve thought of that and your hair would ruin the disguise. You look very young as it is, and in boy’s clothes you’ll look even younger. If you wear a powdered wig, you’ll draw attention to yourself. Besides, with the way you ride, the wig would come off, then all that hair of yours would show.”
Cay put her hand on her hair, which was hanging down past her shoulders. As a child, it was her hair that had finally stopped her from being compared to her brother. “I won’t cut it.” She moved her horse forward. “I might consider the clothes,” she said. “But I will not cut my hair.”
“All right,” he said softly. “We won’t do any cutting.” Even as he said it, he knew he was lying. He wasn’t going to risk her life and his because of her vanity.
“Why don’t you lead for a while?” he said in a conciliatory tone. It was the least he could do when he thought of what he might have to do to her. If she wouldn’t do it voluntarily, he’d have to do it without her permission—and that thought scared him. If he cut her hair while she was asleep, he’d better never close his eyes while around her or she’d cut something on him—and it wouldn’t be his hair.
They rode for three hours in the early morning dark, staying off the major roads and making their way through fields whenever they could. As they went farther south, there was more distance between the towns, and they began see plantations. The plantations were like small towns, with everything that was needed by the family and the workers grown or made on their land.
Cay was quiet for most of the ride, and Alex knew her silence was because she didn’t want to dress as a boy, but he could see no other way of keeping her safe. Thanks to her arriving wearing a dress that looked as though it was made of starlight, the men chasing him had easily seen that she was female. So now they were looking for a man and a woman together. If Alex could change even one aspect of that description, they’d be safer.
He wasn’t about to tell her, but he figured that by now there were handbills out about them both, and her hair was the most recognizable feature of the two of them. He could almost see the words on the handbills. “Flaming red hair.” Or “three feet of thick, lustrous, dark red hair” and “porcelain skin that looks as though it’s never been exposed to the sun.”
As for him, he’d like to shave, but the woodcut in the newspapers during the trial had been of him shaved. If he was going to be recognized, it would be with a clean face. Also, as Cay had told him many times—too many for his liking—the beard made him look much older than he really was.
Cay glanced back at him, then reined in her horse so she could move beside him. “What’s that look for?”
“Nothing. It’s the way I look,” he said grumpily.
“I don’t know why I have to put up with your bad temper. I’m the innocent one, and I’m only in this mess because I volunteered to help you out.”
“Now who’s in a bad temper?”
“I have a right to be. You should be grateful.”
“I thank you for saving my life, but I don’t thank you for nearly getting us caught.”
“When did I—?” she began, but then closed her mouth. In the next moment she’d turned her horse and was heading back the way they came at full speed.
Alex had a difficult time catching up with her, and he cursed the fact that his horse was so weighted down with equipment and supplies that the poor animal had difficulty moving. When he did reach her, he nearly pulled his
arm from the socket as he tried to get the reins from her so he could slow her down. But she was very good on the horse, and try as he might, he couldn’t overtake her. “I’m sorry,” he shouted at her as she rode away. “I apologize. With all my heart, lass, I’m sorry for what I said.”
Alex was sure he’d lost her, but to his disbelief, she slowed down, and turned toward him.
“Say it again.”
It went against him to grovel. His father had always told him that they may not have a title or money, but they had their pride, and a man never gave that up. But now he was looking at this bit of a girl and he felt that if he had to, he’d kiss her feet to make her forgive him. And that thought, of kissing her feet, made the bad humor and the self-pity leave him.
“I’m sorry, lass,” he said, but there was a bit of a smile about his lips. “You were a person of courage and strength to take on what T.C. Connor had mucked up, and I ask you to forgive me for saying otherwise.”
“Do you mean that, or are you just saying it so I’ll not leave you out here alone?”
He nearly choked on her words. He’d be much better off without her, but he’d not say that. Right now he wondered what Angus McTern Harcourt was thinking in teaching his daughter to be able to ride as she did. But then, she was half Scots, so maybe it was in her blood.
“You’re still looking at me oddly.”
“I was thinking that with a set of racing silks you could win any race. If I had my horses and we weren’t in this mess, you and I could make a fortune on the track.”
Cay couldn’t help but smile. “Is that what’s made you so bad tempered this morning? That you miss your racehorses?”
He started to tell her the truth, that he was afraid of the future and what would happen if they were caught, but he didn’t. Instead, he lowered his eyes and said, “I was thinking about how awful it will be to have to cut hair like yours. But, lass, you’re much too pretty with that great halo swirling about your head.”
Alex was sure that she’d tell him he was full of horse manure and ride off, never to see him again, but she didn’t. Instead she touched her hair and smiled sweetly. “Do you really think so?”