by Aileen Adams
“I have nothing to offer you.” She was truly grasping at anything she could imagine would put him off the subject for once and for all. Her protests sounded weak and pitiful.
He grinned, studying her from beneath a sweep of dark brown hair which hung over one eye. “I do not recall asking for compensation, lass.”
“If I have no set destination in mind, how do you plan to escort me?”
“I was on my way to a village not far from the River Nevis, where it meets the River Lochy. Ye might find some helpful person there. Perhaps ye might rent a cottage outside the village, that ye might not be alone should ye be in need of help.”
She gritted her teeth, drawing a deep breath through her nose, so the nostrils flared. He knew not how dangerous it was to put her in such a mood.
He would find out.
“How many times must I tell you?” The words burst forth in a rush. “I do not need you to determine my life for me! I am glad to live as I do. You need not help me, because I do not need your assistance! I need no man to tell me what I can and cannot do!”
She wished fervently to tell him the rest. That it was his fault she’d left home. If it had not been for him and the marriage arrangement, she would not live in the woods. Alone.
The very thing he wished to rescue her from was that which he had caused, whether he’d meant to or not.
Instead, he sat by the fire, smug and secure. Certain that he knew what was good for her. He knew nothing.
The fact that she could not alert him to how foolish he was merely served to fuel her fury.
Fergus waited, his face still. “Are ye finished?”
“Would that I had shot a bolt into your chest rather than that doe.”
He pursed his lips before nodding. “Aye, but I do not think I would be as good eating as the doe.”
She was not impressed.
He stood. “I need a minute’s privacy. While I step away, I ask ye to consider that ye do not need to accompany me all the way to the village. But if we are both riding in the same direction, it seems there is no reason not to ride together.”
She hated his arrogance.
She hated his calm in the face of her fury.
She hated how he made good sense.
14
It was barely past dawn when Fergus first questioned why he’d been so insistent on riding with the lass.
While she had agreed—grudgingly so—she had obviously decided to make him as unhappy as possible in the process.
“Must we ride so slowly?” she called out over her shoulder.
“Are ye in a rush?”
“I had merely asked myself how you manage to stay awake in the saddle, riding at this pace.” She looked back at him. “I told myself yesterday that you rode so slowly because you knew I tracked you and you wished to make it easier for me.”
He rolled his eyes but held his tongue.
“I would not try to tell you how to do your business,” she assured him.
“Oh, nay,” he muttered. “Ye would never do such a thing.”
She fixed him with a cold stare. “You are so accustomed to telling me what you think I ought to do.”
“That was different, and ye know it well.”
“I know no such thing.”
“Ye are welcome to ride on your own at any time.”
“Truly?” Her eyes were wide, innocent. “That was not what you said last night, when you all but begged me to ride along with you.”
“I never begged. I’ve never begged a woman in my life, lass, and I’ve no intention of starting now.”
“You would not cease providing reasons why I ought to.” She turned around to face the road ahead. “No matter what excuse I offered, you told me why I needed to accept your company. Now, you tell me I ought to ride alone. You seem to change your mind rather abruptly.”
“Perhaps I am not changing my mind, but rather going out of it,” he muttered.
“All the more reason for you to have company on your journey,” she reasoned. “One ought to not make such a long ride on their own if they are not in their right mind. There is no telling what hardship might befall them.”
How did she continue to get the better of him?
At the very least, she worked her way into his mind and would not let him go, the questions and doubts she stirred up making it impossible for him to think clearly.
As a result, he was in a worse mood than normal.
A pity, that, since the day was a lovely one. A cloudless sky, a gentle breeze, and when they rounded a bend in the road which marked a vast, grassy clearing on both sides, the landscape opened enough that the Grampians were visible.
Some of the tightness in Fergus’s chest loosened at the first sight of the mountains, knowing his destination was within reach.
Elspeth pulled up on the reins, bringing her mare to a stop. “What is it?” he asked, ready to engage in yet another of their arguments if she so much as turned a cold eye his way.
Instead, he found her smiling. The sort of smile he would’ve expected to see on the face of a child.
Had he ever found her coarse? Perhaps a bit worn? How had he not seen the beauty in her? For when she smiled as she did now, her entire heart poured from her, lighting everything around them.
“I had never seen them,” she explained, all sauciness gone from her voice. “The Grampians.”
“Never?” For a lass who spent her life out-of-doors, she had not traveled far. “Where do you come from? Where were you born?”
“In the north.” She tapped her heels to the mare’s ribs and started off again, her eyes never leaving the far-off purple peaks. “The Cairngorns were all I had ever seen, and they are quite lovely.”
“Aye, they are that.” Even if they did mark the home of such a loathsome man as his uncle.
“But this.” She nodded toward the horizon, a wistful note in her voice. “I would wish to see more of them.”
“Ye might. I will pass through them, skirting Ben Nevis and the Duncan clan. Och, if ye think this is something, you ought to see it from Phillip Duncan’s manor house. Like something close to Heaven, if you’re believin’ in such things.”
She shrugged. “I don’t know that I do. I hope there is, but I do not know.”
“Nor do I.” Something they had in common, for once.
There were two types in the world, he had come to realize after having seen so much of it—those who faced hardship and needed to believe there was something better waiting for them after they’d died, and those who could not believe in such things because such belief had been beaten out of them.
What sort of creature might she have grown into had her hope and innocence not been beaten away?
In the end, she was not half-bad as she was. If only she would cease her endless fighting, the need to prove herself. He might even have found her bearable.
She was not entirely unpleasant to look upon, either. Riding slightly behind her as he was gave him the chance to admire the strong lean legs she’d tucked her skirts around that she might ride astride. The hem of her kirtle stopped at her knees, then, and the lass did not wear stockings.
The way she climbed trees and roamed freely around the woods would have destroyed a pair of stockings. As it was, the first thing the lass did upon making camp for the night was to remove her worn leather shoes. She preferred to be barefoot.
He would not complain at the sight of those shapely legs with their creamy flesh but reminded himself how powerful those legs were. Woe to the man who thought little of her, due to her size.
She shifted in the saddle, raising herself slightly to adjust her skirts, and he admired her fine, firm backside.
He envied a saddle for the first time in his life.
What would that firm, round flesh feel like beneath his hands?
He snorted, prying his eyes from her form. The man who dared touch the lass would touch nothing else as long as he lived for lack of hands, Fergus guessed.
“W
hat are you snorting at?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder.
“Ye don’t want to know,” he chuckled.
Another glance, one eyebrow raised high. “You’re thinking on devilishness, are you not?”
“What makes you believe it?”
“I know the sound of a man whose mind has turned to wickedness.” She snickered, clicking her tongue to dissuade the mare from wandering to a likely patch of clover alongside the road.
“Have ye known many wicked men, then?”
Her shoulders fell as she sighed. “I was thinking of my brothers, if you must know. A pair of wicked lads—one more than the other. Have you any brothers?”
“Aye. One.”
“Which of you leads the other into devilish schemes, then? I would guess you would be the one, if given a chance.”
“You would be correct.” Had he not lead his brother into war, after all?
Her laughter was like the tinkling of bells—not at all what he would have imagined from a wild thing such as she.
“I thought so. One of the twins always leads the other into his devilish ideas. The brash one, the brave one. The other is gentler, more thoughtful.”
“Do ye care more for the gentle one than for the devilish one, then?” He imagined his father and mother, how they had always found Brice easier to love thanks to his easy nature and quick-wittedness.
She shook her head. “I love them both for who they are, even if I’d like to knock their heads together.” Her shoulders slumped again as her voice trailed off, then heaved a sigh.
He hurried the horse that he might ride beside her rather than slightly behind. “You miss them greatly.”
Her nostrils flared, her jaw worked. She wished to favor him with one of her sharp remarks. When her mouth opened, however, one single word came out.
“Yes.”
How could a single word hold such pain? Such longing? Such regret?
He might have offered her what little awkward comfort he could, but she pressed her legs to the horse’s sides and drove it forward.
While he did not know the lass well, he knew enough to give her the space she needed rather than race to catch up to her. He watched her gallop away, the braid which hung past her shoulders bouncing against her straight back, her thighs holding her just above the saddle.
She was rather beautiful in her way. Like a wild animal, free and untamed.
The thought of another bringing her pain tightened his chest, curled his hands into fists around the reins.
15
“What are ye doing up there?”
Moira glared down at Fergus from her perch in the pine tree, pressing her finger to her lips.
Staying away from you, she wanted to say, but knew better. He would wish for an explanation when there was none to offer.
None that would not leave her sounding silly and weak.
They did not need more venison; the doe she’d felled the previous evening was more than enough to feed them handsomely for two days.
He knew it, too. “We do not need more meat,” he hissed. “And we can hardly ask the horses to haul half a deer carcass each. Do ye truly wish to skin another one tonight, after doing so last night?”
“I thought you might perform the honors tonight,” she hissed back, delighting in the way his face darkened in indignation.
“I’ll have no part of it. If ye wish to break your neck, go ahead.” He muttered something to himself as he moved about the place they’d chosen to camp for the evening. She heard the words “stubborn” and “reckless.”
“If you will not be silent, there is no chance for anything to come our way,” she informed him, raising her voice slightly as he’d moved away from the tree.
The fact was, it mattered not. She had no desire to hunt.
She desired an escape.
He asked too many questions.
He stirred too many feelings.
He reminded her how she missed her lads.
He made her stomach tighten, her knees weaken, when he came too close.
If she had to spend the entire night in a pine tree, she would do it. Anything to keep him away from her.
She might escape him. She could easily do so; it would be a matter of mounting the mare and riding away. She’d done it before with great success.
He had no reason to pursue her, unlike her Reid escorts, which would make it a matter of no difficulty whatsoever.
Why did she linger, then?
Damn her weakness! Damn her for being a fool!
“Do ye expect to stay up there all evening, then?” Fergus whispered, having returned to the base of the tree.
“If need be,” she retorted.
“Don’t be daft, lass. Come down and share the rest of this meat with me. The night air grows chill.”
He was correct in that, and her position along a strong limb roughly twenty feet in the air exposed her to more of the breeze which had picked up since the day began to dwindle into evening.
“Why do you care?” she demanded, raising her voice as there was no longer reason to keep up the pretense of hunting.
“I do not.”
Would that she could see his eyes, but he was too far away and cast in shadow.
“Then it should not be a challenge to leave me be and allow me to do as I wish.”
“Nay, the challenge is to be kind to a stubborn jackass of a lass who refuses to behave sensibly. Perhaps I ought to ask ye to fall from the tree and break yer neck, and then ye might climb down and behave as a civilized person would.”
“A stubborn jackass?” She slid the bolt into her quiver and slung the bow over her shoulder before beginning her descent. “You ought to know about such creatures, since you behave as one yourself.”
“I would not perch in a tree to prove a point,” he called up.
“I would not attempt to frighten a lass half out of her wits in order to prove a point, either.” She lowered herself bit by bit, her bare feet feeling around for the next sturdy branch.
“Are ye still on about that?”
She was about to inform him that yes, she was still on about it, when the rough limb her feet had only just made contact with snapped beneath her.
There was no time to scream.
One moment, she’d had a strong grip.
The next, she clawed at the air, her feet kicking, thin branches and their needles scratching and scraping at her.
Damn him. She was about to break her neck, after all. The one and only time she’d fallen from such a height, and it had to be in front of him.
She landed on something firm.
No. Not on something. Into something.
Into a pair of arms.
Against a chest.
“Oof!” he grunted when she landed, but he did not let go. In fact, his arms tightened about her body, pulling her closer.
For a moment, she relished the unyielding strength of his body. Everything hit her senses at once—his chest, the heart beneath the muscle beating hard and strong. His scent, masculine and earthy, with a trace of leather and horse. The harsh sound of his breathing, the way he made her feel as delicate as a baby bird in his arms.
“Are ye all right, lass?” His mouth, so close to her face, his breath so hot.
It would be so easy to let her head drop to his shoulder and bask in him.
Instead, she wriggled like a fish on a line. “I’m well. Thank you. I would not be well had you not caught me.”
“I would not have had to catch ye if ye didna insist on proving yourself.” He set her on her feet, his hands lingering on her shoulders as though he wished to steady her.
She did not brush them away, as she was in fact quite dizzy. Though whether it was the fall or the landing which caused her to be so, she could not say.
The distinct stinging in her hands, on her legs, caused her to look down and take stock of the damage she’d done. Her legs were scraped in a dozen places. Her hands and arms as well. She let out a frustrated groan.
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“Ye ought to wash,” he advised.
“Oh, do you believe so?” She shook his hands away, coming to her senses once again.
He had a way of lulling her into softness she did not wish to feel. Into weakness she had never known.
She turned and marched to the river, a thin line of shrubs separating it from their camp. He seemed willing to let her go without argument.
Pine needles stuck to her kirtle, her hair, and her arms were sticky with sap.
“I need to wash fully,” she informed him, calling out over her shoulder that he might hear and not come marching through the shrubs, demanding to know what took so long.
The thought of him finding her in such a vulnerable state sent a flush to her cheeks and a tight warmth throughout.
“Aye.” He tossed her pack over the shrubs, already knowing which one held her garments. She pulled her clean kirtle from inside and set to the task of washing what sap she could from the one she’d just taken off.
She’d torn one of the elbows.
“Drat!” she hissed, ashamed at her clumsiness. She owned all of two kirtles, and now one of them had been ruined.
“Do you know of somewhere along the road that I might have my kirtle repaired?” she called out while scrubbing out the sap.
“Nay, though I’m sure you could find someone in the village.”
“How much longer will it be?” She chose not to argue the point, even though she had never agreed to make the entire journey with him.
“Three days, perhaps.”
Three days. She grunted with frustration at herself, wringing the water from the soaked garment and stripping off her chemise when she was certain he could not see.
The water was cold, refreshing, but it did little to cool her overheated skin. All he’d need do was to break through the shrubs. There would be nothing she could do to stop him, unarmed and naked as the day she was born.
She dunked her head, running her fingers through her hair to loosen the needles stuck therein. If he were only less… everything he was. Less strong, less handsome, less alluring.
The way he’d held her…
She could still feel his arms around her shoulders, beneath her knees. The rapid beating of his heart. His hot breath…