by Paula Quinn
“Oh? Why is that?”
“Because he was King Charles’s High Admiral, and now he is King’s James’s.”
“A word o’ caution, Asher.” Will slid down the trunk of a thick oak and caught the wedge of cheese Rob tossed him. “Once Finn begins speakin’ aboot his kin in the King’s Army, he’s likely to go on all night.”
But Edward wasn’t listening to Will. He was staring at Finn, his dark eyes wide with disbelief. “Your uncle is the High Admiral?” He shook his head slightly as if he doubted the good of his ears—or his tongue for seeking confirmation. “But he cannot be.”
“Why can’t he?” Finn asked, looking a bit insulted.
“Because the king’s High Admiral is Connor Stuart.”
“Aye, I know.” Finn bit into his bread and closed his eyes. “’Tis like heaven.”
Davina could feel Edward’s eyes on her, willing her to look at him. But she couldn’t. Finn was a Stuart. Her gaze traversed his features—his pale, silky hair peeking out from beneath his bonnet; his straight, regal nose. Of course, why had she not seen it earlier? “You are a cousin to the king?” she heard herself asking.
The beautiful boy opened his eyes and set them on her. “Aye, a few generations removed on my mother’s side. My father was a close friend of the late King Charles. He helped restore Charles to the throne with the aid of…”
“Och, hell, no’ again.” Will leaned his head against the tree and closed his eyes.
Finn cast him a wounded look. “She doesn’t know the tale. And what’s so wrong about telling it? I hope someday to be as braw as my kin.”
“I think you’re very braw,” Davina told him, stretching her hand to his. She smiled when he looked at her and scooted a little closer to him. “I would like to hear the tale.”
“Hell,” Will muttered. “I’m goin’ to sleep. Colin, ye keep watch tonight.”
“But I’m…”
“Colin,” Rob cut him off when his brother tried to protest. He said nothing else as he stretched out close to Davina. He didn’t have to. Colin tightened his jaw, threw Will a cool glance, and nodded.
An hour later, Edward joined Rob and Will in their slumber. Davina didn’t know how any of them could sleep through such a wondrous tale. She could not wait to meet Finn’s mother. Oh, what mettle it took for a woman to learn to wield a sword and battle with men! And Connor Stuart, imprisoned in the Tower of London and tortured for months. Yet he too possessed the courage and resolve to withhold the information his enemies had tried to gain from him. It was no wonder Finn took such pride in his family. He had every reason to.
“What became of the man who betrayed your Uncle Connor?” she asked Finn, hanging on his every word and impatient for the next.
“James Buchanan became an outlaw. My uncle searched for him for two years and finally found him living in Suffolk under a false name. He was hanged in London with the blessing of King Charles.”
“Chilling, but justified,” Davina proclaimed, much to Finn’s delight. She studied him a moment longer in the firelight. Oh, how she liked this young man. His large, open smile was like an embrace, inviting one into his warmth. And she wanted to go. She wanted to tell him of her family, and how she had yearned for them every day of her life. But finally God had answered her most fervent prayer. How hadn’t she known before this?
She blinked, suddenly mortified at how long she’d been smiling at him. When he blushed she turned away—and looked straight into Colin’s watchful eyes.
“Ye’re an odd lass,” he said, crouched on his haunches beyond the crackling embers. Davina wanted to look away, but the power in his gaze held her still. “Why d’ye have such interest in things that dinna’ concern ye?”
“But they do concern me,” she countered, trying to muster the control she now knew ran through her veins.
She had misjudged this quiet, unassuming lad. First by thinking him any less striking than a dark stallion on the verge of charging. Second, by forgetting that he was there, speaking little and observing more. “They concern us all, do they not?” She forced a smile, aware that she had to be more vigilant with this one.
“Nae, no’ all. Most lasses I know concern themselves with cooking and sewing. Most lasses I know”—he looked her over with suspicion searing his green eyes to gold—“save fer my sister—and ye.”
“Rob told me of Mairi. She—”
“I know why politics concern her.” Colin stopped her before she could sway the conversation. “But why ye?”
She shifted her gaze to Finn and found that he too was waiting for her answer. “What else would you have me care about?” she asked them both quietly and looked down at her lap. “I’ve lived each day knowing that the people I loved would most likely die because of me. Nothing I ever had was tangible. Everything could change in one horrifying instant. And it did.” She looked up at them and now it was Colin’s turn to look away. “I read, Colin. I immersed myself in my lessons because what I learned belonged to me and my enemies could not touch it. And I learned about the king because I did not have a father.”
Oh, damnation, why was she going to cry now? She narrowed her eyes on Colin, angry with him for making her think on her past. “One more thing,” she said before she ended this talk. “I can cook and sew as well as any woman.”
Leaving them both staring at her, she flipped around in Rob’s direction, shoved her hands under her head, and closed her eyes.
Rob watched her beneath the moonlight. She was so close that his fingers ached to reach out and wipe away the tears escaping from under her lids. He’d heard everything Colin had asked her, and her reply. The emptiness in her life pained him to the marrow. He was fortunate to have had so much growing up, so many who loved him and who he loved in return, without fear of losing them. Gazing at her while her sweet lips moved in prayer and then as she drifted to sleep, Rob wasn’t certain which of the two was a greater loss in her life: the absence of her family, or of any sense of permanence.
“I’ll remedy it all, Davina,” he whispered, finally lifting his fingers to the curve of her cheek. “Fer God has assigned me to it.”
Chapter Thirteen
Rob woke with a start, instinctively reaching for Da—vina. She wasn’t there. He bolted to his feet. His dream of a faceless Admiral snatching her from his arms was still fresh in his mind. He looked around the campsite for Asher, expecting Davina was with him. He wished it didn’t, but it boiled his blood to know that the captain had spent the last four years with her—knowing her secrets, knowing what made her laugh, what frightened her. How many times had he comforted her, held her in his arms, mayhap kissed her?
Thankfully, she wasn’t with the captain now, but Asher’s eyes were fixed on something to his right, just beyond the trees. Rob followed his gaze and soon found Davina standing with Will, his cousin’s bow and arrow poised in front of her face.
Rob watched as she widened her stance beneath her skirts. Skirts? Bloody hell! He glared at every man around him, wondering where and when she had discarded her robes for the shift and kirtle the Abbess had given him—and if any of the bastards had dared look at her while she did. None of them looked guilty, but they all had their eyes on her. He couldn’t find fault with that, not when she looked so damned bonnie in her new, close-fitting, womanly attire. Leaning his shoulder against a tree, he crossed his arms over his chest and joined the others watching her.
Her fingers were thin and graceful, winding around the shaft of Will’s arrow. Her shoulders, straight and relaxed as she pulled back on the bowstring. She closed one eye, aimed, and then fired.
Rob wasn’t surprised when the arrow struck Will’s makeshift target fifty paces away dead on. His shoulder bore testimony to her skill. The others cheered, and Will, rogue bastard that he was, whispered something in her ear that made her laughter spread across the glade.
Rob was considering the best way to skin his cousin alive when Davina turned, as if sensing him there, his hooded, burning eyes o
n her, and aimed her smile at him. Suddenly, nothing existed in the world but her.
“You sleep late,” she greeted him, curling her weapon under her arm and moving toward him.
Rob had to call upon every last shred of strength he possessed not to push off the tree and drag her into his arms. “I was awake most of the night.”
Her smile vanished as she reached him and tilted her face to his, wreaking havoc on his senses. “Not your shoulder, I hope.”
He shook his head but said nothing else while his gaze drifted over her features, settling on the full pout of her lips. He’d frightened her the first time he kissed her, and paid the price for it. But he longed to taste her again, not like some possessive, hot-tempered beast, but as a lover, tender and passionate.
When his gaze returned to hers, he found her searching his eyes as if she caught a glimpse of something kinder, softer, and wanted it as badly as he.
“Well done, my lady.” Asher appeared at Davina’s side, shattering what had just passed between them. “You are as deadly as you are beautiful.” The reverence in his smile faded when he turned it on Rob. “Do you not agree, MacGregor?”
Aye, Rob agreed, but he wasn’t about to drop flowery compliments at her feet every time she was in his presence the way Asher did. The man was a captain in the mightiest army in the world. Where was his pride, for hell’s sake?
Instead of answering the question—which he’d already surmised was not asked out of friendly curiosity—Rob unfolded his arms and pushed off the tree. “We need to go.”
Davina’s hand on his wrist stopped him. “Oh, but don’t you want to give it a try?”
“What?” Rob asked, taken aback for a moment that she would so boldly seek a compliment from him.
“The bow.” She held hers up to him. “I’d like to see if you are as good with it as you are with a blade.” Her smile widened into a grin. “It will be fun.”
Rob shook his head, thinking of a thousand different things he’d rather do with her for fun. “We have nae time fer pleasure. We have to keep movin’.” He looked over her shoulder rather than at the disappointment on her face. “Will, get rid of that target and let’s get this place cleaned up.”
He didn’t look back at Davina again as he strode away. ’Twas best not to, else he might end up like her captain, languishing after something that was forbidden. Hell, he’d had a hard enough time remembering that she was a novice of the Order when she was draped in His robes. Her soft curves, so delicately defined now in her kirtle… He stopped and turned back to where she was still standing with the captain.
“Where did ye change yer garment?”
She pointed to a thick stand of trees in the distance then looked down at herself. “It’s a bit snug. It must have belonged to one of the younger novices.”
He knew he was scowling but he couldn’t help himself, just as he couldn’t stop himself from thinking no lass in all the world ever looked so fine in something so plain.
“It looks… ye look bonnie in it.” He tightened his jaw to keep himself from smiling at her like some besotted, dimwitted fool. But he knew ’twas already too late.
The next few days were hell for Rob. More difficult than any raid or training time with his father had ever been. He ate little and slept less, battling with himself night and day against feelings that threatened to control him. He was happy that Davina had put aside her grief and was enjoying herself on their journey. Though she sometimes fell into a silence so deep he thought he could almost hear her thoughts, ’twas her laughter that filled the air, and his heart, while she practiced archery each morning with Will or tried to learn how to ride a horse on her own under Colin’s careful instruction. But despite his best efforts to prove to Davina that he too was good-natured, Rob found himself snapping at the others for minor offenses. The fact that he was trying to prove anything to her at all goaded his temper, but riding with her was the true cause of his foul mood. It wasn’t the feel of her pressed to his chest and clutched in his arms that did it, although he was certain that having her so near, as if she were his, helped to fan the flames.
It was Asher. The captain rode at their side constantly, usurping Finn’s place. At first, he pretended interest in the MacGregors, but soon his true purpose for rubbing stirrups with Rob became clear. He talked to Davina ceaselessly, preventing her from speaking overmuch to Rob, or him to her. At first, Rob told himself he didn’t mind. Davina and her captain were friends. They shared a past together. It meant nothing. He certainly wasn’t going to let some childish emotion cloud his reasoning. But Asher did nothing to hide the fact that he was in love with her. Da—vina knew it and cast all her smiles Asher’s way. She even laughed when he reminded her of a day two summers ago, when he had tried to shear one of St. Christopher’s sheep and the woolly beast bit him on the arse.
Rob wanted to punch him in the mouth. What kind of man couldn’t shear a damned sheep? It wasn’t any better when they stopped to eat or sleep. In fact, ’twas worse. Every step she took found Asher right behind her. Twice Rob had to block his path when she left to relieve herself. That had almost cost Rob his temper, but his resolve held firm… and he was damned proud of it.
When Asher didn’t have her ear, Finn usually did, and if the lad wasn’t so young, Rob would have worried most about the effect that particular male had on Davina. Twice Rob was sure he’d seen her wipe tears from her eyes while she stared at the lad, thinking she went unobserved.
Not so. Rob’s eyes were ever on her, taking in every gesture, every smile, every flawless curve that shaped her. He knew how she breathed because he lay awake at night watching her sleep, aching to hold her, kiss her, make her his own. She was crafted of stardust and secrets and he was lost. He knew it, and he didn’t like it.
Unfortunately, his brother Colin knew it, too, and did his best to reassure him not to fret about it, they all were a wee bit lost to her—a truth that only made Rob more irritable. Still, he hadn’t cracked any heads yet. He worked harder than he ever had in his life at harnessing his emotions. When he didn’t, bad things usually happened; like breaking Donald MacPherson’s arm after he shot Tristan with his arrow, or when he left Davina at Courlochcraig and then had to kill six men to get her out.
There was one bright light in his gloom, though. He was pleased to discover that Davina had indeed taken notice of his balanced temperament when they stopped for the night outside of Dumbarton.
He was sharing a word with Will after they made camp when she came up behind him. “You’ve been very patient with Edward.”
Rob wasn’t entirely happy to hear her bring up the captain—since it was the first time in days her guardian wasn’t stationed at her side—but he refused to behave like a sulking boy. “Why should I no’ be patient with him?”
She shrugged her shoulders and offered her usual smile to Finn when he sat across the fire. She hadn’t smiled at Rob in days. “I just thought that his not including you in our talks might have angered you.”
“Why should it?” Rob asked her, sparing her a brief, uninterested glance before he turned back to Will. He wasn’t completely certain that if he continued looking at her above the firelight he wouldn’t crack and confess to already having thought of a solution to Captain Asher.
“You might,” she said with a marked sting in her voice, “because it can seem a bit rude and you have been snarling about like a bear with a thorn in his paw.”
Rob turned to her, a smile of detached amusement narrowing his eyes. “Ye just told me how patient I’ve been.”
“I was being pleasant”—she smiled back at him to prove it—“with the hopes that it might rub off on you.”
Hell, the last thing he wanted to do was grin at her like some heart-struck lackwit, but he enjoyed her flashes of temper, even at the cost of Will chuckling at him. She had strength in her she wasn’t even aware of, passion he wanted to feed.
“I simply wanted you to know,” she said, trying to look as uninterested as he, �
�that Edward means no offense. He has been at my side for a long time and it’s difficult for him to just hand over my well-being to you—especially when you hold me as if…”
“As if what?” he prodded when she grew silent.
“As if I belonged to you.” She didn’t look anywhere near as angry as she tried to sound. “I don’t, in case you had forgotten.”
He hadn’t, and that was part of the trouble. He wanted her—God forgive him, and he was growing tired of fighting it.
With an oath on her lips she was sure would cost her a month of confession, Davina returned to the fire and took a seat across from Finn. She tried to keep her eyes on the hare roasting over the spit, but they kept flicking back to Rob. Saints, but the man was as rigid as an arrow. She knew how close Edward had come on several different occasions to getting swiped by the snarling bear. She’d felt the tightness of Rob’s muscles behind her whenever Edward commanded all her attention. Why was he trying to convince her that he was unfazed by it? On the other hand, what if she was wrong? What if he truly didn’t care one whit if Edward tossed her over his arm and kissed her senseless—the way Rob had at Courlochcraig? And, dear God, why couldn’t she get that out of her mind? Every blasted time she looked at his mouth, she wanted him to kiss her again. He didn’t. What if he didn’t like her and was just following some sense of duty? It would explain why he scowled at her whenever she caught his eye. She really shouldn’t have been cheeky with him. Whether he admitted it or not, he didn’t like Edward. If he didn’t like her either, there would be nothing to stop him from leaving both of them where they sat while he returned home. “Please God, don’t let him do it.”
“Don’t let who do what?” Edward appeared over her, holding a handful of red berries and wearing a tender smile that should have been soothing. It wasn’t. How could she tell him how just being near Rob made her feel safe and cared for without wounding Edward to his heart?