by Nicole Locke
They reached the bottom of the hill and walked to where she’d been digging. As they neared the bodies, she made a clearing sound in her throat.
He waited. Although it was he who had wanted to talk, he knew why she wanted the conversation here. In the light of day, there were unflinching views of the horror. Children with their plump arms ripped off, women sliced and men face down were all lined up. Waiting to be buried with the potatoes.
‘Will you help me?’ she asked.
After battles, dead bodies had simply been landscapes of war. He and his soldiers had buried many. But she was no hardened soldier. She could not have seen such atrocities before. Why would she endure such hardship?
‘Why do you not just leave?’
‘I won’t.’ She paused. ‘So, will you do it? I need to bury them and quickly.’
‘It would be more expedient if you burned them on a pyre,’ he said.
She gasped. ‘They’ve seen too much fire.’
He was not prepared for the weight of grief hovering over him. He was not prepared for any feelings. But this woman, bringing him here, was causing all the emotions of the world to stab and slice at him.
There was no logical reason for him to be here. He had had a bad dream and suddenly he was making the journey. He massaged the back of his neck and tried to distance himself from the gnawing gripping his chest.
But it hadn’t been a bad dream compelling him to come here. It had been a memory and one he had tried to forget.
It had been a long time since he’d felt anger and even longer than that since he had thought of the fire. But he had done both. It was the village that troubled him.
An entire village destroyed and his fellow Englishmen had done it. He could not shake the feeling he was responsible. If he had not been fighting a battle so near Doonhill, then all those people would be alive. They were innocent and shouldn’t have died.
‘So, will you bury them? Put them at peace?’ she repeated. ‘Quickly?’
To answer her would be to commit to something he did not want. But he could not mistake the urgency in her voice. Alone and only working a couple of hours a night, she would have to be here the better part of a sennight to get all of them buried. It would make her vulnerable to more danger.
‘You risk much staying here as long as you have.’
‘’Tis their kin. I felt... Nae, I needed to let the children know their families rest peacefully.’
It was practically a death wish for her to persist. ‘I am sure they are grateful for the efforts you have been making, but it is foolishness to remain here. The Englishmen who did this could have returned and slaughtered you all.’
She stopped biting her lip. ‘Like you?’
‘I told you it was not me.’
The haunted look in her eyes vanished. ‘Aye, but I’m not so sure I believe you. You’re obviously an English soldier and couldn’t have just been passing by.’
He did not answer her. He didn’t need her to believe him.
She folded her arms across her chest. ‘It is irrelevant to discuss this. They did not return and all I ask is for your help.’
She wasn’t leaving him alone. He added stubborn to her personality. ‘Aye, but there are other dangers here. The children informed me your supplies ran out. How are you able to gather food enough to feed five?’
‘We’ve been surviving.’
‘But for how long?’
She whirled to face him, anger bringing her to her full height. ‘I had hoped to have been done by now. I hadn’t planned on being injured. Will you help me? Because I know how precious little time I have to survive out here. I doona need you telling me. What kind of man won’t help a woman bury her kin?’
She pushed herself forward and grabbed a spade lying on the ground. He could see it was a crude tool, hardly sufficient to do the task before them. The blade was black, the handle nothing but a roughened stick. The original handle had probably burned in the fire.
Aye, she was stubborn, her chin was sticking out and there was a challenge to her eyes, but her lips were trembling and she was pale under her freckles.
Cursing, he covered the distance between them and grabbed the spade from her hands. She stumbled a bit from his force and he put his hand at her elbow until she got her balance.
‘Your dead will be buried today,’ he growled.
He could see her anger was quickly crumbling. She was struggling, choking on emotions and words he didn’t want to hear.
‘Why now? Why now are you being kind?’ Grief filled her voice.
An image of a slender body wrapped in white and lying against green leaves flashed before him. He abruptly let go of her elbow. She lost her balance, but this time he did not touch her.
‘I will bury your dead,’ he repeated, his voice cold. ‘But do not mistake what I do for kindness.’
He drove the weak spade through the tilled earth. The blade wobbled, but did not break. He could feel her standing behind him, but this time she did not interrupt him.
Chapter Seven
It was late in the day when Gaira stood on the crest of the valley’s hill. It was her third time to do so, but this time she had a purpose. She clenched the greenery she had gathered for the graves.
Where she stood, she could see the garden of graves and the lake just beyond. Her eyes did not linger on the landscape, but on the man working below.
In the heat of the day, he had taken off his clothes and wore just his braies as she had seen the English peasants do in the fields. But this man was no peasant.
He dug with a spade and toiled at her request, but he held himself as a man used to commanding. Maybe it was the tilt of his head, his shoulders thrown back, or his sword gleaming by his feet.
He dug deep into the dirt and threw it off to the side. Each rugged cord of his muscles was defined by each movement he made. There wasn’t an ounce of waste on him and he was thick from his neck to his calves. A woman could trace his sinews with ease.
She felt a curious pull and her fingers were tingling again. She didn’t understand the tingling now, but she knew it wasn’t nervousness.
She focused on his more disagreeable features: the unruly length of his hair, the scruffiness of his beard, the flat scars peppering his body from his neck down and along his arms. But it was no use. His body pleased her.
‘Nothing but a ragabash loun you are, Gaira of Colquhoun.’ She had more important matters than noticing Robert of Dent was a fine-looking man.
Irritated, she took her eyes off Robert and saw new graves were dug and filled. He had even worked on the few graves she’d started. They were deeper now, the bodies more protected. In less than a day, he was done.
He was a contrary man. She had begged him, pleaded with him, but he hadn’t taken the spade until she had given up. He’d agreed to help and she still didn’t understand why.
And he had done it far more quickly than she would have been able to. She could only hope it was quick enough; that she had time to make it to her brothers before they were caught by her betrothed. There was a chance of making it. But she still needed Robert’s help.
She tried not to think about his reluctance to bury her dead. Surely he would stay now and help them the rest of the way.
Shifting the greenery in her arms, she carefully sidestepped down the steep hill. Slipping, her foot hit a rock and she stumbled, scattering branches everywhere.
‘Artless and bootless.’ She angrily picked up each branch and leaf and tucked them into the crook of her arm. ‘That’s what you are. In more ways than one.’
She slid backward until the slope became flat and then she whirled around. Robert stood a hand’s breadth from her. Startled, she stumbled again, branches flew and her body slid against his.
Her world was insta
ntly, aggressively the smell of hot male and cedar and the feel of sweat-covered skin. Her fingers clawed down shoulder muscles she’d gawked at all day. Her breasts burned, her legs tangled. She teetered and pressed harder for support.
Robert inhaled, sharp, as if he’d been dropped into an icy lake. He ripped himself away.
She lost her balance. Strong arms yanked around her waist before her face hit the ground.
Greatly irritated and embarrassed, she flexed her foot. ‘Ach! ’Tis not further damaged. Nae thanks to—’
She couldn’t finish as she met his gaze.
Gaze was too tame a word. She felt pinned by brown eyes moving over her face as though she were a feast laid out before a starving man. She felt him taking in each and every one of her considerable freckles, her too-wide mouth and her unfeminine chin.
She was consciously aware of her raw-boned frame, her small breasts, the gangly length of her legs. The tingling in her fingers was spreading to the rest of her body. Rapidly. And back again.
His arms, arms she had been admiring only moments before, wrapped more tightly around her, cradled her, began to lift her.
She soaked up the thickness of his eyelashes as they shadowed the hard planes of his cheekbones, the cluster of tiny scars disappearing into his beard along the right of his jaw, the fullness of his lower lip.
He was going to kiss her; she knew it. She parted her lips to take in air.
Then he put her down and took a huge step away.
Humiliation swept through her. She stared at the pebbles around her feet. Braving the year-long seconds between them, she finally thought of something to say.
‘You’re done?’ she asked.
‘Almost.’ He picked up the spade and started to flatten some of graves.
She glanced at him. He wasn’t looking at her. Which was good. She was feeling too raw from his rejection.
‘What do you do with those branches?’ he asked.
The greenery from birch branches, twigs and fern leaves lay as scattered as her thoughts.
Frowning, she concentrated hard before she remembered. ‘They’re to honour the graves. I wanted to give them more than just dirt.’ He didn’t help her as she picked up the scattered branches. ‘Let them know they were—’
She couldn’t finish the thought. It hurt too much to think of her sister. Pained too much to remember how the children had lost their parents. She tiptoed over the graves and placed the branches and greenery over them. She was glad she could hide her face while she arranged the branches. But it didn’t take long. She didn’t have much.
Now she only had the living to worry about. And that included herself. At least until her body stopped feeling this longing for a stranger and her heart stopped feeling this foolish hurt.
She brushed the back of her hands across her cheeks. She didn’t know what to say to him.
‘I prepared the food,’ she said when she could bear the silence no more.
He didn’t answer and she looked up. He was looking at her decorated graves, his brow furrowed, his cheeks hollowed out. He stuck the spade into the ground with unnecessary force, his eyes not meeting hers.
She hesitated before walking back to the camp. He followed her, but when she stumbled at the top of the hill, he did not help her.
* * *
Grief, anger and lust coursed through Robert’s body as he followed Gaira to the camp. The decorated graves were a painful reminder of his past. His grief crashed into his lust. The feelings could not be more different. Hot, cold, pain, pleasure. His anger at feeling anything at all underlined everything.
Worse, his years of abstinence mocked him as he followed Gaira up the hill. He tried to look at the countryside around him, but the slope of the green hills were weak substitutes for the fire of Gaira’s multiple-plaited hair.
He watched as each plait’s swing pointed to every female detail of her: the tapering of her waist, the flare of her hips, the curvature of her buttocks, the lean strength of her long, long legs.
His desire for the woman was too complicated and the situation was difficult enough. He had let Hugh know where he was going, but he was late to return to camp. It was good her dead were buried because so were his obligations to her.
‘It is getting late,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll keep camp again tonight.’
She didn’t break her stride. ‘Aye.’
‘I’ll try not to wake the children when I leave in the morning.’
She stopped so suddenly, he almost walked into her back. When she whirled, her plaits slashed like tiny ropes against his arms and hands.
‘What do you mean when you leave in the morning?’ she asked, one eyebrow raised.
‘I told my men I would be gone for no more than one day. I have been gone for almost two. If I do not return soon, they will come to check on me.’
A crease began in the middle of her brow. ‘Tomorrow I was taking the children and returning to my brothers on Colquhoun land. It is north up the Firth of Clyde.’
He did not see how this pertained to him leaving in the morning, but he knew well where the Firth of Clyde was.
‘That is miles north and across cold water,’ he pointed out. ‘You and the children couldn’t possibly make it that far.’
She did not question why an Englishman would have such accurate knowledge of Scottish territory. ‘That is the plan.’
He turned more fully towards her, waiting for her to finish, to comment their next of kin would be here soon and it would be best if he left as soon as possible.
But all she did was look pointedly at him, as though she was waiting for him to say something. He did want to say something. A blind man could see the danger in her plan.
‘You’ll never make it with one horse,’ he said. ‘Flora is so slender and slight in body and spirit, you can practically see through her. Alec and Maisie are too young for such a trek on horseback.’ He took a step closer to her. ‘What if you run out of oatcakes for Maisie—what will she eat? Creighton will not speak—what if he spies danger, but will not warn?’
She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. She looked as though she had no idea how to reply to him. He started to walk past her.
She did not move. ‘You are so good at telling me what cannot and should not be done. You have nae say here. Alec may be small, but his determination is strong.’ Her fists clenched at her sides. ‘Maisie’s teeth may still be coming in, but she has some and if we run out of oatcakes, we can grind the meat we have and mix it with water. I’ll make sure she doesn’t starve.’
She took a couple of steps away as if to distance herself from him and released her fists. ‘As for Flora and Creighton, I suspect they were nae always mute and weak. I believe your soldiers had something to do with that, but they survived; they were smart and quick enough to protect Alec, too.’
The sun was setting behind her, making her hair look licked with fire. The whisky colour of her eyes was shaded a golden tawny. She was all flared anger and determination and she was magnificent. He could not keep from wondering what her hair would look like unbound, what shade her eyes would go when she was feeling emotions other than anger. He could not help feeling a fool for noticing.
‘They’ll make it,’ she confirmed. ‘They’ve grown up despite my trying to protect them.’
She took another step closer to him and he could smell the fragrance of her hair, a mixture of greenery and something sweet, like some berry he’d never tasted.
He tried to focus his thoughts on the children. ‘You’ve come to care for them,’ he said.
‘Aye!’
‘Surely they have kin who would come for them.’
‘Do you think I haven’t thought of that?’ She waved her arms at him. ‘Flora says she has some, but she doesn’t know where. Alec�
��s too young to know otherwise.’
‘And Maisie?’
‘I know whose kin she belongs to,’ she said. ‘This conversation doesn’t matter. I need to get them to my brothers. It is the only place where I know they will be taken care of.’
He could hardly argue with her on where the children would be safe. It wasn’t as if he could take her back to the English camp, even if she and the children wanted to. The distance to her brother’s land might be dangerous, but he knew of no other place for them, far or near. Still, he repeated himself.
‘You’ll never make it.’
She stepped closer to him, until she was right under his nose, and punched him in the chest. ‘Oh, aye, we will and you’re going to help.’
Chapter Eight
All sound was suddenly suctioned out of the air. No, that wasn’t right, because she heard the sound of a bee buzzing past them, the rustle of the wind through the grass. It was just Robert who was quiet.
His eyes never wavered from her; his arms hung almost unnaturally by his sides. Had he heard her?
‘No...’ he breathed.
She clamped down on her quick anger. He had heard her. And his unwillingness shouldn’t have surprised her. ‘Aye, you are. Why did you come if not to do something for a village your fellow soldiers massacred?’
He didn’t say anything. She took a step away from him. Guilt for his country wasn’t motivating him. She would have to try another tactic.
‘The children aren’t safe. They must get to my brothers to receive the care they need. You’re right, we’ll never make it alone. But with your help, your supplies, your horse, we will.’
He still said nothing.
Her anger was quickly drowning in her panic. What if he didn’t help? Could this man, could any man, really just walk away?
‘Where are your feelings?’ she accused.
Something moved in his eyes, a dark shadow that left a strange ache in her chest. She suddenly wanted to soothe him and that didn’t make any sense.