by Aileen Adams
Yes, Aunt Sorcha was right. He was a grown man, one whose teasing had grown along with him. She supposed it was a result of his time in the army, among rough men.
“I didn’t expect you to come back, tonight or ever,” she observed.
“Nor did I, truth be told.” His smile disappeared, a frown taking its place. “I came back to warn ye.”
“Warn me? Of what?”
“Of the fact that my brother has no wish to let you go.”
She began to shiver, the water which had once been so cool and comfortable becoming unbearably cold in the blink of an eye. “What does he plan to do?”
“What do you think? He plans to hunt you down like a fox or a doe.”
“Why are you so hateful?”
Her question clearly surprised him, though she didn’t see how it possibly could. He seemed to be going out of his way to hurt her, when she’d done nothing wrong. In fact, she’d had no say in any of the details.
“You think me hateful?” he asked.
“You’ve been answering a question with a question when you wish to take extra time to find an answer for as long as I’ve known you, Rodric Anderson.”
“Then it shouldn’t surprise ye, lass.”
“Answer me, damn you,” she demanded, stomping a foot to no avail. He couldn’t see.
He sighed, his eyes drifting away from hers until his gaze rested at his feet. “Forgive me, lass. It’s cruel I’ve been. I admit it. And you’re right for pointing it out.”
“I know I’m right.”
“You don’t need to agree with me. I already said you were right.” He shook his head, snickering. “How do we seem to rouse each other’s tempers so easily?”
She bit back the sharp retort which danced on the tip of her tongue. If you weren’t so hard-headed and nasty, my temper wouldn’t flare so easily. “I don’t know. I’ve never known.”
The truth was plain to see, even if neither of them had the courage to speak it: there was far too much between them which remained unspoken.
Caitlin cleared her throat. “I suppose I should get out of this river and dry myself, then get started.”
“Started?”
“For my cousin’s. I need to go, if Alan still wishes to find me.” She cast an anxious look in the direction of the house. “I knew this was dangerous. I can’t expose Aunt Sorcha to danger on my account.”
“You needn’t worry about him tonight.” Rodric snorted, his voice heavy with disgust. Or was it disappointment? “He’s well in his cups at the moment and looked to be settling in for more when I made my leave. He’s in no condition to be hunting for anything or anyone, and likely won’t be until midday tomorrow. Get your rest tonight. You’re safe here.”
“You came back here to tell me I’m safe?” she asked, her head tilted to one side.
He winced, looking at her as though she had taken leave of her senses. “I came back to ensure you’re safe, lass. What else do you think?”
When he stood, he brushed the dust off his trousers and very deliberately averted his eyes. “I would feel a sight better if you’d finish with your bath and return to the house with me, just to be on the safe side.”
Only when she was certain he wasn’t looking did she emerge on the bank opposite and wrap herself in the sheet her aunt had provided. It instantly soaked through, clinging to her, but there was nothing she could do to help that.
She told herself he wasn’t chuckling as they walked to the house, that he hadn’t watched her playing alone in the river.
13
It was at times such as these when Rodric was glad to be a decent man. Otherwise, there was no way he’d have been able to control himself after seeing her in the river.
He’d noticed her right off, as soon as the McMannis house had come into view. Her skin shining like silver in the moonlight when she stood with her back to him. It had nearly been enough to stop his heart.
He’d battled with himself then, wondering if he should call out to her as a warning—only the vague notion that someone might hear him doing so and come to explore had stopped him. A silly idea, in hindsight, as there hadn’t been a soul in sight except for her.
But it had been enough reason at the moment to hold his tongue and see what would happen next.
“Whoa,” he’d whispered, slowing the horse to barely a walk as he’d crept up on her. It had been the wrong thing to do, like as not, but there had been no helping it. The closer he drew to her moonlit magnificence, the further away his resolve seemed to flee.
The slim arms, the curve of her shoulders. The way her waist narrowed before flaring just slightly at the hip—he hadn’t been able to see more than that, the water covered the rest of her. But that slight beginning of a flare, just the mere hint of it, was enough to fuel a lifetime’s worth of dreaming.
He’d remembered the young lass, the one he’d grown up with. The fourteen-year-old who he’d left behind. In some part of his mind, he’d known she must’ve grown up. He had, after all.
But what she’d grown into. He couldn’t have imagined that, had no idea of it while she wore those large, shapeless, clearly borrowed clothes.
He stretched out on his side with his back to the latched door, staring out into darkness broken only by the moonlight coming through a window above his head. The kitchen wasn’t a large room by any means, but it might as well have been the great hall of the Duncan manor house for all the distance between him and the lass on the other side of it.
Would that she were awake.
What would he say to her if she was?
That would always be the trouble: not knowing what to say to her. They were no longer children and had no understanding of each other as adults. How could they hope to reach each other, then? When it seemed that no matter how he tried, every conversation ended in an argument?
Longing for her wouldn’t help things. He needed to sleep at least a bit, needed a clear head in the morning when it came time to devise a plan for getting her to safety. He’d need his men, naturally—there was no sense in leaving them at the inn, no matter how pleasurably they might pass the time in his absence.
The mere hint of this, combined with a body which already ached to be pressed to the one which rested across the room from him, drew from him a frustrated groan.
“Hmm?” A sleepy voice replied. She stirred beneath the thin blanket.
He averted his eyes—in the state he was in, even that slight bit of movement was nearly enough to inflame him. “I’m sorry. Go to sleep.”
“Are you all right?” she whispered, raising herself up on one elbow as though to get a better look at him.
“I’m well. Go to sleep now.”
She sighed. “Now I’m awake again.”
“I’m sorry to have awoken you.”
“I sleep lightly.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She snorted. “Why would you?”
“I don’t know. It seemed as though you deserved an answer.”
Another snort. “You sounded uncomfortable, or worried.”
“I said, I’m well.”
“All right. Good night.” She sounded doubtful as she lowered herself to the floor once again, her makeshift bed nothing more than a bundle of blankets. Even so, he would’ve wagered she was more comfortable than he was.
Not that discomfort meant much. He’d been in far worse situations before—sleeping in muck, mud which carried the stench of waste and blood, during torrential storms, and in cold worse than anything he’d ever experienced.
Except, perhaps, the night he and Alan had gone out to secure the livestock during the great blizzard.
He rolled onto his back, one arm under his head as he remembered. The wind, the snow caking itself to his face. The certainty at one point that he was beginning to lose sensation in his feet and hands.
And why had he gone? To keep Alan in line, as always. To ensure that his brother didn’t do something stupid or reckless which would only get him
killed. Even then, when he was little more than a child who thought he was a man, he’d been looking out for his older brother.
What good had it done?
There had been one moment, one heart-stopping moment, when everything could’ve gone far differently.
He closed his eyes, almost feeling as though he were back in that storm in spite of the warm, summer night of the present day. The swirling snow had all but wiped away every trace of familiar land or building. He could see nothing—no barn, no stables, no house. No light from candles in the windows.
It was as if the entire world had disappeared, leaving him and his brother wandering, searching in vain for something which no longer existed.
Alan had tugged his arm, gesturing wildly to the right. Wanting to move in that direction.
Rodric had fought against him. How he’d known his brother was wrong was never something he’d been able to understand. Instinct, he supposed, the same instinct which had kept him alive throughout the war. Except for the day Jake Duncan saved his life, which was more a matter of divine intervention, if anything.
During the storm, however, some inner voice had urged him to continue on his course. Straight ahead. He’d struggled against the wind, a wind which had all but knocked him off his feet.
If he’d fallen, he would’ve remained that way. He would have frozen to death. There was no doubt in his mind, nearly ten years later.
Alan had continued to insist, had tried to pull him off-course and to the right. He’d taken a few stumbling steps before withdrawing his hand from his brother’s. He wouldn’t allow anyone to lead him to the death which surely awaited them, not even his older brother.
Alan had waved his arms, as though to tell Rodric off and give up on him, before turning away to follow the course he believed was correct. Rodric’s voice had disappeared on the wind when he’d screamed for Alan to come back.
It was at that very moment that a light flickered in one of the windows.
Not twenty feet in front of him.
Straight ahead, where he would’ve led them, had Alan not insisted on going right.
The light disappeared as quickly as it had shown itself, but it was enough. Rodric had fought against the blowing snow to lunge for Alan—the sight of his fur-wrapped head and back had all but disappeared from view.
Somehow, he’d dragged his brother the rest of the way to the house. Perhaps it was the certainty that they’d both die if he didn’t manage it that gave him the strength he needed. No matter where it had come from, it saved their lives.
There had been times after that night when he’d felt his brother resented being saved. As though Rodric hadn’t been good enough to save him, as though the younger brother pulling the older one to safety was too much for his damnable pride to contend with.
He’d never understood Alan, not entirely.
What he understood was his thirst for vengeance. Rodric had thirsted that way, though he’d wished for vengeance against the warriors who’d killed friends of his. Fellow soldiers. The bastard who’d nearly killed him and Jake Duncan, too.
In battle, it was easy to want vengeance. A man’s heart raced, his blood was up. Life boiled down to its most essential basics in those violent moments. Kill or be killed. Live or die.
Was that how his brother lived his daily life? Always on the brink of battle?
All the more reason to get Caitlin far away from him, and as quickly as possible.
14
I wish I could spend more time here with you,” Caitlin murmured against her aunt’s shoulder as they embraced. It seemed impossible that she should leave again when they’d hardly been able to spend any time together.
It seemed cruel to leave her all alone on her land with no one to talk to. While neighbors had been helpful during Gavin’s illness, and of course had paid their respects the day before, life went on. Chores demanded attention, children needed raising.
Caitlin could not even make arrangements for someone from either the McAllister or Anderson households to make the ride, as that would mean revealing herself. If she’d not run from Alan, she might have been the one to do it. She might even have used her uncle’s passing as an excuse to stay in the little farmhouse for a while.
Another way in which she had failed, but how was she to know the way the future would unfold? And there was still so much more unfolding to be done. Just the thought was enough to dampen her spirits.
“Worry not, my dear,” Aunt Sorcha whispered, smiling in spite of her trembling chin. “I’m happy.”
“Happy?”
“You needn’t look so disbelieving,” she chuckled. “Yes. I’m happy, because I know you will be safe now.”
She knew no such thing, and neither did Caitlin. All either of them knew was that she would leave with Rodric and that he intended to escort her to Fiona’s. They would meet up with friends of Rodric’s at the inn in the village before continuing on.
Yet there was a certainty in her voice, a firmness in her nod. “You’ll be safe, because he would die before allowing harm to come to you,” Sorcha whispered, obviously referring to Rodric.
“Don’t even say such things,” Caitlin warned, a chill running through her at her aunt’s words.
Superstition did not seem to matter to Sorcha. Perhaps she’d already been through enough to know that superstition meant nothing. Caitlin had taken silent notice of the herbs which her aunt had burned at Gavin’s bedside, had seen the pillow which Sorcha had knelt on beside the bed in order to pray over him. The pillow was still there, just one of the many things which had fallen by the wayside in the wake of Gavin’s passing.
What good had prayers and burned herbs and who knew what else done for him? What difference did it make if one spoke of things they didn’t wish to see become true? If something was meant to happen, it would happen. No amount of avoiding the subject would help.
“I believe he will take care of you, and he will.” Sorcha pressed her lips to Caitlin’s tear-dampened cheek before pushing her in the direction of her mare.
Rodric stayed at a discreet distance, pretending as though he wasn’t listening. He had the grace to do that, at least.
She shook herself at the only somewhat charitable thought. There was no reason to think of him so negatively. He’d behaved like a perfect gentleman the night before, when there had been more than enough opportunity for him to do anything but. And if he’d perhaps taken liberties by watching her bathe, he’d at least made her aware of his presence before she’d done anything truly embarrassing.
Even so, there was no escaping the way her temper flared from time to time, all thanks to him.
She wondered if he knew what he did to her. How he upset her thoughts.
But then, he always had, hadn’t he? From the time they were children.
“We had better start off,” he announced after clearing his throat gruffly. “We want to reach your cousin’s before nightfall, and we have to stop at the inn as well.”
She nodded, casting one more look down at her aunt before turning the mare in the direction of the road.
“Take care!” Sorcha called out, a brave smile shining on her otherwise grief-stricken face.
Her eyes sparkled with unshed tears which Caitlin knew would likely be shed once her visitors had disappeared on the road.
She turned away before her own tears revealed themselves.
Rodric rode straight and tall in the saddle, as always. And as always, Caitlin wondered what he was thinking. He’d always been infuriatingly skilled at keeping thoughts to himself—unfortunately, she had not become more skilled at understanding him.
Only a slight sniffle escaped her as she rode away. All the while, she willed herself not to look back. Looking back would only make the pain more severe. It was all but beyond bearing.
“She will be all right back there,” Rodric offered, his gaze focused on the road. After that, all she heard was the soft clop-clop-clop of the horses’ hooves on the well-trod dirt trail.<
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Caitlin couldn’t bring herself to speak. If she tried, nothing would come out but weeping. They had far too much riding to do for her to give in to emotion, no matter how it tore at her heart.
“Loss… is never easy, no matter if a person is alone or surrounded by others,” he mused, his voice thoughtful. As though he were sharing whichever thoughts came to his mind as they did so. “Imagine if Sorcha had borne a dozen children, the way we knew she always wanted to. What if your uncle passed on and left her alone with them? How would she see to their survival until they came of age? No matter the circumstances, loss is loss and always brings challenges.”
She thought this over as they rode side-by-side. She was once again disguised, her hair tucked under the hat and—as before—causing no end of discomfort under the already hot early morning sun. Sweat had already begun making itself known, tricking down her head. She wanted nothing more than to tear off the hat and scratch her itching scalp.
Instead, she concentrated on what Rodric had to say. When he wasn’t behaving like an arrogant prig or allowing his tongue to get the better of him, he was quite insightful.
“I suppose anyone would’ve looked upon my stepfather and me and deduced that it was for the best that he be part of my life after my mother died,” she reasoned once the crushing grief passed. “Without him, I would’ve been alone—according to them, to strangers.”
“Aye, I recall hearing murmurings to that extent in those days,” he admitted. “I was too young to understand, but then again people are more likely to share confidences while in the presence of a child who they believe can’t make sense of what they’re saying. They believed it was a blessing your mother had remarried, that it meant your protection.”
“It meant everything but my protection,” she whispered, disgusted. “It meant my sale into slavery, or something close to it.”
“Slavery?”
“Do you honestly believe my marriage to your brother would’ve been anything else?”