A Highlander's Gypsy (Highland Temptations Book 2)

by Aileen Adams

  “I believe so.”

  He looked to the body with a snarl. “I’ll bury him. We canna leave him out for all to see.”

  “There is no time to dig a grave!” Panic was beginning to set in now. “He said there’s a price on my head. There will be others.”

  “I know, which means I need to start now. I dinna mean to dig a grave. I can cover him.” He shook his head when she made a move as though to assist in this. “Nay, ye need to stay off your feet. What did I tell ye?”

  “I…” She knew not whether to fly into a rage or burst into tears.

  “Sit down. Keep your feet up, as I told ye, and let me take care of this. I believe there ought to be dried meat in one of the packs. Eat now, while there’s time.” He went to work then, turning his back to her, grunting from the effort needed to lift the rather heavy man from where he’d fallen.

  She looked at him, unable to help herself. He might have been rather young, at that. If he had not chosen to attack and try to kidnap her, he might still be alive.

  He had gray eyes which stared sightlessly up at the sky. She wished they were closed.

  Her hunger was enough to stir her to action. “What is your name?” she asked while she went through one of the packs. “I feel as though I ought to know it, now that you…”

  “William,” he grunted, dragging the man with a hand beneath both arms. Muscles moved beneath his tunic, shoulders and arms straining.

  “Thank you, William.”

  “Think nothing of it.” His tone told her that he truly felt this way. He thought nothing of the fact that he had killed a man with little effort. It was simply something he’d been called upon to do, and now he cleaned up after himself because he needed to do that as well.

  She ought to think nothing of it, for the man who’d died was less than a man. Less than a person. He’d been willing—eager, even—to trade her for a sum. He’d taken delight in having caught her.

  He certainly had not cared what would happen once he’d handed her over to the Stuarts.

  Why should she care that he was now dead?

  The meat she chewed turned sour in her mouth when she watched William pull his dirk from the man’s neck. He’d shoved it in so far, he needed to place a foot on the man’s shoulder before heaving upward. Tossing it to the ground, he then covered the body with leaves and branches until it looked nothing like what it was.

  While he did this, Shana covered all evidence of their fire, then scattered leaves over top in hopes of concealing where it had burned. Anything to avoid drawing attention to the area. Would it be enough?

  He washed the dirk in the stream before sliding it into a leather sheath on his belt, beneath his cloak. “We’ll need to go now.”

  “I am ready.”

  He saddled the horse, then helped her to her feet and lifted her onto the horse’s back as if she weighed little more than a feather.

  “We had best stay off the road for now,” he decided, a frown creasing his brow as he swung up behind her.

  “He said the others who were looking for me had decided to bed down for the night, meaning they might be quite a way behind us.”

  “Aye, I heard him. I still would rather not take chances. It isn’t only a matter of them not seeing us, but also of avoiding being seen by others. Villagers, townsfolk, peddlers. Those looking for us will ask questions wherever they go.”

  Shana shivered as the truth settled into her bones. She would not be safe until they reached this Richard, whoever he was and wherever he happened to be. They would spend their days riding and their nights sleeping out of doors—neither of which frightened her in the least, as she had spent her entire life doing just that.

  Except for all the hatred shown toward her and her people in the past, she had never felt truly hunted. Chased. In peril.

  Until now.

  When William wrapped her in his cloak, his warm body behind hers, she recalled how effortlessly and even carelessly he’d killed the man who might have killed her.

  And she stopped shivering.

  9

  “How many times do I have to tell ye? Two days since we left that stream and you’re still trying to walk.”

  She blew out a heavy sigh which curdled his blood. Two days since he’d buried and left that man behind. Two days of hearing her sigh. At least she sat before him most of the time, meaning he could only see the back of her head.

  If he had to watch her eyes roll while she sighed, it might have been too much.

  “Would you prefer to carry me everywhere? What am I do to when I need to tend to personal matters?” She sat, raising her feet from the ground with a pointed smirk up at him.

  “I should have stopped before now to find shoes for ye,” he muttered, shaking his head at the condition of her bandages. There was no keeping them clean and dry, no matter how he tried or how frequently he saw to her changing them.

  It just so happened they’d hit a stretch of damp weather. Wet wounds were always bound to fester.

  He dropped to one knee, wondering silently when he’d become a nursemaid. How far he’d fallen. How Richard would laugh if he saw this.

  All thoughts of himself fell away once he’d peeled back the last of the linen strips and was unable to hide his dismay.

  She winced, turning her face away rather than looking. “Och, it does not look good,” he murmured as gently as possible. They had not healed in the least, the wounds red and angry, the bruises darker than ever. She had already run over a great deal of ground with her feet cut and scraped before he found her.

  “It hurts,” she confessed through clenched teeth.

  He looked from the soles of her feet into her pained face, twisted in a grimace, and made a decision. “We’re just outside Inverness now.”

  “You said that last night.”

  “Aye, I know I did.” He reminded himself of the pain she had to be in before a sharp retort could escape. “There is bound to be something there which will help ye. I have to find it in town.”

  She gripped his wrists. “You can’t do that.”

  He pulled himself free, patted her hands. “I have to. You’ll only get worse. There must be something I can buy there to help.”

  “I… could find what we need in the woods. My mother taught me how to heal.”

  “Aye, I’m certain she did, but ye need help now. Something strong.” Before she became feverish and glassy-eyed. He would not speak the words aloud, but that was what would happen if he allowed her to go without treatment of some sort.

  “You’ll leave me here, then?” The tremble in her voice cut him to the quick.

  “I have to. I will not be long, I swear it.” He hated the thought, simply loathed it, but the village was no more than a ten-minute trip on foot. “Ye can wait for me on horseback and run if ye hear anyone coming.”

  She eyed him askance. “You trust me to do that?”

  “Of course.”

  “What if I leave with the horse?”

  “Then I’m a damned fool and the worst judge of character this side of the Highlands.”

  She would do no such thing if she had half a brain. She knew he was her only protector and would not dare venture far without him.

  The way her voice trembled when he told her he’d leave was enough to convince him she would never dare run away.

  “And you’ll be coming back soon?”

  He lifted her into the saddle and rested a hand on her knee. Her eyes met his, and they remained that way for a long, silent moment.

  “I will,” he vowed.

  “I believe you.”

  He nodded. “If ye hear anything that sounds like footsteps or hooves, or if the horse acts skittish—”

  “I know.”

  He lingered another moment, wishing he didn’t have to do it. While he would never have called her weak, this was a different matter. She was a single woman about to be left alone with an army of hunters and possibly even mercenaries snapping at her heels. Men like that were no
t known for their kindness.

  As almost an afterthought, he withdrew his flintlock and loaded it. “You’ll get one shot, so make it count.”

  Rather than taking it with a shaking hand, as he might have guessed a woman in her position would, her fingers closed around the handle with decided firmness. “I intend to.”

  He wasn’t certain whether he feared or respected her just then. Though he was certain that he pitied the man who thought he could have his way with her.

  He left her before he could talk himself out of leaving her alone, raising his hood once he stepped out of the thickest wood. The thriving town spread out before him, with carts and wagons and horses moving along the roads leading to and from.

  Was she hidden well enough back there? He could only hope. He could also only hope that no one thought it strange a man would enter town on foot. It was a struggle, finding a balance between walking quickly and too quickly.

  He had to get back to her. Every minute he left her alone…

  He shouldn’t have given her his real name. She was smart enough to give him a false one. It had never occurred to him to do the same. What if someone found her and asked who she’d been traveling with?

  As he’d already pointed out, her kinsmen were her kinsmen. She wished to protect them, and that was honorable.

  He was not one of her people. She could easily give him up to avoid worsening her lot.

  A fine rain was falling by the time he reached the outskirts of town, where a handful of cottages sat, and he made a point of avoiding looking passerby in the eyes. Would he appear even more suspicious because of this? There was no telling.

  It seemed better to avoid being remembered as anything more than a tall man in a brown cloak. The mist made his hood necessary, at least.

  His eyes darted about, beneath that cowl, his mind on finding a healer’s shop somewhere. He had no idea of how to recognize it when he found it. The signs hanging over each business included images which described what the business did. A horse, an anvil, a needle, a loaf of bread. Where was the healer?

  The weather kept no one inside, and he was soon in the middle of a throng of villagers, much to his consternation. Yet the cold, clinging mist meant they made haste to go about their errands and kept their heads down, which worked in his favor.

  After walking down street after street, avoiding splashing himself in the muck which ran like a river before the rows of homes and inns servicing the busy harbor, he found a stone building from which came a mix of odors he could only describe as herbal.

  Stepping inside, he found a low-ceilinged room full to the brim with drying herbs, shelves lining the walls covered in bottles, vials, and bowls. An old woman sat on a stool, grinding a mixture of leaves beneath a stone.

  He cleared his throat. “Pardon me.”

  “Do I know ye?” the woman croaked without looking up from her work.

  “Eh… nay.”

  “Why have ye come, then?”

  Was knowing the woman a condition of asking for her help? How did she ever manage to do business with the men who came in on the ships? It was only natural to assume they would need tonics and tinctures for pain, illness.

  “I need help. A friend.” He thought quickly, deciding against telling the entire truth. The woman hadn’t yet looked at him, so he did not trust her. “He was wounded in a fall days ago, but the wounds have not healed and, in fact, look worse. Angry, red, with bruises.”

  “Cuts?”

  “And scrapes, aye. On his feet.”

  “He wounded his feet in a fall?” Now she raised her head, beady eyes peering at him from beneath thick, white eyebrows. She might have been anywhere from fifty to a hundred winters old. Perhaps more. But her hands never ceased in their task as she studied him, and they moved with ease rather than in a halting, pained manner.

  Perhaps she made use of the very potions she created.

  “Aye,” he grumbled, already tired of his lie and of this woman. “Can ye help or can ye not? I’m sure I can find another healer elsewhere.”

  “Ye canna.” She spoke with the confidence of a person secure in their vocation. “Has there been fever yet?”

  “Nay.”

  “Good.” The woman hopped down from the stool—truly hopped, as a rabbit would, and William was surprised to find how much taller she’d appeared while seated. As she scurried about the shop, he observed her to be no larger than a child.

  And she knew where everything could be located without hardly looking. She ran a gnarled finger over a row of brown bottles before picking one out. It was more of a jar, with a piece of canvas covering the top. A piece of yarn held it in place.

  “How much?”

  “How much is it worth to ye?”

  He snarled. “I dinna have much time.”

  “It’s worth quite a bit, then,” she chuckled.

  “Give me a price and I’ll pay it.” Every moment he spent haggling with the old woman was one more moment in which the lass was alone. If he returned to where he’d left her and found her missing…

  He knew where he would begin when it came time to taste vengeance.

  He left the shop soon after, his sporran somewhat lighter but relief making the entire endeavor seem worthwhile. So long as the salve worked, along with the fresh bandages which he’d purchased as an afterthought, it would matter little how the old woman had enjoyed herself at his expense.

  He did not take his time in leaving, no longer caring if anyone thought him odd for making haste as he did. In fact, he was willing to believe none of them cared either way about his concerns. They had concerns of their own.

  By the time he reached the woods, his heart racing and his eyes searching the shadows, the mist had ended, and the sky above had begun to lighten. He knew she’d be listening hard for him, but that if she were hiding, she would not be able to see. “Tara?” he whispered, for once relieved he did not know her true name.

  If any ears but hers were listening, he would not reveal who she was.

  If only she would answer.

  “Tara?” he whispered, louder this time. “I’ve returned. Where are ye, lass?”

  For one heart-clenching moment, he knew she was gone. Someone had come for her while he argued with an old woman over the price of salve. She had trusted him, she’d needed him, and he had failed.

  He would never be free of her now, not ever. His guilt would crush him until the day he died, and with good reason. He deserved nothing better.

  Then, “William?” Out from behind a cluster of spruce trees came the horse, and its rider.

  He had never known such sweet relief. “Och, thank God. Ye met no one, then?”

  “No one. I heard you coming…”

  “And ye hid yourself. Clever lass.” How he longed to pull her from the saddle and enfold her in his arms, to stroke her hair and murmur words of relief in her ear. The impulse surprised him with both its suddenness and strength.

  Instead, he helped her down and was careful to avoid letting her touch the ground with her unbound feet. “I bought a salve and bandages. The healer assured me of the salve’s… what did she call it? Potency. It’s very potent, she said.”

  He glanced at her face and found her not looking at him, but over his shoulder instead. He knew not what she looked at, only that her expression was a mixture of fear, loathing and a sort of resigned certainty.

  Her eyes widened, and in one smooth movement she withdrew the flintlock from the waist of her trews and aimed it in the direction she stared.

  “What are ye doing?” he asked—just before a twig snapped behind him.

  “I’m about to shoot the man who followed you from town,” she announced in a cool voice, the pistol leveled and steady.

  10

  Shana stared at the short man standing not ten feet from where she sat, the pistol trained on his chest.

  Whether she would be able to make the shot was anyone’s guess, for she had never fired a pistol in her life, but she was willing
to try so long as it meant injuring him—or frightening him away.

  He held up his hands, palms out. “No need for that, lassie, for if your man there would merely turn about, he would see he knows me well.”

  William stared at Shana, one hand straying toward the dirk at his waist. “And who would ye be, then?” he asked in a steady voice with a steely edge.

  “None other than Drew MacIntosh himself, as a matter of fact, and I knew I recognized ye back in town—though I would’ve kept to myself had I known a bonny lass would aim a pistol at my chest.”

  William’s body sagged for a moment before a smile spread from ear to ear. He turned, let out a sharp laugh. “If it isn’t the very man himself. Och, but it’s good to see ye.”

  “You do know him, then?” Shana was unconvinced of the man’s trustworthiness.

  William was gentle as he pressed a hand to the flintlock, lowering it until it pointed to the ground. “Aye, he’s an old friend. A good man.” When she looked to him, searching his face for the truth, he nodded. “Trust me.”

  She snorted. “You aren’t the problem. I trust you.”

  “She’s a wise one,” Drew MacIntosh chuckled. “Many’s the lass who wished she had not trusted me, though I canna be blamed for having an eye for women.”

  William clasped arms with this man. “You’re looking well, though I canna imagine how, knowing ye as I do. It’s been the better part of half a year since the wedding, has it not? I would’ve expected ye to have lost a few teeth by now, or at least to have a blackened eye after leaving a busy harbor town.”

  “Aye, well, I’ve been far too busy helping my cousin with his land to get myself into much trouble.” He glanced toward Shana, who still eyed him warily. “I’ve a bit of a reputation for startin’ trouble in taverns. Fighting and the like. But no time for that at the present.”

  “Are we that near the land?” William asked.

  “What land?” Shana interrupted. This was the first she’d heard of any such place.

  “Aye, no more than two hours from Inverness, which of course ye just left,” he added, looking to William. “I realize ye came in from the north when ye came for the wedding, so ye might not have known how near we are to the town. I came in to fetch supplies.”