by Aileen Adams
Yet that way of thinking left them without the assistance of outsiders. There were good people in the world. William helped her when there was nothing for him to gain. Davina had all but given her the very dress off her back; had it not been decided that Shana would be better off dressing as a lad, she might well have done so.
And it was clear, Drew still wished to put an end to Jacob Stuart’s life. “Let me ride along with ye,” he offered. “Two of us would be better than one.”
“You’re needed here, and I would not put ye in any greater chance of danger.” William mounted behind her. “Besides, this is something I need to do on my own.”
Shana asked herself what he meant but held her tongue.
The first beams of light were just breaching the horizon when they started off from the house, weighed down with food and freshly washed and rested. For the first time in a long time, a small flame of hope flickered in Shana’s heart.
And for the first time, leaving a place filled her with regret. Especially when Rufus slid an arm about his wife’s waist, and she rested her head on his shoulder as they watched the horse walk away.
13
“You’re verra quiet, lass.”
They’d been riding half the day, moving slowly through the woods rather than taking the road and making much better time. The weather was clear, at least, if not a bit cooler than he would have preferred.
“Am I?” She sounded as though she were coming out of a dream. He recalled their whispered conversation when she was half-asleep and how he’d longed to touch her. How dangerous that impulse was.
The fact that she was at present nestled against his chest did not help matters.
“Are ye well? Do ye need to stop and rest?”
“No,” she insisted with a shake of her head. Riding without her hair blowing about in his face was a pleasant change, anyway, and he wished he thought to give her his tam before then.
Although now when he looked down, he saw the curve of her neck, her dark skin, so smooth and…
And he needed a woman. Anyone but this woman. Would it be possible to see to his needs somewhere? Unlikely. And possibly dangerous.
Yet no more dangerous than giving in to his growing attachment to her.
“How do you know Rufus? And Drew?”
“Rufus fought along with Richard and myself against the loyalists. And many other men, of course. When his land was stolen from his brother, he wished to take a group of men along when he reclaimed it. I recommended Alec, Tyrone, Clyde.”
“What of Drew?”
William laughed. “Everyone knows Drew, it seems. He was one of many we met during the fighting. Those of us who survived tend to protect and care for each other when we can.”
“They seem like decent men. It is a wonder Drew found you. We needed them.”
“We did,” he agreed, “though I suppose we could have gotten along well on our own. I did find the salve for your wounds, remember.”
“I remember.”
She was a woman humoring a man, but he could accept it as a sign they were getting along better.
He followed the sound of running water until they reached a rushing stream which, based upon where they’d come from, he supposed flowed from the River Conon. If only they could travel over roads, they might reach Richard’s castle by the following evening. Instead, their slow path through the woods meant it would be at least twice that long.
“We’d best stop here for a bit,” he announced, noting the sun’s presence directly overhead and the sound of his empty stomach’s growls. “I can hardly wait to open some of what Davina packed for us. It’s been on my mind since we left the farm.”
She fell silent again. “What is it?” he asked. “What bothers ye? Did someone say something to upset ye back there?”
“Not at all. Everyone was kind.” Yet there was a weakness in her voice, a troubled note. He helped her from the saddle and noted how she did not wince when her feet touched the ground.
He could nearly taste his relief. She would be well. For some reason, this meant more to him than he’d ever expected.
Before he could express this, she looked up into his eyes. “What did you mean when you said this is something you must do yourself? When Drew asked if he could ride with us.”
This caught him by surprise. “I knew there was something on your mind. Have ye already forgotten what we spoke of last night? We must be honest with each other.”
“I agree. I need you to be honest with me. What did you mean?”
He shrugged, turning away to tend to the horse. “I meant nothing more than what I said.”
“Do you believe that was wise? Do you think that perhaps, we could have used another man on this journey? So you would not have to fight alone?”
“Do ye not think I can handle myself? Have I not already proven myself to ye?”
“It isn’t a matter of proving yourself to me. Why can you not see that?”
He ignored this. “Ye also forgot my telling him I did not wish to put him in danger. Does that mean nothing?”
“Of course, it does, and I agree with you.”
“Well?”
She groaned, throwing her hands into the air. “I cannot speak with you. You don’t listen.”
“I’m listening.” He led the horse to the stream and stroked its neck as it drank rather than look her in the eye. This was what he’d dreaded, and what he ought to have prepared himself to explain.
“Nay. You’re merely waiting until you can speak, which is not the same. If you would cease needing to defend yourself at every turn, we could understand each other better. I only want to understand you.”
“What do ye wish to understand?”
“What did you mean when you said that? Those were my words. That was my question. I wish to know nothing more than this. What did you mean? Is this all a matter of you being too proud to accept help?”
“Of course, it is not a matter of that. This is too important for pride.”
“What is it, then?”
He turned away, knowing there was no hope of explaining to her exactly why he’d spoken as he had. She would certainly think the worst of him if he told her a seer had ordered this fool’s journey. “Leave it alone,” he muttered as he worked on opening the packs Davina had put together for them.
“No. I will not!” Her hand was surprisingly strong for one so small—or, perhaps more likely, sheer frustration gave her the strength she required to turn him to face her. “Because you won’t tell me why you said it—and then tell me to leave it alone—I know there must be a reason! Tell me!”
“I dinna have to tell ye anything!” He shook off her hand, willing himself to ignore the throb of emotion in her voice. What was it about the woman that made him want so badly to hold and comfort her?
She fell back a step, horror twisting her features. “You pretend to be a good man. You’ve lied to me all along. I should have known better.”
“What? Calm yourself.”
She did not appear to hear him, for her horror did not lessen. “You want us to be alone because you plan to use me. Isn’t that right? That’s been your plan all along. You never planned to take me to safety. You’re leading me to my doom!”
“Nay! Lass, that is the furthest thing from my mind!” He went to her, arms outstretched. What he thought he would do if he reached her, he could not say, but she backed away.
“Do not come near me, you devil! I knew you were no better than the rest! That is why you wished for us to be alone rather than being smart and taking help when offered!”
“I dinna intend to harm ye! Keep your voice down.”
“Why? Are you afraid someone will find us and take me away and collect the reward you plan to have for yourself?”
“Silence, damn ye!” He held his head in his hands. “I didna wish to tell ye because I didna think ye would understand.”
“You’re correct. I do not understand.”
“I went to a seer!” And t
here it was. Though now he knew there was something much worse than her thinking him daft, and that was listening to her screaming and carrying on. He would do anything to bring that to an end.
She went still, her mouth open as if she’d been about to scream again but his confession had silenced her. Her eyelids fluttered rapidly. “A seer? What does a seer have to do with this?”
He patted the horse’s neck in an effort to calm him, since the lass’s tirade had caused no small amount of anxious prancing and ear twitching. “First, ye must know something. Ye were correct when ye accused me of not being a good man. Ye called me a devil. Perhaps I am. I have not lived a good life. I’ve done what I could do be decent, but the man I killed—the one holding ye, the morning after ye escaped—was hardly the first man to fall because of my dirk. I’ve killed many men. I was even glad to do it at times. And I trained other men to do the same.”
“To murder? Are you an assassin?”
“Nay, lass.” Even now, he had to laugh. “I’m a soldier. A guardsman. I train other men to guard Laird Richard, his castle, his lands. It is my responsibility to make certain they take no chances. This means taking prisoners, but more often, killing anyone who poses a threat to the laird. I canna tell ye how many men have died because of me. And I have certainly never cared or even gave it a moment’s thought until just now.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“I merely wished for ye to understand a bit about me when I tell ye why I searched for ye. It was not because I’d heard of a lass captured by the Stuarts. I was already searching. I had been riding for days before I heard of ye.”
“You… were searching for me? Why me?”
“A seer told me to find ye. Och, it sounds worse than I thought it would.”
He looked from the horse to her in time to see her sit heavily on a moss-covered boulder.
“A seer. You do not strike me as the sort of person to visit seers.”
“I am not, normally. But ye haunted my dreams for weeks—someone begging for help, that is. I could not sleep. It took everything in me to stay awake or think clearly. I began to question whether I could perform my duties to the best of my ability, whether I was putting others in danger by training in the state I was in. I could have wounded them or myself.”
“I see.”
“Nay, ye dinna, but I dinna expect ye to, yet.” He sat across from her, watching the way her face changed as she took this in. That she did not believe him was plain to see.
That she may have feared him a bit was also clear, and that bothered him a great deal more.
“I heard a voice in my dreams—nightmares, really. Begging me for help. I knew not who needed me or why, but… I knew it was a lass, and she was in terrible danger. The way ye know when you’re dreaming, ye ken?” She nodded. “Every night it was the same. A woman, begging for my help. I could not quite see her, but I knew she needed me.”
“And you went to a seer?”
“I went to many seers, all because a determined old woman decided I ought to. They were all wrong until the last one. The one who told me I must look for ye, that I would never rest until I found ye. So, I left my home and rode south, as she told me to do. It was—” He cast about for the right words to use. “It was faith, I suppose, though I’ve never paid much of a mind to such matters. I believe in what I can see and touch. But it was better than suffering through one sleepless night after another, wondering if my dreams were real and there truly was a woman in desperate need of my help. If only one night had passed without hearing those pleas, I might have told myself it was imagination and nothing more. But it was every night. I even saw and heard her when I was awake, whenever I closed my eyes. The images and sounds haunted my every waking moment until I left to find her. Yourself.”
All the while, he waited for her to react. He watched her in the vain hope that the disbelief on her face would turn to understanding—if not gratitude. Or amazement.
It did not.
“I need to be alone for a bit. Worry not. I won’t go far.” She stood, brushing the dirt from her legs, then walked along the stream’s edge and disappeared behind a spruce.
He could only wait for her and wish he hadn’t been truthful.
14
Shana slid to the ground, her back against the rough bark, a cushion of needles soft beneath her. The stream rushed past, unaware of what she suffered.
What would she have preferred? Would it have been better for him to be a mercenary who only rescued her to claim the gold on her head?
He’d dreamed of her? He’d searched for her? Why? How?
How could she ride with him now? How could she trust him again? Did his friends know of these dreams, how he’d searched for her on a seer’s advice?
It was enough to make her stomach clench. She felt as she would after spinning in circles while dancing. The world seemed tilted, moving around her while she sat still.
What was she going to do now? Was he the sort she ought to be alone with? What were her chances of surviving without him? Rather low, she would wager, and the thought filled her with no small sense of dread.
Trapped. Once again, she was trapped.
Her heart raced sickeningly, beads of sweat beginning to form at the back of her neck. Panic threatened to take hold, and she knew that once it did, she would be at its mercy.
“Think, think,” she whispered to herself, closing her eyes to stop the spinning. When she touched the back of her head to the trunk behind her, it helped her feel centered and still.
Mother Tara, help me. Her usual prayer, the one she’d prayed her entire life. If anyone could help, it would be the Goddess.
Although…
Her eyes opened.
As did her mouth, little by little. Surprise took the place of panic.
Perhaps the Mother had helped her already. Was he the answer to her prayers?
Nonsense. While she believed her prayers were heard and answered, never had one come in the form of a living, breathing man before.
Then again, had she ever needed a living, breathing man to save her life before then? Not that she could recall.
It was all too strange to consider. She nearly laughed at herself—had some of his madness infected her? What was in the salve the healer provided, which had already gone such a long way in healing her wounds?
Was she losing hold of her senses?
If she was, it still did not explain how he’d come to find her or what brought him to her. There must have been some reason why he’d happened to cross her path at exactly the right moment, just when she’d emerged onto the road, when it had seemed the guards might catch her at any time.
That was no coincidence. That was guidance. She’d been guided, as had he, that they might come together at just the right instant.
Strange how she hadn’t given that much thought before, but then she’d had so many other concerns. Her wounds, her safety, her hunger, and fatigue. Always the memory of the cell and of Jacob Stuart’s veiled threats.
Thinly veiled, at that.
“Lass?”
She stiffened, staring across the stream and into the dense woods beyond. The trees grew so tight together, hardly any light touched the darkness within. Anything could be in there, watching her—yet there she was, afraid to answer the call of a man she had no reason not to trust.
No true reason.
“Tara?” he called this time, his voice strained. “Are ye…?”
“I’m well,” she replied in a low voice. “I merely needed a minute to think.”
“We ought to eat, then move on. We dinna have much time.”
“I know it.” And she knew she had no choice but to continue as they’d been doing, for there might indeed have been anything or anyone watching from the other side of the stream and she had no means by which to protect herself.
Even a cornered animal sometimes had the choice of whether or not to be captured. She would not be captured. Never again. Even if it meant a
ccepting the protection of a man who might well be mad.
She’d heard tales of men who’d lost their minds, naturally. Some became religious zealots who heard voices in their heads and killed when those voices told them to, all in service of a God they swore spoke to them. Some returned from battle having borne wounds which the eye could not see. Wounds inside, in the memory, wounds no healer could treat.
Having traveled all her life, she’d heard many such tales and even met a handful of rather odd people who’d made the hair stand up on the back of her neck.
William had never struck her as one of those people. She certainly had not experienced that sensation with him, of knowing something was slightly off without being told.
Still, no matter how fervently she’d prayed or how deeply she had always believed in a loving, protective power watching over her, she could not bring herself to believe that power had come to her aid. It seemed worse than unlikely.
She was not worthy of such assistance. Was she?
He was seated on an old log, the bark long since stripped clean by wind and rain and possibly wild animals. Before him on the ground was one of the cloths which Davina had used to wrap their food, and in it was a loaf of bread and a chunk of cheese. “Rufus made certain to provide fresh milk from one of his cows, as well.” He handed her a waterskin which had instead been filled with rich, creamy milk which Shana had to stop herself from drinking too much of.
“Nay, drink more. Ye need your strength,” he encouraged, taking a large piece of bread and a good deal of cheese. “I suppose we’ll save the meat for our evening meal. They truly were generous.”
“That they were,” she agreed. They could speak of this, as it was a neutral subject. It had nothing to do with either of them, or how they’d come to be together. “Did you know Davina is expecting?”
He grinned. “Aye. Rufus suspects as much.”
“He does?” Shana smiled fondly, imagining their happiness when his suspicions were confirmed. She almost wished she could be there to share in their joy. How strange, seeing as she hadn’t known they existed only a day ago.