Heart of Ashes (Hearts of the Highlands Book 1)

by Paula Quinn

  And why was she following him?

  She smiled, not caring why, and took off up a slanted tree.

  Aleysia saw the roebuck go still. She crouched low in the cradle of two branches and looked around her, knowing the commander was near and finally spotting him in a tree to the south of her, ready to shoot.

  She nocked an arrow, aimed, and let it fly. An instant before him.

  The buck went down and the critters around him in the bramble scattered.

  The commander found her in the trees and stood up. He started toward her, running across branches and planks as if he’d been doing it for four years. If she didn’t know him—if he hadn’t just kissed her as if his life depended on it, she would have run for her life.

  It didn’t take him long to reach her. He stopped, a few feet away, settling his boots on a wide, painted plank and his arms on a branch overhead.

  “What d’ye think ye’re doin’?” he asked in his low, resonant voice. His eyes on her were as still as the buck’s had been.

  “I’m hunting. Same as you.”

  He looked as if he were trying to keep from laughing or knocking her out of the tree. “The same buck ’twould seem.”

  “I have had my eye on it for a good amount of time now,” she replied, doing her best to appear unaffected by him and the fact that he was just a few steps away.

  “When did ye decide to go huntin’?”

  “I believe you will recall me mentioning that I wanted to hunt for the villagers.”

  Then he cast her a doubtful look. “And ye are just gettin’ to it now?”

  She chewed her lip and thought about giving him a false reason but, more than likely, he wouldn’t believe her. And she had followed him. Why deny it? “I decided to go soon after you left.”

  His smile started at one corner of his succulent mouth and then shone full force on her. He said nothing for a moment, staring at her with a look of acceptance creeping into his eyes, as if he finally realized there was no point in trying to keep her away.

  She watched the way his plaid moved around his legs when he left his plank and came to sit on a bough close to where she was.

  “Ye’re makin’ this verra difficult, lass,” he said with the residue of his smile aimed at the ground.

  She lowered herself into the cradle and sat. He was an arm’s length away and a forty foot drop threatened. She wouldn’t argue with him about this. Whatever was going on between them was wrong. It went against everything for which they had given up years of their lives. She felt shame over her desires involving him. “’Tis difficult for me, as well. I convinced my friends that I would kill you all. Instead, I find myself—” She snapped her mouth shut and shifted between the branches. She looked at him and caught him looking back. “I find myself drawn to you.” There. It was the truth—just not all of it.

  “I shouldna have kissed ye,” he said hoarsely, turning toward her. “I will be leavin’ once I have secured yer place here.”

  She was thankful for his willingness to help her. But he’d carefully skirted around her confession and made a point of letting her know he was leaving.

  “Why did you kiss me?”

  The branch he was sitting on cracked and echoed through the trees.

  His eyes opened wider but he kept himself still.

  Aleysia rose with her heart thundering in her chest. “Come,” she coaxed in a quiet voice and held out her hand. “Jump!”

  He didn’t hesitate, but leaped to his feet, and then straight for her. The bough beneath him splintered and fell away, hitting other branches on the way down.

  Aleysia looked into his eyes as he teetered on the edge of one of her forked branches, his hand attached to hers.

  She could let him fall. He would likely die.

  She pulled him in. He landed in her arms, hard against her. His heart thumped between them. His gaze moved over her as if she were cool, crisp water for his parched body.

  “I am tempted to replace Amish with ye as my second.”

  She smiled at his praise and then let him go. It was better if he never kissed her again, better if he left Lismoor soon.

  “Let’s be off these branches,” she said, turning away. “I do not know if they can hold us both.”

  She moved away quickly, leading the way over a plank and a few lower branches until it was safe enough to jump. She watched him land with the agility of a cat, appreciating even more his strong, lithe body.

  They checked on the buck but rather than take it to the village right away, they decided to leave it where it had fallen and return for it later.

  “Who taught ye to shoot?” the commander asked her.

  “I taught myself,” she told him. “I did not do well.” She smiled, remembering. “But when Giles saw my interest, he made certain that I had the best instructors.”

  “And fightin’?” he asked, walking alongside her on the ground. “Who taught ye to sweep yer leg across yer opponent’s? ’Tis a sure way to bring yer enemy down.”

  She wanted to smile at the lilt of his voice. She was surprised and guilt-ridden that she found the sound of him so pleasing.

  “I would like ye to teach it to me, so that I can teach the men.”

  She gaped up at him as if he were mad. “You would like me to help my enemies?”

  He tilted his head just enough for her to look into his blue eyes. She saw the deadly man he could be.

  “Are we yer enemies then, Aleysia?”

  She wanted to close her eyes and remember how her name sounded on his lips. Aye, he was a wild Scot, but she saw someone else. Someone, perhaps, his men did not see. He’d been patient and merciful despite all she had done. And somehow, he managed to penetrate all her defenses with his reluctant smile and passionate kiss.

  She was fully aware of what could never be, but she didn’t want to think on it now.

  “Let us forget who we are and the war going on around us for a little while and just enjoy the day.”

  He looked as if he were about to laugh. It appeared that forgetting the war was impossible for him. Well, he was just going to have to do it if he wanted to spend time with her.

  Did he want to? She was the one who’d come looking for him, after all.

  With a carefree shrug, she continued on, stepping around a few ancient oaks. He followed her to a shady path that was too narrow for them to continue walking together. The commander followed her. She turned to smile at him as the path opened and he paused to let a dragonfly hover before him in a thin shaft of sunlight seeping through the canopy.

  Aleysia watched, entranced by the sight of him stepping through the light like some elven king who belonged here.

  The path was surrounded on both sides by overgrown wild strawberries. Aleysia picked one and offered it to him. “Try it. ’Tis delicious.”

  He took the fruit from her fingers and put it in his mouth. She picked another for herself and ate it. They both smiled with delight.

  “I would come here every day if I lived here,” he said, picking more.

  She leaned closer to him and whispered. “I do.” Then, with a short squeal of excitement, she took his hand and hurried along the path. “This way!” She pulled him around a bend, toward a small opening in the thick bramble.

  Why was she sharing this place with him? She’d stumbled upon it years ago. No one knew of it. It was where she came to rest after practicing all day or building in the forest.

  After what Father Timothy had told her about the commander’s childhood, she thought, perhaps, he needed a rest, too.

  She stepped out into a sunlit glade, carpeted in bluebells and purple orchids, surrounded on every side by plank-free trees and overgrown bramble.

  She turned to watch his reaction to her private little paradise and was surprised to see him close his eyes rather than take in the sight.

  “This is what ye smell like.” He opened his eyes and smiled, first at her, and then at the glade. As he took in the vision before him, he exhaled and s
omething warm—something that came from the inside—filled his gaze.

  “’Tis like I stepped into someplace that doesna belong here in this world.” He moved forward and then stopped and looked at his boots crushing the bluebells.

  “They will spring back up when you move,” she reassured him and pulled off her hood. “I sit in them all the time.” She looked around at all the flowers and smiled shyly, feeling silly for confessing such a thing to him. “I even lie in them.”

  She paused for a moment. “Come.” She closed her fingers around his much larger ones and tugged him toward the middle of the glade. “Come and sit.”

  She felt his reluctance and wondered how long he would deny what he was feeling. He was terrified of it. And she should be terrified, too. Why wasn’t she? Why was she more afraid of him leaving Lismoor or, God forbid, being forced to wed someone else?

  He sat with her in the flowers and stretched out his long legs. He leaned back on his palms and settled his gaze on hers. “Ye seem at peace aboot King Robert.”

  “I am,” she said with a slant of her lips. “I’m going to lie to him. You helped me decide.”

  “How did I do that?” he asked with a trace of humor racing across his eyes.

  “You told me to,” she reminded him.

  “I would never tell ye to lie to the king,” he defended himself, and then laughed when she tossed him an irritated look. “I will help ye.”

  “Why?” she asked, giving him a candid look. “Why would you help me lie to your king?”

  “To keep yer home,” he answered easily.

  “But why? Why do you care?” She wanted to try to make a little more sense of him—of things between them.

  “I…I dinna know.” He shook his head and looked up at the sky.

  She waited a moment for more and then lay down beside him. “’Tis better like this.”

  He looked down at her and smiled, then lifted his palms out of the bluebells and lay back. “Ye’re correct. ’Tis better.”

  They lay in silence for a moment or two before he spoke again. “I am not one fer carin’ fer things…or people. Things change and people die.”

  “Aye,” she sighed, staring at the peaceful heavens. She understood. She lost her parents to illness and her life changed. She lost her brother to the war and her life changed again. Still, she offered, “My life was easy compared to yours.”

  He turned his head in the flowers and stared at her. “What d’ye know of my life?”

  She didn’t realize she’d spoken out loud. She wanted to cringe but he was watching her. “Just what Father Timothy told me.”

  He scowled and his face went dark. “What did he tell ye?”

  The last thing she wanted to do was get the priest in trouble. She feared it was too late. “He loves you very much.”

  He sat up, shielding her from the sun. He raked his hands over his face and then bent his knees and rested his elbows on them. He inhaled a deep breath, stretching his léine across his shoulders.

  “I know he does,” came his husky reply. “What did he tell ye?”

  Was he angry with Father Timothy or was it love that produced such a tortured response?

  She told him what the priest had revealed. When she was done, she felt even more emotion for him.

  “That is everythin’,” he said, lying back again and staring up at the sky.

  “’Tis just the horrific facts,” she told him softly. “’Tis not everything.”

  “What else is there?”

  “There is you, and who it made you.”

  “It made me strong.”

  “Aye,” she whispered, trying with her last ounce of strength not to weep for him.

  “It made me angry,” he said after a long pause. “Verra angry.”

  “You are angry still.” She stayed silent while he turned to look at her.

  He rolled a few words around in his mouth, but said none of them. Finally, he turned again toward the heavens. “I lost everythin’ because the English were permitted to raid any village they desired, and do whatever they wished to the people who lived there.”

  He didn’t raid villages. She was glad, and now she knew why.

  “Do you remember anything from your life before then?”

  “Nae.”

  He scowled at her, but he should know by now that it wouldn’t deter her. “Do you try to remember?”

  “Nae.” More scowling.

  “Forgive me,” she said. “I did not mean to bring up difficult memories.”

  Silence ensued. Then he said, “I dream of them sometimes. But I dinna see their faces.”

  Aleysia closed her eyes and bit her lip. She could not begin to understand what he must have endured as a boy. “I am sorry that happened to you, Cainnech.”

  He leaned up on an elbow to look down at her. She wondered if he’d ever heard or thought to hear someone apologize. He appeared a bit stunned and at a loss for anything else to say.

  “I was taught to hate the Scots,” she continued in a quiet voice. “I did not stop to think about what the English have done.”

  “We just want to be free.”

  She reached out and touched her fingers to his cheekbone and the wound she had inflicted to it. “What will free you?”

  His expression on her softened and she wondered how it was possible to find him more breathtaking than her glade.

  He closed his eyes and tilted his face to her touch. “I dinna know, lass, but I like bein’ here with ye.”

  “I like it, too,” she said on a ragged breath, slipping her fingers and her gaze to his mouth. “What should we do about it?”

  Oh, she feared her heart was going to burst from her chest and land in the bluebells. She struggled not to lift her other hand to him and pull him in.

  “Think aboot it later,” he said on a throaty whisper and leaned down.

  She nodded and let him brush his mouth over her smiling lips. He didn’t kiss her immediately. First, he drove her mad by kissing her cheek, her earlobe, and leisurely working his way down her neck. He stopped at her bosom rising and falling beneath his lips. He turned to gaze into her eyes and then covered her body with his and kissed the breath from her parted lips.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Cain sat in the great hall with Father Timothy, William, and the men. He looked around, feeling out of place since he’d been eating alone for the past four nights. The priest wasn’t helping matters, staring at him as if he were growing a second head.

  Why had he agreed to meet Aleysia here and sit with her for supper? Where was she? He’d left her soon after they’d returned from taking the buck to the village.

  “What in damnation are ye lookin’ fer?” he finally asked the priest.

  “Ye look different,” Father Timothy told him, his sherry-brown eyes wide and curious. “Why are ye sittin’ with us again?”

  “Where else would I be sittin’?”

  “At the head table.”

  Cain wanted to sit with her. The men would think it odd if he invited her to sit at the head table with him. But he didn’t tell Father Timothy that. “We are all warriors in the same battle,” he told his friend instead.

  The priest nodded, still smiling. “Where were ye all day?”

  Cain thought about the glade and kissing Aleysia in the bluebells and orchids. He could still smell her on him. “Aleysia killed a buck and I helped her take it to the village. That is all.

  The priest’s eyes lit up. “It has done ye wonders.”

  Cain smiled—and then realized what he was doing and lifted his cup to his lips to cover it. He wasn’t sure if it was Father Timothy’s pure delight, or…something else that made him feel a bit different. As if he’d been shaken from his axis and tilted toward another direction. Should he tell his friend? This forgotten thing he was beginning to feel for her was growing stronger. To be honest, it scared him more than anything else currently in his life.

  He set down his cup and put his arm around the prie
st’s shoulders. “Father,” he said drawing him in. “I am…I think I…” He stopped. What? What did he want to say?

  “She is makin’ her way to yer heart,” his old friend finished for him.

  Cain’s blood ran cold with fear. He hadn’t faced this demon…not for many years. This one was bigger, stronger than all the others.

  He rested his forehead against Father Timothy’s and stared into his eyes. “I fear she is already there.”

  He caught a glimpse of something purple and turned his gaze to the entrance. His breath went still when he saw her, dressed in a fitted overgown, dyed in deep lavender. His heart thundered in his chest loud enough for him to believe Father Timothy could hear it.

  He moved away from his friend and straightened on the bench as she entered the hall. He perused her in the way a dying man might gaze upon his heart’s desire.

  She wore her hair free to fall in black, glossy waves to her waist and topped by a circlet of bluebells.

  Her intent was to beguile him senseless and she accomplished it well. He couldn’t help but smile at her and stand when she approached him with her friend Matilda close by her side.

  “Ladies,” he greeted them, then gave William’s leg a soft kick to get him to move from his place. He held out his hand for Aleysia to take the place beside him.

  She smiled, accepting, and lifted her skirts over her bare calves to take her seat at the long bench.

  His blood sizzled in his veins, sending sparks to his heart…his groin. He wanted her. He’d wanted her all day, but he’d refrained, certain that whatever part of his heart she sought to conquer would surrender.

  “Ye look better than a summer glade,” he told her as he sat beside her.

  “That is quite the compliment,” Father Timothy teased on the other side of him.

  “’Tis perfect,” she argued, sharing an intimate smile with Cain. She set her vibrant green eyes on the faces in the hall and said loud enough for all at the table to hear, “I hope that if Lady de Bar ever returns, none of you will tell her that I wore her gown.”