He’d let it go for now. Likely, the lass’s falseness was a product of her fright. He’d witnessed that very thing, through slitted eyes when first she’d woken. Iain had waited, hadn’t wanted to startle her further, or upend her anxiety into some full-scale horror. And she’d calmed quickly enough, though her eyes had remained huge and round in her face. He’d appreciated her relative calm, having some brief fear of his own, that she’d have started wailing or screaming or taking up with any such tantrum. She’d not even given him grief for making loose and free with her stones.
And yet, she lied to him.
Iain moved his hand and indicated the bruise on her cheek, near her eye. She went completely still, until he asked, “Who gave you that?” She moved then, lifted her bandaged hand to cover the discoloration on her face for a moment, her gaze leaving his, as it had before when she’d lied.
“I fell,” she said, and tried to smile, turning the questions around onto him. “But what were you and these men doing out in a storm?”
“Same as you,” he answered, “going from one place to the next. It did rise quickly, the storm. Aye?”
Her green eyes found his. “I don’t ever remember a wind like that. Blew the snow sideways, straight across, that I marveled that anything landed on the ground. It’s the first time I’ve ever been trapped in a storm.”
“I’d no’ want to alarm you—what’s done is done—but you’re lucky we happened upon you. You’d no’ have survived had we no’.”
“Then I owe you and your companions my life. How shall I repay you?”
With a kiss, was the immediate answer that sounded in his brain. Iain scowled, refusing to give attention to so ignoble a response, no matter that it had come so swiftly and with such pleasing possibilities. “Aye, we’ll make you take charge of the horses,” he said, withholding his grin, “feeding, grooming, shoeing.”
A thin auburn brow arched upward. “Shoeing them? Oh, sir, I know nothing about that.”
“No worries,” he said. “But you’ll need to be housed with them as well. Makes it easier to keep them well tended.”
“Oh.” She nodded, chewing the inside of her cheek, while those delicate brows lowered into a frown. Her green eyes found his again, scrutinized his expression, perhaps noted the laughter in his gaze. “You are teasing me?”
“Aye.”
“Oh.” And she smiled at him and he thought he might want to tease her often. The lass was bonny enough, but when she smiled she was radiant, those tempting lips open and curved, showing neat white teeth and just one dimple, indenting her left cheek with no small amount of charm. The smile grew, danced into her eyes, as she suggested, “You should have played that out more, should have told me I’d be required to walk behind your marching men, using my clever basket to clean up anything your horses dropped along the way. That would have really caused some hysteria.”
His shoulders shook and his grin flashed briefly. “But would you have done it?”
She lifted and dropped her shoulders. “I would have no choice,” she returned gamely, “though to do so would be to equate the value of my life, which you have so generously saved, with that of horse dung. Aye, I might need to rethink the extent of my gratitude.”
He didn’t think he was easily captivated, but he knew he was just now.
“Is the good abbess expecting you, that a delay will cause her some worry?” He wondered.
“It might,” she said, putting her gaze onto his neck, avoiding his once again as she perhaps told another untruth. Quickly, she brushed this aside. “Of course, there’s naught to be done about it. I’ll arrive when I arrive.”
“Aye, and dinna you seem so calm,’ he commented, “trapped in a cave with a band of hard-bitten Mackays, wind and snow howling all about, and you so near to death today. Yet, you give nary a cry of distress and shed no’ a single tear for your troubles.”
In a very small voice, she admitted, “I’m terrified, if you must know.” And because her green eyes were fastened on his, he guessed she might be truth-telling just now. “I am hoping that the safety of which you’ve assured me will be a matter of reality.”
“Hoping? Should no’ a nun be praying?” He was fairly certain he’d caught her off-guard, challenging her piety, but she recovered quickly enough.
“The words of hope become prayer,” she said evenly, needing only seconds to concoct this drivel. “God loves that we remember Him to ask for help, and with the indulgent smile of a father, He responds benevolently.”
She was clever, he’d give her that.
And he was still convinced she was lying.
“Aye, and close your eyes now, lass,” he said then. “’Tis a long, cold night and no’ a warmer day on the morrow, and no’ to be without its share of troubles, getting out of here and on our way.”
“I don’t think I can sleep anymore,” she said as Iain adjusted the fur over the both of them, bringing it back up around her shoulders.
“But you will no’ be minding if I do?” He asked, showing another short grin. He could not, he believed, continue to talk to her, and have those lips so close and have her eyes fixed so beautifully upon him, and...Jesu, she could no’ take the vows. She’d have the priests all sinning, or no less than dreaming on it.
Iain slept, as did the lass, despite her concern that she might not. And when next he woke, he thought that morning had not yet come, but that it was nigh. Sometime during the night, the lass had drawn near to him. Or he to her, that her face was nearly pressed into his chest, her arms and hands curled up between them. He took note of all parts of his body and thought the tops of her tiny feet might have sought out warmth and were now bent against his shins. He hadn’t moved at all from his side, nor had the lass, facing him still, but he found that his hand was settled over the fur that covered them, resting on what he imagined was the curve of her hip.
He needed to get back to Berriedale, to the village beyond, and visit Fiona. One good release between that one’s milky thighs and he’d not be lying here thinking that almost-but-not-quite holding the fibbing though tremendously bonny stranger in his arms was about as near to pleasant as he’d known in a long, long time.
Glancing down showed him only the top of her wimple covered head and Iain cast his glance off toward the cave opening. ’Twas dark yet, the blackness gone with the departing night, chased by the morning gray. He listened but heard no howling wind and decided the storm must have moved on and away or withered to nothing.
“Seems we might get about early.”
Iain shifted his gaze, over that of the lass, and found Duncan awake as well. The old man was on his back, his head tilted toward Iain, his gaze beyond, to the mouth of the cave.
“Aye, and home before dark tomorrow, God willing.”
“What’s to be done with the lass?” Duncan wondered, settling his eye onto her fur clad form between them, employing naught but a whisper.
“I’m no’ sure. She asked for some direction, but it seems a perilous thing, to send a lass off on her own.” He knew she wasn’t awake, that she couldn’t hear them speaking about her as if she did not lie immediately between them. The hand he’d kept on her hip detected no movement at all, no stiffening of her body to indicate she’d woken and now eavesdropped on their conversation.
“Aye,” Duncan agreed. “Lass got a name?”
Iain shrugged. “I dinna ask.”
Duncan’s bushy gray brows scrunched down over his dark eyes. “You were chatty enough though, talked for quite some time. Dinna occur to you to wonder ‘bout her name?”
“Her lies cast but a dim light on the trifling matter of her name.”
“Her lies?”
“Aye,” said Iain, “the lass’d have me believe she was on her way to a convent when struck the storm.”
Duncan scowled with his own disbelief. “Going to tuck that face away in a convent?”
“She says aye.”
Duncan nodded briefly and voiced his ideas for the day
ahead. “We’ll see how the snows have fallen. If they stayed up here in the hills, we’ll make good time once we get down. If the entire area is blanketed, will be a slow go.”
“But go we will.”
“Aye, we’ll get back home and dinna we ache for it? But we can no’ rest for too long, no’ until he’s rooted out and destroyed.”
Iain concurred. “That bit we heard up at Brim’s Ness bears pondering.”
“Credible, I’d say,” Duncan said. “The man’s no’ a phantom. And an army of fifty—if those be his numbers—canna go unnoticed and undetected in Caithness for two goddamn winters. Makes sense, then, that he’s a Sutherland, finding refuge across the river when he’s no’ about the industry of those vicious and ungodly attacks.”
Iain realized the lass was awake now. Under his hand, he felt her go rigid, though he couldn’t know for certain if it had been Duncan’s gravelly voice, rising with his frustration over their inability to find the ghostlike Alpin, or the mention of the name Sutherland that had roused her and braced her. He recalled that last night she’d asked if he were a Mackay.
More of the linen wimple covering her head appeared as she lifted her face above the fur. She pushed away from his chest with motions jolting enough to suggest she was embarrassed to have been so close. Some mumbled sound, which he thought might have been an apology, went with her as she moved away from him, sliding her hip out from under his hand. It occurred to him then to wonder at his own actions, that he had kept his hand on her person, with such unfounded familiarity. He shrugged internally, thinking the lass hadn’t given any indication in their short conversation that she was the type to grouse overloud about such a thing, being that it was fairly harmless, even if she likewise questioned it.
“There you be, lass,” said his captain as she rolled onto her back. Her face swiveled toward him. “I’d be Duncan, captain to the lad’s army.” He inclined his head in Iain’s direction. “That’ll be Iain McEwen, Laird of Berriedale, kin to Donald Mackay, defender of Scotland’s freedom, so on and so forth.”
“Oh,” said the lass, turning back and raising a brow at Iain at this exaggerated announcement of his identity. Facing Duncan again, she said simply, “I am Maggie. Margaret Bryce, actually. Pleased to meet you, sir. And many thanks for your kindness to a stranger.”
“Aye, we could no let you freeze to death,” said Duncan with a charming grin, one he likely hadn’t used in years, Iain was sure. “The lad says you’re destined for a nunnery?” he asked, his tone intimating his incredulity.
This did not go undetected by the lass. “Have you and your laird something against a woman taking lifetime vows, her heart pledged to the Lord?” Her tone was light while she addressed Duncan. “Your laird gave off a likewise dubious aura that you have me wondering that I should be questioning my life choices.”
“Aye, and dinna let us contradict you, lass. The thing is, you’re a mite too bonny for the cloth, I’d have guessed.”
“Sir,” she returned, a hint of laughter heard, “are you suggesting I might not satisfy the Lord—”
“I’d no’ suggest any such thing, lass,” said Duncan quickly, “but there’s plenty of earthly men might like to take you to bride, be sore at the Lord for taking up the bonny ones.”
“Good heavens, Sir Duncan,” the lass said, still the suggestion of humor in her tone, “I hope I don’t get turned away at the gate—either at the abbey or in front of St. Peter—because as you say, I’m bonny.”
Duncan laughed, rather loudly, that Iain detected movement around him, as others woke. “Och now, lass. It’s just Duncan. We’re the informal kind, no sirs hereabouts. But aye, I’m sure the good Lord welcomes all to His army. But just so you ken, there’ll be plenty of lads crying while your dear God rejoices.”
So there it was, Iain thought, and just like that. Duncan, who had barely noticed any female in all the years Iain had known him as a man, was right smitten with the lass who likely only pretended she’d been called to take up with vows to serve God.
As the morning would come soon, and as so many of them seemed to be wakeful now, Iain sat up and rolled his shoulders, moving the kinks and aches and pains away from his neck. He stood and Duncan did likewise, stretching and groaning as he normally did.
Iain faced the lass, hands on his hips. Maggie was her name. Seemed to fit, he thought. Maggie of the green eyes and beguiling smile.
She wasn’t looking at him, but at Hew, who had made his bed just beyond where Duncan had. Hew had pushed the furs off him, was putting his boots back onto his feet.
“That’s Hew,” Iain said to her. “You’ve him to thank for your dry hose and warm feet.”
“My name is Maggie,” she said brightly, “and I do thank you. All of you,” she finished, turning her gaze around to each man ‘round the fire.
Duncan went around, pointed to each man. “There’s Donal and Daimh—you can see their mam thought they were so pretty there should be two of them. And Archie, his heart’s as ugly as his mug. And that’s Craig, to whom you need only speak slowly and use simple words.”
She grinned at all this while each man stared at her, none of them offended by their introductions, nothing they hadn’t heard before.
Iain watched Hew, who had turned his gaze to her now that she wasn’t staring directly at him. The lad would not be able to cope with that, being the recipient of such singular attention from one so bonny. Hew was completely still, his arms slung over his bent knees, his fingers idle near his calves where he’d let them stay after donning his boots. He just watched her, seemed pleased to be able to do so, stared at her with some kind of wonder, as if she truly were some fae creature. The boy was mesmerized, Iain could easily see. Duncan had noticed this as well, Iain saw, and they exchanged grins.
Iain and Duncan walked over to the opening of the cave to survey the results of the storm. They’d not been able to see much last night of its progression, and even now, this gray morning predawn light would show them little, perhaps.
The man made outer wall had been crafted and placed in such a way that the opening was situated at the left side of the wall. The wall then faced completely north, but the opening, at the corner, was further along the ledge of the cave and faced the west. Only the jutting side of the hill, further outside the opening, had kept the winds from blowing directly into the cave.
They moved along the ledge, until they were completely outside the cave, putting themselves immediately into knee high snow drifts.
“Jesu,” Duncan breathed.
All that they could see was white—the ground, the trees, the sky. Though the wind no more seethed with any wickedness, it continued to snow, that the vista painted before them was no more than an endless blank canvas of white.
“Like as no, we ride off the hill, we ride away from the worst of it,” Duncan supposed.
Iain wasn’t so sure. “I’ll take Donal with me, ride on down ahead, see how it looks from below.” He gave a call to the older twin and within minutes they’d left the relative warmth and safety of the cave.
Chapter Five
MAGGIE WATCHED THE laird, Iain McEwen, wrap himself up in the very fur under which they’d slept and step outside with one of the handsome twins.
The older man, Duncan, must have sensed a question in her gaze while he stood across the fire from her. “Naught to fuss over, lass. They’re only aimed at the bottom of the hill, to see what might be noted about the complete effects of this weather.”
She nodded and accepted a flask from the lad, Hew.
“’Tis only water,” he said to her when she sniffed at the small round opening. She drank only a bit, having some concern that she already had to relieve herself and any more liquid in her system would only make that dilemma worse.
“Aye, now, and stop gawking at the lass as much, Hew,” instructed Duncan. “Any of you. The fair Maggie is bound to be a bride of our good Lord, and no’ meant for such depravity as you’re likely imagining with her.”
>
The man named Craig looked up at Duncan and then to Maggie, and then back to Duncan, clearly having no idea of what his captain spoke. Daimh tossed a rock into the fire, pretending a great distress that Maggie was quite sure was feigned. The man Archie moved his tongue around his teeth inside his mouth, as if he worked to remove some bit of lodged food, which seemed unlikely as it was possible they hadn’t eaten in as long as she had not. He stared at her while he did so, and Maggie had the impression she was meant to be cowed by his hard stare while he pretended to take her measure. She was not intimidated by him, but in fact decided fairly quickly that he only liked people to be afraid of him, but that he wasn’t actually very mean.
She returned the flask to Hew with a smile of appreciation, finding the youngest man’s clear blue eyes fixed upon her yet again, or still, despite Duncan’s notice. Sitting upon her rump, she drew her knees up, nearly to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. It wasn’t very ladylike, though she did make sure the many layers of her numerous skirts covered all of her limbs, and even her stocking-ed toes. She’d abandoned the fur blanket when she’d originally sat up this morn, and would have drawn it up and around her now but that the man, Iain, had taken it with him. The fire had been stoked and blazed attractively, but it was still very cold in this cave.
“Where were you coming from and going to when you were caught in the storm?” She asked Hew.
“Going home,” said Hew with a smile, as if he’d delivered greater news than this. “Been gone for months now, all over Caithness and further south.”
“Chasing the devil named Alpin,” Duncan added, lifting a brow to Maggie. “Ever hear of such a name? Or the mayhem he’s been charged with?”
Maggie shook her head, the name not being at all familiar to her. “Is he a bandit or—?”
“That and more, aye,” Hew supplied. “Thieving and raping and murdering all over the place.”
The Truth of Her Heart (Highlander Heroes Book 5) Page 5