Her fingers dabbed at the scabs on the back of her head, her hair still damp from her quick wash. At least blood would blend in with her red-hued tresses. She sighed. Good God. What had she gotten herself into? To benefit the queen, she’d need to blend in with the courtly ladies, especially if she was to discover an assassin. Would it be obvious from the moment she rode up on Stella that she was no lady? Even if she donned petticoats?
She watched the slight lift of Nathaniel’s shoulder with his inhale. He’d grown up with the pristine, genteel ladies, full of flounce and etiquette. Ladies who knew how to ride a horse and serve tea without clattering the cups. As out of place as Nathaniel’s accent and dress had made him last eve in the tavern below, she would be even more so when they arrived in London.
His nose scrunched in sleep as if it tickled, and he inhaled. Should she confess that she’d never ridden a horse before, or was it obvious? Falling on her arse in a mud puddle pretty much screamed that she was weak and ignorant on that front.
Her legs ached, and she stretched them along the lumpy mattress, wiggling her toes and rubbing her bruised backside and sore inner thighs, which were clothed in the black woolen trousers that she’d changed into for sleeping. How would she journey all the way down to London without losing her ability to walk?
“Are you well?”
Nathaniel’s voice startled her, and she twisted to frown down at him. “Ye could have slept in the bed, too. We are beyond the sight of wagging tongues, and I know that ye know I could slice ye open if ye tried to take liberties.”
The side of his mouth quirked upward, making the tense set of his brows relax. “Morning threats?” He nodded. “You are well then.” She narrowed her eyes, and he continued, his hand coming up to scratch his beard. “You were sleeping so soundly that I could not gain permission without yelling in your ear. And I wanted you to sleep after enduring your first day of riding.”
Cac. He knew. He definitely knew. He was just too gentlemanly to say it outright. Cat straightened into a sitting position, her legs crossed akimbo. “My family had only enough to live on while I grew up. There was no money to keep a horse, so I was never given an opportunity to learn.”
His smile faltered, and he pushed up on his hand, the blanket falling away to show his naked chest. Her breath hitched for a beat. Hell, she’d seen his naked chest before. First when she’d patched him and Grey Campbell up when he’d arrived at Finlarig and they’d tried to kill one another. Second when the bastard, Captain Cross, had shot him and she’d nursed him back to health over weeks of fever. But the sight of him, the muscles that he’d acquired from obvious training with a sword, made her feel slightly weak. She looked down at her hands in her lap for she could not stand weakness, especially in herself.
“You have never been on a horse before?” he asked.
She shook her head without looking up, her shoulder hitching in a half shrug. “Only once when we rode back from saving the queen, though someone else steered the beast.”
“And yet you rode all day yesterday without one word of complaint,” he said. She met his gaze. There was no pity, only surprise. He pushed up to stand, and her mouth went dry at the sight of him in his low-slung trousers, hugging his narrow hips. She forced her gaze upward away from the obvious bulge in the front. “With that resilience and lack of complaining, you will never fit in at court,” he said.
The corners of Cat’s mouth tilted upward as her grin grew to match his. They stared silently at one another, their smiles flattening. He cleared his throat and turned away, grabbing his shirt to throw on. “I will wash outside and check on the horses.” And without looking at her again, he jammed his feet into his boots and walked out the door.
Cat climbed from the bed, ignoring her protesting muscles, to watch out the window where Nathaniel appeared. He strode across the back courtyard to the stables and shoved his arms into his short cloak. Lord help her, he was brawny and walked with the power of a warrior. Her cheeks warmed, and she plopped back onto the bed, grimacing at her bruised backside. Had he caught her perusing his naked chest and manhood and fled before she had a chance to attack him? What would she have done if he had climbed into the bed with her? Bloody hell.
She hastened to use the privy and wash her face and hands. Opening her bag, she dug out the glass bottle containing a paste of rosemary ash and peppermint and rubbed some on her teeth with a damp cloth, enjoying the reviving taste as she rinsed and spit out the hinged window. One of the most important ways to keep healthy was to keep the teeth clean, something that many overlooked.
Quickly braiding her wild curls to lay over one shoulder, Cat dressed again in her white leather clothes for riding and bent forward to stretch her sore muscles. She groaned softly as she worked each hamstring back and forth. Straightening, she grabbed her bag, checked her hidden daggers, including the hair spike she’d stuck in the top of her braid, and left the room. With a full inhale, she stepped lightly down the stairs. Best to get started. The faster they traveled, the faster she’d get through the ordeal of silks, lace, and gilded halls. And the sooner she’d stop embarrassing herself around Nathaniel Worthington.
…
Striking. Nathaniel watched Cat glide along on her horse in a canter beside him. Her heavy braid shifted against her shoulder, curls escaping around her face to dance in the winter air. The white leather hugged her form, contrasting with Stella’s black coat. “Riding comes naturally to you,” he called over the wind flying between them.
A smile lit up her face, but she kept her gaze forward. Every time he was able to win a smile, she drew him in. Which he absolutely couldn’t allow. Not if he was to uphold his father’s will with regards to Hollings Estate. Even from the damn grave, Benjamin Worthington, Viscount of Lincolnshire and parliamentary advisor to both King Charles I and II, was controlling him. He forced his gaze away from her as if plugging his ears against the song of a siren.
They slowed, entering another copse of trees where the road narrowed and wound. “Where shall we sleep tonight?” Cat asked. She leaned forward to stroke Stella’s neck. “Is there an inn?”
“No more inns until we reach the border, several days ahead.” The sun was already starting to dip below the tree line. “We should set camp well away from the road to avoid bandits.”
“Wise,” she said, following him off the trail.
He glanced over his shoulder, eyebrow raised. He’d never heard Cat utter a compliment to anyone other than her young sister. He guided them through tall pines and bare oaks and birch in a southwest line with regards to the setting sun until he heard the burble of a creek. The forest was alive with winter birds catching the last of the day. “Here,” he called as they rounded a boulder to find a full outcropping of bramble dotted by winterberries. The thickness of it could hide the glow of a small fire. A narrow ribbon of water snaked through the snowy landscape.
Nathaniel dismounted, leaving Gaspar standing as he strode to Cat. “Let me lower you down.”
“I can…” The denial faded, and she pursed her lips.
“Until your muscles are used to riding all day, they will not hold you at first,” he said, raising his hands to wrap around her trim waist. He almost expected her to slap them away, or more likely, punch him in the nose, but she didn’t. She was light and easy to pull from the horse’s back without a woman’s full skirts hiding her legs. Touching down, he held her there. She looked directly at his chest. “Stretch your legs while I steady you,” he said, his voice low.
Cat circled her feet one at a time and shifted back and forth. He felt her wince, but she didn’t complain. “Here,” he said and led her toward a boulder.
“Thank ye.” He helped her sit down. “But I will help with Stella,” she said and leaned forward to stretch the back of her legs, lifting them to stomp on the ground. “As soon as feeling returns.” She shook her head. “How do ye ride all day and jump right down to run about?”
A small smile grew on his mouth as he returned to tet
her the horses and grab their bags. “Years of numb legs and a sore arse as a lad. Then muscles develop, and riding becomes like walking.”
“I do not have years,” she grumbled, shaking one leg and then the next. She leaned forward to rub her calves and thighs.
“By the time you reach Hollings, you will likely be able to dismount on your own, and we can take a carriage to London.”
“The horses will be faster,” she said.
Nathaniel unrolled a tarp, woolen blankets, and food. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Cat step tentatively to take up the pot they’d brought. She gathered fresh snow to melt. “I will take the horses to the stream,” she said and untied Stella’s lines. Cat hobbled some but held her head high while she walked the horse.
Nathaniel set up a tent and started a small fire. He rammed a fresh, pointed stick through the meat he’d brought with them and set it in iron stakes that he carried when sleeping out.
“Ye brought meat from Finlarig?” Cat asked. She lowered gingerly on the other side of the fire, having finished with the horses.
“You deserve to taste the boar you downed,” he said, staring over the growing flames at her.
Her mouth opened for several heartbeats and turned upward into a smile that reached her eyes. “Ye had them cut off a piece before we left?”
He nodded and looked back to the roast. “It seemed the right thing to do since you were only given time to use the privy, wash your hands, and gather your weapons.” They sat in silence while the meat cooked, dripping into the fire, which crackled and danced. The night was calm around them, yet tension muffled the air. There had always been tension between them. Perhaps it was just his own foolish thoughts that kept him stiff near her, in more ways than one.
Cat uncorked a bladder of ale and drank, and he watched the slender column of her throat work as she swallowed. His mouth went completely dry, so he uncorked his own bladder. When he lowered it, their gazes connected across the fire, and her eyes narrowed slightly. “Do ye want to kiss me again?” she asked, making him freeze. Her tone gave no hint of her own desires. “Do ye even remember the first?”
Of course he remembered it. He’d been feverish with the gunshot wound, and she’d been hovering over him, wiping his brow and cursing at him to fight his way back to health. “Yes,” he said.
“To which question?”
“I remember, even if I cannot guarantee how accurate the memory is. And you have no need to worry over me taking liberties. I was raised to—”
“I did not ask if ye were going to kiss me again. I asked if ye want to?” She dropped her gaze, her face tight. She waved her hand between them. “Because whatever this…uncomfortableness is between us is going to make this journey feel even longer.” Wisps of copper curls stuck out of her thick braid, her fingers toying with the end. Her freckles shone in the firelight, looking as if an artist had flicked her with paint. Her nose had the most perfect tip over a full mouth. She resembled a mythological wood nymph or fairy.
“Do you want me to kiss you again?” he asked, his voice low.
She shrugged, making him frown. “I could go either way.” She canted her head as if they spoke about the taste of a fresh batch of ale instead of the kiss he couldn’t purge from his mind. The softness of her lips, the way her hands had come up to his head, threading her fingers into his hair, even if it was only for a moment before she remembered that she was his healer and he her patient and had yanked away.
“I just wonder,” she said. “How it will be seen that we have traveled alone all the way down to court.”
“Jane Pitney will chaperone us to court. No one will know we are traveling alone until then.”
She nodded, and they sat in silence, her eyes trained on the pork. She took nibbles of the bannock he’d passed her earlier.
He stretched his back, standing. “Well then, completely platonic.” He turned to head into the woods.
“Where are ye going?” she asked.
“To piss about the perimeter. Helps to keep the animals away.” He didn’t mention the need to shove some cold snow down his trousers. Yes, it would remain a very uncomfortable journey, but it was for the best. There was no sense in tangling with a Highland lass when it was very clear that he must wed for gain, else lose everything for his sisters and himself. Life was about sacrifice and strategy. Kisses just interfered with success.
Chapter Four
Platonic? Before the Highland Roses School, she wouldn’t have known that it meant there would be no further kisses. What else did she barely know?
Platonic. The word was like a curse, keeping Cat awake in their tent. They were wrapped apart in woolen blankets even though together they would be much warmer. The man apparently had no interest in her now that he wasn’t delusional with fever. She shouldn’t have expected anything more.
Nathaniel Worthington belonged to England, the court, and privilege. What would have happened if she’d have given in to his touch back in his room at Finlarig? Would she now be a cast-off woman without a maidenhead? Not that she intended to marry. She’d seen what marriage and love could do to a woman. Her mother had died for it, giving into melancholy and heartbreak after her father was killed by brutal English soldiers at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge.
She shifted in her tight blanket, a rock poking her shoulder, and rolled over. Open eyes stared back at her. She froze.
“Can’t sleep?” Nathaniel asked. “Are you cold?”
Aye, she was. “Nay. Just a rock digging into me. I am used to sleeping in trees.”
He frowned. “Sleeping in trees is not safe.”
“It has kept me safe numerous times,” she said. The dimness of the tent left him in shadows, but she could see the strength in his jaw, the line of his straight nose. “I just thought it would be warmer inside a tent, body heat.”
He pushed up onto an elbow. “You are cold.”
“Nay,” she said, but he’d already flung his woolen blanket open, draping it across them both. She was still wrapped, but his body heat penetrated.
“I produce more than my share of heat,” he said, staring into her eyes.
She gave a little nod and rolled so that her back was again toward him. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Every time she thought of the man at her back, sharing his warmth with her but not his kisses, she’d repeat the word in her head until she bludgeoned her consciousness enough that she slept.
Heat crept down Cat’s body, and her stomach flipped, her breath catching. Nathaniel stood in a gilt hall, surrounded by ladies in silk dresses. Bare chested, he wore only tailored trousers, the color of deer hide, and tall polished boots. Echoes of tittering laughter floated around her, but she paid them no heed for he looked directly at her.
She walked toward him, mesmerized by the smile on his handsome face. A sea of ladies seemed to part to let them meet, and Cat stopped before him, looking up. She placed her hand on his chest, and he looked down at it. His smile faded, his mouth tightening, and his nose scrunched as if smelling something foul. Cat gasped.
Her hand. It lay against him, on a pristine white shirt that hadn’t been there before. Nails broken and lined with dirt. Dried blood and mud covered her skin. She looked down to see herself in nothing but a ragged, grimy dress. Around her, gasps and laughter made her turn, but Nathaniel’s voice caught at her. “You do not belong here, Cat.”
“Do you hear me? Cat? Cat.” The whispered urgency in Nathaniel’s voice brought Cat up from the dream.
“What—?”
Nathaniel’s hand covered her mouth, and he shook his head. He leaned in so that his lips brushed her ear, sending a tickle along her skin. “Someone has found us. Do not make a sound.”
He was pressed up against her back, and even with her blanket still around her, she could feel his member pressing into her backside. Scooting silently forward, she turned toward him, the dream still fresh in her mind. She leaned toward his ear and whispered. “I thought ye said we were platonic.”
Hi
s brows lowered with obvious confusion, and she pulled her hand out of the blanket to point down at his groin. He shook his head and bent toward her ear. “It is a morning happenstance for all men, but we have a more crucial predicament going on.” He jabbed his finger toward the tent wall, where Cat could hear the sound of slow footsteps, a crunch of leaves, the snap of a thin branch.
She pressed her palm against his chest and sat up, finding the two blades she had under the rolled black trousers she was using for a pillow. He grabbed her arm, shaking his head. Apparently, Nathaniel wanted to take care of the issue. He could come along if he liked, but Cat had always looked out for herself. She pointed at herself and then at the flap that acted as a door. He shook his head again, but she ignored him, crawling toward the opening. Thankfully she’d slept in her leather trousers and boots. He grabbed her foot. Blasted man! She reached back and pinched the top of his hand, making it open, but he caught her foot again. She’d had enough.
“Bloody hell! Let go of me, so I can slaughter the thief who is creeping like an idiot through our camp,” she yelled, her voice ringing. It did the trick.
Nathaniel let go, rolling out of the tent under the side flap to leap up as she lunged out of the front. They met in the middle, Nathaniel with his sword and Cat with her two blades set and ready to fly. The two of them stared straight at the intruder.
“Mooooo.”
Stella and Gaspar, still on long tethers, blinked in the moonlight from under their blankets at the large heifer standing over the warm coals of their dying fire. “Mooooo…”
Cat lowered her arms. “Mo chreach,” she cursed low, glancing around. “Unless the thieves send in a cow first to confuse their victims, I believe us to be safe.”
She heard Nathaniel exhale, and he marched over to the cow. “She must have wandered off from a nearby farm.”
Cat ran into the tent to grab one of her blankets and returned to the cow, throwing it over her. “There now, sweet Bess, ye will be warm before ye know it.”
“And what if there had been a troop of bandits out here?” Nathaniel said. “Five or even ten of them?” Anger laced his questions.
The Wicked Viscount (The Campbells) Page 4