by Aileen Adams
“I was born two minutes before him,” Moira explained with pride of her own. “I am the older sister.”
“Are ye a good older sister?” Anne asked, while in the back of her mind she despaired. What to do now? She could not very well turn her back on them and flee. They would surely alert Drew.
“Davina says so.” Moira beamed, swinging from side to side as if both bashful and proud.
“I’d wager ye are.” Though she knew not who Davina was. Her gaze traveled to the door. She need only bolt through it and over the wall…
“Where are ye going?” Owen asked, and what a sly devil he was. He had observed her shift in attention and saw it for what it was.
“I have something to attend to.” Might as well get it over with. “Ye ought to get back into bed before ye catch cold. And with bare feet, at that. Go on, now.” She labored to produce a smile and hoped it looked sincere.
They did not move in the slightest. “Can we come with ye?” Owen whispered, eyes now gleaming with the thrill of adventure.
“Nay!” she hissed, tossing the wood into the fire before moving them toward their chambers. They had not yet noticed Liam, and thank the heavens for it, but they would—while they alerted their uncle, as well—unless she put them to bed and made haste.
The lad was not to be put off. “Why can we not?”
“Because I said ye cannot, and I told ye already that ye shall catch cold. Do ye believe your uncle would be pleased if ye were to fall ill because ye would not listen to a grown person when they tell ye what is best?” She moved them along, leaning down to whisper in their ears, always listening for him.
It would be a miracle if he did not hear this and come to see what the noise was about. The only hope was that he’d be too tired after a hard day’s work to awaken.
“Do ye know Uncle Drew?” Moira asked as she slid into the bed she and her brother shared. It was simple, but clean and warm. There was no shortage of furs to be spread over the wee ones. Anne busied herself with this while they settled in.
“Aye, I do,” she muttered, her attention only somewhat on them while the rest was on the other side of the wall separating their chambers from Drew’s. She might still have a chance. “Now, go to sleep. ‘Tis very late, far too late for bairns to be up and about.”
“I’m no bairn,” Owen grumbled, though a yawn cut its way into his protest, and sleep had already begun to weigh on his eyelids.
“Aye, I’m certain of it,” she murmured with a smile she could not contain. They were wee, winning little things, both of them. Well cared for. If only she could believe a man such as their uncle had it in him to care for such small children.
The Drew with whom she had become acquainted was hardly the sort to do so.
She stroked both their wee, curly heads and straightened up, now prepared to run as far and as fast as she could.
Unfortunately, a solid body blocked the doorway.
One belonging to Drew.
11
Drew had not the first idea of how she’d managed it, or how she had come to tuck the bairns into bed, but there they.
There were many things he wished to say. Questions he wished to ask. Vile, hate-filled threats he wished to growl in her face until she broke down in beneath the weight of his disgust.
And disappointment. Had he made it that easy for her to escape? Damn him for a fool.
No matter how he longed to shout, he did not dare. Not unless he wished to frighten the bairns and embarrass himself terribly in front of her.
Why did it matter so? He had not the time, nor the desire, to understand it. Not just then. Not when he’d woken to find her caring for the twins.
He raised a hand and crooked his finger, beckoning her. A simple gesture, to be sure, yet she understood and followed. What was she thinking? If only he knew. Ever since finding her in the barn, he’d felt as though he’d been playing a game. Trying to outsmart her.
He had never been good at such pursuits.
She followed him into the main room, where Liam sat up with his hands still bound tight, as Drew had left him. Another mystery. Why free herself, yet leave him as he was?
Drew kept his questions to himself for the time, choosing instead to lift Liam from the floor. The lad weighed next to nothing, yet this did mean he was easy to carry. It came as no surprise when he kicked and writhed and struggled.
“What are ye on about?” he demanded through clenched teeth.
“I’m puttin’ ye to bed—my bed,” Drew muttered, marching past a slack-jawed Anne and into his bedchamber. “I have to speak with your sister.”
“Ye canna be alone with her!” Liam shot his sister a look of pure panic, his struggles doubling.
This was all terribly tiresome, especially in the middle of the night. What did he have to do to get a solid night of sleep? He would’ve given his last shilling, and gladly, if it meant sleeping restfully.
“I have no desire to do anything but speak to her,” he grumbled with a fatigued sigh, dropping the lad rather carelessly onto the bed after the delivery of a foot to Drew’s ribs. After a kick such as that, he deserved much worse and was fortunate not to get it.
“I will not let ye!” Liam insisted as he tried to work his way off the bed.
“Enough of this.” Drew leaned over him and reminded himself that it was love for Anne that made him behave so. While Drew could not bring himself to understand where that love came from, he respected it. “I will leave the door open that ye shall see nothing untoward is going on, if ye choose to remain awake. But I must ask ye keep your mouth shut, unless ye wish to look after the bairns.”
Liam’s mouth snapped shut. Drew merely snickered before leaving the lad on his own and returning to where Anne waited—to her credit, for she might have used Liam’s display as a distraction and run.
The first thing he took note of was the condition of her wrists. “What have ye done, lass?” he asked, wincing at the sight of them. The rope had chafed them terribly, rubbing skin clean off in some places, and blood had dried on them. How the bairns had not recoiled at the sight was beyond him.
“I had to free myself,” she said, shrugging as if it meant nothing though he was certain she must feel pain. Perhaps she was still too worked up to feel it.
He’d certainly experienced that during his fights, the rush of excitement which seemed to drown out pain.
Until the excitement ran its course and left nothing but agony in its wake.
He fetched the bucket from beside the fire, in which water still sloshed about in the bottom, and soaked a rag inside. “Come,” he grunted, waving her over where the firelight would allow a better look at her injuries.
She moved slowly, and he sensed her mistrust.
“I dinna wish to hurt ye,” he muttered, halfway between feeling insulted and understanding once he imagined himself in her place. “I only wished to wash the blood from your wrists, ye daft fool.”
Her derisive snort met his ears an instant before she tore the rag from his hand. “I can do this on my own, thank ye.”
He snickered, shaking his head in amazement as she took gentle swipes at her wrists. “You strike me as the type to set herself afire just to prove another wrong.”
“When I am right, I know I am.” She glanced his way as she worked, shrugging as she had before. “I trust in myself and my judgment.”
“Such as the judgment which brought ye here.” It was not a question—more a challenge.
One which she accepted without hesitation. “Did ye ever, in all your cleverness, stop to ask yourself if it was my desire to be here? My choice? Do ye believe anyone would go to the trouble simply because they enjoyed themselves?”
“I have never stolen from another, so I dinna know how to answer that.”
“Ye lie,” she snapped. “Ye know I speak the truth. Just as ye must know I would rather not have my brother here. I never wished for him to have any part of this.”
She tossed the rag to the floor,
snickering in disgust. To his surprise, rather than go on, she held her head in her hands. Her thin shoulders shook as emotions wracked her body.
What to do? His hands twitched in an effort to reach for her or at least pat her back and apologize for pushing so hard. He knew she hadn’t truly led her brother into this. She loved him too deeply. He was everything she cared about in the world.
He’d just recently come to understand that, himself.
“Perhaps we have a great deal more in common than we imagined,” he mused as she worked to contain herself. The shaking lessened until it was little more than a tremble.
Wiping her eyes, she looked at him, and he saw who she truly was for the first time. Young, yet somehow older than her years. Afraid. Brave, to be sure, but she’d been brave for much of her life. Tired.
“I take it ye dinna roam the Highlands in the middle of the night, hoping to find cattle to steal, because ye find it thrilling.” He stood, extending a hand to her. “Come. I wish to talk with ye. I wish to start from the beginning that we might know each other better.”
It was with a resigned sigh that she accepted the gesture, her small hand fitting neatly inside his. He led her to the small table at which he took meals with the bairns and sat her in Moira’s customary chair. Sitting across from her, he folded his hands atop the table and fixed her with a hard stare. “I would like ye to tell me the truth. There is nothing I can do for ye if ye will not tell the truth.”
“Do for me?” she asked, her face screwing up in disbelief. “How is that? What could ye do for me now?”
“To start, I could see to it that ye dinna spend the rest of your life in prison for reiving.” His temper threatened to flare up, but he managed to keep it under control. For the time being, in any case.
She seemed to accept this. “Fair enough. ‘Tis tiresome, trying to outthink ye.”
“Ye admit it, then,” he chuckled. “I’ve done the same. I must admit, I’ve never had anything to do with someone such as yourself before. A thief.”
“And what are ye, then?” she asked, folding her hands as he did. Her eyes, no longer tear-filled or bloodshot, seemed to glow in the firelight. Or perhaps it was a vague bit of mischief making its way to the surface.
“What of myself? We weren’t speaking of—”
“Your knuckles.” She studied his hands, where he’d rested them before her.
“What of them?”
“They’re flat, all the way across. As if they’d been used—quite a lot, in fact.”
This left him shocked beyond reason. He sputtered. “What does that have to do with anything? It means nothing.”
“It means ye might not be a thief, but ye are a fighter.”
“And how would ye know that unless you’ve known many fighters in your time?”
Her brows knitted together as color rose in her cheeks. “I know what I know. Do ye deny it?”
His chest puffed out. “Nay. I dinna deny it.”
“’Tis proud ye are, then.” She raised a brow. “I see. I suppose ‘tis something to be proud of when ye have nothing else.”
“Now, look here. We sat down together to speak of ye, not of myself. I would thank ye to keep your shrewish tongue at rest, for there is but so much of that sort of talk a man can bear without losing his temper.” He flexed the fingers of the fists in which she’d taken such an interest. “My temper gained me a bit of a reputation, ye might say.”
She gulped. “I see.”
He would never strike her. He had never struck a woman in his life and had no intention of starting then. But it did not hurt for her to question whether he would if driven to the brink of losing control.
He cleared his throat, straightening his spine, signaling that they were about to begin again. “Now. Am I correct when I assume ye didna plan to have your brother with ye on your last… errand?”
She blew out short, frustrated sigh. “Aye. That is the truth.”
“He had never done such a thing before.”
“Also true.”
“Who are ye thieving for?”
He’d hoped that if the question came on the heels of two innocent ones which she’d answered with quick ease, he might lull her into admitting something much larger.
He was wrong.
Her eyes hardened. “Nay, we will not discuss it.”
“And why not? I know there is someone tellin’ ye where to go and what to do.”
“And just what makes ye think that?”
“Ye have not denied it. Ye might have told me there was no such person, but instead, ye refused to tell me their name or even speak of them.”
Her gaze fell to her clenched hands. “I see.”
A victory for him, and he knew it, but he could not stop there. So the lass had worked on behalf of another—that much had been clear for a while, upon reflection. “And they live near enough to this farm that ye have been able to make the ride to and from over the course of a single evening.”
“That, ye dinna know.”
“How do I not know it? Or are ye in the habit of traveling open roads in full daylight, leading cattle who dinna belong to yourself? Nay, I canna believe that. Though I canna say it thrills me, the thought of ye riding in the middle of the night, all alone.”
“But I am not alone.”
His brows lifted in silent surprise.
She explained, “I am with the cattle I stole.”
He chuckled, much to his dismay. She had a quick wit, and he had always fallen prey to a woman with wit. “I see. Ye know what I mean, lass. Do ye not well know what liberties men will take with a woman? Especially the sort of men who move about the Highlands in the dead of night? Rare is the man who would think twice of taking advantage.”
“Which is why I always carry a dirk, and I am quite skilled with it.”
“Ye aren’t carrying it now,” he reminded her in a low voice. “How did ye intend on protecting yourself once you’d gone out into the night?”
She paled. “I had not thought of it. I only wished to escape.”
“Without your brother.”
“’Tis a cold night. He might at least be warm here.”
“And ye would bring men back to take him from me.”
“Aye. That was the idea.”
“Ye thought nothing of the peace and safety of this farm and those on it. Ye merely cared to save your own neck, and that of your brother.”
“I would do anything for my brother,” she snarled. “Anything. Whatever it took to ensure his safety. Why do ye think—”
She turned away, her mouth snapping shut before anything more poured forth and gave him further insight into her mind. Heavens forbid he have a better idea of who he dealt with.
No matter. He had a fair enough idea already and was willing to move forward with the idea that had come to him while watching her put the bairns to bed. Though she’d clearly been overwhelmed by the need to flee—every muscle of her body had been tensed, like a hare ready to burst into action—she had treated them kindly, even sweetly. Her motherly tone had impressed him quite a bit. She had not lost her temper and railed at them to get back to bed and forget they’d ever seen her, but had instead spoken to them in a stern-yet-gentle tone.
This was not a coarse, wicked, self-serving lass before him. When she might have been abusive, she had been loving. He did not question for a moment her devotion to Liam, plague her about leading the lad astray though he might.
He needed someone like her.
And she needed him, whether she wished to believe it or not. “Anything, ye say?”
“What?”
“Ye said ye would do anything for your brother.”
“I meant it.”
“What if I sent him home?”
Her eyes lit up even as she frowned, trying to understand. Her excitement gave her away—she was indeed eager to see him safe. “Why would ye—I mean, without—”
“Without reporting him to the authorities. Aye. I would be willing to
do so.”
Relief soon gave way to suspicion, however, which he supposed ought to come as no surprise.
“Why? What do I have to do?”
He sat back in his chair, relaxing now. Better for her to see him relaxed. She would trust him more easily. “It has become clear to me that we need each other. Ye need me to remain silent on who ye are and what ye have done, or else ye have a long stretch of prison awaiting ye.”
“What do ye need me for, then? If ye believe me the sort to—”
He waved his hands, shaking his head with a humorless smile. “Nay, lass. Och, do ye believe me the sort to take advantage of a lass in a desperate way?”
“I am not desperate.”
“Och, certainly,” he smirked. “Not at all. Ye are in complete control of yourself and what happens to ye.”
“All right, all right.” She waved her hands, clearly frustrated. “What did ye have in mind, then? I dinna have all night to sit and speak with ye.”
“It seems ye do have all night if I say ye have all night.” The joviality left his voice and his manner. She still did not understand who held the reins. He was in control of this, and she had better remember it. “Otherwise, I might be of a mind to take a drive into the village tomorrow.”
She drew a deep breath, clenching and unclenching her jaw. My, but she did have a temper. Perhaps one that could match his own, and he had never imagined finding one like his.
“The fact is this,” he explained, serious now. “I need someone to mind the bairns and the house. I dinna have the time for it, not while I work. As ye have seen, they both need quite a lot of attention and time. I have neither.”
Her eyes moved over his face, studying him, waiting for more. Otherwise, she moved not a muscle. “Ye wish for me to mind the bairns? Here?”
“Here.”
“Living here.”
“That is what I mean, aye.”
A short, quiet laugh escaped her. “Forgive me, but this is all very sudden. I dinna know what to make of it. Ye wish to keep me here? What of the rest of the farm?”
