by Nicole Locke
‘Are you truly from the Colquhoun clan?’
If he saw her brothers, he would not waste his questions. Every too-tall red-haired inch of her was from that clan. ‘Aye.’
‘Is their land north and along this trail we travel?’
‘I said it was and ’tis just where I told you, too, by the Firth of Clyde.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Is there a village or some place we can purchase a horse and some supplies along this route?’
She looked over at him; he was looking at her intently. Too intently. She turned her eyes to the fire again. For now his questions were safe and she saw no harm in answering them.
‘Aye, we should reach there by tomorrow.’
‘Why did we travel through the trees before?’
She bit the inside of her mouth, thinking. This was a question she did not want to answer. ‘I must have been a little off in my direction.’
She kept her gaze away. She was not good at lying and dreaded any more questions of why they travelled through the trees.
He adjusted himself and turned his body to face her. ‘Tell me of your family.’
Surprised, she glanced at him. She’d rather talk of trees than of her family. ‘My family? You do have a sense of humour, Robert of Dent.’
He ignored her jibe. ‘Just curiosity.’
‘What is there to say?’ She shrugged. ‘My mother and father had three boys and two girls. It was not a large family by Scottish standards, but Mother died in childbirth with my sister, Irvette, and Papa broke his neck training a horse. So we were it.’
She stopped, clenched her mind from remembering too much. ‘And now with what happened at Doonhill, we are one less.’
In the rush to protect the children, she had purposefully not thought of her sister. It felt like knives to her heart to have the merest thought of her now.
‘Were your brothers kind to you and your sister?’ he asked.
His questioning surprised her, but she could not help the feeling of relief in avoiding the truth of her travel. Coward that she was. ‘Nae, it was a battle from the beginning,’ she said. ‘They were gentler with my sister, but with my height and strength, I think they forgot I was a girl.’
She took a quick glance over at him. He was staring at her legs. She became all too aware of the length of her legs, but instead of her usual embarrassment, she felt like stretching them. It was the way he was looking at them. She became all warm, just as she did when he’d held her in the valley. Then she remembered how he had dropped her like a rat. Embarrassed, she tucked her legs under her.
‘I gave as good as I got,’ she continued. ‘Or at least got cleverer about it.’ She laughed softly. ‘By the time I was twelve, I was running the keep. My brothers couldn’t tease me any more about my hair, because they’d find stones in their bread.’
He made a sound that might have been close to a chuckle. ‘I have no doubt of your authority. You did swing a cauldron at me.’
‘You deserved it,’ she reminded him. ‘It was Irvette who grew up to be beautiful and even though I was the elder, the men started to court her. She never wanted power or wealth, so when Aengus Cathcart came with nae more than dreams of a little house in a pretty spot, she was in love. My brothers, too soft when it came to her, couldn’t deny her wishes. They let her wed, though it did not prosper the clan.’
She shrugged. ‘I was glad for her and by then I was firmly entrenched in Clan Colquhoun. I took good care of the boys and thought I knew what was needed and expected of me.’
She stopped suddenly and tried to keep her thoughts from crossing her face. He was paying too close attention not to notice her anger or her pain. She did not want to explain what her brothers had done to her.
‘Something happened,’ he said.
She turned her gaze away from him again. ‘Aye, Irvette getting killed, that’s what happened.’ She stood and hugged her arms around her. ‘Is that the type of information you were looking for, Englishman?’
She meant the question as a challenge, a way to push him away from the conversation.
But she knew the moment he took her words in a different direction. He still sat, but there was a slight movement in his cheek, a light to his eyes. Without moving, he answered her challenge with one of his own. It was a challenge that made her heart flip and her stomach contract. She lowered her eyes and tried to shutter her emotions.
‘It depends,’ he answered.
‘On what?’
‘On what you’re not telling me.’
He stood and stepped closer to her. Gently, he caressed down her jaw until he reached her chin and lifted it.
Given her height, her eyes did not have far to travel to reach his. ‘You reveal too little of yourself to me.’ He lowered his hand, but did not step back. ‘And I’m a damned man for being curious.’
She noticed the brown flecks of his eyes become cold, but it did not make him less warm to her. She knew the coldness was directed towards himself. He desired her and did not want to. She could think of only one reason, but she did not want to guess. She wanted to be told.
‘Why?’ she asked, clasping her hands in front of her.
The change in his breathing indicated that her question surprised him. Suddenly, she was not sure she wanted the answer to her question. If he thought he was damned for being curious, she was damned right along with him.
His fingers traced down from her elbow to her clasped hands. He found her exposed wrist and made tiny circles there, circles she felt to the very centre of her.
‘Because of who I am.’
His eyes held hers and she felt the pull in them, the wanting to be closer, and she knew that wanting came from her.
It couldn’t come from him. Because he’d all but admitted what she feared. ‘You are married,’ she said.
Surprise flashed in his eyes. ‘No, God, no, Gaira. I stand so close to you I can feel your breath fan my skin.’
‘That does not preclude you from being married.’
‘It does me. If I were married, it would be for life, Gaira. My life, my body—all my life and all my body.’
His words ran up and down her heart, making it tender in her chest. He was that deep river, constant, life-giving. But if he wasn’t married now, did that mean he had never loved? She cursed her heart for needing to know.
‘You were never married before?’ she asked.
His hand returned to his side. ‘No, I was never given the chance.’
Never given the chance to marry did not mean he had never loved. It just meant the love was denied. Her heart, already tender, stabbed her soul.
‘We should get some sleep.’ She stepped back. ‘Maisie will be waking soon and I’ll have nae energy for her.’
Robert did not try to stop her, but watched as Gaira returned to the children, who were asleep in a bundle of legs and arms. It was a warm night and Gaira’s shawl was strewn between them.
He stood for just a few minutes longer, then he returned to his side of the fire and bundled a blanket under his head. The ground had dried sufficiently and he felt too warm for any cover.
Hell, he burned.
She had kept her hair bound since he’d asked her, but she kept it only in a simple thick plait and the effect was almost worse than it loose. He could imagine how easy it would be to untie the single leather string and slowly unravel the soft curls. He could almost feel how the bright tendrils of her hair would wrap around his fingers.
When he had stood so close to her, he’d felt how well her legs matched his own, how little he’d have to lift her to press her against him.
She had said her brothers had not thought her a girl. He could not seem to stop thinking of her as a woman grown, with a woman’s curves and valleys.
Robert rolled roughly to his s
ide. He wouldn’t get any sleep if he let his thoughts wander too far down that path.
But he could not avoid thinking of her. So he’d force himself to think about her words and not the way she smelled or the lusciousness of her peach-coloured lips. Or her legs she tucked beneath her.
Robert rolled again to lie on his back and he hit the blanket under his head to fluff it. There was much to think about what she had said. He had asked for truth, but he’d heard more than what she had said.
Something in her tale of her family had upset her, but he knew it was more than her sister dying. Her anger and grief over her sister was understandable, but that death had happened much later than her reminiscences.
Some of her hurt came before Doonhill. She had not told him why she had left her brothers. If she was as needed as she said, why had they let her go?
He had told her he was curious. What he did not tell her or what he didn’t want to tell himself was why he was curious. He had no right thinking of Gaira’s life or her legs.
She was a woman with a strength of will and spirit he never knew existed. When she felt or fought, it was with her whole being, her whole heart. She deserved a man who was as whole in heart, as well.
And he knew, all too well, his heart had stopped beating years ago.
Chapter Thirteen
Robert woke to breathing in his ear and a hot weight across his chest. Alec was sprawled across him. His face, soft and rosy, was scrunched against Robert’s tunic and his rounded arms were splayed above his head and around Robert’s neck.
‘He looks different that way, doesn’t he?’ Gaira whispered.
Gaira was standing above him, her arms full of Maisie.
‘How did he get here?’ Robert mouthed.
‘Must have been late. He was getting nightmares before you came.’
‘What do I do?’ he whispered.
She gave an enigmatic smile and turned away. ‘I think that’s up to you.’
Robert watched Gaira’s departure and just barely stopped himself from calling to her. He didn’t know what to do with the children on this journey and they mostly had left him alone.
Yet, sometime in the middle of the night, Alec had come to him and fallen asleep again. As if, somehow, Robert was somewhere safe.
Robert twisted his eyes to look at the boy. He saw the slight fluttering of eyelids, the soft down of his eyelashes, the pink lips allowing his gentle breath.
Robert stayed still, not only because he didn’t want to wake the boy, but because he thought his legs wouldn’t work properly. He was bewildered by the trust. He had done nothing to earn it. He had simply been lying there.
And that was the strangest of all, for how did the boy not wake him? Had he known in his sleep, somehow, that it was only Alec?
He closed his eyes again, imagining, thinking, and felt a little hand lightly tap his cheeks.
Alec, his brown eyes huge, stared at him.
Staring back, Robert felt something brush near his heart. ‘Morning,’ he said gruffly.
Abruptly, Alec’s hand slapped against his cheek.
Robert immediately sat, blinking back the unexpected sting. Giggling, Alec slid in a heap in his lap.
‘Oh, you think that’s a fine jest, do you?’ Robert growled. ‘Let’s see how you feel about this!’
Standing, Robert grabbed the boy by his waist and hung him upside down as if he were a fish. The boy squirmed just as if he were caught on a hook.
‘You had better set him down unless you want an accident on your clothes,’ Gaira said as she finished straightening Maisie’s clothes. ‘He hasn’t relieved himself yet.’
With a quick flip, Alec was righted and set free.
Gaira smiled and he found himself wanting to smile back. He turned his back before he did.
He hadn’t truly smiled in years. Part of his reputation lay in that fact. His reputation... All thoughts of laughter left him.
Gaira had said they’d reach the next village before the day ended. Although he was further north than he’d ever been, he could not take the chance of being recognised. It would not only put him, but also Gaira and the children, in jeopardy.
His hand went to his beard and through his hair. He didn’t have different clothes to wear, but there was something he could do to alter his appearance. It had been years since he’d properly shaven and had shorter hair.
Grabbing his knife from his satchel and a sliver of his soap, he headed to the stream running through the trees.
* * *
When he returned to the clearing, the children and Gaira were waiting for him. Gaira was sitting and talking with Flora. Their heads were bowed together as they picked long blades of grass and wove them into chains. Maisie stood next to them, swinging grass blades in the air, and Creighton, with rocks in his hands, sat watching them.
He knew they had been brought together in less than a sennight, but they already interacted as a family. A family brought together by fate and grief. But something about them still looked content with each other.
In all the years he had fought for King Edward, he hadn’t found the peace they had in just days.
Gaira looked up. Her eyes flicked over him briefly before returning to the chain in her lap. In almost jester quality, her head swivelled back up, her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. She said something to Flora, who also looked up.
He walked over to them. ‘Are you ready to travel?’ he asked.
Gaira didn’t say anything to him. There was something in her gaze. Surprise, but something else that quickened his blood.
‘Miss Flora, are you ready to leave?’ he asked.
‘What happened to your face?’ She clapped her hand over her mouth and turned bright red.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. He could hardly tell her the truth. He’d have to bluster through. He made a big gesture of clasping his hands behind his back.
‘I realised I was unfit for your august company. Thus, to look more respectable, I shaved my beard and cut my hair.’
He paused before meeting Gaira’s gaze. It was more than astonishment he saw in her eyes. It was desire.
He had thought himself alone in his wanting of her. The fact she reacted even in the slightest way to him was too...tempting.
He did not need temptations or complications. And Gaira was both. He thought himself a damned man just for being curious about her, but his curiosity did not compare to his desire. If he gave in to it, his bloodstained soul would most certainly be damned.
But still he wanted her. Despite his obligations to the English crown. Obligations he had been neglecting since Doonhill. It had been too long since he was away. Hugh would have alerted King Edward by now.
They probably thought he had deserted them. And how was he to explain his absence? He had been acting like a besotted fool, not a trained warrior. He had to get this journey over with and quickly.
‘As soon as I pack my items, we’ll go,’ he said. Angry at himself, he turned roughly away and went to pick up his bag, blanket and longsword.
Something was missing. His blanket and bag lay on the ground where he had left them. But not his longsword. He looked over at his horse. The saddle was on the ground, the claymore and pouches were still attached. He glanced around the camp. More than his longsword was missing.
‘Gaira!’ he called. ‘Where’s Alec?’
She looked over at him and a smile broke out. ‘Oh, Robert, if you could see your face! You look as if you’ve slipped in a bog. Did he steal something of yours?’
She began to laugh, and pointed towards the trees. ‘I think he went that way.’
He didn’t know what kept his feet planted for even that second longer—Gaira’s beautiful laugh, or that a five-year-old boy had stolen a sword that could slice off
his arm with the slightest scrape.
She stopped laughing, an expression of concern replacing her mirth. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘My sword.’ He lost his voice. ‘Gaira, he’s got my sword.’
All trace of laughter and colour drained from her face. She scrambled up, the many grass blades falling forgotten to the ground. Grabbing his arm, she momentarily dragged him until he felt the tug, which propelled him to action.
Good God, he never hesitated once in battle. If he had, he’d be dead. But just the thought of Alec hurt stunned him.
He knew now what his soldiers meant when they said they felt cold sweat and ice feet. He knew now what it felt like to feel panic, sure and swift. It hadn’t happened because there was ten-to-one odds in battle, or because a Scotsman was swinging a double-headed axe at his head—it happened because of a little boy.
At what point had he started to care?
In the woods, Gaira broke off and ran to his right. The trees provided little cover, but the terrain was full of hills and Alec was short. A child. Searching the ground, he found it: the trail. Not of feet, but of something being dragged. The sword would be too heavy for Alec.
‘Over here,’ he called to Gaira. Following the trail, he ran down the hill.
Alec was raising a thick log over his head. But the size and weight of the log was not what made his knees buckle, it was the position of the sword that lay perpendicular to Alec.
It was raised and buttressed between two trees. If the boy slipped when he was bringing down the log, he could decapitate himself without the smallest of breaths.
Robert wanted to shout a warning, but he didn’t want to startle the boy. Yet if he didn’t warn him... He ran faster.
Gaira was still to Robert’s right and just a little ahead of him. She was hurtling herself down the slope towards Alec. She must have seen what he did, for her eyes were wide with fear, her running frantic.
‘Stop!’ she screamed. ‘Alec, stop!’
With her ankle unhealed and the ground muddy, Gaira slipped and stumbled. Trying to run and gain her balance at the same time, Gaira continued towards Alec.
