Even angry, he was still a very handsome man.
She cursed the thought and felt her skin heat further.
She wished she had broken her neck in the fall just to save herself from the embarrassment of him ripping her bodice and the anger she saw in his eyes.
He still held the top of her chemise in his curled fingers and she still held on to his wrists. She wanted to die in that moment, as his dark eyes bored into hers.
She suddenly remembered the men on horseback and fought to find her voice. “There are men, on horseback. Many. ’Twas why I was runnin’ and fell. I was tryin’ to warn ye, to get Lily away,” the words tumbled out as she struggled to hold on to what little dignity she had left.
Rowan sighed. “Those be Nial McKee’s men, lass. Had ye stayed where I told ye, ye wouldn’t have been scared half to death and runnin’ through the woods!”
It was all simply too much. In less than a day’s time, she had been beaten, thrown out of her home in the middle of the night, assaulted, thrown on the back of a horse and carried heaven-only-knew how far across Scottish lands. He had called her attractive and beautiful and tested the limits of her patience. Now she felt like a fool. A complete, utter idiot. He was right. Had she not been so angry at being ordered around like a mongrel dog, she would not be in this situation, with berry juice smeared all over her, the bodice of her dress torn beyond repair, and his hot fingers touching her bare skin.
She couldn’t help herself, couldn’t contain her frustration or embarrassment any longer. The tears fell, quietly at first but soon turned to waterfalls, streaming down her dirty face, into her ears, and down her neck.
He probably hated her. He’d probably leave her here, alone, to find her own way about. She couldn’t blame him if he did. Minnie had been right all those times she warned her that her stubbornness would someday be the death of her.
Her shoulder shook as the tears trickled down her face. She closed her eyes, let loose her hold on his wrists and turned her head away. Crying was for foolish young girls, lasses with dreams, hopes and aspirations. She was none of those things. She was a foolish woman, covered in bruises, mud, and berry juice.
Her eyes flew open and she gasped when she felt warm hands slide under her shoulders and waist. She looked up and into soft warm eyes staring back at her. He no longer looked angry or upset but she could not describe what she did see looking back at her. She supposed someone with far more experience than she had would know what a look like that meant. Realizing her lack of expertise in so many areas made her cry even more.
Rowan lifted her onto his lap and held her. Arline continued to cry as she clung to him, burying her face in the warmth of his chest.
“Cry it all out, lass,” he whispered into her hair.
The shock of his statement made her cry all the more. Carlich had been the only man who had ever allowed her to cry. Her father would not allow for histrionics and Garrick certainly would not have put up with tears.
But here, sitting in the mud, was a strong, braw man, a man she barely knew, telling her it was all right to cry was too much. That old familiar feeling, the one of longing for things that could never be began to creep in. Wrapping its long tendrils around her heart, it squeezed and burned, leaving an indelible impression where she did not want it.
While the tears flowed, she heard muffled voices coming from above but paid them no mind. She wanted to stay there, in the mud, with her face hidden in his chest so that Rowan would not have the chance to look into her eyes. If she looked into those big brown eyes again, she’d be forever lost and eternally damned.
When he felt her tears begin to subside, Rowan gave her back a gentle pat. “Better, now?” he asked thoughtfully.
Arline nodded into his chest, afraid to move or look up for fear he’d be able to somehow read her mind or heart.
“Good,” he said as he gently rubbed his hand up and down her back. He looked up at the wall of earth she had tumbled down earlier and doubted she would be able to make her way back up it.
Their camp sat in a nice, flat clearing and he could not remember seeing any drop offs or embankments near it. Mayhap this bit of land would wind its way around to a spot where she would be better able to climb up.
“Do ye think ye can walk a spell, lass?”
Arline took a deep breath, wiped her wet cheeks with the backs of her hands and nodded again. Her voice had seen fit to leave her, undoubtedly from the embarrassment of having fallen into a heap of hysterical crying.
Very gently he lifted her off his lap and set her bottom on the ground in front of him. He pushed himself to his feet and scanned their surroundings.
Frederick called down to them. “Should we throw down a rope?”
“Nay,” Rowan called back to him. As much as Arline tried to argue otherwise, he knew her ribs were seriously injured. He did not want to risk damaging them further by tying a rope around her and hoisting her up. “We shall walk a spell and try to find a spot where the land evens out,” he yelled up to Frederick.
Turning his attention back to Arline, he held out his hand. She refused to look up at him. He knelt down and put a hand on her shoulder. “’Tis all right, lass,” he whispered.
Arline was playing with the edges of her torn bodice. “I apologize, me laird, fer actin’ like a fool.”
Rowan chuckled as he took her chin between his fingers and lifted it. Damn, but she had beautiful green eyes. They still glistened from the tears she had shed. Even red from crying they were quite beautiful.
His smile, warm and thoughtful, brought a tickling sensation to her stomach. He was making her look at him, full on, and she realized that she had no desire to stop.
“Do no’ worrit overmuch, lass. I’ll no’ tell anyone if ye promise no’ to tell that I panicked, thinkin’ ye’d been stabbed, and ripped yer dress.”
She burned red again, looked down at her torn, tattered, and filthy dress and realized she must look like hell. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath.
He laughed fully then, with his broad shoulders shaking and his head thrown back. Briefly her ire was raised when she believed he was laughing at her distress. But when he looked at her, with those full, chiseled lips upturned and that twinkle in his eye, she knew there wasn’t a cruel bone in his gloriously beautiful body. Damn.
She wanted very much to have a reason to be angry with him. Wanted desperately to find something about the man to dislike, something that would make the fluttering, nearly giddy sensation in her belly cease.
She could find nothing.
He was perfection personified.
Damn him.
Growling silently, she thrust up her hand and took his. His skin felt warm, nearly hot against her own. Her skin turned to gooseflesh when he lifted her to her feet and she stumbled into his chest. Marble. He was a living, breathing statue of Adonis, carved from marble.
Damn him.
He righted her, winked, took her hand and wrapped her arm around his waist while draping his long arm around her shoulders. “I think we can find a place that might no’ be so difficult fer either of us to climb. Are ye sure ye can walk a ways?”
Walk? I’ll be lucky if me legs do no’ turn to jelly with ye touchin’ me like this.
Arline wondered if she would ever find the use of her voice again, felt all the more foolish for nodding her head like a piece of driftwood bobbing in the water. Why did he have to smile and wink? Together, side by side, they began the walk back toward the camp.
So when she could find no real faults with him she decided to look at herself. Aye, it was much easier to find faults within herself than with another. Mentally, she began to tick off all the reasons why she could never have the heart of a man like Rowan Graham.
Arline knew she was by no means a homely woman. But neither was she the beauty she felt a man like Rowan would want. She had lost what few curves she had months ago when Garrick had decided to cut her meal rations. She was nothing but skin and bones with very tiny
breasts and skin so very pale from lack of exposure to the sun. That’s what living as a prisoner did for her. It turned her into a walking skeleton.
She could read and write and figure sums. She could sew a good stitch, paint and draw, but those were the limits of her talents. A man like Rowan needed a woman far more worldly and intelligent.
She chanced a glance up at him as they walked along the flat ground. His long brown hair was windswept, giving him even a more virile and dangerous appearance. Arline was tall, taller than most women, but standing next to Rowan she felt small, tiny, diminutive. Nay, he didn’t need her, he needed a tall, buxom, smart, beautiful, witty woman.
Besides, once she was out of danger, she was going to make her way to Inverness, to her sisters. She did not need a man, didn’t even want one. At least, not one like her previous husbands.
Soon they made their way to a spot where the ravine sloped upwardly. It was painful to make the climb but not nearly as painful as it would have been to try to pull her way up a straight wall. She was glad that Rowan was there letting her lean most of her weight against him as they made their way up the hill.
The population of the clearing had increased two-fold, filled with men from the clans Graham, McDunnah and McKee. Rowan quietly explained that they were here to see them safely to his lands.
“We should arrive on Graham lands by the noonin meal on the morrow,” he told her as they walked toward the groups of men.
“And when shall we make it to yer keep?”
“The day after.”
Two more days of riding. Two more days without a bath, sleeping on the cold hard ground, or worse yet, atop a horse as it bounded along the land. Arline stifled a frustrated sigh, lifted her chin and tried to pretend that it did not matter.
Rowan wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave it a slight hug. “I promise ye lass, when we get to my keep, ye can take as many baths as ye want, ye’ll sleep in a big, soft, warm bed, and ye’ll have something more to eat than cheese and dried meat.
Arline smiled up at him. “It sounds like heaven.”
“Castle Áit na Síochána is heaven on earth lass.”
From the smile and the twinkling in his eyes, Arline did not doubt him in the least.
Nine
Rowan listened intently as his daughter rattled on about her time at Blackthorn Keep. The more he learned, the angrier he became with Garrick Blackthorn. Although he was glad they had finally made it safely to Graham lands, a large part of him still wished to return to the Blackthorn keep and burn it to the ground.
The more Lily talked, the more intrigued he became with Lady Arline. Lily seemed to know a great deal about the woman.
“I want sisters, da,” she told him as she took another bite of her apple.
Rowan nearly choked on his bread when she said it. “Lady Arline has two sisters. Morralyn and Geraldine. They live in Inverness. But we’re no’ supposed to tell anyone that,” Lily took another bite of her apple.
Rowan raised an eyebrow. “Why is that?”
Lily smacked her lips together, chewed and swallowed. “Because her da is no’ nice like ye. That is why she married the mean man, because her da made her.”
Rowan was glad his daughter held him in such high regard. Arranged marriages were nothing new. He reckoned that many a young woman thought her parents mean when arranging their futures for them. He couldn’t say he blamed them.
Although his marriage to Kate had been arranged they had fallen in love very quickly. Kate was beautiful and smart and everything he could ever want in a woman. Rowan knew that most arranged marriages did not end up as happy and full of love as his had.
“Her sisters are bastards,” Lily informed him bluntly.
“Lily Graham!” Rowan chastised her. He was more stunned than angry with her. “Where did ye hear such a thing? Is that what Lady Arline called them?”
Lily looked up at him, her eyes instantly filling with tears. “Nay, but isna that what ye call people who be born when their mummy and da are no’ married?”
Rowan took a slow breath in. He hadn’t imagined having such a sensitive conversation with his daughter, at least not until she was much older. “Some do, but we do no’ because its insulting. We do no’ use such language. Ye wouldna want to hurt anyone’s feelings, would ye?”
Lily shook her head and looked sincerely regretful. “Nay,” she told him. “I be sorry, da.”
Rowan patted her little head and gave her a hunk of cheese. “Do no fash yerself. But remember, in the future, no’ to say such things.”
“Am I in trouble?” she asked, looking forlorn and worried.
Rowan chuckled. “Nay, yer no’.”
That seemed to lift her spirits. She took a bite of cheese. Rowan could sense she was mulling something over in her mind. Lily verified it with her next question.
“So, can I have sisters? Lady Arline has two sisters and she loves them verra much. That is why she married the mean man, so her da wouldna hurt them.”
Rowan’s brow furrowed. “Hurt them?”
“Aye. If Lady Arline didna marry the mean man, her da was going to cast her sisters out of their house and let them starve in the streets.”
Rowan wondered how much of Lily’s story was true and how much was the excited workings of a four-year-old child’s mind. There was a possibility that there was some truth to what she said but he would wait to make a judgment on Arline’s father until after he had heard the truth from Arline.
“Lady Arline didna want her sisters to starve or be hurt. She hid them, in Inverness so her da canna find them. He’s no’ nice like ye.”
She finished her cheese but not her story or her questions. “Ye wouldna do that, would ye da? Throw my sisters out if they were born on the wrong side of the blanket?”
Rowan nearly choked again. “Where on earth did ye hear that?” he asked, hoping she hadn’t heard it from him.
“Mrs. McGregor!” Lily said. “That is what she says about bastards. And ye told me I couldna say that word, bastards, anymore.”
It was all he could do not to laugh and cry at the same time. He took a moment to calm his nerves, making a mental to have a talk with their cook, Mrs. McGregor, just as soon as they returned home. “Lily, I do no’ want ye to use that expression again.”
She looked glum and confused. “So what should I say?”
Rowan let out a frustrated sigh. “Ye shouldn’t say anythin’ about someone’s--” he searched for the appropriate words, words that a four-year-old could understand. “Ye shouldna say anythin’ about whether a person’s parents were married or no’, fer it does no’ matter.”
Lily thought long and hard. “Because ye must judge a man by his character.”
Rowan smiled proudly at his daughter. She was smart, wise beyond her four years. “Aye, ye have the right of it.”
“So can I have sisters?”
He sighed. This child was going to be the death of him. He would love to give her sisters -- legitimate sisters. But that would require marrying again. Rowan doubted he would ever be able to give his heart to another woman, doubted he could ever love another woman as he had loved Kate.
Guilt crept in. Was he being a selfish man by not giving Lily a mother and brothers and sisters? There were so many things he wanted to give his daughter, chief among them a family. He also wished for his daughter to grow up in a time of peace and prosperity, a time where children were not kidnapped or worrying over when their next meals might come.
The Black Death had nearly destroyed his clan. Left with only a handful of loyal men and women, Rowan was doing his best to rebuild his clan, his home and his life. Though they did not struggle like many other clans they were by no means out of trouble.
Many of the crofters’ huts scattered across his lands remained empty, their original inhabitants now dead. Without anyone to tend to them, the little houses were slowly decaying and falling apart. And without enough people to tend the lands, their harvests were, to say t
he least, reduced.
Still, they had plenty of meat to get them through the roughest of times. Gradually over the past year, they had increased their numbers by inviting those less fortunate to come live among the clan Graham. A rag-tag bunch if ever he saw one, but, still, they were loyal people, glad to have a home and way to make a living. They had come from all parts of Scotland, many with just the clothes on their backs and empty bellies. There was not a clan left untouched by the Black Death and several were wiped out completely.
“Well?” Lily asked him as she tossed the remains of her apple into the fire, disrupting Rowan’s thoughts.
“Well, what?” His mind had wandered and he could not remember her question.
“Can I have me some sisters or no’?” She pursed her little lips together and gave him a stern look.
He sighed again, ran his hand over his face and searched again for the appropriate words. Having found none, he fell back on the age old answer parents give children when they don’t have a better one. “We’ll see.”
Lily seemed satisfied with that answer but Rowan knew she’d ask it again and again until either he forbade her to ask it again or gave in. That was how she got her very own pony: sheer relentlessness.
“I need to speak with Lady Arline,” Rowan said as he pushed himself up from the log he’d been sitting on. “Ye stay here, with Thomas. And do no leave or go runnin’ off.”
“I want to see her too!” Lily exclaimed.
“Nay,” Rowan told her. “No’ yet. Ye may see her verra soon. Do as I told ye, child.”
Her bottom lip jutted out and she crossed her arms over her chest. It was her way of warning her father that an argument was about to ensue -- if he were to allow it.
“A bird will come along and leave droppins’ on that lip if ye are no’ careful,” he told her.
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