Garrick scrubbed a hand over his face. “And what was the rest of your plan, lass? Follow us around Scotland like a lost puppy?”
His words came out harsher than he had intended, but damn the lass for her foolhardy plan, and for endangering them all. Even as he tried to justify his harshness, he cursed himself for the stricken look she gave him now, her eyes wide and glistening, her lips turned down and trembling slightly.
“No, I w-wasn’t going to follow you. I just wanted to get far enough away that I would have the freedom to…” She swallowed hard and tried to gather herself. “I was planning to slip out of the wagon in some smaller village on the way to your town. Then I could either travel onward from there, or set up a new life for myself—on my own.”
“Garrick, may I speak to you for a moment?” Burke had regained some of his composure, and was now looking calmer.
Garrick turned from Jossalyn and followed Burke to the barn, where their warhorses, weapons, and gear awaited them. Once inside, Burke turned and said quietly, “All is not yet lost, Garrick. The lass doesn’t know who we are.”
For some reason Burke’s rationality grated on him. “Aye, but what are we going to do with her? We can’t leave her here at the safe house, and we damn well can’t take her with us!”
He forced himself to lower his voice to a whisper again. “We don’t have time to deal with this, Burke. The Bruce needs to know about the rumors of Longshanks’ illness as soon as possible. The entire rebellion could rely on it!”
“Aye, I know that, and your brother needs to hear of it too. But as you said, we can’t very well leave the lass in the middle of the forest right next to a secret safe house for Scottish rebels. We only have one option. We have to take her back to Dunbraes.”
“That will put us back by at least sixteen hours of hard riding,” he said exasperatedly. “Even if we could do another two legs of eight hours of travel on top of the nightlong ride we just had, what about the horses? And how are we supposed to keep our identities concealed from the lass if we are riding with our weapons strapped to our animals?”
“I don’t know, but we can’t take the wagon. It will only slow us down further. We will just have to avoid the lass’s questions and get this over with as fast as possible.”
“Shite, what a mess,” Garrick said through gritted teeth.
This entire mission had been a mistake. He shouldn’t be in the Lowlands gathering intelligence, he should be at the Bruce’s side, fighting with his bow. If it weren’t for his damned older brother, who had somehow convinced the Bruce that it was in both of their interests to monitor Raef Warren’s holding, he wouldn’t be in this debacle.
But if he hadn’t been sent on this mission, he wouldn’t have gotten to meet and share a kiss with Jossalyn Williams, the most beautiful and intriguing woman he had ever met.
He pushed the though aside harshly, though; right now, Jossalyn was only contributing to this disastrous situation. If she hadn’t thrown herself in his path, they would be on their way to the Bruce’s camp in northeast Scotland right now.
But, he reminded himself, she hadn’t thrown herself in their path—he had nearly run her over. That’s when the troubles with the lass began, and he had only made it harder on both of them by kissing her senseless and then leaving her the next day.
Either way, she had stowed away in their wagon and was now dangerously close to realizing they weren’t who they said they were. She was setting them back by at least a day’s worth of travel, not to mention the extra wear and tear on them and their animals.
This disgruntled thought came from the angry, stubborn part of him that didn’t like to deal with people and their inconveniences. But the lass hadn’t known they lied to her about who they were and where they were going. He couldn’t hold it against her that she believed them, and he certainly couldn’t blame her for wanting to get away from a brother who stifled her dreams and used force against her. In fact, if he set aside his stubbornness for a moment, he actually admired the lass’s bravery in seeking out her freedom and trying to make a new life for herself.
He exhaled and ran a hand through his hair. Burke was waiting for him to agree that they only had one course of action. After one last futile attempt to search his brain for an alternative, which yielded nothing, Garrick grudgingly nodded.
“I’ll hide our gear as well as I can and get the horses ready. You’d better speak to the lass,” Burke said.
Chapter Eleven
Jossalyn fumbled with the tie on her cloak as she watched the sun creep upward through the trees. She still sat in the wagon, waiting for Burke and Garrick to emerge from the barn a few dozen yards away. Occasionally, she could hear their voices rise, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.
A knot had formed in her stomach despite her best efforts to calm herself. These were good men, she reasoned. Even though they weren’t happy about her hiding in their wagon, they wouldn’t hurt her…would they?
Her mind ran wild with speculation, all of the oddities about the two flooding back—how Garrick’s voice sometimes slipped into a thicker Scottish accent, as it had when he had discovered her in the wagon, or how Garrick had been covered in scarred-over cuts rather than burns, as a blacksmith should have been, or how they had traveled all the way to Dunbraes looking for work but had known they would only stay for a week. And now here she was, in the middle of the wilderness with just the two of them, and they seemed overly jumpy, overly angry with her.
She forced herself to stop the spiral of these thoughts. She was being foolish, reading more into things than she should. And besides, why wouldn’t they be furious with her? She had deceived them, and not just about hiding in their wagon. She had lied to them about her last name, her station, and who her brother was. If she wasn’t careful, she might let something slip, and then she really would be in trouble, no matter how good these men were. If they found out that her brother was Lord Raef Warren, they would feel compelled to deliver her to him to avoid punishment for “kidnapping” a lady. And if her brother found out that she had not only been working in the village, but had tried to escape with two strange men…. She wasn’t sure what he would do, and that’s what frightened her.
She tried to gather her thoughts so she could at least present her case coherently to Burke and Garrick when they returned. She had been so surprised when Garrick had ripped the canvas off the wagon and the two of them had glared down at her that she hadn’t explained it well at all.
Just then she saw Garrick storming out of the barn. His eyes locked with hers, and she felt a chill go through her at their cold steeliness. She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling again and willed herself to keep her wits about her in the face of his intensity. He halted in front of her, his eyes still boring into her.
“Garrick, let me explain,” she said again, and was relieved that her voice didn’t shake as much as before. “I know it was wrong of me to use you this way, but I wanted—”
He held up a hand to silence her, and she couldn’t help but flinch backward. He furrowed his brow in confusion, then looked at his hand and seemed to realize something.
“Lass, I’m not going to hurt you. I am not such a spineless man that I would strike you or force you to obey me. I’m not like your brother.”
She felt her eyes widen in shock at his words. How did he understand so well?
He went on. “I think I understand why you would want to leave Dunbraes and start a new life somewhere else. But I cannot be part of it.” This last was said through gritted teeth, as if it pained him.
“I don’t expect you to just let me insert myself into your life!” She had to make him understand this, for it had never been her plan to merely latch herself onto him and hope he would save her. She was saving herself, regardless of him. “I would never assume that. I wanted to do this on my own. You were just a means of transportation.”
That came out wrong. She knew it even before she saw his face darken at the insult. “
What I mean is, I don’t…expect anything from you. I know it was wrong to use you to get me out of Dunbraes, but I couldn’t think of any other way, and time is running out before…before my brother finds out what I have been up to.”
“Jossalyn, we have to take you back to Dunbraes.”
“What? Why?”
He reached over the edge of the wagon and took her hand in his. Even through the shock of hearing that he was going to take her back to the castle, to her hellish life, a spark ignited in her stomach at his touch.
“Because you cannot come with us, and we cannot just leave you here. No matter how much of a bastard your brother is, it is not our place to be complicit in your escape.” Despite his soft tone, his words bit into her.
“Why can’t I just go on with you a little farther to the nearest village? I promise I’ll never speak of you. No one will ever know of your part in this. Or you could just leave me! I can find my way to the road and hitch a ride with someone else!”
He shook his head. “Then I would feel responsible if something were to happen to you. It isn’t safe for a lass like you to be traveling alone in the Borderlands right now.”
“Please. Please don’t take me back there.” Her voice cracked with pleading, but she didn’t care. Garrick’s handsome but resolute face wobbled in front of her through the tears welling in her eyes.
He turned away from her and cursed, dragging a hand through his dark hair, which was coming loose from its tie at the back of his neck.
“I’m sorry, lass,” he finally said, still not meeting her eyes, “but this is the way it has to be. I have to follow my duty.”
Her heart sank, hearing the finality in his voice. Part of her wanted to scream at him, to beg him, to tell him that he and his duty could go to hell. But she knew that none of it would work. Besides, he was right—she had put him in this situation, and now that he had to deal with it, he had to follow his own sense of right and wrong. She couldn’t expect him not to get a say in her using him to escape, and then also have to go along with her plan to deal with the situation now that he knew about it. He was involved now, and he had to act dutifully or risk her brother’s punishment.
Even as she struggled to accept all this, she felt the tears overflowing. She had failed. She would be back to her brother’s castle in less than a day, and she would have to face the consequences of her actions. This didn’t mean that she would go back to being the frightened and submissive girl she was before; no, she would attempt to escape again and would resist her brother and his control over her as much as she could. But her hopes to start a new life for herself right away were now faded and distant.
She nodded and tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but it wouldn’t move, nor would the tears stop streaming down her cheeks. She turned her head away, trying to preserve whatever shred of dignity she had left, but suddenly she felt Garrick’s large, warm, and callused hand on her chin. He gently brought her face back to his and kept his eyes on her. Despite the pained look on his face, he forced himself to hold her gaze. It was almost as if he was punishing himself for something, but she didn’t know what.
“The horses are ready,” Burke said from the door of the barn, carefully eying the two of them.
His words registered somewhere in the back of her mind through the fog of pain. “Horses? We aren’t taking the wagon?” she asked.
“Nay, my lady. The wagon will slow us down. We were going to take these horses the rest of the way on our journey home anyway,” Burke replied.
She glanced behind Burke and saw that he was leading two enormous stallions, one chestnut and the other bay, out of the barn. Each horse had large saddlebags that were nearly overflowing, and she could make out some strangely shaped items wrapped in cloth sticking out of them. Without thinking, she pointed toward the cloth-wrapped objects protruding from each horse’s bags, and asked, “What are those?”
“Those are our tools, lass. Blacksmith’s tools,” Burke said smoothly, though his face was an expressionless mask. Before she could ask why two unemployed blacksmiths had such fine horses, Burke interjected. “We’d best be on the way if we want to reach Dunbraes before evening.”
Garrick reached toward her and wrapped his hands around her waist, lifting her clear out of the wagon. He walked her over to the chestnut horse and swung himself up into the high saddle. Burke led the draft horse and wagon into the barn where their horses had been, and after a quick perusal of the area, swung himself onto the bay’s back.
Strange, she thought to herself, that they would leave the good solid draft horse, wagon, and the rest of their supplies here in the middle of the woods. The thought flitted from her mind, though, when Garrick scooped her up so that she sat in front of him atop his enormous stallion.
Though she still wore her thick winter cloak, she could feel his hard body in very precise detail behind her. Her back was pressed against his broad chest, her bottom and hips nestled snugly against his pelvis. His arms came around her to hold the reins. At first he had reached around her arms, but that made it hard for him to grip the reins. She lifted her arms so that his forearms brushed against her waist. Her thighs rested on top of his, and she could feel his legs give the horse a squeeze. The horse leapt forward, and her mind spun as they spirited back south toward Dunbraes.
Chapter Twelve
Garrick swore silently and tore his bleary-eyed gaze away from Jossalyn’s backside. They were stopped by a small stream to give the horses and themselves a brief rest after several hours of hard traveling. Jossalyn was bent over, letting the cool stream water pool in her cupped hands before bringing them up to her lips for a drink. He had been staring at her for several minutes, hypnotized by the sight of her heart-shaped rear in the air, her slim hands rising to her mouth, and the extra droplets of water clinging to her rosy lips.
It was just the fatigue, he told himself. Neither him nor Burke had slept a wink the night before, and now, as the sun passed its zenith and approached the angled light of late afternoon, they had already put in several long hours today. Fatigue was making him careless with his attention. He knew somewhere inside that he shouldn’t be staring at her like that—like a hungry animal—but he couldn’t seem to find the energy to stop.
Their riding arrangement hadn’t helped any, either. He hadn’t even considered the possibility of Jossalyn riding with Burke. Even though he knew after they delivered her to Dunbraes he would never see her again, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to be so near to her for the few hours they had left together.
But maybe that had been a mistake, for now he felt an ache between his legs that had nothing to do with the long hours on horseback. That firm but deliciously soft bottom on which his eyes were currently locked had been pressing against his cock nonstop as their hips moved in unison with the horse’s strides.
And her smell—that unique combination of wildflowers and sunshine—had been hanging around him like a veil since the moment he had pulled her up on Fletch’s back and realized that her golden hair was mere inches from his face.
When she had shed the cloak she was wearing a few hours back, draping it across her lap, he had nearly groaned, for it meant he could feel every delicate curve pressed against him all the better.
He couldn’t remember the last time a lass had affected him so strongly—but maybe that was because no other lass ever had. Aye, he had enjoyed plenty of willing lasses as a means of escape or release from the horrors of warfare, but he had never let them get to him before. That would endanger his place with the Bruce’s rebel force. He always had to be ready for the next mission, which normally meant being gone for weeks on end, working alone, and not getting attached.
This wasn’t any different, he reassured himself. Or it wasn’t much different anyway. He was still following his duty to the Bruce and the rebellion. He was returning the lass to where she belonged, away from him and the dangers he brought with him. He wasn’t letting her change him or his plan.
But then aga
in, he wasn’t exactly performing at his peak as far as being a cold-blooded mercenary and marksman went. If he had been thinking of nothing but the mission, perhaps he could have left her back in the middle of the woods without an explanation. But every fiber in him rejected such an idea. He only hoped that by doing the right thing and returning her to her village, he wouldn’t be risking failing in his duty.
A voice inside his head whispered that it was far from the “right thing” to be forcing the lass to return to her brother, who was not only a bastard for denying her the ability to practice healing, but also a coward and a tyrant for hurting her. The lass was taking charge of her own life, overcoming her oppressor and building a future for herself. Why was he pushing her back into her old life? Her brother was a bastard, but was he any better?
He pushed the thought aside savagely. He couldn’t indulge in such philosophizing when lives were at stake. The lass could still escape, just not this time, and not with him. She was strong enough, he knew, to do it again, and to succeed on her own. He just had to be the bastard who denied her the freedom she sought this time.
He could be the villain. He had gotten quite used to the role over the years. He had never been as concerned with justice and doing the right thing as his older brother Robert, and he wasn’t an uncompromising leader like his younger brother Daniel, either. And he certainly didn’t care to smooth things over and make others comfortable like Burke. Nay, he was the one who was willing to do whatever it took to get a job done.
It took a special kind of person to be able to stake out a mark for days or even weeks, living alone in the woods and trusting nothing but one’s own survival skills. And then, when the moment finally arrived, to be willing to shoot and kill an unsuspecting man, in the back as often as in the chest—it wasn’t for everyone, not even the most fervent of the bloodthirsty and enraged Scotsmen who had joined the rebellion to fight for Robert the Bruce. Garrick did bad things—he killed without remorse, relied on no one, and cared only for his missions. He could break this one lass’s heart and put her back within the grasp of her manipulative and violent brother. It was nothing to him.
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