by Lauren Royal
“Oh, the colors are lovely!” Some damp strands had escaped Emerald’s plaits, and she pushed them off the side of her face. “But rainbows bring bad luck, aye?”
“You think so?” he asked, amused.
She nodded. “I know a verse against it.”
A carriage lumbered toward them across the bridge. “By all means, chant it if it will make you feel better.”
Her chin went up. “Are you mocking me?”
“Never.” At the driver’s wave, he smiled and inclined his head. “I’m waiting to hear it.”
She cleared her throat.
“Rainbow, rainbow, haud away hame
A’ your bairns are dead but ane
And it lies sick at yon gray stane
And will be dead ere you win hame
Gang owre the Drumaw and yont the lea
And down by the side o’ yonder sea
Your bairn lies greetin’ like to die
And the big tear-drop is in his eye.”
Finished, she waited expectantly.
“What a long, bothersome charm that is,” he said. Not to mention he’d understood but half the words. “Can’t you just cross the rainbow out?”
“Cross it out?” When Chiron shifted, she knotted her fingers into his mane. “What do you mean by that?”
“Hereabouts, folk place a couple twigs on the ground in the form of a cross and lay four pebbles at the ends.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.” She cocked her head. “Will you be doing it, then?”
“Of course not. I don’t fancy myself superstitious.” Another rider was crossing the river. “Would you like to get down and do it?”
“Nay. The verse will do well enough.”
Chiron snorted and gave an impatient toss of his head, making Emerald sway. Hearing a little whimper escape her lips, Jason steadied her. Was her ankle still paining her? She’d given no sign before now.
“Shall we cross already?” she asked.
A father and two sons were on the bridge. “I just…” There was no way to hide it—they’d be crossing many rivers. He took a deep breath. “I prefer to ride down the center of bridges.”
“Down the center?” He could hear the smile in her voice. “And you say you’re not superstitious.”
“The bridge is clear now,” he muttered and started across.
“Down the center,” she repeated with a giggle. “I’d never have thought you’d keep a ritual like that. A man who scoffs at ghosts and superstitions.”
He kept his eyes trained on the far side of the river. “I’m pleased to entertain you.”
Though her shoulders shook with mirth, she kept her counsel as they rode through the town to the square.
The marketplace bustled with commerce. Sellers hawked wheels of yellow and white cheeses while buyers haggled over fresh produce. Cattle for sale crowded a smelly pen, and farm laborers stood around, waiting to be hired. Noticing a booth filled with a mishmash of household goods, Jason thought he spotted a few garments in the mix. With any luck, a dry skirt for Emerald.
Perched along one edge of the square, Ye Olde Sun Inn was a timber-framed building with a central chimney and a narrow upper story beneath a steeply sloping roof. “Olde,” indeed. But delicious scents wafted out the open door.
“Egad, I’m hungry,” he said.
“When are you not?”
“Since I met you? Never. You’ve a disconcerting habit of keeping me from my breakfast.” As she drew breath to protest, he added, “I’ll buy us a meal and take a room for a couple of hours. You can wash off the mud and then sleep while I find you dry clothes.”
“Sleep,” she breathed, apparently placated for the moment. “Oh, a wee sleep sounds heavenly.”
TWENTY-THREE
“EMERALD. IT’S nearly noon. Time to wake up.”
“I’m not Emerald,” Caithren moaned, batting Jason’s hand from her shoulder. Her nap had been entirely too short—after walking all night, she could have slept the day away and then some. But there was no time to waste. No matter how tired she was, she needed to get moving in order to find Adam.
She forced her eyes open.
Dressed in clean, dry breeches and a fresh white shirt, Jason leaned over her, too close for her comfort. His broad shoulders blocked her view of the room, and suddenly she felt frightened, alone with this stranger. It had been different last night when she was planning to leave. Now she would have to forge some sort of relationship with him. Sharing a room at an inn was an intimidating way to start.
Even groggy, she was utterly aware that, because her clothes were all wet, she was naked beneath the sheets. And she was already bruised with the marks of an Englishman’s fingers. But she remembered Jason’s pistol tucked beneath her pillow. Proof that he wouldn’t be taking advantage of her, because surely he wouldn’t have given her the means to defend herself.
She drew a shaky breath.
“Emerald?” He leaned closer yet, unsettling her even more. “I brought you something from the marketplace.”
Yawning, she struggled to sit up while self-consciously clutching the quilt beneath her chin. “What is it?”
“A Shropshire cake.” He held out a flat yellow pastry with a diamond pattern scored into the top. “Try it.”
She stared at his hand, transfixed by the sheer size of it—the sheer size of him—until a delicious scent drifted to her nose, shifting her gaze to the cake. “Very thoughtful,” she allowed. She leaned forward to have a bite. “Mmm. It tastes like shortbread.”
“Well, take it.”
Not wanting to disappoint, she bravely risked releasing a hand from the quilt to hold it and eat more. “Scottish shortbread,” she said around a mouthful.
He smiled. “I’m glad you like it. I bought four.”
The buttery pastry seemed to melt on her tongue. “Where are the other three cakes, then?”
With a sheepish smile, he pointed to his stomach.
“I see.” She took another bite. “It’s honored I am that you saved me one.”
“It was a sacrifice,” he said solemnly. “And a peace offering.”
“For what?” The last morsel went into her mouth, and she licked her fingers. “I thought we already had a truce.”
“For this.” From behind his back, he produced a large, soft packet and set it on her lap.
Slanting him a sidewise glance, she used the same hand to slowly unfold the paper. When it lay open across the quilt, she could only stare. “You don’t expect me to wear this, do you?”
This was a scoop-necked crimson gown, complete with an indecently sheer chemise and an embroidered stomacher—a long triangular contraption worn on the front of the dress to cover the laces. Cait looked wistfully at her sturdy shift, skirt, and bodice where they hung on three wall pegs drying. Or rather, no longer dripping. They were far from dry.
“It was all I could find,” he said apologetically. He swept the gown from the bed, shook it out, and held it up. “It’s not all that bad.” He frowned at what was surely a look of pained disbelief on her face. “Is it?”
“It’s fit for an English doxy.”
Despite what looked like a heroic effort to control himself, his lips twitched. “If you think that, I’m forced to conclude you’ve never seen an English doxy.”
Cait closed her eyes and touched her fingertips to her forehead. “It will have to do, I suppose. Temporarily.”
“I’ll leave you to get dressed.” Quickly he stepped outside, closing the door behind him.
Resigned, she rose from the bed, wincing as she put weight on her ankle. When she slipped the chemise over her head, it slithered down her body, feeling like less than nothing. The gown went on next. She tightened the laces, then stared down at the deep, curved neckline. The chemise’s lace trim barely peeked out over the edge. Unlike her shift, it was mere decoration, apparently not meant to preserve the wearer’s modesty.
No chance was she going into public with so much skin expo
sed. She loosened the dress and wiggled out of it, then took her shift off the wall and wrung it out mercilessly.
Jason’s voice came muffled through the door. “Are you decent yet?”
“Just give me peace till I tell you I’m ready,” she called impatiently. She shook out the shift, wishing she had an iron. It was more wrinkled than old Widow MacKenzie’s haggard face.
Well, there was nothing for it. She pulled it on, shivering at the clammy dampness. Though she usually wore it open at the neck, she tightened and tied the ribbon so the collar was snug around her throat. After donning the dress, she lifted the matching stomacher and stared at it stupidly.
With a huff, she limped to open the door. “I cannot figure how to attach this.”
Jason stood on the threshold with his mouth open.
“I know the dress is too big,” she added, although she knew he hadn’t noticed the loose waist. He was too busy gawking up higher, where her rumpled shift filled in the gown’s low neckline. “Don’t you dare laugh.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” he fairly choked out, reaching for the stomacher. He came into the room and shut the door without a single snort, which she imagined was some feat.
“Hold it here,” he instructed, plastering the stomacher against her front. “And then you attach the tabs, like this—”
“I cannot breathe.” The stiff stomacher flattened her belly and pushed up her bust, which made her even happier for the cover of her shift. Experimentally she leaned forward, grunting when the pointed bottom dug into her lower abdomen. “What’s in this thing?” she asked. “Wood?”
“Yes. Or bone.”
Though she’d been half-fooling, Jason sounded serious.
“I don’t suppose you brought me dry stockings?”
“Stockings. Oh, hang it, I—”
“No matter,” she said quickly, preferring not to discuss intimate clothing. “Mine are almost dry.”
While he made their damp garments into a bundle he could hang from his portmanteau, she pulled on the stockings and her garters, lifting her skirt as little as possible. It was no easy task since the stomacher prevented bending over. “How is one supposed to sit a horse while wearing this contraption?”
“Ladies generally ride sidesaddle—”
“Balanced precariously for miles and miles?” Finished, she stood straight and arched her back, her body already protesting the anticipated hours on horseback. “Not a chance. I’ll manage.”
Closing the portmanteau, he slanted her an assessing glance. “Achy, are you?”
“Nay, only practical.” She stepped into her still-wet shoes.
He nodded thoughtfully. “Emerald MacCallum would be practical.”
“Caithren Leslie is practical.” She dug beneath the pillow and slipped his pistol and Adam’s portrait into the gown’s pockets. “Shall we go?”
TWENTY-FOUR
THREE TEDIOUS hours later, Emerald tugged up on the stomacher for the dozenth time. “All England is not flat fields,” she admitted wonderingly. “We’re actually riding through a forest.”
The shadows of leaves overhead made pleasing patterns of light and dark on the road. “Sherwood Forest,” Jason told her.
“Oh!” Her cry of discovery delighted him. “Robin Hood rode here, did he not? I’d like to stop and have a wee look around Robin’s forest.”
He sighed. “Your nap this morning cost us hours. We haven’t even made it to Tuxford. There’s no time for wee looks.”
“By all the saints! First you keep me off my coach, leaving me with no money or belongings so I’m stuck with the likes of you.” She twisted to shoot him a glare. “Now you reckon you can make all the decisions?”
Confound it, she made him sound—and feel—like a tyrant. He pushed on her shoulder to face her forward again. “We cannot afford to let Gothard get too far ahead.”
“I wish to go into the woods.” With a huff, she leaned back against him as she had for much of the ride. She claimed it eased the discomfort of the foreign stomacher. “I hope to find plants I may be needing. My box of herbs was left in my satchel—”
“On the coach. I know,” he said irritably. Her closeness was unsettling. “Is that why you plucked leaves off a plant by the church yesterday?”
“Aye. Featherfew, for the headache. I believe I feel one coming on.” She made a great show of rubbing her forehead, and the movement ran through him like a tremor. “Ten minutes. If I haven’t found what I need by then, we’ll be on our way. I wish to find something to relieve the swelling of my ankle. And something to heal wounds.”
He scooted back in the saddle, but it didn’t help. “Wounds?”
“Like the one I have,” she pointed out, “thanks to your sword.”
“Very well, then,” he muttered, annoyed. She was entirely too talented at triggering his guilt. “Ten minutes.”
He guided Chiron off the road and dismounted, tethering him to a tree. Then he reached to help her down.
She pushed his hands away. “I can do it.” But after a few clumsy attempts, she folded her arms over her well-covered chest, looking even more annoyed than he was. “Nay, I cannot. How am I supposed to move with this board strapped to my middle?”
Hiding a smile, he reached for her again, catching a whiff of her rain-washed scent. As soon as her feet hit the ground he released her, grateful to break the contact.
She flexed her knees, stroking Chiron’s silvery mane. “What do you call him?”
“Who?” he asked, distracted.
“Your horse.” She slanted him a look, took a few tentative, limping steps, then headed off into the woods.
“Chiron,” he said, following her. “I call him Chiron.”
A giggle floated back through the trees. “Think yourself a hero, do you?”
“A hero?” His answering laugh was humorless. “Not a chance.”
“Jason, the Greek hero.” She knelt to inspect some small plants by the base of a tree, allowing him to catch up to her. “One-blade,” she murmured, sounding pleased. “Jason’s guardian was the centaur Chiron, aye?”
“Aye. I mean, yes. My sister loves the legends; it was she who named my horse.” Leaning against the tree, he frowned at the top of her head as he watched her pick a few blue-green leaves. She seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about plants. Knowledgeable about lots of things. “How is it you know that tale? A Greek myth. And the English tales of Robin.”
Slipping the leaves into her pocket, she rose and wandered off, her gaze trained on the damp, dark earth. “You think me an ignorant fool then, do you?”
“No.” That wasn’t what he’d been thinking at all. Far from a fool, she was quick and creative—at least when it came to inventing lies. “I don’t know what to think of you,” he said honestly, following her again. “Or what to do with you, for that matter.”
She whirled so fast he nearly ran into her. The dress she detested swirled around her legs. “What do you mean, what to do with me? You promised you’d take me to London.”
“And I will—”
“This arrangement wasn’t my choice.” She appraised him for a few heartbeats before crouching to inspect another bit of greenery. “But I don’t mean to be trouble.”
Despite himself, his gaze was drawn to the nape of her long, slim neck. “Of course you’re trouble.” He shrugged uncomfortably, grateful her eyes were on the plant. He didn’t want to know what color the hazel had turned to now. “But it’s no fault of yours. All girls are trouble.”
She straightened to face him. “All girls?” The two words were laced with challenge.
He took a defensive step back. “Are you not going to take any of that plant?”
“It’s useless. I was hoping it was moonwort, but of course it’s too late in the year.” With a look that said the conversation was far from over, she meandered along and knelt by another plant. “Surely your mother wasn’t trouble?”
“Her above all.” He sighed, his mind far in the past—a p
ast he preferred to forget. “She abandoned four children, effectively leaving me, the eldest, to raise the rest.”
She glanced up. “Abandoned you?”
He surveyed the fragrant forest, the cloudy sky, anything to avoid the pity in her gaze.
The last thing he wanted was this girl’s sympathy.
“Well, she died, which amounted to the same thing. She insisted on following my father into battle against Cromwell. Not a woman’s place, but—”
“Not a woman’s place?” Shading her eyes with a hand, she sent him a glare clearly meant to intimidate. “Who are you to tell women where their places are, Jason Chase?”
He blinked. “I imagine I should expect such an attitude from a girl who does a man’s job.”
“If running Leslie is a man’s job, then aye, I do one.” Fallen leaves crunched beneath her as she rose. “Given your attitude toward women, I expect your three siblings are sisters?”
“Only one.” Thinking of his sister prompted a smile. “But Kendra proved enough trouble for three. And still trouble—she refuses to get married, at least to anyone remotely suitable.”
“Poor, poor Jason.” Her commiserating noises were clearly less than sincere. “Imagine a lass wanting to choose her own husband.” She came near, her skirts swishing again, drawing his attention to the curves underneath. “Imagine a lass wanting a husband at all. They’re all like you, thinking they can keep their women in place.”
Those changeable eyes looked green now. He backed up until he bumped smack against a tree and could go no farther—at least not without looking like more of a fool than he already felt.
She moved closer again. Too close. “It’s sorry I am if your mam was a halliracket, but—”
“A what?”
“An irresponsible person.” She fixed her gaze on his. “But my mam would say a scabbit sheep canna smit a hail herself.”
He crossed his arms and stared back at her, his mind a complete blank when confronted with such gibberish.
“One evil person cannot infect the whole. You cannot judge all women by your own isolated experiences.”
