“Still, it could not have been pleasant.”
Ava lifted her hand and ran a gentle finger along the wound, and the sensation made the hair at the back of Nicholas's neck rise up. For some reason, every nerve in his body was focused on her touch, and this close, he saw that her eyelashes were long enough to sweep like fans down against her cheeks.
Stunning. But he brushed the thought away.
Ava looked surprised at herself and stepped back.
“None of this matters. I can't help you. I don't know anything about lost little English girls.”
“You don't have to. You know the Highlands, don't you?”
She gave him a wry look.
“You found me tied up and about to burned just last night. What do you think I know about anything?”
“Perhaps we can help each other. You're obviously looking for your family...”
She stared at him, humor warring with disbelief.
“What?”
“Aren't you? I figured you had been displaced by the war. You were dressed as a boy to go find them...”
Ava laughed, a bright sound that trilled through the still morning air like birdsong.
“My goodness, you do tell yourself stories,” she said, almost fondly. “As a matter of fact, I am not.”
At his inquiring look, she shrugged.
“I told you before. I'm Ava Fitzpatrick, Patrick Blair's bastard. My father's the Laird of Clan Blair, and I do as I please.”
“And what pleases you?”
“To roam. To raid. To do what I like when I like. I had a band of raiders last summer to go after the cattle. Plenty of money and trade for that, and I made Clan Blair richer besides. I should see about gathering the lads again this summer, but with the fighting going again, too many of them will probably decide that going for soldiering will be easier.”
Nicholas couldn't help staring.
“Raiding. You're a raider?”
She flashed him a bright grin, her sharp teeth white in her tanned face.
“You need sharp eyes and good instincts for raiding, Englishman. What you carry in your trews matters not at all.”
“And your father allows this?”
A number of emotions flickered across Ava's face, nothing that made sense to Nicholas. He could sense an anger there, and a sorrow, and something that tore at his heart even as he couldn't quite grasp it.
“My father allows me to go my own way. He takes the cattle I bring home as well as any news of the other clans. I am a free agent, freer than any woman I have ever known, and you, Nicholas Whitfield, have nothing to say about it.”
It dizzied him for a moment. Where he came from, women cleaved close to the home and the hearth. Proper women did not roam. He had known that in the Highlands, women were freer, but he had never imagined anything like this.
He knew, somehow, that Ava was unusual, a novelty, as she had said. He told himself that it was not his place to judge or to take her to task, but still, a part of him protested it, deep in the quietest place of his soul.
But she is all alone...
Nicholas brushed that aside, because he had more important things to think about now.
“It does not matter to me what you do—”
“Generous of you, since I never asked,” Ava drawled.
“—but you can help me. The people here will not speak to me. They surely will not tell me about any lost children. But they would speak to you, wouldn't they?”
“Assuming that they don't realize that I might have stolen their cows, perhaps they would. But why in the world should I help you?”
“I'll pay you...”
“From what? That estate that may or may not be yours? I have my own money.”
Nicholas cast around, because it felt as if something was slipping away from him. Ava was, as she called herself, free. He had no way to compel her if she did not wish to help him. He could only ask her.
“You're not this hard-hearted that you would turn your back on a little girl who may still be alive. Who may need me.”
“Of course, I am. They say that I'm as cold as the winds that whip around Clan Blair's territory.”
Her words were bright and sharp, but Nicholas sensed something underneath it, something wavering and almost soft. She wasn't as resistant as she might have been to helping him, and he pushed his advantage.
“You stayed with me. Last night. You could have left. You might have even robbed me, but you didn't, did you?”
She gave him an irritated look, and Nicholas was surprised by the impulse to kiss the wrinkle that appeared between her brows. He didn't, because he knew that he was already pressing his luck. If he pushed it much further, it might break.
“You are making me sorry I didn't rob you,” she growled. “I could have made off with your sword and your horse and left you trembling by the fire.”
Nicholas smiled at her.
“You are probably going to be sorrier from time to time that you didn't rob me and leave me when you had the chance. But you didn't. And right now, I am asking for your help.”
She gave him a long look, and he found that he couldn't read her at all. When she went still, she was like a stone.
Then she shrugged as if they were speaking of something of no consequence at all.
“All right. You can pay for my food, and I will do what I can. I am going west and then up the coast, and you can come with me. All the clans and crofts foster. In the old days, we sent children between the different territories to learn about ways that weren't their own. These days, the clans take in orphans left behind by the war.”
“It is the same in England, though mostly among the noble families.”
“Not the same at all. We believe here that all children deserve homes. If your Catherine made it this far north, she would have a home, I would think, even if it was only a mat in front of the kitchen fire. There's a chance, a very, very slim one, that she is with someone up the coast. We are almost directly north of Carlisle. It is not likely, but it is possible.”
“So, you'll help me.”
She hesitated.
“Don't touch me,” she said bluntly. “Not like you did this morning.”
Despite his absurd luck in recruiting Ava's help, Nicholas's first impulse was to protest. What had happened between them this morning, what had turned the world upside down for him, and for a bare and precious few minutes, had made him forget about his quest, was too important to let go of.
Then he looked into her eyes, and to his shock, he saw something like fear lurking there. Something about what they had done earlier had made her afraid, and he almost took a physical step back.
“All right,” he said with a nod. “I won't.”
She looked into his face as if he were a mirror. Nicholas could almost feel her turning things over in her mind, weighing what she knew against what she guessed, wondering if she was making a terrible mistake. Finally, however, she shrugged.
“All right. You can come with me. When I hit Caradoc lands, however, that's where we should part ways.”
“Why there?”
“Because that's where some of my men are, and I may able to convince some of them that this summer is for cows rather than for the drum. Unless you fancy a career as a raider yourself, Englishman?”
“No. Certainly not,” Nicholas said, and when Ava laughed, he had to admit how very stuffy he sounded.
“I am not a raider, I am a knight.”
She shrugged.
“Have it your way. All I know is that no cows sent me overseas to fight for France.”
Her words should have enraged him, sent him into a fury. Indeed, he thought if anyone else had said them, that he would have been furious. Instead, this was Ava, so blunt and at the bottom of it, so kind, and all he could do was laugh.
For some reason, something about this strange, strange woman and her forthright way of looking at him, the spark of mischief that danced in her eyes like a flame, made him feel like laughi
ng when he had thought that that was killed in him forever.
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chapter 7
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Ava had to admit that traveling with the Englishman was better than traveling alone. At the very least, he had a horse, and it was far more pleasant to ride than walk. They alternated walking and riding, and when they walked, Nicholas led the horse, the gelding's head between them.
“Shame we'll have to leave him if you go far north.”
Nicholas frowned at her, his brows coming together in a way that made her want to smile. In daylight, he was an almost shockingly good-looking man, blond-haired and blue-eyed in the way the Northern English were. He was tall and lean, and between that and his coloring, the people of Ava's clan would have said that he had some Norse blood in him, from the raiders who had once terrorized the isles three hundred years ago or more.
“Why should we do that?”
“Because of the mountains. This big boy is made for the plow, aren't you, darling?” She paused to thump the gelding's neck with a friendly smack, and he nuzzled her shoulder in reply.
“I don't see—”
“Never been up to the mountains before? It's too steep and too narrow. I've heard that there are horses that can handle the slopes and the scree, but they sound half out of legend to me. Part goat, perhaps. You put this big fellow on a slope like that, and he'll slip and fall. He'll never make some of the turns. No, at some point, you'll have to sell him and move onward on foot.”
Nicholas was silent for a moment.
“I hadn't thought of that.”
“No?”
“No. And I should have. I came north quickly. Perhaps too quickly. The monk who was caring for me told me to wait, and to heal, but...”
“But you couldn't. You couldn't bear it,” Ava said quietly. She thought of the letter in her bag, the one that bore the seal of Clan Blair on it, and that only one man in all the world was permitted to use. She knew she should throw that letter out, but no matter how many times she almost did, she couldn't bear it either.
“No.”
“You still have a choice, you know,” Ava said, gazing out over the arable land they were passing. The sun was setting, giving the empty fields a red cast that stopped just short of being bloody. Ava didn't allow herself to believe in omens or superstition, but this made her shiver.
“You could still turn back. Prepare properly and send runners north. You have some money, and perhaps you would be better off putting it to good use rather than simply running yourself to rags in a place where you are not welcome.”
Nicholas glared at her.
“Because you have always stayed out of places where you were not welcome, little raider.”
Ava had to laugh at that.
“We are not talking about me right now. We are talking about you.”
“As a matter of fact, we are not talking about either of us. At the end of it, at the very bottom of it, we are talking about a little girl who was kidnapped from her dying mother, one who might be suffering.”
“Or might be dead,” Ava said.
Though it made Nicholas flinch, he nodded steadily.
“Yes. Or she might be dead. I understand that. I accept it. But I also know that there is a chance that she is not dead. And that she needs me.”
Ava nodded reluctantly. It would be one thing if Nicholas was charging north and looking for a little pile of bones bleaching in some field, believing he was chasing a living girl. Instead, it seemed as if Nicholas was terribly aware of what he might find. He was braced for it.
She wasn't sure if that made it better or worse.
They made camp not long after and shared a dinner of sausage and more of the bread that he had stowed away. It wasn't until they went to lie down that Ava saw him hesitate.
“Well, Englishman?” She was tired and footsore, and she knew that once she lay down, she would likely be out like a blown candle.
“You said that we weren't to touch like we did before,” he growled. “And stop calling me Englishman, I have a name, and you know it.”
Ava snorted.
“So are the Southlands so very warm you never slept with other soldiers?”
“Of course, I have, but none of those soldiers were women. And none of them held a knife to my throat and told me that she would only travel with me if I kept my hands to myself.”
“I held a knife to your throat because you were irritating me. And this is just sleep, unless you find yourself so utterly desperate for a woman that you're willing to take me.”
Nicholas frowned at that, and Ava shrugged with irritation.
“Do you not know the difference between rutting and simply sleeping? Or is everything I have heard about what English soldiers do with one another true?”
Nicholas stared at her.
“I have never heard a woman speak as you do.”
Ava put her hands on her hips, oddly enjoying his offense even as she was weary to death of it from others.
“How many women have you truly spoken to?”
“Enough.”
“And were they really speaking to you, or were they flirting with you or had some interest in making sure you were in a good mood for some reason?”
Nicholas frowned, and Ava shook her head.
“When women speak alone, they speak like me, and some of them, the sweetest farmers and weavers and mothers that you might find, put me to shame. Now, can we simply just lie down? You walked the feet off of us today, and tomorrow will be no different, I imagine.”
When Nicholas finally lay down and stretched the blanket around them, however, Ava realized her mistake. It was one thing when she was just another anonymous body in a group of people who were trying to keep warm. It was another thing entirely when it was her and Nicholas alone, the fire banked down to its coals.
He pressed against her back as if they had done it all their lives, one arm curled around her hips. The feel of his body pressed against hers made her swallow hard, turning a little back and forth, until Nicholas growled and pulled her closer.
“Lie still and go to sleep,” he grumbled.
He was warm, better than a wool blanket, and Ava was startled in an obscure way about how well they seemed to fit with one another. With all their clothes on against the chill of April, it was hardly something that even the most desperate man might find erotic.
Ava thought that Nicholas must have dropped off to sleep when he whispered, “Ava?”
“What is it?”
“I wouldn't have to be so desperate for a woman to want you,” he said quietly, but when she didn't answer, there was nothing else.
Ava had thought that she would be dead to the world until morning, but for some reason, his simple words kept her up for a long while, staring into the coals of the fire, wondering why it felt so good to have an Englishman she barely knew pressed against her as if they had known each other all their lives.
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chapter 8
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It was sometime past noon the next day when Ava sat up straight in the saddle behind Nicholas, pressing her hand down on his shoulder to get a better look left and right.
Nicholas grunted when she pressed down harder to get a better vantage point.
“I'm not a stone you can climb on as you please. Get down and climb a tree if you are so inclined.”
“At that great stone in front of us, turn left.”
“There's no trail there.”
“Are you giving me my weight in journey bread not to listen to my directions?”
Nicholas had to admit that she had the right of it there, and he led the horse into what seemed like a thick brush. The whippy branches of the trees slashed at his face, and he glared back at Ava when he realized that she was hunched down behind his back, avoiding the worst of it.
“Is this to pay me back for something I did?”
>
“Do you need to be paid back for something you did? And don't complain, it will get better soon.”
Nicholas realized a few minutes later that she was right. What had looked like impenetrable forest opened up to what looked to him like a deer track. It was narrow, barely wide enough for the horse to traverse. They could not have walked two abreast easily, and walking three abreast would have been nearly impossible.
“Keep to the right,” Ava said, and for some reason, he noticed that she was holding tighter to his waist. There was a tension to her voice that hadn't been there before. Nicholas came to two sudden and unwelcome realizations. The first was that he liked Ava holding on to him a lot more than he should, given how they clashed against one another. The second thing was that Ava was nervous.
What under Heaven could make a creature like Ava nervous?
As they traveled the twisting narrow path, Nicholas kept his eyes open, but there was precious little to see. The trees and the hedges meant that his line of sight ended just a few feet beyond where he was standing, and the forest was alive with the sounds of spring, the rustlings of the birds and awakening rabbits and badgers rattling the undergrowth.
Through it, Ava kept tapping his thigh, telling him to keep to the right, and he grit his teeth because she was right. He wasn't bringing her along not to listen to her.
Finally, when they passed by some barrier that Nicholas couldn't see at first, Ava went limp against him, letting out a deep breath.
“Thank goodness that's over.”
“What under Heaven are you talking about?”
Ava nodded behind him.
“You can see if you want. Go to the edge of the deer path, but don't step off of it. Look back the way we came.”
Baffled, Nicholas did as she said, and when he saw what she was talking about, he swore loudly. When he looked back the way they had come, he could see that there was a steep drop to the left of the deer track, shielded from view by what he now realized was a deliberate growth of trash pine, weeds, and thin hedges. If they had stumbled off to the right, the sheer sides of the ravine would have ensured that they fell some few hundred feet to what looked like very sharp rocks below.
The Highlander’s Promise (The Highlands Warring Scottish Romance) (A Medieval Historical Romance Book) Page 4
