Chapter 7
William kept his distance from Kinsey as the camp disbanded, and they set off for Edinburgh. They would arrive early despite the four days journey to get there. It was time he’d initially planned on using to take Mabrick Castle.
He would not be attempting a second attack. Not with the guards now on high alert. And especially not when the first attack had come at so great a cost.
The tension around his chest was more than he could bear and made the dull ache of the arrow wound at his side pale in comparison. If he’d been forewarned about that damned weapon, he could have altered the way they broached the castle. They could have avoided so many deaths.
And Kinsey had known.
He glanced to where she rode on her own, her back straight and proud beneath a cloak against the onslaught of rain. She claimed not to be interested in him, but her reaction in the cave had suggested otherwise.
The way she’d closed her eyes when he’d touched her, how she’d licked her lips as though preparing for a kiss, the quickening of her breath when he grazed her bow-shaped mouth with his fingertips.
Aye, he understood women well from years of thoroughly pleasuring them.
He was aware when a woman was interested and when she was not.
Kinsey was most certainly interested.
William guided his horse next to hers. She stiffened.
Ah, then she was still upset.
“It was presumptuous of ye,” he said.
She shifted her focus from the endless path cut through the forest ahead of them and slowly regarded him. The auburn curls framing her face were wet with the rain, dark and clinging to her fair skin. “What was?”
“Ye thinking I took ye into my army so I could have ye as my leman.”
Her mouth parted in indignation. “I didn’t...”
He raised a brow at her feeble protest. They both knew she’d said as much in the cave.
She narrowed her eyes at him, ever as feisty as she’d always been.
William angled his horse to pull a large branch hanging overhead in their path. A twinge at his side reminded him to have a care for his injury. “I took ye on because ye’re a good archer. No’ because I wanted ye.”
He released the branch, and beads of water cascaded down from the leaves, joining the rain and spilling over him.
A flush colored her cheeks, all the more appealing by the knowledge she didn’t often blush. Not like the other women with whom he’d flirted.
“I see.” She swiped at the wet curls on her brow, pushing them back. A small white scar, the size of his thumbnail, was suddenly visible at her hairline. How had he not noticed that before?
“Ye’re right,” she said in the span of silence. “I was presumptuous. I assumed ye wanted to kiss me.”
“Oh, I did.” He was free with his admission, knowing none of the others on the trail around them could hear. Their words would be drowned out by the falling rain, and the thick cloaks pulled over everyone’s heads.
Kinsey turned her wide blue eyes on him in surprise, and he chuckled. “Ye’re a bonny lass. Of course, I wanted to kiss ye.” He winked. “Mayhap more than that.”
She pulled in a breath. Now her cheeks were nearly as red as her hair.
He grinned at the accomplishment. “But that doesna mean I want ye as my leman. Ye’ve far more value to me as an archer.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said primly. “I’ve no interest in being anything other than yer archer.”
He hadn’t imagined her response to him in the cave and thus was aware of the lie of her claim. But he didn’t press the issue. Instead, he shifted the topic so their conversation could be left in her thoughts to simmer.
“Is yer mum English, or yer da?” He nonchalantly asked the question, as though it were merely a curiosity. And it was to an extent.
He needed to know where her loyalties truly lay. With an English clip to her words and a brother who worked for one of King Edward’s earls, she might not be fully with Scotland.
William had been willing to brush aside the topic of her brother offering her information, but it was certainly not forgotten. Not when her loyalties could be questioned. And not when such knowledge could help a future attempt for Mabrick Castle end in victory.
Kinsey didn’t answer right away.
“Ye know ye can trust me, aye?” He winked at her. Lasses always loved when he winked.
She frowned at him but still replied. “My da, but he’s dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said solemnly. And he was. Having grown up without a mother, he knew what it was like to lose a parent early in life. “I dinna know my mum. She succumbed to fever soon after my birth. Did ye know yer da?”
He popped open a wineskin of ale, took a sip, then offered it to her.
She accepted it with a nod of thanks. “I was young, but my brother was on the battlefield with him when it happened. My da was an English knight.” She drank, leaning her head back, so her long, slender neck arched gracefully.
“Fighting the Scottish?” William surmised.
Kinsey lowered the wineskin and attached the dangling cork in the opening before handing it back to him. “Aye. We were living in England at the time.”
Her lip curled slightly.
“I take it ye dinna enjoy living there?” he pressed.
She scowled and gazed ahead at the muddy trail. “I didn’t like how they treated us after my da died. They wouldn’t sell us food, and they refused work to my mum. We had nothing—she was a widow with four small children, and not one of them offered aid.”
He couldn’t imagine Kinsey as a helpless child. Nothing about her seemed helpless. But then, he knew well the cruelties of the English, even if he’d never gone hungry as she had. “Bastards,” William muttered.
Kinsey’s fingers tightened perceptively on her reins. “Aye.”
The chirping songs of birds and the rhythmic thud of their horse’s hooves on the forest floor filled the space between them.
The sky began to darken as the sun they couldn’t see began to sink. They would be stopping to make camp soon. Which meant William needed to readjust the focus of their conversation.
“Why does yer brother work for an English earl?” He made the question sound like the idea had suddenly come to him, as though he hadn’t been thinking of it since the cave.
Except that he had.
Kinsey scoffed. “He’s got it in his head that he can be a knight like our da was.” She shook her head in obvious aggravation. “They’ll never accept him, but he’ll never stop hoping.”
“Ye dinna think we can get him to join us?” he asked.
She laughed at that. “Drake would never turn his back on the Earl of Werrick. Not for all the coin in the world.”
“Has he no’ ever considered being a knight for Scotland?”
Kinsey lifted a single shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t think he’s ever tried. He set his mind on an English knighthood and has never been drawn away since.”
“Even if they’re using him?” William rubbed at the back of his neck. “They’ll do that. Use one’s dreams against them in an effort to get anything they want.”
He let his words sink in before continuing. “We’re aiding the new king and restoring his kingdom. He will be verra grateful to those who come to his aid. I would no’ be surprised if he granted knighthoods to many of his loyal supporters.”
She didn’t reply, but then she didn’t need to. The seed had been sown.
If they came upon Drake again, William anticipated the conversation between brother and sister might go differently, and that Kinsey may persuade her brother to join them.
Having the detailed knowledge of someone who worked for the English would give William and his army a great advantage. And what could it hurt if it also helped a man finally achieve his dream?
Kinsey had been grateful for William’s company.
Fib’s loss had been felt in the oppressive silence of the journey and made her heart ache more than she could bear.
What was more, she couldn’t get the idea of Drake becoming a Scottish knight out of her head.
Not after William rode ahead to plan out their stop with Duff nor when they made camp on the outskirts of a village just over the Scottish border.
She saw to her horse and mulled over what Sir William had suggested.
If Drake helped them take back English land, he could finally have his dream. Her heart swelled at the thought.
She couldn’t remember her father. She’d been too young when he had died. But she did remember how Drake had worked so hard to ensure they didn’t starve. How he’d been younger than even Fib when he first joined the reivers. Kinsey knew what he did was brave but hadn’t fully appreciated the danger.
Not until now.
He had sacrificed everything to ensure their safety and comfort. Even his morals in running with reivers. And now, when his work turned to the English, who had caused them so much pain over the years. All to ensure his family could live.
But what if he didn’t have to?
What if he worked with Scotland instead?
She wished she could go back to that conversation they’d had at the tavern. That she could offer him the opportunity to join them, instead of returning to Werrick Castle.
Sir William approached as she finished feeding and watering her horse. “We’re going to the tavern for ale and a hot meal. Do ye want to join us?”
Kinsey considered the offer. She didn’t much care for taverns and all the drunk men inside.
As if sensing her hesitation, Sir William nodded toward Duff. “Otherwise, ye’ll be left with whatever he cooks up on the fire.” He grimaced.
Kinsey had to laugh at that. The night before had been a strange concoction of various plants Duff had found in the forest and cooked alongside roasted rabbit.
The rabbit was good, tender meat and crisped skin.
The forest plants, however, tasted exactly what one would expect forest plants to taste like. Dirt and disappointment.
She made a face. “Aye, I’ll come.”
William grinned, and her heart gave a funny little flip.
God help her if his charm was finally beginning to take effect.