Chapter 8
Frustration knotted through Greer as they traveled in silence. Drake and Bean would be watching her wherever they went. Making sure she didn’t steal. Making sure she was living an honest life.
Ironically, that was all she’d ever wanted—an honest life.
Emotion welled in the back of her throat. She’d had that kind of existence and loved it. Before the wealthy noble took Mac and threw away her years of hard work.
If she couldn’t steal while she traveled, she’d have to do it near Lochmaben and in the surrounding villages. She was no fool—she knew how dangerous it would be to lift so many purses in such proximity. After only a couple of days, all the villagers would be on the lookout for her.
And if she were caught…
Nay, she wouldn’t think of that. She couldn’t. Not with the price so high.
She clenched her fist with the determination to rescue Mac, no matter what it took.
They did not stop to rest that afternoon and instead ate as they traveled, but whatever conversation had blossomed between them the day prior fell away into nothing. Tension hummed in the air, and Greer had been the cause.
Guilt caught at her, followed immediately by the grip of helplessness at her predicament.
The makings of a solution did not come to her until they were at the inn.
The establishment was of finer quality than the one the night before, its slate roof absent of white-streaked stains and its tavern area spread with fresh rushes that tempered the oily odor of tallow candles.
They had few rooms to spare, and though Drake had been able to procure three for their group, they would not be near one another.
Suddenly a possibility blossomed in Greer’s thoughts.
She could leave.
They had journeyed quite a distance already. The trip to Lochmaben would be considerably reduced by how far they’d traveled by horseback. It would give her the opportunity to pilfer the amount she needed while traveling.
But the idea did not bring her the relief she had hoped. Especially when she sat across from Drake and his dark eyes settled on hers. There was something in them she couldn’t read, something that made a place in her chest grow warm.
After a few minutes passed without being approached for food and ale, Bean darted off to track down the barmaid, leaving her alone with Drake for a short moment. It was then he finally spoke for the first time since he’d caught her stealing in the village. “Greer, I—”
Bean came rushing back and plopped down on the bench with the pent-up energy of a boy who hadn’t been able to run about all day. While Greer was left exhausted from the ride, no doubt Bean was grateful for a chance to stretch his long, skinny legs.
“She’s coming,” the lad said with a wide grin. “The innkeeper needed help with some blankets.” He abruptly cut off and looked between them, his eyes narrowed with suspicion, but he didn’t say anything more.
The ache was back in Greer’s chest. She might never see Bean again after departing tonight. Or Drake.
She could recall too vividly how comfortable Drake’s body had been while he cradled her to sleep on the horse.
And how the moonlight had caressed his naked torso, unveiling his sculpted muscle in shadowed, sensual detail.
Her cheeks blazed hot and she turned her attention to the bag at her side rather than allow Drake to see her flushed face.
Not that she ought to allow her attention to stray for even an instant.
She still had the man’s purse neither Bean nor Drake had seen her lift.
Which meant she hadn’t been forced to return it.
While she hadn’t had an opportunity to count out the coins, she guessed there were at least half a dozen, given the way the metal knocked about one another when she’d discreetly shaken it.
Mayhap there would be more.
“Is something amiss?” Bean asked.
“Nay,” Greer and Drake said at the same time.
She frowned to herself. She knew why she was suddenly acting strangely, but why was Drake?
Bean’s eyes narrowed further still, his skepticism evident. “What is—”
Before he could finish the question, the barmaid showed up with a platter of food, and his mouth was too busy for inquiries. But Greer had not forgotten and continued to observe Drake through the meal. Aye, he was indeed watching her, his expression unreadable.
As full of energy as Bean had been at the start of the meal, he was practically falling asleep where he sat after he’d eaten his fill, which made encouraging him up the flight of stairs to their rooms an easy task.
Drake led the way, as sure and confident as always.
Greer hesitated outside her door as Drake showed the lad to his room, hoping he would turn back to her and finish what it was he had to say.
He did exactly that and her heart galloped with a frenzy of anticipation.
His lips parted as if he wished to speak as he studied her.
Something twisted inside her and told her she wouldn’t like what he had to say.
Was it another lecture on morality? Surely, it wasn’t a proposition that would make him like every other man who had offered to help her.
But what if it was? Or mayhap it was something that alluded to the sadness lingering in his gaze, something that would make abandoning him impossible.
“Rest well,” she quickly said before he could fill the quiet between them with words she could not stand to hear.
He nodded once. “And ye.”
She clutched her bag tight to her chest and pushed through her door.
She unplaited her hair and pulled off her shoes as she waited for his heavy footsteps strode away.
When the sound of his departure dissipated, she tugged her bag open and dug out the small purse she’d taken.
It was newer, the leather still stiff as she loosened its laces and dumped the contents into her hand.
Only five coins glinted dully up at her.
It was better than nothing, but such a bounty would be needed dozens of times over to equal the fifty marks she required.
Disappointment left her limbs heavy, and her hands sagged into her lap.
There was nothing for it—she would have to depart the following morning before Drake and Bean woke.
To venture out on her own so she could steal enough funds to afford her brother’s freedom.
A knock sounded at the door, so unexpected that she nearly dropped the precious coins. She curled her hand into a fist and silently returned the money back into the purse and then into her bag before cautiously standing. “Who is it?”
When no one answered, she crept closer, her skin prickling with the awareness of exactly who it might be.
Drake.
There shouldn’t be an attraction to such a consideration, but she could not quell the flip of her stomach at the very idea.
If he were coming to her in the evening, it could doubtless be for only one purpose.
It was not as unappealing as she had once thought.
Indeed, an intoxicating warmth spreading in her veins said it was rather the opposite.
And if he could be encouraged to procure the fifty marks, well, better the devil she knew…
Drake didn’t knock a second time. He shouldn’t have knocked at all. Going to Greer’s room was a poor decision, as his gut had told him from the first, but he’d foolishly ignored that.
This lass didn’t need some man approaching her, especially not in the middle of the night. But how could he speak candidly with Bean nearby?
The lad would no doubt be listening to the entire conversation and offer commentary throughout. As if the right words would not already be hard enough to muster up without the overly righteous squire within earshot.
Aye, Drake ought to go, return to his chambers before someone saw him. Heaven help him if Bean happened to catch sight of him before Greer’s bedchamber.
He stepped back, fully prepared to leave, when the door swung open. Greer stood there with her hair unbound from its usual braid, the rich auburn tresses falling in silky waves that scented the air with something floral he couldn’t name but found he liked far more than he should.
“Forgive me,” he said.
One auburn brow lifted. “For being here?” Bemusement played over her lips, an action that appeared to be intentionally sensual. She opened the door wider in silent invitation.
He stiffened at the impropriety. “I can speak from where I am.”
She glanced about and furrowed her brows. “Where everyone can see ye? Mayhap just come in while no one is about, aye?”
Apparently, there was no good way to go about a private conversation without compromising her, so he swiftly stepped into her room.
She closed the door behind him, locking him alone with her in the small space.
The familiar sweet scent of her was everywhere in an intimate way he could not help but acknowledge.
He swallowed, and he turned to her. Her feet were bare below the frayed hem of her homespun dress.
They were as slender and fair as the rest of her.
Seeing her thus, so casual and at ease, felt like a glimpse into her private life, one he had no right to view.
Suddenly the discomfort of intruding on her intensified. He truly should not have come.
“I…” He pulled his eyes from her feet and met her gaze. “Forgive me for my anger with ye earlier today.”
“I stole. Ye’re honorable.” She shrugged as if that was all the explanation needed. “Is that why ye’re here?”
It was, and it wasn’t. He needed to explain to her how he had once lived so that she wouldn’t feel judged. So she would understand. While the words had come easily enough as he thought them before, they were difficult to force aloud.
The way he had lived was never something he talked about, it was just something he had done. Survival. Struggle. One day at a time.
She stepped toward him and ran a hand through her hair, sweeping it back to reveal her bonny face in the firelight. And she was indeed bonny. Wide eyes fringed with dark lashes, a lush mouth, a pert nose sprinkled with freckles as perfectly as God had distributed stars among the night sky.
“I understand,” Drake said abruptly. “Why ye steal.”
She gave a mirthless laugh. “So ye keep saying.”
“I wasna always so honorable,” he admitted.
“A wealthy knight’s son with too much time?” she surmised.
He frowned with distaste. “Nay.”
She tilted her head in silent question.
“I was…” A knot of tension tightened at the back of his neck. “For years, I was a reiver.”
The word was like ash in his mouth, the byproduct of his razed youth and the sacrifices he’d been forced to make.
For reivers were thieves. They resided on the border between England and Scotland, their lot in life cast so poorly, they had only the prospect of stealing to keep food in the bellies of their families.
Reivers were men without honor.
Greer laughed again and shook her head. “Ye expect me to believe that?”
“Aye, because it’s true.” He ran his hands through his hair, wishing he had something to do with his hands, to take his focus from what he was about to tell her.
“But yer da was a knight,” she protested.
“An English knight.” He strode over to the fire and crouched to put another log into the flames, though it wasn’t at all necessary to do so. “He was killed in a fight against the Scottish.”
“But yer Scottish.”
“Aye, on my mum’s side. When he died, she had no one to help with my sisters and me.
My da’s liege lord gave me a sack of coins to compensate for his death, but it doesna last long when there are accounts to settle and when there are so many mouths to feed.
Especially with people we’d once assumed to be friends being suddenly hostile.
” He watched the flames lick greedily over the tinder, curling and crackling at errant bits of splintered wood.
“We had no choice but to travel back to Scotland.”
“Ye’re really being honest, aye?” Greer’s voice drew his attention from the burning log.
He straightened from where he knelt by the hearth.
“Aye. English friends turned spiteful when we had little ties to England after my da’s death.
They no longer saw us as any part English but as their enemy instead.
There were many days we went without food, back when I was too young to make more money to feed us all. ”
Greer chewed her bottom lip as she watched him, her expression hesitant as if she were afraid to believe him.
“Ye say I dinna know hunger,” he said. “But I can still recall the sharpness of it gnawing at my stomach. The way ye look at the grass and wonder if eating it might somehow stop that awful pain. I knew nights on the open road where we had no’ the coin for an inn—when I couldna sleep for fear something might happen to my mum or my sisters.
I lay awake, flinching at every sound, holding this verra sword.
” He set his palm on the sword at his hip.
“Ye see me in my finery, but it wasna always this way. What ye dinna see are the years where we barely survived, when I went without so my sisters and mum could be fed and clothed and safe.”
“I dinna know.” Greer went to him, her bare feet silent on the scuffed wood floor. She reached for his hand.
Her caress was light, tender, and it soothed a ragged place inside him he hadn’t known could be reached.
Those lovely green eyes searched his gaze now, seeming to see down into his very soul.
But he didn’t look away as he might ordinarily do.
Let her see him—let her realize why he rose above a life of thievery now, and see every horrible, hateful struggle he had lived through.
Let her see that he understood.
“I never speak of such things,” he admitted.
Greer ran a finger over his jaw, the caress feather-light. “Ye've no’ ever told anyone before?”
“Nay.” He gently withdrew her hand from his face lest the temptation to touch her in return got the best of him.
“My da was the most honorable man I’ve ever known,” he continued.
“I’ve always done what I could to be worthy of being his son.
Having to resort to thievery to survive cost a piece of me I willna ever be able to get back. ”
She stared up at him, her eyes wide with an appreciation for what they shared.
He should back away, put space between them.
Except that their closeness, and the way she saw him so completely, held him rooted in place.
His hand rose and lightly brushed the edge of her jawline.
Her skin was warm against his fingertips and made him crave to brush the rest of his fingers over her cheek.
“I dinna want that for ye,” he whispered. “I want to protect ye.”
She gave a gentle exhale that teased against his chin as tears sparkled in her eyes.