Chapter 10 #2
“MacLaren,” Colin called to him, and signaled Iain to ride alongside him.
Iain kicked his horse into a trot and brought it back to a walk beside Colin.
“I know ye are a Jacobite, MacLaren.”
Iain opened his mouth to deny the charge.
“No, dinnae try to lie to me. I’m not an eejit, but dinnae worry, we are MacDonalds, and even though I would not follow the pretender, I would never be disloyal to Scotland.”
“I’m glad to hear that. Many MacDonalds lost their lives during the battle, and I am proud to have fought alongside them.”
“Aye, my brothers fought, and I was hoping to come across them on the way to Inverness. I have heard Bonnie Prince Charlie has sent orders through the ranks for everybody to shift for himself as best he could. Is that what ye are doing?”
“I hadn’t heard that order, but aye, that is what I’m doing.”
“Is the lass really ye wife?”
Even though Iain felt comfortable talking to Colin, he managed to keep to his lie. “Aye, I made it to her parents’ home, and now we must get to Dorpol.”
After a few miles, Iain fell back to ride alongside the cart.
He chanced another glance in Abigail’s direction.
She had curled up in the corner of the wagon with her eyes closed.
She seemed to be sleeping. But, as if she sensed his gaze resting upon her, her sleepy lids slid open, and once again, her gaze penetrated to his soul.
He had sagged in his saddle and tried to straighten his back, but the movement made him groan in agony. He couldn’t swallow the sound quick enough and knew she had heard him when she asked Mary, “Are we going to stop soon?”
Just then, Colin shouted over his shoulder, “We will camp here this night.”
He veered his horse off the road and into a clearing.
The cart followed him. Colin and Parlin unsaddled their horses and hobbled them before unharnessing the cart horses. They, too, were hobbled and led to a stream.
The women filled buckets from the stream, and as Iain tended his mount, Tavis ran up and said, “I’ll look after Donny.”
Iain patted the horse’s neck. “Thank ye for being such a grand mount, Donny.”
Tavis grinned as if he had been the recipient of the compliment and set about unsaddling and rubbing the horse down.
With nothing to do for the moment, Iain watched Abigail talk and laugh with the other women at the water’s edge. Mary and the other younger woman washed Abigail’s hair with buckets of water from the stream.
The lass must have said something funny, because Mary hit her playfully, and they both fell about laughing.
Once they’d caught their breaths, they both glanced at Iain. Mary’s eyes were full of merriment, but Abigail’s were filled with swirling clouds of . . . sadness?
Iain drew his brows together. Was she mad? Laughing one minute and near crying the next? He shook his head. He’d never understood the complexities of a woman’s emotions.
As he helped build a fire, Iain realized he felt no pain.
He wondered if that was a good or bad thing, but he decided to enjoy the relief while it lasted and collected as much firewood as he could handle to thank the MacDonalds for their kindness.
All the while, his gaze kept wandering in Abigail’s direction as she dangled her legs in the cold water and washed as much of herself as possible.
By sunset, the pots were boiling, and the aroma of the dried beef stew had Iain’s stomach reminding him neither he nor Abigail had eaten all day.
She sat on a blanket and accepted a bowl from Mary with what Iain recognized as a tentative smile.
She squinted into the bowl, her face telling him she wasn’t sure what she would see in there.
The trepidation in her eyes made him wonder if she expected whatever was in the bowl to jump out at her at any moment.
He drank from his bowl with an eager slurp, let out a moan of contentment, and nodded to her. “’Tis very good.”
After another slight grimace, she breathed in the aroma before delicately sipping. She shot him a wide smile and seemed to enjoy the rest of the bowl’s contents.
“Iain,” Mary said, handing a piece of bread to him. “My mother would like you to try her bread.”
Iain smiled at Mary. “Thank ye, but please, what is your mother’s name?”
An older woman slid beside Mary. “I am Fenella.”
Iain took a bite of the bread. “It is very good bread, Fenella. Thank ye.”
Fenella gave some to Abigail and called to the child. “Blair, leave the horses alone and come and eat.”
The child gave one of the horses a handful of grass, and answered, “Yes, Nanna.”
Once they’d eaten and the camp readied to settle in for the night, Abigail gazed into the fire, appearing to be lost in thought.
Iain plonked down beside her with a grunt. “Sleep, Wife.”
She jumped, startled. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
He raised an eyebrow. With his injury, he could not sit down without making a sound. “What were ye thinking aboot?”
“Home.”
He regarded her profile. The light from the fire cast orange hues over her skin. Shapely brow, a downcast eye, delicate but straight nose, lips so full, they seemed constantly ready to be kissed. He pulled another blanket over his back and hers. She turned to him, her expression one of confusion.
He bent close to her ear. “We are man and wife to these people. Would it not look strange if we didnae share a bed?”
She stiffened and stared at him, the fire’s light catching her hair so that the red in it blazed as hot as the flames. The light flicking on her flawless skin cast an ethereal glow about her.
How he would love to push his face into that hair, graze his lips along her bonny dimpled chin, to smell her, taste her. And once again, guilt filled him. He had to stop thinking along those lines. He was to be married.
“Good grief,” she murmured with a shake of her beautiful head. “Fine, but keep your distance.”
Iain grinned. “Tell me more of yer homeland. Is there no one who has yer heart?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but no. There’s no one. But that doesn’t mean I’m available. I’m pretty choosy about my sleeping partners.”
Why a shot of joy ran through him at her confession, he didn’t know, because her face screamed sadness at the admission. He frowned. She had said her sleeping partners. Had she had men in her blankets before?
She shivered.
“Ye cold?” He put his arm around her. She tried to shrug it off, but his fingers tightened around her opposite arm. “Dinnae fight me, Wife.” He leaned in close for her ears alone. “We’re supposed to be married. Or have ye already forgotten?”
“These people might think we’re married, but you and I both know we’re not,” she whispered. “So, keep your hands to yourself, bozo.”
“Bozo? What is this bozo?”
Her lips twitched as if she were trying not to laugh. “You.”
“I dinnae know what the word means, but I have the impression ’tis an insult.”
“You’re quick.”
Iain winced at her sarcasm. His angel sometimes acted like a witch.
She huffed and sank low, but a moment later, she tilted her head and the light of the fire shone in her eyes. “Haven’t you got some sweet girl waiting for you?”
He looked down at his hands. For some reason, he didn’t want to tell her about Fiona.
It wasn’t as if they were formally engaged.
Laird MacKinnon had only broached the subject with Iain before he’d left for the war.
Iain had said he’d think about it but could see no reason why he and Fiona couldn’t be married.
He glanced at Abigail. There was no reason even now to change his mind. However, there was also no reason to mention his possible future engagement. Maeve came to his mind. “I do.”
She tensed and tried again to move away. He held her tight.
“If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with, is that it?”
“My sister awaits my return.”
“Your sister?”
He nodded. “I have left her with much responsibility. ’Tis time for me to take it back off her shoulders.”
“Very gallant of you, indeed. Is there no one else?”
“I have not met any lass I have wanted to share my life with.” It wasn’t a lie, but Iain knew it was only a half-truth. Fiona wasn’t a woman he would choose to spend his life with, but sometimes people didn’t get to choose.
Abigail would understand such things. Her family might now be in talks for her own arranged marriage, so why didn’t he tell her about Fiona? He decided it was too much detail, and he and Abigail would part company soon enough, anyway.
He wasn’t sure if it was the light of the fire that colored her face, or a blush that reddened her cheeks. He pushed the stray tendrils of hair behind her ear so he could see her better.
She moved to stand up.
“Where do ye think ye’re going?”
“I have to, um . . . take a walk.”
His eyebrows shot up at that, and he laughed. “I’ll go with ye.”
“Ah, no, you will not.”
With that, she gently pushed him away, but even so, the jolt had him choking back a groan. The pain had returned without him being aware before that moment.
“Sorry, but some things are private.”
He let her go, but as soon as her back was turned, he stood up and followed her. She tottered into the forest, going further than she had need to for privacy, and then disappeared behind a tree.
“I know you’re there, so don’t go getting any weird ideas.”
He smiled. He liked the strange way she spoke. Turning his back to the tree, he called out, “I am a gentleman of honor and I have me back turned.”
She mumbled something about honor her butt, and he chuckled. He had come to enjoy her way of speaking, and especially her throwaway lines that should have sounded disrespectful but somehow made him smile.
“Okay,” she said from behind, “we can go back now.” And she started picking her way out of the forest.
He stood in her path and pulled her into him—close. The scent of the herbal concoction Mary had put through her hair had his nostrils flaring. Even with their clothing between them, he still felt her warmth. “That isn’t the way, lass.”
“Oh.” She gazed up at him, her lips trembling. “Which way, then?”
He dipped his head to his left. “That way.”
She fit so perfectly against him, he didn’t want to let her go. He touched his lips to her hair.
Her body tensed. She was getting ready to flee.
Inanely, he said, “Yer hair has a hint of cinnamon.”
Pushing her hands between them, her palms against his chest, she moved back enough that he felt the loss of her touch. “That was probably in the shampoo Mary gave me.”
This was the most challenging conversation he had ever had, but he didn’t want to let her go. What was shampoo? He wanted to keep her there, and if talking nonsense did that, then he would talk nonsense. “Shampoo?”
She tilted her head back, her mouth tightening in irritation, but Iain didn’t miss the way her eyes darkened as they flickered to his lips and back again.
Without thought, Iain bent down, his lips a breath away from her mouth.
She stiffened and pushed her hands against his chest. “No.”
“No?” he grated through his constricted throat.
She pushed, straightening her arms and twisting out of his hold. “No means no.”
He knew he stood looking at her stupidly, but with passion-filled blood thundering so loudly in his veins, he couldn’t think straight.
His dazed brain took in her narrowed eyes.
She was trying to look fierce, but he saw the passion curling through her stormy irises.
He knew without a doubt that if he persisted, he could kiss her, finally taste her lips.
He let her go. Shaking the cotton from his brain, he wondered if the fever he’d felt coming on earlier had arrived.
Certainly, their meeting was unusual. She was different, exotic, and beautiful.
And it had been a long time since he’d enjoyed a woman’s kiss.
Perhaps he wanted to taste, to feel a woman’s body in his arms one last time before he either died from his injury or was found and killed by the English or their sympathizers.
Even without either of those specters hanging over him, the lass wanted nothing more than to go home.
He would soon leave her with her family to never see her again.
He caught her gaze.
It didn’t matter. He would not ruin the woman who had saved his life. No. He would not be overcome by her body or her strange but enthralling ways.