Chapter Nine #2
She blinked, taken aback by the edge in his voice, and held up the stems in her hand. “I went for yarrow.”
“Bluidy hell, ye canna simply wander off with nae—"
“I wasn’t wandering, I was searching.” Her mouth tightened slightly, showing a hint of defiance.
“Searching, wandering, what difference?” He began and then stopped himself, drawing a breath.
The last thing he needed was to snap at her.
“Ye canna do that again.” The tightness in his chest had yet to ease.
He dragged a hand through his hair, forcing the panic back into its box.
He studied her then, properly, noticing the faint smudge of dirt on her fingers, the chill pink at her cheeks from the morning air, and the way she stood just a fraction too still just now, as though bracing herself.
The memory of the night before rose to the fore of his mind, heavy and wholly unresolved, by his reckoning.
“Dinna stray, Elena,” he said with greater calm. “Ye ken how unsafe it is.”
“My plan was—and I believe I managed it—to stay within shouting distance of you,” she defended steadily, lifting her chin.
That did not appease him in the least; she’d practically been within shouting distance of him when she’d been taken from Strathfinnan in the first place.
“I checked your temperature this morn, and found it against my liking.”
This startling news disturbed him in more ways than one.
She had woken before him, that alone was unusual enough to unsettle him.
He was not a heavy sleeper, not on the road, not with danger so near.
More troubling still was the thought that followed hard on its heels: she had touched him this morning, had checked his brow, his skin—and he had not woken to it.
The realization sat ill with him, a quiet rebuke to instincts he thought he could rely upon.
And then, the fact that she’d shown concern for him this morning.
.. after the night they’d had. After the moment that still sat between them like a bruise neither would touch.
He had expected a profound and icy distance this morning perhaps, or a more subtle, careful avoidance.
Instead, she had risen early, moved quietly, and thought first of him.
He did not know what to do with that.
For a moment, he could only look at her, the yarrow still clutched in her hand, her green gaze still fixed defiantly on him as if she waited for more of a scolding to come.
Bluidy hell, but she was...perfect.
The panic that had driven him to move eased at last, replaced by something far more dangerous, the knowledge that whatever lay between them had not been dulled by his restraint or her pretending she’d long ago outgrown her childhood fancy.
It had merely changed its shape.
Elena waved the stalks of yarrow at him. “Ye canna pretend ye’re fine when ye are nae.”
A fair strike. He inclined his head slightly, conceding the point.
“Next time,” he said, taking the plant from her, his hand brushing hers, “ye wake me.”
She nodded once and stepped past him toward the fallen pine that flanked the place where they had spent the night. Settling onto the log, she began combing her fingers through her hair, frowning as she worked at a stubborn snarl, her movements slow, mayhap preoccupied.
Jacob watched her while his mind turned, automatically, to the day ahead.
They would need to eat. They would need to move.
He could not say with certainty where they were—not precisely—but he guessed they were still a full day’s ride from Strathfinnan, perhaps more depending on how the terrain unfolded.
He would know better once he found something in the landscape he recognized.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, his gaze drifting back to her without conscious thought, following the slow, methodical way she worked through the knots in her thick black hair.
For a moment his vision blurred, and he realized just how exhausted he was.
He had scarcely slept at all, and the realization surprised him not in the least.
Jesu. What a torture. From beginning to end—starting with the moment his body and mind had betrayed him so utterly that he had almost kissed her.
.. and ending only when she had finally drifted into uneasy sleep, perhaps unaware that he was fully and agonizingly aware that she had cried herself to sleep.
A small price to pay, he reasoned now, to have suffered that business last night to have saved her from those raiders in the first place.
He would not wish any of it undone—not the night, not the restraint, not even the ache it had left behind—if it meant she had been spared the plans of those Englishmen.
He told himself he was glad of it, all of it laid bare at last: her childhood fancy finally spoken, his knowing no longer unknown to her.
Perhaps now, he could move on.
Except that he could not.
Not when he did not believe, not for one second, the last thing she had said the night before, that she was long past such feelings. He could not believe it after the way she had all but melted into his hold when she thought he was about to kiss her.
He was still watching her when she glanced back over her shoulder and found his eyes on her.
Her calm gaze dropped to the yarrow now in his hand.
“If ye chew it first,” she said, matter-of-factly, “it’ll draw better.”
He hesitated only a moment, then tore a length of the plant free and crushed it between his teeth. The bitterness bloomed sharp and numbing across his tongue, astringent enough to make his jaw tighten, but he worked it steadily, methodically, until the leaves broke down beneath his molars.
He spat the mash into his palm, pressed it firmly against the angry skin of his arm, and dug out another strip of linen from his saddlebag, winding it tight enough to hold without cutting off blood.
His heart and soul were still tortured, not yet brought to rest when they set off for the day a short time later.
THEY RODE ON IN SILENCE.
Not the companionable sort that had begun to feel familiar between them, but a careful, brittle quiet, shaped by what had nearly happened and then been deliberately left untouched.
Jacob kept them moving at a steady pace, neither pressing the horses nor indulging in rest, choosing ground that allowed progress without haste.
Nevertheless, the steadiness did not bring ease, and the quiet between them did not soften as he had hoped.
They rode for a time without speaking, the morning light filtering through thinning branches as the forest slowly loosened its hold on the land.
Jacob kept his attention on the ground ahead, choosing his path with care, but his awareness tugged backward again and again, measuring the way Elena sat so stiffly that it felt deliberate, as though any unnecessary movement, or clinging too closely as she normally did might betray her.
A low branch reached across the path, heavy with last night’s damp.
“Mind that,” he said, lifting a hand to indicate it.
She ducked smoothly, her reply no more than a quiet, “Mm.”
They rode on.
The ground dipped ahead, the soil dark and slick where water had gathered, and Jacob slowed the mare, testing the footing. “This’ll give way if we take it straight,” he said. “Better we keep higher.”
Elena said nothing about this.
He adjusted their course, feeling a tightness gather beneath his ribs that had nothing to do with the wound in his arm.
Another stretch passed. The land opened slightly, birch thinning into pasture broken by low stone walls. Jacob glanced at the sky, gauging the day. “We’ll make better time once we clear this rise.”
“Verra guid,” she said indifferently.
They followed the higher ground, and for a time the only sounds between them were the creak of leather and the steady clip-clop of his destrier.
Jacob found himself listening for Elena’s breathing, for the small signs of fatigue he had learned to recognize, and when he felt her shift slightly behind him he spoke again before he could overthink it.
“If ye need to stop, say so,” he told her.
“I’m fine.”
Jacob clenched his teeth as the quiet settled again, heavier for having been disturbed at all, he thought. He rode another mile, rehearsing statements in his head, having accepted that he needed to strike it head on.
“Elena,” he said at last, keeping his voice low, even. “About last night....”
He felt her shift slightly behind him, the smallest adjustment of weight. Then, “Please...dinna. We dinna need to speak of it.”
“Aye, we do,” he decided firmly. He drew a breath, readying himself. “I should nae have... I had nae right to put ye in that position.”
She scoffed at this, a disgruntled sound that surprised him despite her frostiness. “Ye dinna put me in any position. Ye did...naught.”
And that, Jacob thought grimly, was precisely the trouble.
He had not lived his life chasing women, nor courting them with any great skill or with even half the confidence he carried into battle, and he would not pretend otherwise.
But he knew this: Elena bristled now, met him with this indifference sharpened to a point, not because he had overstepped, but because he had stopped when neither of them had truly wanted him to.
“Ye are promised to another,” he reminded her tersely. “Whatever came over me, it had nae place—
“Fine. Fine,” she said, a sudden sharpness in her tone. “Ye owe me naught, Jacob, neither apology nor explanation.”
He turned in the saddle then, not fully, only enough that he could see her, that she could see him if she chose to look. She did not. Her gaze stayed fixed to their left, her jaw set with that maddening composure she wielded like a shield.
For a heartbeat he simply stared at her, struck dumb by the ridiculousness of her words. Clearly, since she could hardly speak to him but a handful of clipped, indifferent replies, he owed her something.
His hand tightened on the reins until the leather creaked faintly, and a muscle jumped once along his jaw before he mastered it. “Naught,” he repeated, incredulous still, shaking his head in disbelief. “So be it,” he grumbled.
A full minute passed before her voice reached him, a wee bit indignant still. “It was a guid thing ye dinna kiss me.”
The words landed with quiet finality, and for a moment Jacob found himself wide-eyed at the absurdity of her statement.
“A guid thing,” he echoed, shaking his head.
“Aye. I would have had to stop ye, as that was the last thing I wanted.”
Jacob gave a sharp, dubious laugh, the sound tearing free of him before sense could intervene. He turned his head over his shoulder again, disbelief written plain across his face. “Nae way,” he said flatly. “Nae way at all.”
She bristled at once. “Ye ken naught of it.”
“I ken exactly enough,” he shot back. “Ye wanted it, Elena. Ye melted like butter into me—ye wanted me to kiss ye.”
Her cheeks flushed, and she knit her brows. “I dinna. I was—I was startled and...” she paused and leveled him with a severe glare. “Melt,” she scoffed. “Nae, I dinna.”
Jacob faced forward again, stating strongly, “Ye did, and a convenient memory dinna change that.” There was something dangerously close to humor tugging at him now, because the argument itself was so exasperating.
He was there! He’d kissed enough lasses to know expectation and hope when he encountered it.
“And ye did naught to stop me—another convenience, seeming to have forgotten all about Hamilton.”
She gasped at the harsh dig.
Jacob was certain he heard her mouth snap shut, as if it had opened wide with her outrage.
“Ye are presuming far too much,” she accused hotly.
“And ye are pretending far too hard,” he countered.
“But then, aye, I’d fail to recall him as well, for how humiliating it must be to ken yer own intended stood frozen in the orchard while ye were dragged away—about as useful as a bow with nae arrow, that one.
Christ, a man with half a spine would have leapt with nae thought. ”
“Thomas was startled—as was I—”
“But ye still had the guid sense to scream,” he reminded her, their argument growing louder.
“He was fri—he has nae yer experience in war, Jacob, and dinna imagine that ye are any—
“Jesu, I was terrified as well,” Jacob shot back. “So was every man there. Fear isnaea justification for doing naught.”
“He had nae weapon,” she said quickly. “It all happened so fast—”
“He failed ye,” Jacob cut in, his voice hardening, “He showed his true self in that moment.”
The words hung there, heavy and unmistakable, the silence that followed sudden and harsh.
When she spoke again her tone had softened, though not with fondness so much as obligation, by Jacob’s reckoning.
“Thomas is a decent man,” she said. “He is kind. He meant nae harm.”
“I’ve nae quarrel with his kindness,” Jacob said magnanimously. “But kindness dinna save ye. And decency dinna stop those men from putting hands on ye. Dinna pretend he’s worthy of yer defense.”
“That is cruel,” she said, though without much heat.
“?Tis honest,” he replied. “And let’s nae be otherwise, so dinna pretend still that ye dinna want me to kiss ye. Dinna insult me by expecting me to believe ye would have stopped me.”
Elena chose to ignore this part, and give further pointless defense of Thomas Hamilton. “What would ye have had him do? Throw himself at armed men and be cut down?”
“I would have had him try,” Jacob said simply.
Softer still, she said, “Ye speak as though courage is a choice that can be summoned at will.”
“I speak as a man who watched ye taken, Elena,” he said quietly, the anger still there but banked now, glowing hot beneath the words. “Who watched the man who should give his life to protect ye do naught.”
Her defense faltered then, thinning into something dutiful rather than heartfelt. “He is nae... ye,” she said.
Jacob’s mouth twisted, though there was no triumph in it. “Nae,” he agreed. “He isna.” He is the man who will take ye to wife.
The silence that followed was different from the ones before—not brittle, not evasive, but heavy with truths neither of them could unhear. Jacob turned forward again, loosening his grip on the reins only slightly, aware that he had crossed a line and unwilling to pretend he regretted it.
They rode on after that, the space between them filled once more with only the scrape of leather and the measured sound of hooves, and yet, with every steady mile that passed beneath them, he could not rid himself of the idea that he hadn’t said everything that needed to be said, that he should have said to her.
I wanted verra badly to kiss ye, Elena, he wanted to tell her. I would have traded every tomorrow for one moment of your lips against mine.