Chapter 12
Freya didn’t suggest a game of cards the following day, nor the day after that.
There would be no more secrets or truths shared between them. Whatever madness had made her suggest it the first day had passed, and it was just as well.
Really, it was a great relief. Why, she couldn’t be more thankful that their brief and ill-advised sojourn into intimacy had passed. It wouldn’t do her any good to discover too much about Callum Ross.
It was better this way. Safer.
Why was she so despondent, then? It should have comforted her. Since her father’s death and the arrival of the first lugger she’d wished for safety above all else, but it turned out Aesop had been right about wishes. One should be careful with them.
The Greeks were always right about such things.
But was there such a thing as too much safety? Wasn’t safety in its most extreme form just another type of cowardice?
There was certainly such a thing as too much silence. If today had proved nothing else, it had proved that. Brodie had been gone for nearly three days now, but it felt as if it had been a lifetime, and now another long, torturous evening stretched out before them.
What was a lady meant to do with so much time? She’d slept, dined on the tea, bread, and cheese that Callum had produced from somewhere, and read the first hundred or so pages of Captain Singleton before tossing it aside in disgust.
What a dreadfully tedious book. Fate truly had cursed her, leaving her to fill all the endless hours with nothing to distract her but Captain Singleton and Callum Ross.
She despised the first, and the second …
She didn’t despise him anymore, and that was a great pity, as it would be far easier if she did. Perhaps then she wouldn’t mind that he hadn’t said more than a dozen words to her in the past four hours.
She sneaked a quick peek at him. He was standing at the window watching the light fade from the sky as the sun dropped below the horizon. It was apparently the most fascinating sight he’d ever witnessed, because he’d been gazing at it for the past hour, his back to her.
She may have developed a worrying habit of peeking at him every now and again over these past few days. Out of curiosity, of course. Nothing more than that. Well, that and boredom. It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do.
Very little had happened in the three days since they’d arrived at the cottage, yet somehow, everything had changed. Even the air between them felt charged now, heavy and crackling with portent, as if they were both waiting for something.
She’d caught him watching her half a dozen times today, but goodness only knew what he was thinking. He had the most inscrutable face she’d ever seen, like a pane of shattered glass, with a thousand distracting cracks running in every direction.
Every time she caught him staring, he turned abruptly away.
This was all her fault. It had been her idea to play cards—her idea to use truths as currency.
It had seemed harmless enough at the time, but she should have left well enough alone.
What had she been thinking, suggesting such a thing?
She might have known truths would become secrets soon enough, and secrets …
well, they were dangerous things, weren’t they?
Revealing, that is.
If ever there were an idea she should have kept to herself, it was that one. She must have been mad, revealing herself to Callum Ross as she’d done. He wasn’t one of her sisters, for goodness’ sake.
She took up the discarded Captain Singleton again, but soon enough she was peeking at him over the top edge of her book.
Despite his complaints about her pacing yesterday, he’d spent the better part of the afternoon marching from one end of the cottage to the other, like an animal an instant away from bursting through the bars of his cage.
A lion, or perhaps a bear. Something of that sort. Something large and exceedingly sturdy.
He wore only his breeches and a loose white linen shirt, having stripped off his coat and waistcoat, and abandoned them in an untidy bundle on one of the kitchen chairs.
It was all rather shocking, really. She’d never seen a gentleman in just his shirtsleeves before. Well, that wasn’t quite true. She’d seen Lord Ballantyne in a state of undress, but it didn’t count because he’d been unconscious at the time, on account of Cat having poisoned him with monkshood.
There’d been nothing titillating about Lord Ballantyne’s, er … dishabille.
But Callum Ross in just his shirtsleeves?
That was a sight that was equal parts titillating and distressing.
He was … well, there was no sense in pretending, was there?
He was an exceptionally well-proportioned man, with his broad shoulders and a pair of long, muscular legs, set off to perfection by the tight fit of his breeches.
There wasn’t an inch of padding anywhere as far as she could tell, and she’d made a thorough study of the matter over the past three days.
Her gaze drifted lower, pausing to admire his trim waist before drifting lower still, to his, er … his backside. She’d never paid any attention to a gentleman’s backside before, but it must be said that his backside had earned a considerable amount of her attention today.
Far more than was ladylike.
That was the titillating part.
Whoever would have guessed a backside could prove so fascinating?
Not she. Was the fact that she’d never given a man’s backside a moment’s attention merely from a lack of exposure to backsides, or was it that Callum Ross had a more, er …
distracting backside than every other gentleman she’d ever encountered?
She already knew the answer.
There was no denying the obvious. He was attractive.
That was the distressing part. What sort of lady ogled the backside of the man who’d kidnapped her? Except he hadn’t truly kidnapped her, blast him. He’d rescued her, and at rather grave risk to himself.
She dragged her gaze away from him, her cheeks heating. Dear God, even another go at Captain Singleton would be better than leering at Callum Ross and thinking thoughts she had much better not be thinking.
This was all the fault of that blasted card game! This had been ever so much easier when she found him terrifying, but there was no going back now. Apparently, once a lady noticed a gentleman, she couldn’t unnotice him.
Someone should have warned her.
She’d do well to forget all about Callum Ross, and his backside. His front side as well, for that matter. She snatched up the book and trained her gaze resolutely on the page, picking up where she’d left off earlier. Captain Singleton and his crew had just landed on the continent of Africa.
Surely, Mr. Defoe had something interesting to say about Africa?
But alas, no. After endless pages of description of the animals Captain Singleton and his crew hunted, killed, and then ate, the pages began to blur before her eyes. She didn’t fight it when the book slipped from her hands but laid her cheek against the settee and drifted off to sleep.
She hadn’t been dozing for long when the squeak of the cottage door opening woke her. She sat up, rubbing her eyes.
The window was now dark. The sun had set at last.
Callum was standing in the open doorway. Oh, no. Was he leaving her here alone? Sneaking away, while she was sleeping? She could hardly blame him if he was. Goodness knew she’d caused him enough trouble.
It was that dratted card game! Prying into his secrets must have been the last straw for him. She struggled upright, her heart lurching into her throat. “Mr. Ross? Where are you going?”
“You’re awake.” He gave her an oddly formal nod. “I won’t be gone for long. I thought I’d have a quick swim in Lochalsh.”
“Oh.” Now that he said it, she saw he had a length of rough towel in one hand, and a homemade bar of soap in the other.
He wasn’t leaving her then, thank goodness. Relief rushed over her, but there was dismay there, too. Since when had Callum Ross become so indispensable to her? Only five days ago she’d despised the very sight of the man.
“You mean to say you’re going to …” She waved a hand at him in a sweeping gesture that incorporated his every inch, from the top of his head to the toes of his boots. “To swim without clothing on?”
Dear God. There’d be a riot if the matrons of Kyleakin got a look at his bare backside.
His eyebrows shot up. “Well, it wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying to bathe with my clothing on, would it? My boots, in particular.”
His boots? He was worried about his boots, and not the miles of smooth, bare skin he was about to unleash on the unsuspecting population of Kyleakin?
“You needn’t be worried about my modesty, Miss MacLeod,” he added, a grin twitching at his lips. “There’s a deep pool hidden amongst the trees nearby obscured on one side by an outcropping of rock. It’s protected, and it’s dark enough now that no one will see me.”
“A swim in a deep pool, hidden amongst the trees and rocks?”
My, that did sound tempting. Heavenly, in fact. Between the fire, the escape from Castle Cairncross, and the mad dash from Dunvegan to Kyleakin, her body was sticky with dirt, sweat, and grit. “Isn’t it dreadfully cold, though?”
Not cold enough to dissuade him, it seemed, because he merely shrugged. “I don’t intend to linger over it.”
“No, I don’t suppose so.” She scratched the back of her neck, which was suddenly itchy.
No doubt it was all the filth from the road.
Her scalp was coated with it, her fingernails crusted with it, and every time she turned her head she caught the acrid scent of smoke from the fire at Stewart’s stables.
It was embedded in her hair, her clothing. “Is it very far away?”
“No. Only a fifteen-minute walk from here.” He crossed his arms over his wide chest, eyeing her with one of his inscrutable expressions, although if she had to take a guess, she’d say he was caught somewhere between suspicion and amusement.