Chapter 18 #2
A low ripple moved through the onlookers, while the men found their mouths shut. Alex only tipped his head and let the three of them walk away, the woman first.
A small jolt went through Erica, clean and sure.
We think alike.
Bettie and Katie ran back with their prize and split it neatly. Sugar dusted the front of their dresses and their lips. Erica wiped the worst of it with the corner of her handkerchief.
“Be careful nae to smear it on Grandmamma’s sleeves when we get back to the castle,” she warned.
They nodded, unconvincing and happy.
They moved on further when the crowd thickened. The lanes narrowed, and the stalls were beginning to thin at this point. She must have spent at least a few hours in the market by now.
Her eyes remained on the laundry that hung from a line across the passage and dripped on the stones. She was so focused on the wet clothes that she didn’t see when her foot met a slick edge of a rock.
She slipped.
A sharp gasp escaped her lips as the world tipped.
However, right before she could fall, Alex’s hand closed around her waist, hard and sure.
The other came up by her arm and met the wall with a slap.
He pulled her back into him before she thought to fall, his chest a solid stop, his breath warm against her temple.
She landed against him with a soft sound she could not swallow and felt her shawl shift.
Her cheek brushed his shirt, and the scent of clean skin and lye tickled her nose.
Her face tilted up without permission. His was inches from hers. Close enough to see the rough edge of his scar, to see the way his mouth tightened when he held still.
The image of the moon on water flashed through her mind again, and she tried to blink back the memory. She couldn’t.
Alex did not move. She did not either. Instead, she felt the thud of his heart against her ribs where they pressed together. Her gaze flicked to his mouth and back to his eye, which seemed to hold hers like a hand closing over a hilt.
“Easy,” he murmured.
“Aye,” she breathed. “I am fine.” Her words came out thin. She tried again. “Thank ye.”
For a beat, he did not let go. His hand wrapped around her arm as if it had been made for that place and purpose. Heat climbed in a slow line from where he touched her to the hollow at the base of her throat.
She thought of tilting up that last inch. She thought of the taste of him and just how his body might feel beneath her palm.
He released her too quickly, as if he had thought the same thing as well and refused it. His jaw set, and his hand dropped to his side. He took a half step back and looked down the lane where the girls had run on and then circled back, still in sight, counting a row of carved posts like a game.
“Watch the stones,” he said, voice even.
“I will,” she answered.
She touched the wall where his palm had pressed, as if that would help it stay upright. Then she moved her hand away because she did not want him to see.
The girls were ahead, just a few yards away, and a part of her was quite relieved that they weren’t around to see. She didn’t need many eyes to see just how bad she almost fell.
As if they could sense that they were needed, the girls came back at a run, hair loose, cheeks bright, a small pup wriggling in Bettie’s arms. Its paws paddled the air as if it were swimming.
“Da, please,” Bettie said. “Let us bring it home for Tommy. He would enjoy the company.”
Erica frowned. “Tommy?”
Alex turned to her, his voice lowering with each word. “‘Tis the name of the dog back home.”
“Oh,” she murmured.
Katie pressed closer, hands out, already in love. “Please.”
Alex groaned. “Absolutely nae.”
They did not blink. They held the pup higher. Four pleading eyes. Two small sets and one wide brown pair that turned to him at once.
He rubbed his forehead. “Fine,” he sighed, as if the word cost him. “But ye are feeding it. And cleaning after it. Do ye hear me? Nae the nurse, and certainly nae Grandmamma.”
“Aye,” they cried.
Cheers burst out of them as Katie kissed the pup’s head, while Bettie laughed so loud that a chicken in the next pen flapped its wings.
A man behind the stall smiled and slipped a little cloth to wrap the pup. “For cold nights,” he said.
Erica thanked him and pressed a coin into his hand before he could object.
The shape of it pressed in tight and warm.
Alex standing with a look that was stern and not stern.
The girls circling him like small moons.
Erica’s empty basket now full of thyme, two apples, and a bit of twine that Bettie insisted they needed to make a lead.
Erica felt it settle around her again, that family line that had begun to draw itself without asking her first.
The girls spun toward the sweets at once.
“Can we get honey twists?” Katie asked, already stepping away.
Erica caught their sleeves. “Manners,” she said. “Ask like ye have sense.”
Katie straightened. “Please, may we get honey twists?”
Bettie nodded earnestly. “Please?”
Erica looked at Alex. “We could take some home for later. If we leave now, we can be back before noon. Sit together. Make a mess of it where it doesnae matter.”
Bettie shook her head with sudden force. “Nay. Ye stay.”
Erica blinked. “What do ye mean?”
“Ye stay,” Bettie repeated, as if it were simple. She looked at Alex. “We can go back with the guards. We ken the path.”
Katie tightened her hold on the pup. “We will be careful. We promise.”
Alex hesitated. His eye flicked to the two men Calum had instructed to shadow them. They stood at a distance, watchful without being stiff. He seemed to consider it for a breath, then nodded once.
“All right,” he said. “Take the side path by the mill. Daenae run. If the guards ask ye to turn, ye listen to them, do ye hear me?”
“Aye,” they said in unison.
He crouched and fixed Bettie’s new ribbon where it had slipped. Then he checked Katie’s grip on the bundle that held the pup.
“Mind his neck,” he said to her. “Keep him close. He is small.”
“I will,” Katie said, fierce and proud.
He motioned for the guards to come closer, and when they did, he spoke to them in a low voice. “Keep them in front of ye at all times. Ye ken how mischievous they can be.”
“Aye, me Laird.”
Bettie leaned in and hugged Erica without warning. “We will show Grandmamma the pup,” she mumbled into Erica’s side. “She will say he is ugly and then keep him on her lap.”
Erica laughed. “That sounds like something she can do, all right.”
“Aye. She did it with Tommy, too.”
Erica laughed again and watched as they marched off with the guards, the pup’s head popping up like a question between their arms. The crowd bent to let them pass. Small hands waved. A vendor called a good wish for strong paws and no chewed slippers.
When they were gone, the noise changed.
Alex turned first. “Do ye want to take a walk down the path?”
Her answer came before doubt could stand. “Aye.”
His mouth curved just a bit. He then nodded toward the lane that ran out of the square and bent towards the woods. “Come with me.”