Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
T his is already more trouble than I was paid fer.
Blaine watched Kathleen as she ascended the stairs, only to realize he was holding the key to their room just as she reached the door. Amused, he did nothing to help her as she stared at the door in frustration, and then he decided to take his sweet time.
It’s the small victories.
Sauntering over to the innkeeper, he asked for some food to be brought up to the room, slipping the man another coin so he wouldn’t complain or tell him to eat it there, like everyone else. The innkeeper simply nodded, swiftly pocketing the coin, and only then did Blaine make his way up the stairs, joining Kathleen by the door .
“Is there a problem?” he asked, only to receive a scathing glare in response.
Smirking, Blaine unlocked the door and pushed it open. Kathleen walked right past him, throwing herself on the bed with a sigh, her entire body bouncing on the mattress once before settling over the covers.
The room was sparsely furnished, with nothing but the essentials—the bed, pushed up against the wall, a washbasin, a small, round table just under the window, and a chair right behind it. Blaine was not exactly expecting a luxurious experience, but he had hoped for a little more.
Dropping their bags to the floor, he grabbed the chair and pulled it closer to the side of the bed where Kathleen was lying. He didn’t stay there for long, though, when the first draft came in through the window and the chill seeped straight through his clothes.
Pushing himself up to his feet once more, Blaine knelt on the small, threadbare rug that lay in front of the hearth. Once, it may have been impressive, but now the once bright red had faded to a pink and the edges barely held themselves together. All around its rough surface, small burns and holes marred it, undoubtedly from guests who were less than careful when lighting a fire .
Behind him, he could feel Kathleen watching him as he got to work, stacking the pieces of wood and lighting them on fire. She had done the same at the clearing; Blaine had seen her watch him carefully, as if the commonplace act of lighting a fire was fascinating to her.
She was a strange girl—beautiful, strikingly so, but also strange. Blaine didn’t know any other noble girl who would ever decide to leave the safety of her home all alone just to get to her friends’ wedding, and yet Kathleen hadn’t changed her mind even when confronted with the dangers of traveling as a lone woman.
Actually, Blaine didn’t know any other noble girls at all, but he imagined none of them were like Kathleen.
At the knock on the door, he stood and dusted himself before opening it to accept the meal. That, too, was meagre—some stew, some bannocks, two mugs of ale. Still, it was better than anything they would have had on the road, if they had found themselves stranded between towns.
Taking the tray to Kathleen, Blaine placed it on the bed next to her, and the sight and scent of the food seemed to perk her up a little. She sat up, grabbing the mug of ale as Blaine dragged his chair closer, and draining half of it in one large gulp, much to his surprise .
“Ach, I was so thirsty,” Kathleen said as she placed down the mug and proceeded to pick up her bowl of stew with much more grace. Though she had resembled several of Blaine’s friends as she drained her ale, now her movements were gentle and ladylike, becoming a young woman of her pedigree. “We should ask fer more ale.”
Blaine only grunted his assent in response as he grabbed his own bowl and dug into the stew. Kathleen eyed him over her food, but Blaine offered nothing more.
He wasn’t there to make friends. The farther he stayed from Kathleen, the better it was for them both.
“Are ye tired?” she asked. “I wish travellin’ wasnae as tirin’ or as dangerous.”
Blaine shrugged a shoulder, mumbling around a mouthful of stew. “I’m alright. Far more used tae travelin’ than ye.”
“Have ye traveled tae many places?”
“A few.”
“Such as? ”
Blaine shrugged again. “Here an’ there.”
Kathleen’s spoon dropped with a clatter against the bowl as she glared at Blaine. He didn’t know what exactly he had done to deserve that glare, but she certainly seemed displeased.
“What?” he grumbled, cheeks bulging with a large piece of bannock.
“I ken!” said Kathleen, her eyes lighting up suddenly. “Let us play a game!”
Blaine eyed her warily for a moment. He didn’t like where this was going at all, but before he could protest and tell Kathleen to stop being childish, she spoke again.
“I’ll say somethin’ I’ve never done an’ then ye’ll tell me if ye’ve done it or nae,” she said. “An’ then, when it’s yer turn, ye’ll say somethin’ ye’ve never done.”
“How is this a game?” Blaine asked with a confused frown.
“How is it nae?”
“Who wins? ”
“Nae every game needs a winner,” said Kathleen sagely.
“I’m quite certain the very purpose o’ a game is tae have a winner at the end,” Blaine pointed out.
“Nay!” Kathleen insisted. “This is only fer … fer entertainment. Only tae pass the time.”
“So why are ye callin’ it a game at all?” Blaine asked.
Throwing her hands up in frustration—though Blaine still couldn’t understand what it was that had annoyed her so—Kathleen said, “Fine! Every time one o’ us hasnae done the thing the other says, we must… drink. The one who’s least drunk by the end o’ it is the winner.”
Still frowning, Blaine surrendered to his fate. He didn’t like the sound of this at all, since he couldn’t think of an idea worse than drinking themselves into a stupor. Perhaps for Kathleen, it was fine, but he had to remain alert; if there was a threat, he would have to be the one to eliminate it. He had the snaking suspicion, though, that no matter how much he insisted he didn’t want to play, Kathleen would find a way to rope him into it. Noble girls were cunning like that; they couldn’t get what they wanted by force, so they used deceit .
Taking his silence as agreement, Kathleen cleared her throat and sat a little straighter on the bed, her auburn hair falling in waves over her shoulders.
“I have never… left the Highlands,” she said.
Blaine didn’t drink. He had traveled far and wide, and had seen much of the land. He couldn’t imagine a life like Kathleen’s—so sheltered, so restricted, a life experienced within the confines of the lands of her people and of her allies. Blaine had seen danger, much of it, but he had also seen adventure and new places and people. And Kathleen, no matter how much she had rebelled by leaving her home the way she did, would ever experience any of it.
Silence stretched between them as Blaine forgot it was his turn to say something. Kathleen looked at him expectantly, but he only stared back at her blankly, not knowing what to say.
“Well?” she demanded. “Will ye say somethin’?”
Ach, right… it’s me turn.
“Uh… I have never… been on a boat,” Blaine said, settling on something dull and safe. Across from him, Kathleen took a sip of ale, shaking her head .
“Neither have I,” she said. “Faither says it’s too dangerous but I wish tae go somewhere on a boat one day. I like the sea… I dinnae think it’s that dangerous. Many people go on boats every day an’ they’re fine!”
“Well, it’s nae without dangers,” Blaine pointed out. “More accidents happen at sea than on land.”
“Ye sound like me faither,” Kathleen grumbled, and Blaine had had chest injuries that had hurt less.
“Dae ye think me that old?” he asked, suddenly reminded of the several years between the two of them. Though he wasn’t nearly as old as her father, he may have seemed so to Kathleen, since she was so young.
But at his protest, her eyes widened and she waved her hands frantically in an attempt to appease him. “Nay!” she said. “Nay! I didnae mean that at all! Truly, ye’re nae that old, Blaine, an’ if I thought ye were, I certainly wouldnae say it tae yer face like that an’—”
At Blaine’s amused chuckle, Kathleen snapped her mouth shut, crossing her arms over her chest. “I dinnae appreciate it when ye jest at me expense. It isnae very nice.”
“I’m nae!” Blaine assured her. “I wasnae tryin’ tae dae such a thing, at least. Fergive me… I only found it amusin’ that ye cl aim ye wouldnae tell me even if ye thought I was old. Which only tells me ye think I’m old.”
With a sigh, Kathleen pushed her hair away from her face, looking up at him through lowered lashes. “I truly dinnae,” she said. “Trust me, if there is one thing I wouldnae say about ye, it’s that ye’re old.”
“What would ye say about me, then?” Blaine asked.
Kathleen fell silent, drawing her bottom lip between her teeth to bite at it. For a moment, she busied herself with her bowl, scraping the bottom of it with her spoon but never bringing any of the stew to her lips.
In the end, when she drew in a deep breath and spoke, she didn’t answer Blaine’s question. Instead, she said, “I have never committed a crime.”
Blaine froze. He didn’t know if he should lie or tell Kathleen the truth, but then again, he wasn’t so sure of the truth himself. “What, precisely, dae ye mean by crime?”
Kathleen’s eyes widened comically as she huffed out in disbelief. “Ye’ve committed a crime? ”
“I said I dinnae ken what ye mean by crime!” Blaine protested.
“What was it?”
“I asked ye first.”
“Ye ken what a crime is!” Kathleen said, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “An’ ye ken what ye’ve done is less than honorable, which is why ye’re askin’ me tae clarify! If ye had never committed a crime, ye wouldnae have tae ask!”
Blaine couldn’t resist the urge to roll his eyes. “It was naethin’.”
“Och, it was somethin’,” Kathleen insisted. “It must have been if ye’re actin’ like this.”
“Like what?”
“Suspiciously.”
Blaine stared at her and Kathleen stared back, an amused smirk dancing on her lips. He wasn’t as amused as she was, though, if only because this was simply his confirmation that this entire game had been a bad idea .
How had he been roped into this? And now, if he told Kathleen the truth, would she be wary of him?
That was the opposite of what he needed. He needed her to trust him, to let him follow her to Castle Stalker. How could he have been so careless, so foolish?
“Ye willnae tell me?” Kathleen asked, her smirk turning into a small pout. “I would tell ye if I had committed a crime.”
“Dae ye wish tae ken?” Blaine asked, leaning a little closer to her. “Even if it was murder?”
In an instant, Kathleen paled, pulling back from him. “Was it?”
Blaine let the tension hang between them for a few moments longer, his gaze never straying from Kathleen. In the end, though, he only shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “I stole a horse once.”
“What?” Kathleen asked, her fear dissipating as fast as it had appeared. Instead, it was replaced by curiosity, and this time, she was the one leaning closer to Blaine, bridging the gap between them on her own accord. “Why would ye steal a horse? ”
“Because I didnae have a horse an’ I had tae get somewhere,” Blaine said.
“An’ ye couldnae buy it?”
He shook his head. “Nay. Nay at that time.”
If Kathleen wanted to ask more about it, she didn’t show it. He figured she was either too busy trying to digest this new information or she thought that asking would be improper. Perhaps she even thought that he had fallen to hard times, or that his family had, at some point. Blaine neither confirmed nor denied any of it, and he wouldn’t even if Kathleen asked.
As long as she didn’t suspect him of trying to hurt her, it was better to let her reach her own conclusions.
“It’s yer turn,” Kathleen said after a while. Despite Blaine’s best efforts, their game continued for a long time—long enough for him to have to ask for more ale no fewer than four times, and by the end of it, it seemed to him that he was the one who was losing, after all.
“How are ye nae drunk?” he asked in disbelief. A woman of her size should have been floored by so many drinks, and yet Kathleen was not only still standing, but she seemed to be even steadier than he was—and he was twice her size.
When she laughed, though, the sound was bright, loose, showing no inhibition. “I’ve been drinkin’ since I was very young,” she said. “Me an’ me cousins … well, they would drink an’ I would demand that they give me some too. An’ they always did.”
“Yer cousins, hmm?” Blaine asked. “An’ where were yer parents then? Yer governess?”
“We did it in secret, o’ course,” Kathleen said. Now that Blaine was taking a better look at her, he could see she was flushed from the alcohol.
“I see,” he said. “An’ dae ye always force yer cousins tae dae as ye wish?”
Kathleen laughed again, and Blaine could have lost himself in that sweet sound. “Aye, I think so.”
“Poor lads,” he said, and thankfully, Kathleen was just tipsy enough to not question how he knew they were men. They had both had more than enough to drink, Blaine decided then. Any more and he risked revealing everything to her. “Alright… let us sleep, lass. We should wake early on the mo rrow an’ be on our way if we wish tae reach Castle Stalker on time.”
At the mention of Castle Stalker and the insinuation that they could miss the wedding, Kathleen sat up a little straighter on the bed, nodding with all the seriousness of someone considering a much more important event than a wedding.
“Ye’re right,” she said. “Good thing ye’re here.”
As Blaine stood from the chair to clear away the tray of bowls and mugs, he looked at Kathleen over his shoulder, frowning to himself.
“Aye… good thing I’m here.”