Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
I n their little camp, the fire burned bright and the trees sheltered Kathleen and Blaine from the wind, but the temperature had dropped significantly in the evening, leaving Kathleen bundled up in Blaine’s cloak and sitting as close to the fire as she could.
And then there were the sounds. Blaine seemed to be perfectly at ease, never once worried about all the ruckus. In fact, he had told Kathleen what she was hearing was not a ruckus , as she had put it, but rather the natural sounds of the forest—the rustling of leaves, the bubbling creek, the critters that came out at night to hunt or scavenge.
She was only annoyed by the sounds at first. But when the howl of a wolf rang clear in the air around her, her irritation quickly morphed into fear and she shot upright, her head swiveling wildly around as she tried to look for any sign of the wolf among the trees .
“I’m nae sleepin’ here,” she decided.
“As ye wish,” said Blaine, not moving a muscle. “Ye’re free tae look fer an inn. It should only take ye until dawn.”
Kathleen looked down at his supine form with an unimpressed expression that he didn’t seem to notice at all. “There’s a wolf out there.”
“Och aye,” said Blaine. “I’m sure there’s many.”
“An’ ye expect me tae sleep among the wolves?” Kathleen hissed, refraining from raising her voice too much in case she attracted a whole pack of them. “How can ye simply lie there?”
“Lass… they’re nowhere near us,” Blaine said, finally turning to face her. “Dinnae fash. It’s perfectly safe.”
“Safe!” Kathleen scoffed. “Och aye, I’m sure ye’ll be sayin’ the same when ye wake up in the morn an’ I’m torn tae shreds!”
Blaine chuckled, amused, and that only served to annoy her even further. She truly couldn’t understand how Blaine was so calm when there were all sorts of dangers in the dark .
“I’ll protect ye,” Blaine said. “I promise. Come here.”
Narrowing her eyes, Kathleen regarded him in silence for a few moments, refusing to move. She only approached when Blaine rolled his eyes and beckoned her closer, his hand closing around her arm to pull her into his embrace.
Suddenly, Kathleen found herself cradled against him, his chest curving around her back and his arm lying heavily over her. Despite everything, she felt safe. She was still exposed, of course—to the elements, to the animals, to anything and anyone who could harm her. And yet being in Blaine’s arms filled her with a sense of safety that not even four walls could provide, and she found herself getting calmer and calmer.
The only problem was that with Blaine so close, she couldn’t help but think about certain things that shouldn’t have been thinking about.
What would me faither say if he kent I was here with Blaine, like this? What would Maither dae?
The thought of her parents unsettled her. If they saw her like this, even if Blaine had done nothing untoward, they were bound to put all the blame on him and then also lock her up for good measure until she was married off to whatever man pleased them the most. She couldn’t help but cringe at the thought; the mere notion of marriage scared her more than anything else, more than the woods, more than the pack of wolves that she was convinced was nearby, more than the possibility of brigands or Campbell men attacking her.
Fenella’s despair had been palpable even through her letter, and Kathleen didn’t know in what state she would find her friend once she was at Castle Stalker. All she knew was that she didn’t want to meet the same fate.
“Ye’re tremblin’, lass,” Blaine said, his voice soft in her ear. He must have been on the verge of sleep, though Kathleen had only seen him sleep once in the time they had spent together. “Are ye cold or are ye that scared?”
“I’m nae scared,” Kathleen lied rather unconvincingly. “I’m just… ach, I dinnae ken! I dinnae like sleepin’ in the woods!”
“Nay one daes,” Blaine pointed out. “But dinnae fash. I willnae let anythin’ happen tae ye.”
It was easier said than done. Kathleen would have loved to stop worrying long enough to fall asleep, but it didn’t seem to be a possibility that night.
“Tell me somethin’,” she requested. “Anythin’, I just want tae stop thinkin’ that I’m about tae be eaten by wolves. ”
Behind her, Blaine let out a low chuckle, the puff of breath tickling the back of Kathleen’s neck. “They’ll eat me first an’ they’ll be too full tae eat ye too.”
“Blaine!” Kathleen protested with a mock sob. “How will that help me?”
“Well, ye could run.”
“An’ then other wolves would eat me! Dinnae frighten me like this. Come now, tell me a story.”
“I dinnae ken any good stories,” Blaine said.
“Then tell me about ye.”
That was Blaine’s least favorite topic of conversation, but it seemed like the perfect opportunity for Kathleen to get all the information that she so desperately craved out of him. With a sigh, Blaine shifted a little closer, his knee bumping against the back of her thigh.
“There isnae much tae say,” he said. “I was born a Farquharson, born an’ raised in Braemar Castle. Me faither’s name was Callum an’ me maither’s Lilly. ”
Was? Have they passed?
Kathleen didn’t know if it was proper to broach the subject and so she didn’t, but with the way Blaine’s voice caught in his throat as he spoke about them, she could only imagine it was true.
“I… I had a sister, too,” Blaine continued. “She died very young. There was an attack an’ she was killed in it.”
Kathleen couldn’t help the gasp that escaped her. She couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for him, losing not only his parents, but also his sister. Did he have anyone in this world? Or was he all alone, roaming from place to place for his missions from the clan?
She couldn’t think about her life without her parents or her cousins in it. Her family was the most important thing in her life, even if she often quarreled with her parents. They were her rocks, the pillars on which her entire life stood. Without them, she would be left unmoored.
But she couldn’t remember an attack at the Farquharson clan in recent years. Blaine had said that his sister had died young, though Kathleen didn’t know if that meant she had been a child or a young woman. Perhaps it had been before her time or when she was too young to remember .
“When was that?” she asked.
“A little over eleven years ago,” Blaine said, and from the grief in his tone, Kathleen could tell he was counting down to the day, so he couldn’t possibly be mistaken.
But neither was she. Clan Farquharson was a good ally of the Mackintoshes and an attack in Braemar Castle would have been widely known.
“There was an attack in the castle eleven years ago?” she asked tentatively. Despite her certainty, there was still a chance, no matter how small, that she was mistaken.
Behind her, Blaine seemed to tense up, pulling back from her ever so slightly. For a few moments, he was quiet. When he finally spoke, he didn’t respond to her question, but rather asked one of his own—one that surprised her so much that it was enough to draw all her attention away from her doubts, her mind grinding to a halt.
“Have ye ever laid with a man like this?”
Kathleen sputtered, her head whipping around to glare at Blaine over her shoulder. It was just a tactic to distract her, of course; she was perfectly aware of that and yet she still allowed it, any desire to ask further questions about his childhood and his life dissipating in favor of setting the record straight regarding her own life.
“I would never!”
“Nae even with a laddie?” Blaine teased. “Dinnae fash, I willnae tell.”
Huffing and puffing as she rolled over to face Blaine, Kathleen said, “Absolutely nae! How dare ye even suggest such a thing? I’m a lady!”
“Aye, that ye are,” Blaine said. “But ye’re also nae like any other lady I’ve ever met.”
It sounded like a compliment to Kathleen, though she was not so quick to receive it as one. “That daesnae mean I would ever allow a man this close.”
“Ye’re allowin’ it now,” Blaine pointed out, much to Kathleen’s frustration and embarrassment. She pressed her lips into a thin line, gritting her teeth as she tried to come up with an excuse.
Finally, she settled on a half-truth. “I was afraid ! O’ the wolves !”
Blaine only laughed in response, a hand coming up to pat her patronizingly on the top of her head. With a scowl, Kathleen batted Blaine’s hand away, and in the silence that followed, she felt her cheeks heat so much that she feared she would simply explode.
“Well, how many women have ye been with?”
Because, of course Blaine had been with women before. A man like him could probably have any woman he desired.
“A few, actually. But nae in the way ye imagine with all o’ them.”
By then, Kathleen’s face was boiling. She didn’t think she had ever blushed that much in her life—not even as a child, when her parents caught her doing something she shouldn’t be doing. Could Blaine see it in the light of the fire or was the darkness of the night enough to obscure it, to save her from further embarrassment?
She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“Ye mean… dae ye mean… beddin’ them?” Kathleen asked, having to force the words past her lips.
“Aye, that’s what I mean,” Blaine said .
Kathleen stared into his green eyes before her gaze was drawn to the curve of his lips. They were slightly parted and they looked soft, inviting.
“What’s that like?”
Even to her own ears, she sounded breathless, overtaken by lust. If Blaine noticed, though, he was kind enough not to mention it. Even so, he remained silent for so long that Kathleen felt the need to fill the space between them.
“I mean, I’ve heard what the maids say,” she said. “An’…. an’ our healer has explained a few things tae me, but they were mostly about bairns an’ pregnancy an’—”
She cut herself short before she could say anything else that would sound foolish. Blaine’s expression softened as he looked at her, though, and his voice was quiet as he spoke.
“Did the maids frighten ye?”
Kathleen nodded wordlessly. She had heard plenty of stories in the castle that had made her think that when the time would come for her to consummate her marriage, she would suffer for hours if not days. She couldn’t make sense of it, though. If it was so terrible, why was everyone doing it ?
“Dinnae fash,” Blaine said. “It can be very pleasurable fer the lass, as well.”
Kathleen’s breath caught in her throat. Her tongue darted out to swipe over her bottom lip and she watched as Blaine tracked the movement with his gaze before it flicked back up to her eyes.
“If yer husband kens what he’s daein’, then ye’ll enjoy it,” he assured her.
“How dae I ken if he kens what he’s daein’?” Kathleen asked.
“Och, ye’ll ken,” said Blaine with a chuckle.
“An’ what if he daesnae ken?” she asked. “What if he’s bad at it?”
“Well, then ye endure an’ find yerself a paramour,” Blaine said, and though he made it sound like a joke, Kathleen could detect a hint of sincerity behind it. “Just make sure ye let yer husband bed ye first so he daesnae find ye ruined.”
Kathleen winced at the phrasing, rolling over onto her back to stare at the dark sky above. The stars peeked through the canopy of leaves, twinkling in the unimaginable distance, and she remembered the days when her father would show her all the constellations and teach her their names.
Simpler times.
“Why is it that a lass is ruined but a man can dae as he pleases?” she asked, mumbling mostly to herself. She didn’t think Blaine would have an answer any different than her parents did—men and women were simply different.
But his response surprised her. “I dinnae ken. I wish I had a better answer fer ye.”
This was the most danger Blaine had ever been in, and he had been in several battles and twice as many skirmishes. And yet there, in the middle of the woods, with nothing but the light of the stars and the flames to break the darkness around them, he was feeling more vulnerable than ever before.
Kathleen could undo him with one simple request. He knew he could never resist her in the dark of the night as he could under the harsh light of the morning sun. Nights were strange things, demanding actions of people that they would never take in the day .
He only hoped she would never ask. Perhaps she had more reason than he did, more restraint.
At his words, she turned her head to look at him, those blue eyes like the ocean boring into him. “That’s a better answer than anyone else has given me.”
Blaine could easily believe it. There were very few people with whom Kathleen could discuss this and they were all undoubtedly doing their best to discourage her from ever seeking this kind of pleasure until she was married to a suitable man. But he had no reason to lie to her or try to scare her; he didn’t want that. He wanted her to know the truth.
Silence fell over them, but this time it felt more comfortable than any previous time. Blaine didn’t feel the need to fill it, but not because he didn’t want to share anything about himself. Rather, he found it enjoyable, simply lying there with Kathleen under his arm, her body warm and solid against him.
And then she spoke again, and from the first word, he felt his resolve crumble piece by piece, just as he had feared.
“If ye kiss me, will I be ruined?”
His chest tightened and his fingers twitched where they lay at the edge of his cloak. “Only if I tell someone. ”
“Will ye?” Kathleen asked.
Blaine looked at her, his heart beating as fast as when he was in the middle of a fight.
I might. I should.
“Nay.”
There was a second when Blaine thought Kathleen would put an end to it right then and there and he was both relieved and disappointed. But then, she shuffled a little closer, looking up at him through her lashes and that was more than enough to send a jolt of arousal through him, his manhood quickly hardening under his trews.
“Then kiss me.”