Chapter Seventeen
Effie served Florie a bowl of mutton with a freshly baked piece of bread.
“Where is Anne today?” the elderly woman asked, between bites.
“I thought to find her here,” Effie replied. “I will go there straight from here and ensure she is well.”
She’d been surprised not to find Anne there, as she was sure the day before they’d talked about seeing each other at the elderly women’s house.
Then again, poor Anne had been quite affected by Camden’s actions.
The healer and all his complications were something her sweet friend didn’t need.
Unfortunately, despite not claiming it, Anne was very much in love with him.
When the heartbreak came, which Effie prayed it didnae, she’d have to be there for Anne.
Florie narrowed her eyes at Effie, her weathered hands planted firmly on her hips.
“Ye are nae courting yet? Ye’ve been of childbearing age for years now.
Why are ye lasses waiting longer and longer to wed?
” She clicked her tongue, disappointment radiating from her like cold air through an open window.
Effie straightened, chin lifting, she regarded the older woman. “I plan to marry soon,” she said briskly, folding her arms with confidence that she hoped looked genuine. “Dinnae trouble yerself, Florie. I am but one and twenty, hardly ancient. There is time yet for bairns.”
Florie huffed in a manner that clearly declared her unconvinced. “And who is this fortunate man? There are plenty about who would fancy a pretty lass like ye. The vicar, for instance.”
Effie burst into laughter. Loud, unladylike, and immediate. “Me and the vicar?” she wheezed. “Do ye truly see that working?”
For a fleeting second Florie looked thoughtful before her eyes sparkled with wicked humor. “Nae,” she admitted, chuckling. “But I would dearly enjoy witnessing the attempt.”
Still smiling, Effie left her and began the walk home.
The village unfolded before her in the golden light of late afternoon, familiar and beloved.
Vendors packed away their goods in the square while the scent of fresh bread and roasting meat lingered in the cooling air.
Men clustered outside the tavern with the solemn determination of those pretending they might not end up inside within the hour.
Women hurried past with heavy baskets, children clinging to skirts or racing ahead in shrieking bursts of energy.
Sheep dotted the surrounding hills, tufts of white against the green grasses.
Beyond the blacksmith’s shop stretched the forest, dark and inviting, and farther still the stone towers of Keep Ross rose against the horizon.
To the opposite side drifted the faint tang of salt air from the sea.
Effie loved Tokavaig. Every noisy, vibrant, comforting part of it.
Across the way, two men stopped their work and glanced in her direction.
Which was why it was particularly humiliating to trip like a distracted fool and tumble off the edge of the path. She landed hard and gasped. Pain shot through her ankle and her elbow scraped against the rough earth.
“Of all the daft…!” She bit back a more colorful word and instead scolded herself. “Now how are ye getting home, ye goose?”
“Do ye require help?”
The deep voice sent a prickle of annoyance down her spine before she even looked up.
Gowan.
Of course it would be him.
“Nae,” she said stiffly, sitting upright and inspecting the blood welling on her elbow. She avoided testing her ankle, the throbbing already told her all she needed to ken.
“Then how do ye plan to get home?” he asked evenly.
Effie glared up at him. Tall. Broad. Entirely too solid. He stood like an immovable wall of calm practicality that she found endlessly irritating.
“I will walk.”
His arms crossed over his chest, muscles shifting beneath his tunic in a way she very pointedly ignored. “Ye cannae walk,” he said. “I will take ye to the healer.”
She pushed herself upright out of sheer stubbornness and immediately cried out as pain exploded through her ankle, sending her collapsing back into the dust.
“Cursed chickens and cows!” she snapped, refusing vulgarity even in misery.
Before she could protest further, the ground vanished. Gowan lifted her as if she weighed nothing at all.
Effie stiffened, outrage colliding with something far more unsettling, as he lifted her without warning. One arm braced beneath her knees, the other firm and unyielding at her back. He held her as though she weighed nothing at all.
The scent of leather and clean air clung to him, and his warmth surrounded her—steady, implacable, entirely too noticeable.
“People will see us,” she whispered fiercely, blinking against the sting of tears. Entirely from pain, she assured herself, nae humiliation.
He didnae falter. Didnae hesitate. Didnae so much as quicken his stride.
“Aye,” he said simply. “They will.” He glanced down at her, his expression as grave as if delivering a sermon.
“Sadly, I have nae cloak to drape over ye. Else they might assume I carried a corpse and grant ye privacy.”
Despite herself, a laugh escaped her. “I am nae dead.”
“Yet,” he replied, his tone dry. “Though if ye persist in leaping from paths like an untrained colt, the possibility remains.”
She sniffed. “Insufferable oaf.”
He didn’t respond. He merely continued walking, steady and unbothered by her indignation, as though carrying stubborn, injured women was a tiresome but unavoidable duty.
For the next while, Effie devoted every ounce of her considerable willpower to keeping her head upright, rather than surrendering to the dangerous temptation of resting it against his shoulder. Against the solid certainty of him.