Chapter 5 #3
He fought the urge to smile at her. “Had they been more accomplished at the task, I might have been. But all things considered, they seem rather harmless. I’ll just make sure to drink no ale until they’ve sampled it first.”
He arched a brow at her as he remembered her earlier urgency to leave the wagon. “I thought you had to attend business?”
“I do.” She handed him the sword, then ambled off toward the trees.
Ewan watched her. She walked like some regal queen with the most delicate sway to her hips that made him ache to sample her. She was a fetching wench and it was hard to believe a lady so refined was able to handle a sword as well as a man.
Nora was ever full of surprises and to his deepest chagrin, ever appealing.
Why was he so amused by her?
For that matter, why was he amused by the gypsies?
Such a thing was not really in his nature. He’d always been the surly one. Always found the dark side in everything and had happily wallowed in his moroseness.
He should be angry and vengeful. Instead, he was actually looking forward to the two-day trip to the north.
“Are you sure the two of you aren’t married?” Bavel asked as he returned with the ale.
Ewan was taken aback by the question. “Why do you ask?”
“You can barely stand to speak to each other and yet when the lady walks off, you look as if you can already taste her. Smacks of marriage to me.”
“Aye,” Viktor agreed as he brought the cups.
Ewan scratched his head at their logic. “Nay, not married.”
For him there would never be such a thing and oddly enough, he began to wonder who Nora would be married to. If this Ryan she was running from would be kind to her.
Would this unknown man see in her all the things Ewan saw or would he lose patience with her and her incessant prattling?
She deserved a husband who could appreciate her unique charms. She was actually quite pleasing once a man got used to her ways...
Nora paused in the woods as she gathered a few flowers to make a garland and a sweet-smelling bouquet. She’d always had a fondness for fresh flowers. The colors and the smell of them...
It was so beautiful out here.
She lost track of time as she frolicked in the woods daydreaming and pretending to be a fairy queen who could banish Ryan out of existence and get her safely to Eleanor.
She was completely lost in her own thoughts.
Until she heard a loud bellow.
“Nora!”
She jumped at the fierce sound of Ewan’s voice. It was loud enough to shake the earth. She had been wrong earlier. Even though his voice was deep and low, he was capable of quite a loud noise when the urge took him.
She could even hear him tromping through the woods like some big, lumbering bear.
“I’m over here,” she said as she caught sight of his white shirt.
He turned and glared at her.
“What did I do now?” she asked.
“Have you any idea how long you’ve been gone?”
She smiled. “You were worried?”
His scowl deepened. “There are all sorts of wild animals and bandits in the woods. Any of them could have found you and done you any kind of harm.”
“You were worried?” she repeated.
He looked about uncomfortably. “You shouldn’t wander off,” he snapped gruffly.
“You were worried.”
He growled at her.
She smiled wider. “You know, my lord, you’re not nearly so fearsome when you’re worried.”
He scoffed at her. “Why is it so important to you that I admit that I’m worried?”
“It’s not. I just like to nettle you with it because the idea of it seems so distasteful to you. Perhaps I should be offended?”
To her surprise, he reached out with his large hand and brushed a strand of stray blond hair from her face. The gentle touch was so out of character for him that it raised chills on her body and made her heart ache in tenderness.
He was a decent man when he wanted to be.
“I was worried,” he admitted finally.
She fought the urge to close her eyes and savor his light touch. How could a man so large be so gentle?
“It was nice of you to come after me.”
He grunted and lowered his hand away from her cheek. “What kept you?”
“I was picking flowers.” She showed him her collection.
He curled his lip. “And you think that handful of weeds was worth risking your life?”
She pouted as she ran her hand over the wildflowers that released their sweet scent into the air. She inhaled them and let the smell remind her of her childhood days when she and her mother had spent hours alone gathering them and tending her mother’s garden.
She cradled them to her breast. “My mother has oft told me that men have sacrificed their lives and kingdoms for a woman’s smile, so why not risk the ire of a bear for a bouquet?”
“Most men are fools.”
She paused at his words and the pain she heard in his voice. Remembering what Sorcha had said about his betrayal, she felt for the man who had foresworn beauty in his life. “You don’t think beauty is worth sacrificing for?”
“Nay. I do not.” His sincere blue eyes scorched her.
He meant that.
“But surely you didn’t always feel that way?”
“I learn from my mistakes.”
Her stomach tightened at what he said. She couldn’t imagine such a life.
“And you’ve been without beauty ever since,” she said wistfully. “I’m sorry for that, Ewan. Everyone needs some beauty in their life.”
Ewan wondered for a moment if she were mocking him, but one look into her guileless amber eyes and he knew she wasn’t.
She could never relate to the kind of pain he lived with.
“I can’t imagine living a life where nothing gives me pleasure,” she said softly. “It would take a strong man to live as you have. To get up every morning and carry on when all you can see is the gloom and misery of the world.”
“I’m not strong,” Ewan confessed. He wondered why he said that.
It wasn’t like him to be open with anyone.
But there was something about Nora that comforted him.
Something about her that made him want to share things with her.
“I was a weak-minded fool who believed a lying termagant. There’s no strength in what I do now or what I did in the past.”
He took her back through the woods, toward the gypsies’ camp.
“I disagree,” she said as she walked beside him. “A weak man wouldn’t still be alive.”
“A strong man would be able to look his mother in the face.” Ewan couldn’t believe those words had left his lips. Never before had he confided that secret to anyone.
Nora paused and took his hand into hers.
Ewan stared at her tiny hand, at the long, graceful fingers that were laced with his own. His hand was almost twice the size of hers. Her skin was pale, soft while his was tanned and callused.
There was no softness in his life.
No grace or beauty.
In truth, there was nothing in his life at all.
“This is not the hand of a weak man,” she said as she gave a light squeeze to his fingers. “You could have left me to my own ends and yet you didn’t. Even though my situation caused you pain, you came with me rather than see me hurt. What is weak in that?”
Ewan didn’t know what to say. No woman had ever said such a thing to him. No one had ever before defended him.
She made him feel almost heroic.
How did she do it?
Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed it gently and inhaled the soft, fragrant scent of her skin. She smelled of the flowers she held in her other hand, of the earth and of the woman. It was a heady combination. One that cut through him and made his entire body burn.
In that moment, she was beautiful to him. Not just in her looks, but in her being.
She was the beauty he wished he had. The beauty he would love to spend the rest of his life staring at and holding close to his heart.
But she could never be his.
She belonged to someone else.
“Thank you,” he whispered, lowering her hand.
“For what?”
“Making me feel better.”
She smiled at him and he felt an invisible fist slam into his gut.
How he wished he could keep her with him like this forever. But it wasn’t meant to be. She was promised to someone else and like as not she had a father who was probably beside himself with panic at her disappearance.
If he were a decent man, Ewan would head off to Lochlan’s castle with her now and let his brother find her father so that she could go home and relieve the man’s worry.
Instead, he was going to spend the next few days with their untoward hosts. Not just because he wanted to find out why he’d been taken, but because he wanted to spend more time with this woman.
It didn’t make sense.
Nora was everything he should hate. She was bold and stubborn. Vexing.
But most of all, she was enticing and it had been so long since anyone had enticed him. An eternity since he’d felt the molten heat of passion or desire.
He wanted her.
With every ounce of masculinity he possessed. He wanted to take her in his arms and claim her body with his. To peel the clothes from her and explore every inch of her bare skin with his mouth.
To fan her hair out across his pillows and watch her face contort with pleasure as she came beneath him.
Yet it would never be.
She was a virtuous maid.
And he would move heaven and earth to keep her that way.
Nora held her tongue as Ewan led her back to camp. He must have washed his face right before he came to seek her. His black curly hair was slicked back from his face and sleek. His shoulders broad and muscular, and yet he didn’t appear as fearsome to her now as he had before.
She was growing accustomed to his brooding features and scowls. He was a strange combination of gentleman and beast. An intoxicating blending of dangerous predator and protector.
His touch was so gentle that it amazed her. He showed a kindness with her that she would never have thought him capable of.
And in the back of her mind, she wondered what he would be like to husband.
Would he listen, or would he be like the others of his kind and shut her out merely because she had been born the wrong gender?
Nora, what are you thinking?
The man is wholly unsuitable.
Truly he was. Big, hulking.
With kind blue eyes that glittered with tormented pain.
She shook her head to clear it of the thought as she rejoined the gypsies.