Chapter Fourteen #3
A sharp knock sounded against the rough wooden frame beside the open doorway before Tormod ducked beneath the lintel, his broad shoulders nearly brushing either side of the narrow entrance.
Donnchadh was close behind him. Both men carried the damp smell of horses and wet forest air with them, though neither got more than a few steps inside before the atmosphere in the hut shifted perceptibly beneath their arrival—or perhaps, not altered so much as revealed.
Tormod’s eyes moved first to Morggán while the taste of Avery still lingered maddeningly in his mouth, but then slid almost immediately toward Avery where she still stood beside the bed with her mouth slightly swollen from kissing and her hair no longer lying quite as neatly as it had earlier.
Morggán saw the instant of recognition in the older warrior’s face—not surprise exactly, nor disapproval, but the swift understanding of a man long accustomed to noticing things others overlooked.
Donnchadh’s glance followed a heartbeat later, younger but no less disciplined in concealing curiosity, though he had enough sense to lower his gaze almost at once.
Morggán became abruptly conscious of how Avery must appear to them. Not disheveled enough to invite insult or assumption from honorable men, but changed nevertheless. Softer somehow, still flushed. Her eyes were fixed too steadily upon him.
Tormod looked back to Morggán with an expression so carefully neutral it nearly confirmed the suspicion outright, that he had some idea what had just happened.
He faced Avery again, and gave a half-bow. “Lass, my apologies to ye, for the lad’s abhorrent behavior. Rest assured, it will nae go unpunished.”
Morggán, his regard returned to Avery, was compelled to jerk his head ever-so-slightly in Tormod’s direction, since her gaze still sat on him.
She blinked and met Tormod’s dark gaze. “Thank you.”
Mayhap believing that was all he would receive from her, all that was due, the captain turned back to Morggán. “Wynn and the lads have returned from meeting Lucas Thain.”
That sharpened him. “Where is he?”
“Less than half a day south,” Donnchadh said. “Coming north with several hundred men, mayhap more. Wynn said they found him by the old crossing, and Thain broke camp within the hour.”
Morggán absorbed that with a slow nod. “He understood the size of the English force?”
“Aye,” Tormod said. “The messenger told him what ye saw from the hollow. I’ve just learned from our own scouts that the English are still moving north and east, but slower now. Too many wagons, too much weight, and the spring ground’s still soft.”
“If Thain keeps his pace, he’ll reach us before nightfall or near enough to it,” Donnchadh informed him.
“Providing our own units are returned today, we can break at first light with both forces joined,” Tormod suggested. “The English think they passed through these woods unseen, but we’ll join Thain’s men with ours and fall upon them before they gain firmer road.”
Morggán looked toward the doorway, already measuring distance, daylight, horses, men, the temper of the ground.
And in the periphery of his thoughts, but gaining space, was Avery, and that kiss.
The very near memory of it distracted him—hesitant softness giving way to answering hunger, the small helpless sound she had made into his mouth, the way she had clung to him.
Nothing about the kiss had been uncertain once she yielded to it.
It had been startlingly right from the first moment her lips parted beneath his.
His hands had been fantastically curious and yet somehow cautious, aching to go places they had never been.
Jesu! He wanted to do it again already, wanted more.
That truth sat breathtakingly enough upon him, but another followed close behind it, colder and far more consequential.
Only yesterday he had told Avery plainly that he could not in good conscience leave her alone in this forest any longer, though she had refused him just as plainly in return.
At the time, he had believed the matter one purely of safety and obligation.
No decent man, knowing what dangers moved through these lands and what had already nearly befallen her here, could willingly ride away and leave her defenseless among the woods.
But that had been before the kiss.
Now, confronted again by hard realities waiting beyond the trees, he understood with growing unease that his resistance to leaving her behind no longer rested solely upon duty or protection.
The understanding came to him with unpleasant clarity.
Whatever Avery wished, whatever argument she might still make for remaining here alone inside the forest, he already knew he would not ride away easily and leave her to this life again.
The very thought produced a hard resistance inside him, something instinctive and immediate that clenched almost angrily in his chest.
It no longer seemed merely unwise to leave her here. It seemed impossible.
Morggán looked toward her then, to find her gaze upon him again. The flush had not entirely faded from her face.
No, there was no way he could leave her now.
And judging by the look Tormod cast him from the corner of his eye, Morggán had the impression that his captain had already begun to suspect it too.