Chapter 3 #3
She raised her knife and her brows in slow tandem and he crossed his arms against his chest and stared.
“You are the most difficult . . .” He searched momentarily for the proper word. “. . . warrior I have ever met,” he said.
“It is you who are difficult.”
He made a sound like a winded horse, but she ignored him.
“’Twas not I who asked you to interfere in me mission.”
“Nay, but ’twas—What mission is that?” he asked.
She scowled. His shoulders and chest were near as broad as a stable door and yet she doubted if he packed a thimble’s worth of fat.
Nay, it was muscle that rippled beneath his tunic and she would be lucky to hold him off for so much as an instant, with a blade or without, if he decided to force his hand.
She’d been raised as a lass for the first several years of her life, and as a lass she’d learned her weaknesses.
’Twas as a boy she’d found her strength, and ’twas as a boy she’d survived.
Oh aye, things could have been worse. She could have been abandoned to die in infancy.
But she had not. Nay, her blood kin had seen fit to give her to another.
To an old man called Barnett. An old man who did not want a girl child, an old man whose wits were addled by loss and hopelessness.
An old man who longed for the return of his son.
But the son was dead, and she could not replace him, no matter how hard she tried, no matter what skills she acquired or what battle she fought.
And in the end she’d been abandoned both by Barnett and by herself, until only the warrior Hunter was left.
With no room for softness or giving. No room for a maid or the wee lass she had once been.
But Hunter did not miss her and she would not turn back.
“I did not ask you to interfere with me life,” she said, and kept her voice low and steady. Nay, she could not hold him off by force, for her own strength lay in wit and dexterity, but if he wanted a battle, he would have one. “In truth, I begged you to leave.”
“Begged,” he scoffed. “You wouldn’t know how to beg if Saint Peter himself were your tutor. What the devil were you thinking standing those brigands alone?”
She stared at him, awestruck and silent, then, “Might you believe I invited the bastards to accost me? Do you think I asked them for trouble?”
“Aye! That is exactly what I think, for if you wanted no trouble you would have kept me at your side.”
Perhaps her surprise showed on her face. “To protect me?” she asked scornfully. “To be me champion?”
“Aye,” he growled. “Mayhap I could do a better job than your knight in yonder stable.”
“He has been more loyal than most.”
He watched her carefully, as though her words told him a thousand secrets she did not want spilled. She tensed.
“So he is a Munro steed,” he mused.
She considered denying it, but he had heard the truth spoken to the brigands, and lies were naught but more difficulties. “Aye,” she said. “The Munros bred him.”
“Their mounts are usually white.”
“So I am told.”
“And well treasured.” He paused. “Why did they give him to you?”
She said nothing as she seated herself on the edge of the bed.
“So you are a Munro,” he said.
“Of course,” she agreed, and laughed. “After his mother’s death, and before his father attacked Evermyst’s folk, the fierce Innes Munro, the barbarian bastard of old, nurtured a wee girl child, then raised her to battle like a man. Perhaps they trained me to combat their Fraser foes.”
“Evermyst and Windemoore are foes no longer,” he said. “Not since Anora’s marriage to Ramsay. Not since he gave up trying to win a Fraser bride and became the peaceful bridegroom of Lady Madelaine.”
“Perhaps,” she said.
“What do you mean, perhaps?”
“Not all Munros are thrilled with their laird’s new and gentler ways.”
“How do you know this?”
She shrugged. “Did you not say I was one of them?”
“If you are not a Munro, then who are you?”
“I am a warrior, and not to be underestimated.”
“Aye,” he growled. “And nearly a dead warrior for your foolishness.”
“So ’tis true,” she scoffed. “You would be me champion?”
His scowl deepened. “Mayhap.”
Tension sparked between them. “Have you any idea how long I have been protecting meself, champion?”
For a long moment he said nothing at all.
Instead, he remained perfectly motionless as he watched her, as if any movement might distract him from his thoughts.
“Nay.” His voice had dropped and his eyes were narrowed.
They were solemn and dark, nearly the same hue as his sable hair, held back from his face with a single strip of untanned hide.
“Tell me how long you have been on your own, lass.”
For a moment there seemed to be no air in the room and for that same length of time she almost longed to tell him of her life, of being left with an old man who did not want a lass, of her futile struggle to become what he wanted her to be.
But she knew better than to air the truth.
She forced a laugh. “’Tis none of your concern. Indeed—”
“But I am curious,” he said. “How long has it been?”
“Long enough so that I do not need your assistance, of that you can be certain.”
“That did not seem to be the case a few short hours ago.”
She was silent for a moment, remembering.
Aye, it had been a tight spot, but she had been in tight spots before and lived to tell of it.
She needed no one. Not the family that had forsaken her, not the baron who had betrayed her, and certainly not this man.
She had proved as much before and she would do so again.
“Leave me be, MacGowan,” she said. “If you wish it I will agree that you saved me life. You can return to sipping ale before the fire in lofty Evermyst and tell the lads how you saved the warrior from sure death. Perhaps if you tell it well the maids will sigh and swoon at your bravery. I’ll not call you a liar. ”
“Aye,” he said, “and do not forget that you stole me steed.”
She had almost forgotten. Indeed, he had run a goodly way to catch her. What the devil was he made of? “Next time I will ride faster,” she vowed.
He raised a brow at her. “So you delayed, did you? Were you waiting for me, lass?”
She laughed, and he canted his head at her.
“What are you so afeared of that you would endanger your life to avoid me?”
“Afeared? Me?”
“Aye. You. Who are you really?”
“I am Hunter, the warrior.”
For a moment neither spoke. His gaze was as sharp as shattered glass.
“Aye,” he said and nodded slowly. “The warrior. And so you must disrobe so I may see to your wound, for ’tis obvious, there is no difference between us.”