Chapter Eight #2
She would not have stopped him. She followed after him slowly, using caution on the wet rocks. But the instant she left the rocks behind, she hurried forward and put the bowl she carried in his left hand, closing his fingers around it.
She didn’t stop but continued without a word, pleased that she didn’t hear the bowl crashing to the ground. She reached the house before him and went straight to her room.
She closed the door behind her and leaned back against it. She needed a private moment or two to regain her good senses. She cursed her memory. How was she supposed to gather herself when she kept reliving a moment of looking up into the warmth of his luminous eyes?
How was she to breathe steadily with the haunting feel of steel, warm and malleable, closed around her waist, pulling her close against his chest, invading her thoughts?
He knocked on the door. She propelled away from it and turned on her heel to stare at it.
“Miss Woodburn, are ye ill?”
“Aye, a little,” she called out, then gasped and touched her fingers to her chest. What if he left because she did not help him because she claimed to be ill?
Did he think being alone would do her good? Nonsense! When did being alone do any good for anyone?
The night she stepped out of Dunley Keep and into hell and found her family dead, she knew being alone was going to be the worst thing in the world. Worse even than being a servant.
“I will be fine soon enough,” she assured him quickly. “Get a bow and arrow ready fer yer practice.”
He was silent for a moment, but she knew he was still out there. She slowed her breathing and patted her matted hair, and then her chest and readied herself to go.
When she opened the door, she was not surprised to find him there on the other side, waiting for her.
“I…ehm…I wanted to make certain ye were all right,” he defended.
“Did ye believe I was being deceitful when I said I was?”
His concern darkened into a scowl. “Ye are hidin’ in yer room and said ye were ill when I called to ye.”
She realized he was correct and she sounded dimwitted. “I am not hiding,” she defended, stepping past him, away from his worried gaze. “And I told ye I would be fine.”
In a single long step, he caught up to her and bent to look her in the eyes.
“What are ye doing?”
“Checkin’.”
“Checking fer what?”
When he didn’t answer, she suspected he was calling her a liar. And he was correct. She was. She didn’t feel better. She doubted she would ever be fine again! Today, she saw exactly who she was. A traitor to her poor dead family.
How could she hold the tiniest speck of softness toward him when he showed concern for her?
She didn’t care that he had only been stealing a look at her. How could she entertain/harbor such disgraceful thoughts as liking that he was concerned for her? That he had agreed to stay with her so she would not be alone?
She glanced at his empty hands and shook her head in disapproval—the way Lady Abigail D’Atere, her third mistress, used to do to her whenever Elspeth had trouble following instructions. Lady Abigail was a nasty wretch, but she never put her hands to Elspeth, the way her other masters had.
“Ye didna do as I said,” she accused caustically.
“We can skip today’s practice,” he said in a low voice that seeped into her flesh and made her blood flow warmer. “I willna leave.”
How did he know what she had been thinking moments ago?
She raised her gaze to his and felt the mad urge to smile. She fought it. “I said I am fine.”
“Aye, ye’re a braw lass.”
She stopped walking and turned to look at him head on. “What are ye trying to do, Mr. Cameron?”
He tilted his head a tad to the side. “Hmm?”
Heaven help her, but he was a handsome man. She thought if she lived another twenty years, she would never see one as pleasing to look at as he.
Aye. Lucifer was said to be beautiful once.
“How do ye know that I am braw, Mr. Cameron? Why say it? What are ye trying to achieve?”
Madly, he smiled. “Achieve?” He shook his head, growing serious again. “I am no’ tryin’ to achieve anythin’. I imagine that once bein’ the only daughter of a prominent baron and then bein’ thrown into servitude and abuse must have been extremely difficult fer ye.”
He understood? But how? More importantly, what did it mean? Was the only person she had ever found with compassion, the man who caused every terrible thing in her life?
“And different,” she added in a whisper, finding it hard to breathe.
“And different,” he echoed. His smile softened until only a hint of it remained. “Of course.”
That’s it. Elspeth decided to ignore him. He was staying. He’d be eating. Once he was gone, she would no longer have to worry about liking him, or worse—forgiving him. Nae, nae, never that.
With her plans firmly in place, she went with him to the glen just beyond the stream and watched him while he practiced lifting his weapon in both hands.
It took a quarter of an hour, and then another half hour for him to nock the arrow and position it correctly.
Twice, she helped him pull back on the bowstring, standing close—so close that the heat from his body warmed her.
She did her best to keep her wits about her, standing so close to his jaw that she could count the tiny dark hairs along the chiseled outline. She shook her head as if to clear it.
“Draw back,” she said softly near his ear. His muscles strained drawing back the bow. She moved her fingers over his upper arm and shoulder. “Relax some. There. Now release.”
He did and the arrow did not go far, but he smiled brightly, nonetheless. “Who taught ye how to fire an arrow, lass?”
“My brother Roderick.”
His smile faded completely, but before he reached for another arrow, she pinched the linen of his tunic. “Mr. Cameron, was my family buried? When I was taken away, they were still lying in the dirt. They werena’ buried. Tell me if they were laid to rest later.”
He looked as if he wished he were saying anything but the words leaving his mouth. “I dinna know. But I will find oot.”
Did she hear him right? “Ye will?”
He nodded. “Everyone’s kin should receive a final restin’ place.”
“Aye.” She didn’t know what else to say. So many times now he had said things she never expected. Things she actually agreed with.
With a slight intake of breath, she went about doing what she promised herself to do. Ignore him.
“All right then, let us practice controlling the muscles in yer arm, and make them strong again, hmm?”
“Aye,” he replied enthusiastically and stood at attention.
There was something about his willingness that both excited and angered her. She should not be helping him gain his strength! Why could she not stop showing him kindness? Why was he showing her the same? He was ready to do as she said if it would help him use his arm again.
Did the fool trust her to teach him the correct lessons and nothing that would get him killed?
Thanks to her dear older brother, she learned at an early age how to handle certain weapons. At first, their father was against her boyish desires, until he—as the number of his enemies began to grow—realized it was not boyish but brave to want to fight and live.
“Lift yer left arm in front of ye,” she instructed. “Hold it while we count to ten.”
He held it and counted out loud to ten with her.
“Why only ten? I can push fer—”
“I can only count to ten,” she told him. “I can count to ten twice if ye can do it.”
He smiled and nodded. “I can teach ye to count to twenty, then thirty and so on.”
He would teach her to count? “Why?” she asked. “Why should I learn such things?”
“Ye’re a baron’s daughter,” he said, holding his left arm up. “Ye should know how to count.”
She was a baron’s daughter. Aye. She smiled, remembering. Och, she had forgotten her training and lessons to impress her father’s guests. But too soon those memories changed into her home burning down and everyone she loved dead in the front yard.
“Ten,” he said, “eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen—”
Hearing him, she followed along with her lips. “Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—”
He strained, licking his lips, lips that had surely been made to tempt and seduce. He let his pleasant countenance vanish as he strove toward, “eighteen, nineteen…”
She didn’t know what came next but she admired his determination to continue.
He paused and went a bit pale. “twe—twenty.”
Och, thank the good Lord for twenty. Elspeth exhaled a long breath she didn’t know she was holding—holding with him.
Well done. She wanted to tell him, but she would not compliment him.
“Now,” she instructed, refusing to be moved by him, “stretch yer arm out at yer side. Hold it fer ten, and then twenty.”
“Aye,” he agreed and began.
She counted with him, circling around him, watching his form, his breath. She cursed him when he paused at thirteen to take a deeper breath and cast his playfully defeated smile at her. She blushed. Blushed!
“Fergive me, Papa,” she pleaded under her breath. “Fergive me, Mother.”
She stopped praying and looked up at the man watching her.
“Why do ye need to be fergiven, lass?” he asked softly.
“Fer not finding ye completely revolting, Mr. Cameron.”
She didn’t know what she was expecting, but it was not his resplendent grin.
And what it did to her bones, breaking through the barrier to reach someplace deeper, where she hated him.