Chapter seven
When James finally halted our horses hours later in front of the Wolf Inn, I didn’t know which I was more desperate to do—relieve myself or get off the horse.
I’d never ridden so hard and so fast in my life, and it simply hadn’t occurred to me that the man wouldn’t stop to relieve his bladder.
He dismounted and immediately started speaking with the stable boy who had approached, but I was having trouble uncurling my fingers from the reins.
My hands were numb and seemed almost frozen in their grip, and when I finally managed to uncurl them, it was so painful that I hissed in reaction.
“Are ye all right?” James asked, walking over to me as the stable boy led James’s destrier into the stable.
Of course, I wasn’t all right. The man had driven us through the dark woods as if the hounds of hell were nipping at our heels.
A glance down showed my palms were bloodied from clutching my reins so tightly, and I suspected my arse had been worn raw.
My flesh was simply unaccustomed to such a difficult ride, but I could not admit any of this, because if I did, I had little doubt James would insist on significantly slowing the journey.
“I’m fine,” I said as he reached up to help me dismount. “I just need to relieve myself.”
“I was impressed,” he replied, reaching for my waist, “that ye did nae call for a stop at any point during our journey.”
His words of praise absolutely should not have warmed me, but they did anyway, and I had to purse my lips to keep from grinning like a foolish nitwit.
As he lifted me effortlessly off the horse, it occurred to me, just before my feet hit the ground, that my legs might refuse to work as my hands had.
My shoes touched the dirt, and James released his hold on me, and I dropped like a rock, landing hard on my arse.
“Ugg!” I cried out, rolling onto my side as pain radiated from my buttocks and tears filled my eyes.
I reached toward the burning sensation, then thought better of touching it.
I feared there was no flesh left, only the bloody mess that matched the state of my palms. My head felt suddenly too heavy to hold, and my cheek pressed into the cold, hard earth, filling my nose with the scent of dirt.
Warm tears trickled from my eyes, rolling sideways over the bridge of my nose and pooling at my right ear. So much for appearing hardy.
James crouched, and the air around him stirred with his swift movement. Irritation flared at how utterly unaffected he seemed by our hard ride. When his face appeared before mine as he bent to look at me, I was relieved and thankful he didn’t look smug but concerned.
“Where do ye hurt?” he asked.
“All over,” I admitted, trying and failing to hide my misery.
He nodded. “I blame myself.”
“I blame ye, too,” I agreed, trying and failing to push myself up. My arms shook something fierce when I attempted to use them.
With shocking tenderness, James gathered me into his arms and lifted me off the ground.
He stood, holding me as if I weighed no more than a bairn.
The desire from before did not stir. I was entirely too tired for that, but something I instinctively recognized as far more dangerous did.
Cocooned in his strong embrace, I felt protected.
It was a lie. James was strong, yes, but even the fiercest warrior was no match for my curse.
I could not forget that and let my guard down.
There was no future with a man for me that would end well.
“I’m sorry, lass,” he said, looking down at me. His warm breath wafted over me as he spoke. “I should have stopped. I was trying to prove a point.”
“What was it? That yer arse is made of stone and yer bladder is as big as a loch?”
He blinked in obvious surprise at my blunt words, but as the stable boy approached once more, James focused on him, giving him directions on caring for the destriers.
Once that was done, he turned and led us up the steps to the front door of the inn.
He had to jostle me slightly to get the door open, and when his arm pressed hard against my arse, white-hot pain exploded there.
“Bloody hell!” I cried out, trying and failing to suppress the expletive.
“I am sorry,” he said again as he entered the inn and closed the door with his foot. “I will take more care for the rest of the trip. We’ll ride more slowly and—”
“I’m fine!” I blurted, desperate to salvage not only my pride but also the pace of our journey.
I had to endure the pain until I was alone, and then I’d writhe in misery in private.
“I’m simply terse from the long ride and famished,” I added, forcing myself to push against his hard chest to make him set me down.
We were right by the wall, and if I started to fall again, I’d lean against it.
“Ye’re fine, are ye?” he said, stalking through the silent room toward a counter where a woman stood.
I couldn’t respond right away because his pace was so fast and hard that my bottom thumped against his arm in time with his footsteps, and each thump shot pain through my arse and stole a bit more of my breath.
By the time he stopped in front of the wheat-haired, fresh-faced woman, I feared I might pass out from the pain.
“Ye need a room?” the woman asked.
“Aye,” James replied without so much as glancing her way. He kept his disbelieving, probing stare fixed on me, steady and unyielding. “If ye’re fine, then ye can now stand on yer own two feet.”
“Certainly,” I managed to say between my teeth, still clenched against the pulsing ache in my bottom that throbbed in time with my heartbeat and made me question the decisions that had led me here.
Without hesitation, he set me on my feet. The room tilted, and I reached out, catching the rough-hewn wooden counter beneath my fingers. The surface was sticky and worn smooth by years of use. I gripped it for dear life, praying James would not notice.
“One room or two?” the woman before us asked, wiping her hands on her apron, which bore stains of flour, grease, and what I dearly hoped was only stew.
“Two,” I said, but my answer collided with James’s.
“My new wife is fearful of the marriage bed,” he said to the woman in a conspiratorial voice, as if I were not standing right there. He glanced at me, “Poor little lass,” then looked away.
My cheeks burned hot enough to rival the hearth fire as I glared at him.
I opened my mouth to tell the woman I was not James’s wife and to demand my own room, but he shot me a look that, had I possessed the strength, would have sent me scrambling backward.
His gaze was thunderous, a storm ready to break, and a sharp warning lay in the narrow slit of his eyes and the way his full lips pressed into a hard line.
I clamped my jaw shut so tightly that my teeth protested.
“Ah, lass, he looks to be a fine man who will be gentle with ye,” the woman said, her tone softening as she looked between us.
“He’s a brute,” I snapped, ignoring the way my stomach gave an undignified lurch that might have been from hunger… or from him.
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, then she frowned fiercely at him.
I felt rather smug, pain notwithstanding, and was glad her opinion of him had been successfully diminished.
But then the man gave her a smile that would have melted the undergarments off the most frigid of women and likely set them smoldering on the floor.
Even standing here in pain, I felt heat brush across my skin at the sight of it.
The man was a devil, albeit a very handsome one, and apparently well aware of his sinful gifts.
“Would it be possible to get some food before we retire?” James asked the innkeeper.
My stomach growled so loudly at the mere thought of food that I feared it might be mistaken for a feral creature lurking beneath the counter.
The rich scent of roasted meat and fresh bread drifted past me, making my mouth water despite my irritation.
I half wished the woman would deny him, if only to see that infuriating confidence crack and put him in his proper place.
But the moment he leaned onto his forearms on the counter and the innkeeper’s gaze dropped, quite helplessly, to James’s heavily muscled arms, I knew she would give the man whatever he asked for, likely with a smile and perhaps even her firstborn child.
I suppose I should be glad. I was starving, and if I had to endure the company of a smug Highland brute, I might as well do so with a full belly.
“I think I can manage that,” the innkeeper said, confirming what I’d known would happen. Her words were wrapped in an invitation for James.
He winked at her, then looked at me. “Come along, wife,” he said in a tone so authoritative that I sucked in a breath to retort, but he gave a sharp shake of his head, and that same warning look settled over his features like a storm.
I clamped my jaw shut, my temper burning as hot as my injured bottom.
When he brushed past me, as if he were the King of Scotland and I were a mere peasant, I considered not following.
He took no more than five steps before he said, “If I need to come fetch ye, I will.”
The threat in his voice decided me. I feared that being ‘fetched’ might mean his hands on my aching arse, so I followed, each step a dull, jarring throb that grew worse the farther I went.
The skin on my inner thighs burned, raw and tender, and the thought of what I’d find when I undressed made me queasy.
The scent of roasted meat and gravy thickened the air as I reached the table, but the smell now made my stomach turn.
I stood beside the chair, staring at it as if it were an enemy.
“Are ye unable to sit?” he asked, his gaze annoyingly knowing.