Chapter 11
“What age are you, Morag?” Magnus asked as they sat down to sup on the hare he’d snared that afternoon. He was very curious about the woman who’d nursed him back to health, and up to this point, she’d been very vague about her history.
But he was done with mystery and incertitude.
She lifted her gaze from her meal. As their gazes collided, he could see the swirl of thoughts in her green eyes. Perhaps she read the resolve in his own, because for once she did not attempt to fob him off with some whimsical retort. “I am four and twenty.”
“And where are your kin?”
She tore the meat off a leg bone with her fine white teeth and chewed. “I am shunned. I have no kin.”
Her answer wasn’t entirely surprising. After all, few women of a marriageable age lived alone in a bothy in the woods. Still, it made him wonder. “Why?”
“What did I do that warranted a shunning?”
He nodded.
“I lay with three men, two of whom were brothers.”
She said it calmly, without heat or embarrassment. There was no attempt to excuse her behavior or apologize for it. She simply stated it as fact. As beautiful as she was, he had no trouble imagining men fighting to have her. Even brothers.
He arched a brow. “At the same time?”
A faint smile rose to her lips. “Nay. One at a time. But the second brother was not pleased to find he’d shared my body with his younger kin.”
“So he involved the friar?”
“Aye.”
It was more information than she’d given him in three months of sharing an abode. Magnus was loath to cease asking her questions while she was in so generous a mood. “Did you live at the castle?”
A shadow fell over her face. “I did.”
Aware that he was stirring unpleasant memories but unable to help himself, he said, “Then you would know whether I made my home there.”
Her lips tightened. “What I knew then and what I know now are two different things.”
“That is not an answer,” he growled, pushing his bowl away. “Just tell me the truth, woman. I’m man enough to handle it, no matter how unpalatable it might be.”
“You are not ready,” she said. “Your leg is still weak and you suffer great headaches.”
He stood up. “You call up the same excuses no matter how much time passes. I do not even know my true name,” he said. “Do not deny me answers.”
“The truth will only harm you.”
“Better that swift fate than to slowly waste away in ignorance here,” he bit out. “Did I live at the castle or no?”
She sighed heavily. “Aye, you did.”
Rage seared through him like fire in his veins. “All this time I’ve been but a stone’s throw from the truth.” He pivoted and began to pack a bag.
“But you are no longer welcome at the castle. You are outlawed now.”
He paused. Outlawed? “For what crime?”
“Murder, theft, and treason against the king.” She, too, pushed away her bowl. “You were run through by the king’s men. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“And yet you took me in and healed me,” he said, frowning. “Why?”
She shrugged. “We are all more than the sum of our crimes. I am not simply a harlot, and I do not believe you are simply a murderer and a thief.”
“Given the charges against me, you took a considerable risk,” he pointed out. “Would you do that for everyone?”
Morag shook her head. “I have much cause to be wary of men.”
“Then why help me?”
“You were kind to me,” she said. “On the day I was cast out, you braved the disapproval of the friar and stopped to carry my satchel.”
Magnus leaned back against the wall of the hut. That story rang true; it felt like something he would do. The accusations of murder and treason did not sit as easily. “You know my real name? Why did you not tell me when I awoke?”
“In the early days after I rescued you, several patrols from the castle passed us by. Based on what I witnessed, it seemed unwise to call you by your true name.” She played with the tip of her long black braid.
“And you were too confused by the injury to your head to grasp two names and keep them straight.”
“I am not confused any longer.”
She met his gaze. Her smile was rueful. “Indeed not.”
“So tell me.” He pulled away from the wall, waiting.
“Your name is Wulf.”
Disappointment cinched his chest tight. Damn. How was that possible? The name meant nothing to him. It did not bring to mind a single memory of his past or clue to his identity. Nor did it give cause to the nagging sense that he ought to be elsewhere.
“Wulf,” he repeated. The name was even strange on his tongue. It did not seem to suit him like Magnus did. He was a large man, so Magnus fit his physical form. He’d chosen that name for himself after three weeks had passed without memory. Now it seemed familiar. Wulf did not.
“Do I have kin?”
Morag shook her head. “That I cannot answer. Many at the castle perished or were driven from the land. Others were imprisoned. I visit the castle only on faire days, so I’ve no sense of who lived and who died.”
Magnus couldn’t be certain she told the truth. She avoided his gaze, which suggested at least some part of her tale was a lie.
“Are you and I kin?”
She choked out a laugh. “You and I? Nay. I am naught but a weaver. You lived in the castle proper. Save for the day I departed, we never exchanged words.”
That did not fit with Magnus’s beliefs about himself.
Well, not entirely, anyway. He knew from the calluses on his right hand that he was familiar with a blade, so the notion of not being a common laborer felt real enough.
But holding himself above those who were of lesser status?
He couldn’t imagine possessing such a surfeit of pride.
“I need to strengthen this leg,” he said, lightly pounding his lame leg with his fist. “I cannot remain here forever. I must seek out those who know me.”
Morag tightened the woolen shawl about her shoulders. “Take to the hills, then. Climbing will strengthen the leg. Just be wary of soldiers. They seem to be venturing into the woods with more frequency of late.”
Magnus crossed the hut to stand before her. He lifted her chin with his hand and peered into her pretty green eyes. “I’ll forever be grateful for the aid you’ve given me. Be assured of that. If I can ever repay you, I will.”
She flushed and stepped back, forcing him to release her. “Just chop me a good supply of wood before you go, and I’ll be rewarded enough.”
He let her walk away.
The woman was too proud by half. Her supplies were limited—purchased from the castle in exchange for the fine cloth she wove on her loom—and yet she had shared them unsparingly as he healed.
Once he was able to hunt, he had supplemented her food with the odd hare, but he had a hearty appetite, so her pot on the fire was forever in need of new ingredients.
He would pay her back.
He just wasn’t sure how or when.
Just as he wasn’t sure when he would leave.
It bothered him immensely to imagine her alone here, fending for herself.
She was young and beautiful. She ought to be some man’s wife, not chopping her own wood and risking her very life traveling to the castle to trade her wares.
He’d accompanied her the last few times.
He’d seen the harassment she had endured at the hands of the soldiers at the gate and clenched his fists.
“We’ll never be even,” he said softly. “I’ll forever be in your debt.”
“I don’t want your debt,” she retorted.
“You have it anyway.”
His words annoyed her—he could see it in her sharply angled eyebrows.
She did not want anything from him except for him to stay.
But what she wanted was impossible. Not because of who he was, but because of who he had once been.
Until he knew his past, he could not settle with a woman. For all he knew, he was already wed.
He studied her elegant profile. He only prayed that he wasn’t. Otherwise, the thoughts he had about Morag would surely see him in hell.
* * *
The MacCurran returned to the hill fort as the light was fading. Isabail spied him at the entrance of the inner close, looking like some barbarian warrior of old—his hair a tangled mess and his lèine spattered with bloodstains.
He was as far from a gentleman lord as she could imagine, and yet her heart did a funny dance in her chest as he marched through the gate.
Perhaps it was the purposeful look that took control of his face when he caught sight of her, or perhaps it was the rippling muscles of his thighs and calves as he strode toward her.
Whatever it was, her body reacted instinctively, flooding her with heat and eager anticipation.
He grabbed her hand and led her away from the central fire and toward the hut he had claimed as his own.
“Where are we going?” she asked breathlessly.
“I owe you a proper thanks,” he answered, pulling her into the hut.
He shut the door, then released her briefly to change his lèine and splash his face with water.
Then he advanced toward her with a wolfish grin, slowly backing her against the wall.
“Your idea to move the bodies was inspired. We built a fire pit half a league from here and left several of our broken tools there, along with some furniture and the bodies. MacPherson will believe his men found us camped there and were ambushed.”
Isabail heard everything MacCurran said, but she had difficulty concentrating.
His hands were wandering places they had no right to be.
A proper noblewoman would take him to task.
But as his fingers swept down her back and over her rump, she relaxed against the wall and let him have his way.
It felt so good to have a strong man offer her such exquisite moments of pleasure.
Her softened stance encouraged him to go further. The words stopped, and his lips found more adventurous tasks to perform. Like nibbling the skin along her collarbone and tracing a red-hot path to her earlobe. The heat of his kisses sent a tremble of need through every nerve in her body.