His expression sobered, his jaw tightening. “No, I cannot. There is always that possibility. This is our best chance.” When she didn’t respond, Strathwick gazed steadily at her. “Does that answer your question?”
“No. Not at all.”
He raised a brow with mild, mocking surprise. “Then I suppose I don’t understand the question.”
Rose gripped her legs harder. “I was not even in the castle. A threat to no one, sitting wet outside your walls. And no one but you was present, alone and unguarded. Why did you come out in the rain alone, pretending to be a groom?”
He’d looked away from her halfway through her speech, staring off to his right with unusual intensity.
“My lord?”
“I know not.” He paused, then said, his words somewhat more hesitant than before, “I had to see the author of the letters, I suppose.”
And now that he’d seen her, what did he think, beyond that she was “bonny”? She wanted to ask him thatbut could not. She lowered her chin so her mouth pressed against her knees, and she stared at the ground, acutely aware of the sudden silence between them. She supposed she knew what he thought. The kiss said it all. A man with honorable intentions did not kiss a woman like that without stating those intentions. Strathwick had stated nothing but that he found her bonny. He wanted to bed her, and God help her, but her body wanted to let him. Even now she trembled, sitting this close to him in the dark, being the recipient of his smiles and laughter.Stop it!She was being foolishly hopeful again, seeing castles in the air where there were only dunghills.
After a time she chanced looking at him again. He still contemplated the darkness, his mouth flat, jaw hard. The soft wind stirred his hair, so black it melted into the night, except for the silver, dull and indistinct in the darkness. He seemed so alone that her heart ached.
“You should sleep, my lord,” she whispered. “You’ve kept watch long enough. I will finish out the night.”
He shook his head. “Nay, I could not sleep now.”
She hesitated, knowing sleep would elude her as well. But he did not look at her; he’d forgotten she was there. She returned to the bed she’d made for herself and Deidra, and curled beneath the plaid. Sleep did not come, but she did not return to his side, though he sat through the night, unmoving in the moonlight. She wanted to go to him, to talk to him and see him laugh again, but he made her uneasy. She made herself uneasy. Who was this man who dreamed of empty castles surrounded by serpents? She wanted to know him, far more than was wise for a woman betrothed.
Chapter 7
The next day of travel was as uneventful as the first, though near dusk, William began to suspect they were being followed. They were on a deserted moor, with naught but the occasional dead tree and the distant mountains as far as the eye could see.
They rode on, pushing the horses to exhaustion, until finally they came upon a ruined cottage. It was the best shelter they would find, and William took it. They had a cold, silent meal, and Rose bedded down with Deidra in the lee of the wall while William, Drake, and Wallace situated themselves around the ruined cottage, keeping watch on the empty moor around them. William knew Rose was aware something was amiss; her sharp gaze had followed him throughout the day, marking his watchfulness, but she’d said nothing. She did not sleep now either; she still watched him and the others as she lay with Deidra. When the child dozed off, she crept across the floor to the empty doorway where he crouched.
“Something is wrong,” she whispered, peering into the night.
“I think we’re being followed. Probably the brokenmen Drake spotted yesterday. They must have caught our trail and are hoping for easy prey.”
She crept back to where she’d lain down, grabbed her bag, and returned to settle beside him. She didn’t speak and he tried to ignore her, but her presence beside him was highly distracting. She never sought out Drake or Wallace as she did him, and he took note of it. Though he tried, he could not long ignore the sudden industry of the woman beside him, so he finally looked to see what she was doing.
She was cleaning her gun. He watched silently as she swabbed the barrel, then pushed down wadding and an iron ball with the short ramrod. Everything was gray in the moonlit darkness—her hair and skin and eyes shades of gray. But his imagination painted her in the vivid colors he observed in the daylight: her hair, a sleek fall of amber and roan; her skin, glowing, a faint sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her narrow nose; her midnight gaze, focused intently on her work, cinnamon lashes hiding her catlike eyes. Bracing the gun barrel between her knees, she poured gunpowder into the pan, inserted the spanner, and cranked the wheel until it caught, primed and ready to be fired. She set it carefully aside.
She looked up to find him watching, and she smiled. His heart skittered against his ribs.
“I’m ready now,” she declared, her eyes glinting.
He made a soft snort of amusement and shook his head.
“What? You don’t think me capable?”
“You are rather small.”
“Compared to you, perhaps,” she said tartly, lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders. “It doesn’t take size to aim and fire a dag.”
He laughed softly. “That it doesn’t. Just be certain your aim is true and you don’t shoot one of us.”
She scowled prettily at him, but before she could retort, Drake hissed his name.
William pivoted in his crouching position to peer across the ruin at his brother. Drake pointed to something in the darkness.
“Stay here,” William said to Rose. He crossed to his brother. When he glanced back, Rose had assumed his position, staring out into the night, dag in her lap.
“What is it?”
