“I’m nae violating the treaty until the village,” he argued, correctly, much to Finley’s disappointment.
“Well, what are you doing here?” she asked, her fear melting away under the building heat of curiosity. He didn’t mean her harm, obviously.
The man nodded toward the bridge. “The rider. He’s caused upset with the Blair fine, and I’ll wager he’s set to stir trouble here, too.” His brown eyes bored into Finley’s. “Perhaps trouble between the clans.”
“Oh, and so you thought you’d just walk into Carson Town after him with your shawl wrapped about your head and expect to be welcomed?” Finley laughed as she raised an eyebrow. “In fact, if they discover you’ve been in the wood alone with me…”
* * * *
“They’ll likely apologize and ask after my welfare, if what I saw of the other fellow is to be believed,” Lachlan taunted, but he couldn’t keep the admiration from his tone. And then he, too, laughed, much to his own surprise, remembering the trollish man’s clumsy and gross courting.
The girl’s milky complexion pinkened even as her wispy red brows knit together. “And here I thought ’twas a dog I heard in the wood.”
The droll insult only increased Lachlan’s mirth. “I myself took exception to the reference of his braw loins.”
Her lovely pink lips disappeared into a grim line and she threw out a slender arm toward the bridge. “They actually expect me to marry him! Can you imagine the hair of our children?” she asked with a horrified squint of her eyes.
“Och,” Lachlan huffed another laugh, louder this time, unable to help the grin that seemed to have taken up permanent residence on his face. “You’d do them a mercy to toss ’em over the bridge as well.”
But rather than be offended, the girl’s perfect, elfin face had relaxed. She was like a fairy woman, and Lachlan couldn’t look directly at her for long without the unsettling feeling in his stomach that he would be enchanted by her. Then he realized he’d done naught but stand about the wood for the last several moments, laughing and making light, and wondered if she hadn’t already cast some sort of magic upon him.
“You go before me so I know the way is clear,” Lachlan ordered in a gruffer tone. “I’ll wait for you to gain the bend to follow.”
“Aye, that’s a grand idea,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I might even run ahead and warn them you’re coming.”
“Sure, tell them,” Lachlan said. “I’d know what that English snake is about.”
“Why nae simply ask your own fine?” she challenged. “Or is the legendary Blair too fearsome to be approached by a mere…what are you? Some kind of shepherd?”
Lachlan felt his ire rising at being argued with so blatantly, and by a woman, no less. And she thought him a shepherd? “Now listen here, lass—”
“I’m nae your lass, you ham-headed sawbuck,” she scoffed. “And furthermore—”
Lachlan cut off her chastening as he caught the faintest sounds of hooves upon the trail. He grabbed the girl about the waist and pulled her behind the oak, covering her mouth with his hand. She promptly sank her teeth into the flesh of his palm.
Lachlan stifled his cry and thrust her upper body clear of the trunk for a heartbeat so that she might see the bridge path, then he yanked her back behind the tree. She stilled against him, her breathing shallow, rapid. He loosened his grip on her slowly, and the pair of them watched the retreat of the party in silence, Lucan Montague leading the charge.
When they were gone, the red-haired pixie looked up at him with all the solemnity she could likely muster in those clear blue eyes. “Have you still a care to carry on to Carson Town when most of the fine has just departed for your own valley?”
He stared at her for a moment, wondering what unlawful thing she’d done for her town to saddle her with such a repulsive man as a husband.
Oh, well; it was no concern of his.
“Good luck to your future husband,” Lachlan said, walking backward away from her with a cheeky salute. “I have a feeling he shall need it.”
She watched him without reply until Lachlan was forced to turn and trot eastward once more. And yet he thought he felt her gaze on his back until he disappeared over the ridge of the valley, and the weight of the sadness that followed him was startling.
Chapter 3
The sun was melting into the dark gray horizon of the sea by the time Finley emerged from the wood into Carson Town, and the longhouses below sprawled like soldiers on a battlefield dressed in long, funereal shadows. She was later than she’d wanted to be; and because she hadn’t seen her father’s figure among the other elders riding toward Town Blair, she knew Da must be waiting for her to return. She hurried through the streets toward home, noting the emptiness of the alleys, the doorways already shut tight against the night, when they would normally be thrown open to the balmy spring air, so welcome after the long, dark Highland winter.
The Blair clansman had been right: The handsome English knight had brought concern to the town. The families must be all snugged around their suppers, whispering and speculating. Finley only wished she knew what about.
Rory Carson was drawing the second bucket to the rock edge of the well as Finley came up the last bit of hill toward her family’s stead. She paused for a moment, observing her father’s stooped posture, his gray hair poking from beneath his old knit bonnet. His hands moved deftly, but she knew if she was closer, their tremble would be apparent.
She crested the hill with long, lunging strides and picked up the first bucket from the grass as her father turned. “Why did you nae wait for me, Da?”
“Ah, Finley, there ye be,” he said, a stiff smile breaking through the worried expression Finley knew he hoped she hadn’t seen. He lifted the bucket from the ledge and fell into step beside her. “Nae need to rush back. Ye had a fine time with Eachann, then?”
