“I did not need to stop,” she said quietly, stumbling along behind him, before she plopped down bonelessly on a flat rock that was shaped like a pie. “I need to eat.”
He pulled a cloth from his bags knelt down next to her, unfolding the cloth to show her the bread (from God’s ears to her mouth) and a fat wedge of white cheese. “Here, Glenna. Eat.”
No more pride. She took the cloth, ignoring the soft look shesaw in his eyes,--so blue they too reflected the sky--and tried not to devour the food whole. "If you had not destroyed my bow and arrows we could have meat."
"I imagine that meat would be my liver roasting on a spit."
He was not wrong.
Sitting crosswise, she watched him as she ate. Fergus was wet and sloppy and trotted back and forth between them, then shook himself all over a scowling Montrose. Glenna looked away to hide her laughter. The dog settled beside her and she gave him a piece of cheese.
“You reward him for his behavior?” Montrose was refilling his skin, squatting down at the water’s edge, his shoulders wide enough to block her view.
“I feed him. He is hungry, too. Would you have me starve the animals?”
He merely shook his head at her and went on as he had been. His light hair hung to his shoulders and was beginning to curl at the ends. She noticed he did not wear his gold signet ring on his tanned hand. She had tried the ring on as she rode home from the cove yesterday and it was heavy and big. Two of her small fingers could have almost fit into the ring.
He stood with the ease of a lion and she concentrated on her food and gave Fergus more cheese, then watched him from the corner of her eye. He took an apple from his pouch and sat down on a rock near her and used a small knife to cut off a piece, then paused and handed it to her.
She glanced down at the food in her lap and realized she and her dog had eaten over half of it. He must be hungry, too, she thought. A warm flush of shame surprised her, so she concentrated on folding up the cloth.
“Glenna.”
She looked up sharply. Her name on his lips sounded oddly foreign and strange. Not like the sour notes of a horn or a lute, but low and it was almost as if she felt his voice all the way to her toes.
Before her was his outstretched hand, his thumb pressed on his knife and holding the apple slice toward her. “Take it,” he said.
She did, then held out the cloth to him with a quiet, “Thank you.”
“You finish it.”
“Nay. I’ve had my fill.” She leaned forward and set the cloth of food on his knees. Leaning back on her elbows, she stretched out, crossed her feet at the ankles and popped the wedge of apple in her mouth and began talking whilst she chewed. “You eat. The truth is, Montrose, I don’t need you swooning halfway to wherever it is we are headed. You are huge and I don’t believe I could lift you. Why I believe merely your hard head alone would be enough to break my poor, wee back.” She paused, then added pointedly, “My lord.”
He laughed loud and long and hearty and something warm ran through her at the sound. Amusement changed his face, brightened a kind and sweet gleam in his blue eyes and revealed the sudden dimples in his hard cheeks. She found herself smiling back at him.
Montrose was a beautiful man. She had not forgotten the image of him by the sea, the one that was burned into her memory only to return unbidden and plague her too often for her own comfort. That was merely yesterday?
Perhaps he dominated her thoughts because he was only something new and different. Of late, her life had been mundane and uneventful, having spent most of the late spring and summer on the mainland, where they stolen their fill and had taken more than enough to trade for a long time.
His profile was strong, his nose long and noble, but she saw now as he laughed, that his mouth was wide, his teeth all there, white as the sun-bleached shells on the beach and perfectly aligned, not gaping like fence posts or crossed all over each other like a stack of firewood.
There had been a time when she’d had to pull one ofAlastair’s teeth after it festered, and last year Elgin lost a front tooth in a hard fall from training a horse. Her own teeth were crooked on the bottom, too close together and food often caught in them. She wondered now if there was bread or cheese stuck in them and quickly stopped smiling.
“You asked who I am to your father. You said you had questions.” His voice was quiet, kinder, and she thought they might have reached a new kind of truce. He chewed on a morsel of cheese he had wrapped inside some bread.
Her mind raced. She might need to change tactic. Test the waters so to speak. She needed to find the way to gain his trust. When the time and place came for her to run, she would be best served if he was caught completely unaware. “Yes. I asked because I do not know you or know of you, and here we are together.” She sat up and leaned forward. “You claim you have a duty to the king.” She paused. “It would give me some comfort to know what I am facing.“
He finished the apple and sheathed the knife away before he spoke. “My father fought with yours, they were close friends, but he is dead.” The look in his eyes went suddenly distant. “Our family has long been sworn to yours by oath and by blood. My mother, through her own stepmother, was a distant cousin to your father, as was my wife. “
“Your wife is my cousin?”
“Was,” he said pointedly. “She’s dead.” His flat words carried not a lick of emotion and he casually tossed Fergus a crust of bread. He did not look at her, but seemed elsewhere.
There was more there he could not hide, even by not looking at her. What would be in his eyes if she were to look into them now? She wondered if Montrose and his wife had a great and legendary love as did her mother and father. Was his coolness hiding a deep loss? Certainly ‘twould explain why he was silent and gruff--she paused in thought--not that any of that mattered to her. Wounded or not, the man’s heart--if he had one--was none of her concern. “So it is for your family’s honor and deepties to mine that you come to the very ends of the earth to bring the king’s lost daughter home,” she said curtly, using his own words. “Wherever home is. Tell me where my home is when my father happens to be a king who has been exiled for seventeen years?”
“There are many royal holdings,” he said.
“And you Baron Montrose. Do you have many holdings?”
