They wanted her gone for some reason. Blaming it on general daft male behavior that had no rational explanation, she walked from the room, grabbed the bucket and left the croft. The steam cut closest to the village behind this dwelling, convenient for them, and it took her no time to reach it.
As she dipped the bucket in the cold water, fear struck her. Why did Dougal want her gone? What were they doing with or to Jamie? She dropped the bucket and ran back to the cottage.
Empty. All of them gone. She stepped to the door and listened, hoping to hear something, anything, that would tell her where they’d taken him. Low, grumbling tones echoed from off the side, where the trees thickened and blocked her view. Elizabeth followed the sounds, making her way there as quietly as possible. She crept from tree to tree, searching ahead for a sign they were near. Niall’s laughter led her to them.
They stood side by side in a line with their backs to her. At first, it was not clear what they were doing and, quite happy to see Jamie standing on his own, she knew all was well. Until the unmistakable sound of liquid splashing on the ground in front of them told her what they were doing.
“‘Tis red,” Jamie said.
“It will clear in a few days,” Dougal counseled. Niall and Shaw added a grunt in what seemed to be agreement.
“Is that what Rurik says?” she asked, unable to keep silent any longer.
To their credit, none of them turned. None moved from their places at all or looked any place except up at the trees, but she noticed that the splashing stopped.
“She does not follow directions well, does she, Dougal?” Jamie drawled out.
“She is leaving now,” Elizabeth said, content now that they were seeing to mundane things and not going to kill him.
As she reached the stream and searched for the bucket, she also realized that the men, especially Dougal and Jamie, seemed to have some truce between them. Dougal had not threatened Jamie since that first day and had asked her some thoughtful questions about what had happened to them—all the while avoiding anything to do with the mountainside shieling, which she knew he’d visited.
Walking back slowly so the men had time to finish their task, she was surprised to find Jamie outside alone. Though he wobbled a bit from side to side, he stood on his own. Elizabeth noticed that he could open both eyes now that some of the swelling had resolved. Taking a thorough look at him, the certain knowledge that she loved him raced through her.
And she knew she would be letting him go. It was the only way that the earl could save face over their insult—she would be exiled and Jamie would leave. She tried to smile but tears flowed instead.
Jamie held out one hand to her and held his breath as she walked right into his embrace. His chest and back screamed out and he waited for the pain to subside enough to take a breath. No matter how painful it was, he would not release her. Not now, not ever.
“Dougal said I might speak to you alone.”
She raised her head and looked at him. He rubbed the tears from her cheeks and ran his fingers through her hair. It was not bound up or braided as she usually wore it but flowed over her shoulders like a curtain. When the image of her riding him, naked with her hair like a curtain around her, their bodies sweating from a lively bout of lovemaking, caused him to shudder and his whole body to react, he realized two things. First, he was not dead. The second was that not even the pain was enough to stop him from craving her as he did.
And he loved her more than that.
Dougal appeared at that moment, carrying one of the stools from inside, then placing it in front of him. “Sit.”
It was a good thought but one his battered body did not obey. Dougal then grabbed him under the arm and lowered him to it. Without another word, Elizabeth’s brother walked away. Gathering his thoughts, he set out to explain his stupidity and to beg her forgiveness.
“Elizabeth,” he began. She moved away from him and began to pace the area around them.
“Jamie,” she said. “You must let me speak first.”
She was so upset she was shaking and trembling and it tore his heart open to see her so overwrought. He nodded.
“When we return to Lairig Dubh, I will speak to Connor about releasing you. I know you are a man of honor, but I do not expect you to marry me now simply because you asked me to. That offer was based on deception and lies. My deception and my lies. Connor knows the truth and will not force you in this, I know.”
Her words poured out much like the rains had, in torrents, never slowing, without pause. And under them, he could hear the pain and shame she carried with her. That Connor knew about whatever had happened did not surprise him. Connor kept a close watch on anything and anyone that affected the MacLerie clan or interests. He had informants and spies all over Scotland and he gathered information like squirrels gathered nuts—storing it all away for when it was needed.
But Jamie did not understand how it had happened. Oh, he understood that some man would lust after her and want her, but why had she allowed it?
“Did you love him?” The words blurted out of him before he even finished thinking them. That was what he wanted to know, for it would explain much.
She stopped then and stared at him, not misunderstanding what he wanted to know. Her hands, now held together and twisting with tension, revealed how painful this was for her.
“I would like to say aye, but it was something else entirely,” she admitted. “He was worldly and handsome and he was interested in me. Not Ciara, as most men are. In me.”
He could see her next to Ciara—the blond beauty, the great heiress, the woman fluent in languages and at ease among the king’s court. Elizabeth was always at her side, to him the perfect foil for her accomplished friend—loyal, unassuming, quietly supporting her friend. He’d been blinded the same way, seeing only Ciara at first. Until he’d looked past her to Elizabeth and then he never looked back at Ciara the same way.
“Who was he?” If he ever met him, the beating he’d had at Dougal’s hands would be only the beginning. She shook her head, not ready or willing to share that with him.
