Stephen smiled at Chris. “She likes being alone with me.”
“What happened to your arm?” Chris asked, nodding toward the bandage crusted with dried blood.
Stephen shrugged. “A mishap. Now if the two of you are satisfied that we didn’t kill each other, perhaps you’d leave my wife and me alone so she could tend to my wound.”
Morag and Chris smiled at him, gave one brief glance to Bronwyn’s rigid back, and left.
Bronwyn whirled to face Stephen. “I hope you bleed to death,” she spat at him.
“Come here,” he said patiently, sweetly, and held out his hands to her.
In spite of her thoughts she obeyed him. He caught her hand and pulled her down to sit on the edge of the bed beside him. He rolled toward her, and the sheet slipped down, exposing more of his hip and waist. Bronwyn looked away, back to his face. She had to control an urge to touch his skin.
He held both her hands in one of his, then touched her cheek with his free hand. “Perhaps I tease you too much. You pleased me greatly this morning.”
He watched the slow flush stain her cheeks. “Now what may I do to please you, short of throwing myself from the window?”
“I would like to go home,” she said quietly, all of her longing sounding in her soft voice. “I want to go home to the Highlands, to my clan.”
He bent forward and kissed her lips as softly and as sweetly as a spring rain. “Then we shall go today.”
She smiled at him and then started to move away, but he held her hands firmly. Her face turned to coldness in an instant.
“You certainly distrust me, don’t you?” He looked at the bloody bandage on his arm. “This needs to be cleaned and dressed properly.”
She twisted away from him. “Morag can do it, and I’m sure it’d give her great pleasure, as she seems to lust after you as it is.”
Stephen tossed the sheet aside and stood before her. He pulled her into his arms. “I wish that were jealousy in your voice. I don’t want Morag to change the bandage. You made the wound, you must dress it.”
Bronwyn couldn’t move, could hardly think when he held her so close. She was remembering the feel of his lips on the back of her knees. She pushed him away from her. “All right, I’ll do it. I’m sure it will be faster if I get it done with than argue with you. Then we can go home.”
He sat down on the window seat, leaned back against the cushions, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was nude. He held his arm out to her, smiling as she avoided looking at him.
Bronwyn didn’t like his smugness, his easy self-assurance that his nearness had any effect on her. And worse, she hated the way his beautiful body kept drawing her eyes to it. She smiled wickedly as she ripped the bandage from his arm. Bits of raw skin and newly formed scab came away from the cut.
“Damn you!” Stephen yelled as he came up off the seat. He thrust his hand behind her neck and drew her to him. “You’ll regret that! Someday you’ll know that one drop of my blood is more precious than any angry feelings you carry.”
“Is that your fondest wish? I tell you now that you’ll not get it. I married you because it saved warfare within my clan. I do not kill you now because your old king would cause my clan grief.”
Stephen pushed her away so violently that she slammed against the bed. “You do not kill me!” he sneered. Blood was running down his arm from the reopened wound. He stood and grabbed his clothes from the floor. “You think too much of yourself,” he said as he thrust his legs into hose and breeches. He tossed his shirt and doublet over his arm. “Be ready in an hour,” he said flatly as he slammed from the room.
The room seemed unnaturally silent when Stephen was gone, and somehow it seemed too big and too empty. She was glad, of course, that he was gone. For one brief moment she wondered who he’d get to dress the wound on his arm, then she shrugged. What did she care? She went to the door and called Morag. There was a great deal to be done in an hour.
•••
They rode hard all that day and into the night. Bronwyn felt her heart and mind lighten the farther north they rode. She hated the noise and the many baggage wagons that followed them. To her Scots’ sense of economy, the wagonloads of goods were needless. A Scotsman would take what he wore on his back, what food he could carry in a pack. The Englishmen stopped at midday for a cooked meal. Bronwyn had been too impatient to eat much.
“Sit down!” Stephen commanded. “You’ll make my men nervous with your constant jumping about.”
“Your men! What of my men who wait for me?”
“I can only take care of one group of men at a time.”
“You can—!” she began, then stopped. Several of Stephen’s men were watching them with interest. Christopher Audley smiled at her, his eyes twinkling. Bronwyn knew he was a pleasant young man, but now no one pleased her. She wanted to get out of these cursed Lowlands as soon as possible.
They crossed the Grampians at night. They were low mountains interspersed with wide valleys. As soon as they crossed, the air seemed to grow cooler, the landscape wilder, and Bronwyn began to breathe easier. Her shoulders relaxed, the muscles in her face untightened.
“Bronwyn!” Stephen said from beside her. “We must stop for the night.”
