Bree didn’t acknowledge his command, but she did make sure she didn’t go too far. He was obnoxious enough without her having to get him to save her from being lost in the forest.
When she returned, the little girl was awake and sitting next to Horland as he poked the fire under what was now a rabbit on a spit. The smell had Bree’s stomach growling and she sat on a log on the opposite side of the fire that she was sure wasn’t there before. In a shallow pot something thick, maybe oats, bubbled like a simmering volcano.
“Hmm, smells good.”
Horland eyed her for less than a second then went back to the fire.
She shrugged. If he could ignore her, she could ignore him as well. She brushed out her hair with her fingers and tied it in a ponytail at the nape of her neck.
HORLAND COULDN’T HELPhis gaze wandering to the woman. Her hair was the color of the flickering flames andhis fingers itched to feel if the locks were as wiry as they looked.
He cut off some meat and handed it to the girl, who bowed her head in thanks. At least the child knew how a knight should be treated. Briana needed to learn her place. He could make allowances for the fact that she was from a different country, but he also knew for a certainty she would have had to demure to many who were above her station. No community was altogether equal even amongst the traders or the farmers—there was always someone who ruled.
Why she couldn’t respect his knightly status was beyond him.
He gazed at her. The way she held herself, the way she walked beside him, she had a power to her. He frowned. The way she held her chin high and her back straight gave her a royal air. Perhaps she was a princess of America. If so, why wouldn’t she tell him? He thought of the way she spoke. No, not royalty. But she was keeping something from him, of that he was certain.
He cut some more meat off and the moment Briana looked his way, he handed it to her.
She took it and smiled. “Thanks.”
Once they’d had their fill of meat and oats, and Horland had stowed his cooking gear in his pack, they continued into the forest.
They walked most of the day in blissful silence. As the sun began descending toward the horizon, the canopy darkened.
“It’s really thick in here,” Bree said.
Horland let out a grunt. He still didn’t feel like talking and her stating the obvious was annoying.
Howls of wolves sounded in the distance and the child huddled in close to Horland’s side. “They are far away,” he said.
“I don’t know,” Briana said. “They sound closer now than they did last night.”
He glanced back and threw her an angry look. Couldn’t she see he was just trying to make the child feel better?
The familiar sound of a whispering brook filled the air.
“Is that water?” Briana asked.
“It is.”
The child beamed up at him.
“Are you in need of a wash?”
She nodded.
“Me too,” Briana said from behind. “How far?”
He didn’t need to answer her, because he stopped still on the bank of a narrow stream. The water so clean, Horland could see the stones and rocks beneath its shallow surface.
Briana knelt on the grassy bank and dipped her fingers in the water. “It’s beautiful.” She pulled out her hand. “But cold.”
“It is warmer here than further upstream where it falls fresh from the snowcapped mountains.”
Briana stood up and gazed in the direction the stream was flowing from. The sun’s rays shone brightly over the stream and caught at her hair of fire. Her small cleft chin tilted upward as she lifted her head higher to see further upstream. Horland tightened his lips at the perfection of her profile, a profile he’d seen before—Patricia’s profile. Dianne, of course, was Patricia’s twin, and she had a similar profile. Similar but not exactly the same. She had no cleft in her chin, the very same cleft Patricia and Briana had.
“I can’t see any mountains above the trees,” she said. “How far away are they?”
