He’d only just unsaddled and stabled his destrier moments ago and decided against bringing him back out again. 'Twas not so far a walk out through the village and into the forest on the south side of the path.
How far could she actually have gone?
For as easily as he’d complied—it wasn’t as if he’d not have gone out for her—he still grumbled about the chore as he’d noted the sun slipping low in the west, and the clouds gathering overhead.
Foolish lass. Who wandered the woods alone with the day so short?
So now he strode beneath the trees, the earth soft under his boots from previous rains, his gaze scanning the trees for the pale flash of her hair, or the dusty blue of the kerchief she’d been wearing earlier when she’d approached him.
His irritation multiplied after a while, when it became apparent that she was not exiting the forest, was nowhere nearthe edge of the trees, but obviously too foolish to get in before the rain came. The deeper he was forced to go into the forest, the angrier he became, part of it directed at himself for not having saddled his horse.
He called her name, an edge to his shouts that he certainly expected and wanted to carry through the trees to her ears, lest she not understand how reckless such behavior was.
Still, when at last he caught sight of her, the sharpness of his irritation dulled. He saw her from a great distance, drawn by the blue kerchief and blonde hair catching his eye in a forest of green and brown. She was clearly upset, her steps through the trees hurried and yet searching, almost frantic, enough so that Ciaran realized she hadn’t chosen to be reckless, but had indeed become lost.
From a hundred yards away, he watched as her head jerked up then, eyes wide, as she startled like a hare, darting away between the trees, something having spooked her. Ciaran cursed, striding after her, but she was quicker than he expected, driven by alarm. By the time he raised his voice—“Claire!”—she had already pushed further into the shadows, in the wrong direction.
Ciaran swore again, lengthening his stride. “Claire!” he called.
He followed the sound of her feet, the blur of motion, until at last she stopped when next he shouted her name. He broke into a small clearing to find her standing there, chest heaving with exertion, though her grip on the basket was firm and her chin high. Though she tried to portray a calmness, she looked very close to tears.
“You scared the hell out of me,” she said, a hand pressed to her ribs. “I thought—I thought you were a wolf or something.”
He stopped several paces away, just as rain began to spit through the branches. “I meant nae to frighten ye,” he said, his voice rougher than he intended.
Claire waved it off with the flick of her hand, her relief apparently greater than the fright he’d given her. “I feel like an idiot. I’ve been wandering around here for... I don’t know how long, and now you’re here—does that mean I’m, like, ridiculously close to the end of these stupid woods?”
A rumble of thunder underlined her words, and fat drops began to fall in earnest. Ciaran glanced upward, then back to her, the fine line of her shoulders already dampening through the fabric. “We’re nae that close.”
Claire glanced around. “Didn’t you bring your horse?”
“I dinna.”
“Oh.” Her disappointment was no greater than his, his regret sharp once he realized how deep into the forest Claire had actually wandered.
“C’mon, then, let’s get back.”
He extended his hand, flicking his fingers to beckon her toward him, in his direction.
That was all, the only purpose for raising his hand. He didn’t expect that Claire would assume some other intention, or that she’d so willingly put her hand into his, curling her cold fingers around his.
He nearly pulled away on instinct, the jolt of surprise as sharp as the rain now pelting through the branches. But he did not. Her grip was light, tentative even, but steady, and he found himself tightening his own just enough to keep her close as he turned and plodded forward, before she might have made anything of the initial reaction he wasn’t sure she hadn’t noticed.
It unsettled him more than he cared to admit, her palm pressed against his, her fingers slim and soft, her hand so small as to be nearly lost in his grip.
He should have pulled away, he decided after only a few steps. God’s truth, he should have. He tallied the reasons why he didn’t want to have her hand in his. He thought of her claim, that improbable tale of being torn from another time. A lie, surely. Or the work of wicked magic. And yet, the hand in his did not feel like deceit, it was solid, warmed now by his flesh, very... un-fae-like. Ciaran’s jaw tightened. When was the last time he had taken a woman’s hand like this, without meaning for it to lead to coupling or even more rarely and much less recently, for a dance? He could not recall. A long while, then. Too long.
Chagrin burned in his chest. He did not like her, not truly, he was certain—not her strange tongue, or the memory of her that wasn’t her, nor the disruption that she brought to his life. And yet he did not loose her hand.
The sky thickened above, cloudbanks rolling in from the west.
The forest closed around them as they walked, the canopy swallowing what little light remained. The sun had only just slipped behind the hills, but beneath the trees and the heavy clouds, the gloom thickened fast, shadows layering until the path ahead was little more than shifting, rain-dancing shadows.
Claire’s voice broke the hush. “I am very grateful that you came to find me. I was pretty close to being terrified and this rain would have sent me over the edge—I didn’t think these woods were so dense.”
Ciaran cut her a sharp glance, his tone edged. “’Tis nae a thicket. 'Tis a forest. And a dangerous one, if ye dinna ken your way.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her press her lips together, basket hugged close, chastened but silent. He almost regretted the bite of his words—but nae, better she learn the weight of it than take the notion lightly again.
