Elena said nothing about this.
He adjusted their course, feeling a tightness gather beneath his ribs that had nothing to do with the wound in his arm.
Another stretch passed. The land opened slightly, birch thinning into pasture broken by low stone walls. Jacob glanced at the sky, gauging the day. “We’ll make better time once we clear this rise.”
“Verra guid,” she said indifferently.
They followed the higher ground, and for a time the only sounds between them were the creak of leather and the steady clip-clop of his destrier. Jacob found himself listening for Elena’s breathing, for the small signs of fatigue he had learned to recognize, and when he felt her shift slightly behind him he spoke again before he could overthink it.
“If ye need to stop, say so,” he told her.
“I’m fine.”
Jacob clenched his teeth as the quiet settled again, heavier for having been disturbed at all, he thought. He rode another mile, rehearsing statements in his head, having accepted that he needed to strike it head on.
“Elena,” he said at last, keeping his voice low, even. “About last night....”
He felt her shift slightly behind him, the smallest adjustment of weight. Then, “Please...dinna. We dinna need to speak of it.”
“Aye, we do,” he decided firmly. He drew a breath, readying himself. “I should nae have... I had nae right to put ye in that position.”
She scoffed at this, a disgruntled sound that surprised him despite her frostiness. “Ye dinna put me in anyposition. Ye did...naught.”
And that, Jacob thought grimly, was precisely the trouble.
He had not lived his life chasing women, nor courting them with any great skill or with even half the confidence he carried into battle, and he would not pretend otherwise. But he knew this: Elena bristled now, met him with this indifference sharpened to a point, not because he had overstepped, but because he had stopped when neither of them had truly wanted him to.
“Ye are promised to another,” he reminded her tersely. “Whatever came over me, it had nae place—
“Fine. Fine,” she said, a sudden sharpness in her tone. “Ye owe me naught, Jacob, neither apology nor explanation.”
He turned in the saddle then, not fully, only enough that he could see her, that she could see him if she chose to look. She did not. Her gaze stayed fixed to their left, her jaw set with that maddening composure she wielded like a shield.
For a heartbeat he simply stared at her, struck dumb by the ridiculousness of her words. Clearly, since she could hardly speak to him but a handful of clipped, indifferent replies, he owed hersomething.
His hand tightened on the reins until the leather creaked faintly, and a muscle jumped once along his jaw before he mastered it. “Naught,” he repeated, incredulous still, shaking his head in disbelief. “So be it,” he grumbled.
A full minute passed before her voice reached him, a wee bit indignant still. “It was a guid thing ye dinna kiss me.”
The words landed with quiet finality, and for a moment Jacob found himself wide-eyed at the absurdity of her statement.
“A guid thing,” he echoed, shaking his head.
“Aye. I would have had to stop ye, as that was the last thing I wanted.”
Jacob gave a sharp, dubious laugh, the sound tearing free of him before sense could intervene. He turned his head over his shoulder again, disbelief written plain across his face. “Nae way,” he said flatly. “Nae way at all.”
She bristled at once. “Ye ken naught of it.”
“I ken exactly enough,” he shot back. “Ye wanted it, Elena. Ye melted like butter into me—ye wanted me to kiss ye.”
Her cheeks flushed, and she knit her brows. “I dinna. I was—I was startled and...” she paused and leveled him with a severe glare. “Melt,” she scoffed. “Nae, I dinna.”
Jacob faced forward again, stating strongly, “Ye did, and a convenient memory dinna change that.” There was something dangerously close to humor tugging at him now, because the argument itself was so exasperating. He was there! He’d kissed enough lasses to know expectation and hope when he encountered it. “And ye did naught to stop me—another convenience, seeming to have forgotten all about Hamilton.”
She gasped at the harsh dig.
Jacob was certain he heard her mouth snap shut, as if it had opened wide with her outrage.
