“Nay.”
He looked her up and down. “You’re shaking like a leaf, and you’re breathing as if you’ve run a long distance.” He leaned forward. “I’m not a monster, Mrs. Cait. I’m simply a man who is far, far from home.”
He let that dangle between them, waiting expectantly for her response. She continued with her silence, because anything she said would damn her.
He looked around but not at the soldiers behind him. She didn’t know what he expected to see. A band of Highland warriors coming at him? She could only hope.
He leaned sideways, looking back down the road from which she’d come. “Soldiers far from home have needs, as I’m sure you’re aware, being a widow and all.”
She stared at the three soldiers in front of her. The injured one was looking off into the distance. The other two, confronted with her glare, turned their gazes away. Coming to her aid would surely land them in trouble with this numpty bastard.
He was going to rape her, and there was nothing she could do about it. Hersgian dubhwas no match against four English soldiers—three if she discounted the injured one. The helplessness that washed over her made her angry. She should be allowed to ride the roads unmolested in her own country. But these bastards had been taking and taking for months and years and saw no difference in taking a plot of land or a woman’s pride.
That didn’t mean she wouldn’t fight. She would give it her all, no matter how futile it was to fight back. She wouldn’t let them leave her without a few injuries of their own.
She wanted to reach for thesgian dubhbut knew that would be a fatal mistake. She eyed the sword at his side and wondered if she would be able to grab for that.
Sweat dripped down her back, and she thought of all those times when Iain and Rory and Sutherland and her grandfathers had told her she wasn’t safe out here and how often she’d discounted their warnings as ridiculous. Even after all the death she’d witnessed at the hands of the English, she’d naively believed that she was immune to it.
“Mrs. Cait?”
Reluctantly, she met his gaze. He grinned a thin-lipped grin. “Your thoughts were far off.” He leaned forward, so close that she had to lean back; he continued to close the distance, and to lean back farther would mean falling off her mount.
And he kissed her. Not the brutal kiss that she would have expected, but a soft kiss on the lips that was far worse than brutality.
He drew back, winked at her, and adjusted his blue coat. “It’s probably best you go to your patients. I will come to you this evening.” He leaned forward and took her chin in his hands, his fingers biting into her skin. “I can make things very, very good for you, Mrs. Cait. You’ll never have to worry about the English soldiers bothering you. I am generous with my gifts. None of my past mistresses has ever had a complaint.”
He let go of her chin and moved away. She resisted the urge to rub her aching jaw. However, she was unable to stop the tears of pain and fear that blurred her vision.
“And Mrs. Cait?”
She knew the fear was stark in her expression and that he liked that fear, because his eyes lit up in excitement.
“Don’t think of not being there,” he said. “And telling someone will not save you but will merely prolong the inevitable.”
He motioned to his men, and they rode past her, deliberately not looking at her. The injured one was pale and sweating and breathing hard. His face was flushed, and he held his arm tight against his bleeding side. For a blinding moment she hoped his wound putrefied and he suffered horribly for it.
She sat on her horse in the middle of the road, shivering so hard that her bones were nearly rattling. Her teeth chattered and tears ran down her cheeks. She was paralyzed with anger and fear, not able to move forward, and certainly not able to move backward. So she just sat there and shook and cried and felt so damn helpless.
—
The housekeeper let Cait in, but it was Adair who met her in the formal sitting room. He took one look at her and said, “What’s happened?”
Adair knew of their affair, enough to fetch Iain from her cottage the other night, and she wasn’t in the mood for word games or pretending. She was raw with fear, and after the English soldiers had disappeared, her only thought had been to get to Iain. She had unconsciously turned her mount in the direction of the big house. They’d been here enough times that her mount knew the way, and Cait had let her mind go blessedly blank. Now she asked, “Is Iain here?”
“He’s with Palmer,” Adair said. “Talking to Graham about the killing of the latest English soldier.”
“I see.” Her shoulders drooped.
“What happened, Cait?”
Her hands fluttered, and for a moment she thought she might be making too much of what had happened on that road. Was she overreacting? Had Donaldson really said those things to her? She felt silly riding all this way, but then she remembered Donaldson’s kiss and his last words. She crossed her arms over her stomach and rubbed them. “Do you…” She swallowed. “Do ye think I can stay here tonight?”
“Of course ye can.” Adair looked her over critically. “Are ye unwell?”
“I’m well.”
“Something happened.”
