She scooped up his clothes, threw them at him, and spun away.
Facing the side door, she silently agreed with him. It wouldn’t be safe to stay there any longer. The soldiers might return; they probably would. If she recalled the history books right, the English hunted the Jacobites mercilessly after Culloden. She frowned. Or brigands might be scouring the countryside for whatever remnants were left on the dead or alive.
“And where will you go?”
“I must go home.”
He spoke quietly with warmth, and the sound of him handling the soft folds of material had her imagining him dressing.
She shook the image away and was thankful he couldn’t see her guilty blush. “Where is that?”
“Dorpol. An island off the west coast. Ye cannae stay here alone, so ye will come with me.”
An island meant it was a long way from where she had arrived. She couldn’t go with him. She had to get the device.
When she never answered, he must have taken her silence as a no, because he said, “Ye must come with me at least until ye find yer grandmother. Where do they live?”
Uh-oh. Abby had never expected that question from him. She turned away and began folding the blankets on the bed. Think, Abby, what town is close to Culloden Moor? Inverness? It was quite a ways north, but she figured big enough to get lost in. She smiled. That sounded right.
She kept her back to him. “I . . . I think it was Inverness.”
He took her arm and turned her around. He had dressed in his tartan skirt and pinned the leftover material over his right shoulder. It suited him. He would have been a movie star in modern times.
His jawline tightened. “We cannae go there. Cumberland’s army will have taken hold of it by now. Ye saved my life and I am honor bound to keep you safe. Ye must come with me until we can send word to your family.”
His tone sounded like he wished it were otherwise. Maybe he thought she would slow him down or do something stupid to give them away. But she was thankful she’d said the name of the town right, and more especially, that they couldn’t stop there.
Heat filled her cheeks, and she hoped her relief at not being left in some medieval Scottish town on her own didn’t show as she tried to make light of the situation. “Why, sir, I don’t even know you.”
His back straightened, and he placed his hand over his heart. “I told ye, I am Iain MacLaren, laird of Dorpol.”
She snorted. “I’ll just call you Iain, okay?”
The corners of his mouth twitched as if he tried not to laugh. “Iain ’tis.”
Then he frowned. Scrutinizing her, his eyes darkened, revealing warmth, curiosity, decision. “We will travel as man and wife.”
“What? Why?”
“An unmarried lass of yer looks would be fair game to any warrior or brigand.”
Although Abby never saw herself as beautiful, she knew he was right, though she suspected a woman didn’t need to be beautiful in this time and place, just available. She regarded his massive frame. No one would try accosting her with him by her side and anyway, the pretense only had to last until she got the orb to take her home. She nodded. “Fine, but we’re only going to pretend, right? There’ll be no sleeping together.”
“It depends who we are acting for. We may have to share a room, but we have done that already.”
“Fine, but when I said sleeping together, I meant no sex.”
His jaw tightened and his lips thinned, and she thought he would argue, but he said, “I don’t want to sleep with ye that way.”
Abby wasn’t sure if she should be offended at his statement, but she wasn’t going to let him see that, so she grinned. “Shall we go, Husband?”
“Aye,Wife.” He returned the knives Abby had found earlier into the folds of his tartan. “Collect what ye can and we will be on our way to Dorpol.”
Still worrying over the lost device, she hoped with all her heart it would be easy to find, and then she would be on her way all right, on her way home. A frightening thought crossed her mind.If the orb’s not broken.
No, she had faith in its strength. Even after her parents traveled so many years with it, it didn’t have one dent.
Abby dismissed her misgivings and set about putting what clothes and blankets were left in the box in the largest blanket. At least with him, she would have protection.
