She glared at Iain, who regarded her with near-unrestrained humor. “Are you just going to stand there and let me do all the work?”
“Ye are the woman, Wife.”
She snarled. “Barbarian.”
He laughed.
With him studying her so intently, she felt clumsy and unfocused. She picked up two small animal skins, probably deer, with thinner strips of skin hanging off them and turned them over in her hands.
“They be shoes.”
“I know that.” She sat on the bed and tied them onto her bare feet. They were a little small, and the straps cut into her flesh. They wouldn’t keep her feet warm, but at least they might protect her soles from small stones and prickles.
She glanced at the muddy mid-heeled sandals she had arrived in. They would be even worse to wear. She picked them up and wrapped them with her modern clothes in a corner of the blanket. Better not let anyone in this time find them.
After wrapping up the blanket, she pushed it into his stomach. “You can carry it.”
“As ye wish.”
Abby walked out of the house with her head held high. She stopped and looked left and right. She wasn’t sure, but she started walking in what she thought was the direction of the battlefield.
His chuckle followed her. “Not that way. We go south.”
Without stopping, she said, “Not yet. I lost something very important, and I can’t leave without it.”In more ways than one, she thought.
“The English will be scouring the moor for survivors and burying the dead. We cannae go that way.”
Abby spun around. “I’m not going anywhere without it, so if you want to go that way, you go. I’m not.”
His mouth hardened in a straight line and his jaw twitched as he glared at her.
She blinked at his expression. He was stronger than her and could easily make her go with him, but she set her jaw and pierced him with a firm gaze. She had no choice; she had to get the orb.
After a moment of staring at one another, he said, “What is so important that ye would risk yer life?”
“It’s an ornament and it’s precious to me.” She turned away. “That’s all I want to say about it.”
Gently turning her around, he gazed into her eyes. “I can see it is very important. We will go, but we will have to wait until nightfall.”
She nodded, scared to say something that might change his mind.
He let go of her arm and made his way back into the cabin. By the time Abby joined him, he had a knife in each hand.
“We need food,” he said matter-of-factly, and strode back out through the door.
Abby stood staring at the still-open door, hoping whatever he brought back was edible.
***
Iain had an empty stomach and if they had to stay there until nightfall, he needed to try to find a rabbit or a pheasant to make a stew. He wasn’t a stranger to throwing knives, but he wasn’t as good as some, especially his sister, who always beat him in a throwing competition. He movedthe knives around in his hands.Mayhap with a hungry stomach, my aim will improve.
He walked noiselessly through the heather and over the low bushes, wishing he had his dogs or at the very least, Donal and his hunting falcon. He crouched among some wind-stunted rowan trees and kept his eye on the mounds of grass tussocks close by. He held the knives ready to throw. He scanned the area for rabbits and after some minutes, he was rewarded with a ball of fluff scooting from one grass mound to another.
He threw the first knife, missing by a hair’s breadth, but by the time he had the second knife up and ready to throw, the rabbit had bounded into the grass. He swore under his breath.
Mayhap the rabbit had family close by. He hurried to collect the knife and returned to his hideout and waited.
A memory stirred in his mind. The strange couple his father had befriended when Iain was six years old. They were from America and stayed with the MacLarens often during that year. Their speech was similar to Abigail’s dialect; mayhap they had come from the same area. Iain, always a curious child, never discovered how they came and went. They didn’t ride in on a coach or horses, nor had Iain ever seen them walk into the keep. They just were there, dressed in Scottish garb, and kept close to Iain’s father. He never saw them leave either, and when he asked his father, he would joke and say the wood nymphs spirited them away.
