She closed her eyes against the heat of his breath and the deep cadence of his quiet voice. How could she like it? How?
She nodded, unwilling to say anything and risk crying out something that might shame her, likeDinna touch me! Ye are a monster. I’m afraid!
He kept the horse’s pace steady with the cattle as he rode close to a group of ten, grazing in the grass.
“That one,” he told her, keeping his voice soft near her ear and motioning with his chin to a large coo with a white patch between its eyes and on its chest, “is Fraya. We took her from the MacKintoshes eight years ago. At the time, she hated bein’ touched andwould often cause a stampede by bellowin’ and sometimes even screamin’ if we went near her. Finally, I separated her from the others and put her in a smaller enclosure, where she could still see the others. Fer days I simply sat in the grass waitin’ fer her to graze near me. She refused to eat fer a se’nnight.”
From where she was perched on his lap, Ismay gazed at the coo. Her heart went out to the animal. Ismay understood how it felt to be so afraid that fighting back or even killing became the only option for escape. “Poor thing.”
“Aye,” the chief agreed behind her. “I feared she would starve herself to death. But on the day I had decided to leave her alone, she came near me and lowered her head to the grass. We became friends after that.”
He started walking the horse closer to Fraya, but the coo met them the rest of the way and rested her giant head in his lap—on top of Ismay’s thighs.
“Ye taught her to trust ye,” Ismay noted while he scratched the coo’s nose. “Not many would be so patient.”
“That is why she belongs here. With me.”
Ismay’s heart froze. With him? There was nowith him. Nor would there be. She would not have another man make plans for her life. She would make her own. In a convent.
When she turned away, he took her hand and lifted it to the top of the coo’s head. “Let her know ye are her friend. She isna used to lasses.”
Ismay thought about pulling her hand away from him, but she wanted to pet the beast. Besides, he released her the instant she touched Fraya’s thick fur.
“Greetings, bonnie coo,” she practically sang, her smile wide. “I hope ye will accept me and never try to crush me under yer mighty hooves.”
Behind her, the Lochiel chuckled, making her belly flip before sheturned to him. “What?”
“Is that how ye win her favor, lass? Move slowly, respectfully while fillin’ her with compliments?”
Her wide smile intact, she nodded. “Does she deserve less?”
“Mayhap more,” he countered with amusement lighting his poignant eyes.
After a little while getting to know some of the herd, he rode them back slowly to her horse.
“Ye have confidence, lass,” he told her. He’d moved back, away from her ear. But she still heard him. “Ye know yer worth.”
She shook her head. “I had no worth, Chie—Constantine. None, whatsoever before my father. He taught me that although I had no riches or noble title, I had worth to God and to others on this earth. One of them was him. I felt it every day in his presence.” Like she felt it in the chief’s. “My father knew what I had become, and he didna care. He understood what my early years had done to me and let me decide if I wanted to marry or not.”
“What had ye become?” he asked.
“Hmm? What?”
“Ye said, he knew what ye had become and he didna care. What had ye become? Will ye tell me?”
She trusted him, did she not? He would be the only soul, besides her father, who knew of her crime.
“I became a murderer.” A sound in her head like a door slamming shut—or a guillotine coming down made her heart lurch. Did she just make a terrible error? She told him nothing else. Not the name of her victim. She could never tell him that.
He didn’t ask her what she meant or demand that she tell him everything. When they reached her horse, he helped her dismount.
She would have preferred to remain with him. Her head was still spinning from her confession when he set her feet on the ground. Her knees nearly buckled beneath her. He caught her andheld her close against his chest while he stared into her wide eyes.
“Are ye feelin’ ill?” he asked, concern marring his dark brow.
“Nae,” she told him and righted herself. She took a tentative step away from him. When dizziness did not overcome her again, she made it to her horse.
But the chief stopped her when she fit her foot in the stirrup.
