“I cannae believe that someone would do this,” Ailsa murmured, shaking her head. “To this place, to these children…”
She trailed off, her teeth resting on her bottom lip with obvious distress. It made his chest hurt to see her that way. It was, he supposed, a good thing in some regard; the knowledge that she had never had to witness such cruelty or madness before.
But it was clearly weighing heavy on her, and he wished there was more he could do to ease up the shock of it.
“Ye can go back to the Keep if ye want,” he told her gently, wrapping his hand around hers.
When she had suggested coming with him, he had, at first, been a little less than enthused about the idea; he didn’t want her dragged down to this place when it was in such a bad way.But she had insisted, and he had sensed that he would be a fool to try to deny her.
When she got it into her head that she was going to do something, there seemed to be little he or anyone could have done to convince her otherwise, and the sooner he came to terms with that, the better.
She shook her head firmly.
“No, they need as much help as they can get,” she murmured. “I’d like to go to the houses, see if there’s anything in particular they need. That way I can bring down something really useful when I next go to the Keep.”
“Aye, of course,” he replied, and he smiled slightly.
She was sweeter than he had given her credit for, especially after the way she had been so dismissive of the maids before. Perhaps that had been a front, just as much as he had put one up to try to keep from letting himself be seen too clearly.
She had a few more blankets in her bag, and he had several packages of bread and fruit taken from the gardens. Not much, but it was better than nothing, and he could not be seen letting his people deal with such a horrible attack all alone. Sometimes, it was the very presence of someone there that made them feel better, even if there was little they could do in the way of practicality.
And each door they knocked on, Ailsa met the person on the other side with the same brightness, the same kindness, the same gentle offering of provisions. A few of them were wary of her—hard for them not to be, after what had happened—but they soon warmed up as she offered them recipes to cook a delicious apple crumble with some of the dried oats they had stored in the pantry.
“Just pop it under the stove for as long as it takes to get all brown on top,” she advised one of the women. “It’s delicious, ye have my word.”
“I’m no’ much of a cook,” the woman replied, pulling her daughter close to her, more protective than usual.
“Do ye have a parchment and some ink?” Ailsa asked. “I can write it down for ye, if ye’d like.”
“No, but I have a good memory,” the girl piped up. “Why don’t ye tell me again?”
Ailsa happily recounted the recipe to the little girl, and soon, they moved on to the next house. She took her time in each one, making sure that they had everything they might need for the coming days, and soon enough, it was starting to get dark.
“We should be getting back to the Keep soon, if we dinnae want to be caught under cover of night,” he remarked to her as they headed back to the inn, where the horse was waiting patiently for them.
“Do ye think we could stay here tonight?” she wondered aloud, catching him somewhat off-guard.
He glanced at her, frowning.
“Ye dinnae want to…”
“It’s not that I don’t miss our chambers,” she assured her, a playful twinkle in her eye. “But I’d like to see the village by dawn. And perhaps see if anyone else comes to us to ask for anything. Ye know how people can be, they don’t always tell ye the whole truth the first time around.”
She looked at him hopefully, and he knew at once that there was no denying her.
“Aye, of course we can,” he replied. “I’ll speak to the innkeeper, make sure there’s a room free for us.”
“I could use something to eat as well,” she remarked, flashing him a smile. “I got so distracted during breakfast, I hardly had a chance to finish it.”
He chuckled, shaking his head at her. There was something about the light playfulness to her tone when she spoke to himlike that that made it hard for him to keep his mind on the task at hand.
He went inside as she stood with the horse, running her fingers through his mane, and spoke to the innkeeper to get a room for the night, which, of course, he made sure the man was handsomely repaid for.
Perhaps more than anything, what this place needed was coin, though the people here were too proud to accept it in the form of a handout. If he could find services that needed to be rendered, he might be able to get enough gold circulating around here that they would soon be back on their feet. Or, at least, he hoped so.
Once they’d taken some dinner—a simple stew and some ale by the fireplace—Tavish wasted no time in guiding her upstairs to their lodgings for the night, his hands practically itching for her as they had been all day.
He had never felt a lust like that for a woman before, something all-consuming and demanding. He’d had lovers before her, but none had made him feel this way, so alive, so mad with desire that he’d have done almost anything to get her alone.
