Aiden followed her gaze to the signet ring heavy on his hand and simply nodded his head.
The woman curtseyed hastily once more and hurried out of the room in a rustle of skirt and slippers.
Aiden turned back to Hannah, only to find her watching him with curious eyes. “Ye didnae have to pay a two nights’ fee for one,” she pointed out. “Why did ye?”
“We took up the space,” Aiden responded gruffly and crossed his arms. “Doesnae hurt me any to see they’re compensated fairly.”
The lass nodded her head. She was still holding his gaze with those expressive green eyes.
He realized with a jolt that she hadn’t cowered before him like the innkeeper’s wife had the entire time they’d known each other. Even when he’d frightened her in his study and she’d gone as pale as a cloth, she had held his gaze as she thrust the whiskey bottle into his chest.
He preferred it that way.
“Let’s go,” he said, after realizing they’d been standing in silence for a tick too long.
He led the way out of the inn and nodded to the innkeeper, who had clearly been sent by his wife to fetch Liath from the paddock. On arrival, he had hastily instructed the man to keep his maretacked. He hadn’t decided what his next move would be, and until he knew the state of the lass who had been draped across his arms, there was no reason to ask the man to go to the trouble.
Liath nickered and nudged his shoulder, and Aiden patted her round cheek. “Aye, Li, we’re moving on.”
He took the reins from the innkeeper with murmured thanks and swung himself up easily into the saddle. He shamelessly took a moment to arrange his plaid over the saddle, ensuring a soft seat for his companion. Then he reached his hand down for her.
He’d thought the lass had only been teasing him about his mare, but he noticed she looked a little spooked as she stared up at him. He supposed he cut an imposing figure, with his own size, atop a warhorse.
“She’s steady as they come,” he reassured her. “Just as safe as yer pony, if a bit more heft to her. Let us be on our way, lass, before dawn finds us sitting here.”
His words got her moving.
She took a long breath, something he noticed she did often right before she made a decision, and then she reached her hand up to him. It took a moment of maneuvering.
Aiden didn’t recall the last time he’d shared his saddle, but with the use of the stirrup, the pommel, and his grip on her otherhand and one arm looping around her waist, he settled her into place before him.
He managed not to groan at how perfectly her soft body settled between his legs and against his chest. As if she’d been carved from the space in the first place and now nestled into it again.
He cleared his throat and reached around her to gather the reins, his other arm holding her steady before him. “Are ye steady, lass?”
“Aye,” Hannah said, after a moment’s silence.
She shifted her satchel before her, and Aiden helped her rearrange her cloak to cushion between them somewhat and wrap around her. The evening’s chill had settled in fully, and he’d not gone to the trouble of rescuing her from a group of bandits just to see her die from something so simple as a chill.
“Then we’ll be off. Keep yer grip on the pommel.” He himself settled against the cantle. As much for his own sanity as her comfort.
“Ye ken the way?” Hannah asked, glancing up at him over her shoulder.
“Aye. I’m nae a complete stranger to me own lands, lass.” Aiden couldn’t help the amusement that slipped into his voice at the notion that he’d be lost traveling through his own territory. He’dnever live it down; Lucas would bring it up every time they saw one another.
“Oh.” She subsided, and they both jolted slightly as Liath took the cue to start walking.
Once they were on the main road, their way lit by generous moonlight that Aiden secretly sent up a prayer of thanks for, his mare was far more surefooted on the well-worn path and moved with swift confidence.
“What happened to those men?” Hannah suddenly asked.
She didn’t need to clarify which men. They both know full well.
“The innkeeper will send word to the kirk to see to it they daenae remain where a horse might break a leg on them.”
She nodded and didn’t ask further questions.
He supposed her concern had been much the same. She seemed a practical lass. She also smelled good, a mix of barley and something sweet that he far preferred over the smell of the road dust. Almost as if she wore the whiskey she made like perfume.
