“Gawyn heard it as clearly as I.” He raised his voice:
“Didn’t you, Gawyn? You heard Lady Amelia snoring like abulllast night?”
“Aye, you kept me awake, lass.”
Amelia shifted uncomfortably on the soft fur and took another sip of coffee.«Well, I am not going to sit here and argue with the two of you about it.”
Duncan crossed his long, muscled legs at the ankles.
“Wise decision, lass. Sometimes you’re better off just to yield at the outset.”
She chuckled bitterly. “Mm, I learned that yesterday, didn’t I? When you had me pinned to the ground in the rain.”
Gawyn, who was busy cracking two more eggs into the pan, lifted his eyes briefly.
“At least you learned your lesson,” Duncan said. “It’s important to know when you’ve been bested.”
Amelia shook her head at him, refusing to be provoked.
“And what plan does the mighty conqueror have for his prisoner today?” she asked, determined to change the subject. “I suppose you’re going to drag me higher up into the mountains? Although I don’t real y see the point in it, if youwantRichard to find us. Which maybe you don’t.”
He glanced sideways again. “Oh, I do, lass. I just want him to suffer a bit longer with the angst of not knowing what’s happening to you. I like to imagine him tossing and turning in his bed, night after night, wondering if you’re dead or alive.
Or thinking about how my axe is slicing your dress in two, and how you must be trembling and cowering at my touch, begging for mercy, and final y pleading with me to pleasure you senseless, again and again, night after night.”
She shot him a disparaging look. “You’re having delusions, Duncan, if you think that’s ever going to happen.”
He took a sip of coffee and kept his eyes fixed on Fergus, who wasstillpracticing with his sword. “I’llbe sending Bennett a message soon enough.”
“A message? How? When? I haven’t seen any goose quills within reach, or paper or inkwells for that matter. There are no desks in the immediate area, or post runners to deliver the dispatch.”
Hestilldid not meet her eyes. “As if I’d reveal any of that to you.”
She accepted the plate Gawyn held out. “Fillyour belly, lass,” Gawyn said with an encouraging smile. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us.”
She picked up the spoon and ate.
* * *
“How close were you to Angus’s sister?” she asked Duncan later that morning, after they had packed their supplies and left the glen, the rebels spreading out on horseback inalldirections like spokes on a fan. “Gawyn told me that—” “Gawyn talks too much.” Duncan’s reply came down like a hammer.
Recognizing the note of impatience in his voice, Amelia cleared her throat and began again. “Perhaps he does, but we’re alone now, Duncan, and I would like to know more about what happened. Was Muira’s death what started this bloody rampage? Or were you known as the Butcher before that?”
He said nothing for a long time, so Amelia simply waited.
And waited.
“I don’t know who invented that name,” he said at last. “It wasn’t us. It was probably some adolescent English soldier who cowered behind a barrel when we attacked his camp.”
“Someone who lived totellabout it,” she added.
“And thought it clever to exaggerate.”
Feeling a swift surge of hope, she turned in the saddle to search his eyes. “Exaggerate? So it’s notalltrue?”
He paused. “More than enough of it is based on fact, lass, so don’t get your hopes up.”
They rode on. The horse’s hooves plodded leisurely over the grass while a thick mist shifted androlledacross the mountaintops.
