She raised her chin. “I’ll need privacy,” she tried, but he laughed, a harsh, ugly caw, and shook his head. “Nay, ye’ll strip down here. If ye need help with the laces, Alan can do it for ye.”
“Me?” the second man gaped.
“Aye, you—part of the spoils,” Rabbie said. “We’ll draw straws to see who has her first once she’s dressed up and pretty.”
Rabbie pointed the dirk at her. “Go on.” He sat down to watch.
Gillian’s fingers were awkward on the front laces of the plain russet gown she was wearing. She undid it and slid it down over her hips. She was wearing a linen shift under it, but she felt naked. Rabbie gave a low, dirty laugh, and she felt her humiliation burn from ankle to hairline. She grabbed the pink silk and stepped into it, pulled it up. The low bodice exposed too much, and she tugged on it.
“There now. Lace her up, lad,” Rabbie commanded, and Alan stepped behind her. His hands were clumsy, but she felt the fabric close, tighten, plump her breasts and push them skyward. She resisted the urge to cover herself with her hands.
“Now what would Sheona say if she could see ye now, laddie?” Rabbie asked Alan. “When we’re done, ye can take her this gown.”
Alan didn’t reply, but Gillian could feel his breath on her shoulders.
“Now ye look like ye’d fetch your weight in gold,” Rabbie said.
Alan finished his task and walked around to look at Gillian from the front. “What does a lass need a gown like this for?” he asked softly. “What kind of things does a woman do when she’s dressed so?”
“It’s my wedding gown,” Gillian said.
“To him?” Rabbie asked, pointing at John’s slumped form.
She nodded silently, since it was less complicated than the truth.
Alan whistled softly. “What sort of wife are ye then?”
Rabbie chuckled and looked at the man tending the dying lad. “What say ye, Duncan? What kind of wife is she?”
Duncan looked up, frowning, and took in the gown. “Can ye cook, or sew, or wash clothes?”
“Aye,” she said.
“Then ye can cook our supper,” Rabbie said. He took a bag of oats from his own pack and handed it to her.
Just oats and nothing else.
“There’s meat in the saddle packs,” she said, knowing John, like all who traveled in the Highlands, carried food. There’d be some in Callum’s pack as well. “Dried beef.”
Rabbie jerked his head at Alan. “Fetch it.”
“And water,” she dared to add. “It’s impossible to cook porridge without water. And I’ll need a bigger fire.”
Alan sighed and picked up a bucket. “Now I ken what kind of wife she is,” he muttered as he went into the forest. Rabbie stayed, his knife—her knife—and his greedy eyes on Gillian. She measured oats into the pot.
Duncan continued to tend the man with the belly wound, glancing over his shoulder at Gillian only occasionally.
And that, thought Gillian, just left two—Rabbie and Duncan, since Hugh, poor dying Hugh, wouldn’t be a threat. But there was no opportunity to strike or flee yet, for she couldn’t go without John.
When the injured man groaned, and Rabbie and Duncan both turned their attention to him for an instant, Gillian closed her hand on Keir’s dirk. She slid it quickly into her sleeve and pulled her long lace cuff over it. When Alan returned with water, she began to cook.
* * *
John woke with a searing pain in his head. He forced his eyes open and looked around. He was in the woods and it was dark. Crickets were making a sibilant, swishing sound. He frowned. Crickets didn’t make that sound. He turned his head and squinted at the painful light of a small fire.
He saw the gleam of pink silk, the glint of gold, and he remembered Gillian on the night of the masked ball.
Surely he was dreaming, delirious. He blinked, tried to focus, but she remained, moving around a forest clearing in a ball gown.
