At that moment, footsteps sounded behind him.
He turned to find Elaina approaching. Her hair was once more braided neatly down her back. She looked rested. Still wary, perhaps, but steadier than she had seemed the night before. For reasons he refused to examine too closely, that eased something in him.
She glanced past him, then around the stable yard.
He rested a hand on the saddle. “Ye’ll ride with me.”
Her head snapped up. “I can ride perfectly well on me own.”
“I’ve nay doubt of it,” he said mildly. “But I only have this one horse. And it is fer yer own safety.”
The words landed differently than his teasing had. He saw it in the way her gaze drifted for a brief moment as memory caught up with her: the knives, the hands, the night she had nearly lost everything.
When she looked back at him, the defiance was still there, but it had tempered into something more reluctant.
“Very well,” she acquiesced reluctantly. “I see the sense in it.”
“Of course,” he agreed solemnly. “I would never claim victory otherwise.”
She shot him a look that promised future retaliation, but she moved closer all the same. Duncan swung up first, then reached down to help her mount, careful and respectful as he settled her in front of him. As they prepared to leave the stable yard, he felt her straighten, gathering herself with quiet resolve.
They set off together, alert, and riding toward a road neither of them yet understood, but which both had already chosen.
CHAPTER FIVE
The ride was…difficult.
Elaina tried to sit as far forward as the saddle allowed, with her spine rigid. Duncan’s presence behind her was impossible to ignore. She couldn’t deny the heat of his body at her back and the steady strength of his arms bracketing her without quite touching. Each movement of the horse sent an unwelcome awareness through her, and her heart raced for reasons that had nothing to do with speed or fear.
She told herself sternly to breathe. Apparently, her effort did not go unnoticed.
“Ye can lean a bit further back, intae me,” Duncan said lightly from behind her, with amusement threading through his voice, “I dinnae bite, ye ken.”
She swallowed. “Ye may nae,” she replied, “but perhaps I dae.”
That earned her a low chuckle. “Is that a warning?”
“Consider it a courtesy,” she said, fixing her gaze firmly on the road ahead and praying he could not hear how quickly her pulse was beating.
They rode on for a short while before he spoke again. “How did ye sleep?”
Her answer came too quickly. “Well.”
He was quiet for a moment, then made a comment. “At one point in the night, it looked as though ye were having a bad dream.”
Her shoulders tensed. “It was naething,” she said, brushing it off with practiced ease. “Probably just remnants of a long night.”
He did not press her. The silence that followed felt respectful and she found herself grateful for it. With no words between them, she could at least pretend her thoughts were her own, even as the warmth at her back reminded her how fragile that pretense truly was.
The road wound upward, and before Elaina had quite adjusted to the rhythm of the ride, the castle came into view. Castle Grant rose from the land with quiet authority. Its stone walls looked pale in the morning light, while the banners were stirring faintly in the breeze. The gates opened at Duncan’s approach, iron and wood yielding with practiced ease. Guards straightened at once, with hands to their weapons.
All gazes were on her. Elaina felt it immediately: the curious looks, the quick assessments, the barely concealed surprise. A woman riding in with the laird, seated before him on his horse, was certainly not an ordinary sight. She kept her chin high, though her pulse quickened.
Duncan dismounted first, then helped her down with a steady hand.
“Send fer one of the maids,” he instructed a nearby guard. “I’ve brought a new healer fer the clan.”
The guard blinked, glanced at Elaina again, then nodded. “Aye, me laird.”
