Page 45 of In Bed with a Highland Brute

“It’s who I am, Murdoch. It isnae an act.”

“I ken. I think I’m beginning tae see who ye really are, Eloise.” The back of his hand caressed her waist. He had no idea if it was because of their act or not, but she didn’t pull away.

Eloise lifted the meadow flower to her nose, inhaling the scent. There were so few flowers blooming at this time of year that their task had seemed almost impossible when Callie asked if they could pick some herbs and wildflowers to take back to the castle for her healing.

“What’s this one?” Eloise called, holding up the small white flowerhead.

“Myrtle.” Callie knelt beside her, smiling as she took hold of the flower and placed it in her basket. “Rare tae see it flowering at this time of year. I heard from a wise woman in the Chattan clan that it warns of bad tidings when flowering in winter.”

“Truly?” Eloise smiled.

“Ye’re amused?”

“I guess I’ve never believed in such omens.” Eloise shrugged, thinking of the strangeness of her own birth, and how many would have said their mother was a witch for having identical bairns. Eloise knew the truth tough – her mother had been a kind soul indeed, with no powers or craft in her body.

“Well, we shall make use of it anyway,” Callie said, tucking the flowers with the others. “Come on, if we diinae return tae the men soon, they will wonder where we have gone.” She stood and walked away, collecting Aila from nearby who was pulling at wild celery leaves on the loch bank.

Eloise stood and looked around, realizing there was one that was missing from their group. The women had wandered off together after their picnic to pick the flowers, but Harper was now nowhere to be seen.

“Harper?” Eloise called.

Callie and Aila wandered back along the loch, arm in arm as they pointed to more unusual riverbank herbs. Eloise walked in the other direction, hunting for the woman that would soon be her sister-in-law.

“Harper?”

“Oh, oh!” Harper cried, from somewhere deeper in the woodland.

Eloise snapped her head toward two Douglas firs. There was a thin path, covered in the knotted roots of the trees, that Harper must have taken.

“Harper?”

“Oh, dinnae come, Eloise!” she shouted from within. “I… I dinnae ken what tae dae.”

Eloise could not stay back after hearing such words. Grabbing hold of her skirt, she darted between the trees, her head turning back and forth as she hunted for Harper.

Pressed against a small fir tree was Harper, scrambling backward as if she had seen some ghost or monster before her. With pale skin, her hair wild as if she had pulled at it, she gestured madly in front of her.

“Eloise, dinnae come any further. It will get ye.”

“What will?” Eloise stepped forward onto the path, only to have Harper wave at her even more madly than before.

Eloise’s eyes shot down. Half in the path and half curled up on the tree roots was a snake. The adder slithered slowly forward, nearing Harper. The pattern on its back was a jagged mix of cinnamon brown and black. Its head was pointed toward Harper, its body strangely still.

“Harper?” Eloise whispered. “Step the other way around the tree. Aye, ye can avoid it. Just give it a wide berth.”

“Nay, I cannae.” Harper shook her head madly. It was as if she had been frozen to the spot, petrified by the appearance of the snake.

“Trust me, Harper, ye can.” Eloise took a small step forward. The snake on the path froze, as if aware of her presence, though it didn’t turn its head toward her. “Just step behind the tree and take a path through the grass. Ye can do it.”

“Nay.” Harper shook her head again, hands gripping to the bark of the tree behind her. “My legs. They are weak. I dinnae think they will hold me up.”

Eloise had seen such fear before. A man could be stuck to the spot with terror, his mind working against him as much as the threat itself. She looked around, desperate to find another way to free the frightened woman. There was a broken tree branch nearby in the undergrowth and Eloise reached for it, snapping it up.

“What are ye doing?” Harper cried in panic.

“I shall spook the snake, and ye shall run. Aye?”

“Nay!” Harper sank back against the tree even more. “I cannae dae it.”