Page 35 of Forbidden Kilted Highlander

CHAPTER ELEVEN

It had been three days since the scouts, and Agnes still hadn’t decided whether Tav’s continued silence on the matter was maddening or merciful.

They hadn’t seen another soul in the forest since. There had been no riders, no travelers, not even a curious squirrel brave enough to venture near their makeshift camps. The woods had swallowed them whole, it seemed, offering no threats but also no ease. Every step forward was just another step closer to Caithness. And to her wedding.

She didn’t like thinking about that. It felt too distant—no, not distant, but unreal. The name of the man she was meant to marry barely stirred anything in her anymore, if it ever had. A name without weight. A promise made by her father.

Because all she knew now was this. It was the rhythm of Tav’s voice when he muttered directions, the way the forest changed colors as the day passed, the soft clop of hooves in mud and moss. This strange, suspended life, tucked between trees and tension, where nothing before seemed to matter, and nothing after felt possible.

It was as though the world had shrunk down to two people and the space between them. Just her and Tav. Riding along, speaking too little and feeling too much. Hiding from the forest’s dangers, and from everything waiting beyond it.

Tav, for his part, was behaving as though they were simply on a long errand. He gave directions with that same dry certainty, corrected her reins when she drifted, handed her jerky and bread at dusk without much fanfare. His silence was maddening, and yet it steadied her. He was always the same, except for the moments he wasn’t. The ones where his gaze lingered too long, or his hand brushed her arm and didn’t move away fast enough. Those were the moments that stayed with her at night, when the fire burned low and her thoughts refused to settle. In the quiet between these moments, she let herself imagine that the heat in his gaze wasn’t just duty’s fire. Against all reason, she sometimes thought that the careful distance he kept was as fragile as her own resolve. Perhaps that thing between them, those feelings, had always been a mirror, each reflection perfectly matched.

It was late morning when she finally asked the question.

"How long d’ye think we’ve left, truly?"

They were following the curve of a narrow stream, the water babbling quietly alongside them. Tav rode a few paces ahead, his posture upright and tense as ever, like he expected someone to leap out of the brush at any moment.

He didn’t look back when he answered. “One day. Maybe two, if the weather turns. The hills slow things.”

Agnes huffed, adjusting in her saddle. “Two days more o’ moss and midges.”

“And me sparkling company.” He flashed her a breathtaking grin.

She blinked. Did he just⁠—?

She eyed the back of his head suspiciously. “Did ye just make a joke?”

“Nay.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Ye did.”

His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Midges get tae everyone eventually.”

She snorted, half-laughing despite herself. “Aye, even ye’ve begun tae crack.”

“It was inevitable. I had nay choice.” A slow smile broke across his face as he shook his head in that way of his. Agnes let the silence stretch then, oddly comfortable. The horses walked slowly, hooves squelching in patches of damp earth, the air full of birdsong and the buzz of insects. She let her gaze drift ahead.

Tav rode ahead with the kind of straight-backed composure that made her want to throw a stone at his head for making her feel like this. She sighed, low and bitter, and rubbed at the back of her neck. The canopy above them grew denser, blotting out the weak sunlight in patches. The temperature dropped slightly. Somewhere to the east, an owl called, far too early. Shadows began to stretch, long and flickering.

Her mind wandered as it often did on this cursed ride. And, of course, it wandered somewhere she didn’t want it to go.

She imagined it Tav standing at the back of the church, arms crossed, that unreadable expression carved into his face, for half a second. Maybe he’d smirk if she stumbled.

“Ye’re quiet,” Tav said suddenly, his voice cutting through the hush.

Agnes startled, blinking like someone had yanked her from deep water. “Just enjoyin’ the view,” she said airily, though the tone didn’t quite land.

“Moss and midges, was it?”

“And yer sparkling company.”

He snorted, but didn’t press.

She stared at his back, wanting it to speak. He could simply say something. But Tav was Tav. The only stories he offered were told with glances and silence, and she was starting to hate how much she was learning to read them. Her horse stumbled slightly on a rock, and she righted herself with a hiss.

To distract herself from the ache in her hips and from the pit sitting stubborn in her gut, Agnes did what she always did when silence became too loud. She let her imagination run wild.