Page 27
If anyone could manage it, it would be Freya. She had thrown a brass lantern at his head without even hesitating. But even she would be outmatched by these three men ready to hurt her because of him.
But under the chuckle, the thing was still there, coiled and cold. The wariness. The anger. Someone had put their hands on her. On his wife. Not two days after she’d said the words. Not a full morning after she’d agreed, however sourly, to ride out under his protection.
He’d seen her face when that hand closed on her arm. He’d seen it go white and blank and far away, the way it had at the inn when the gap-toothed man had crowded her against the settle, and something in him had stopped.
He should have killed the third man.
He turned the thought over, examined it honestly, and found that it was true.
The man had seen. He would ride back to MacArthur Castle and say that he had a wife, and the next lot would come knowing exactly where to press.
But…
He glanced sideways again. Freya was scrubbing at her cheek with her sleeve now, having found the blood.
Cutting down two men who’d threatened her—that, he suspected, she could forgive. Might even, in some hidden part of her, respect. Riding back down the road to hunt a man who’d surrendered and opening his throat… not the ideal first day of a marriage, perhaps.
Evander cleared his throat. “Do ye have any siblings?”
She nearly dropped the reins. “Ye have met me sister and ken of me braither.”
“Aye, but ye could have siblings I daenae ken about.”
She sighed. “Nay, I daenae have any more siblings. Just me elder braither and younger sister, whom ye’ve met.”
“Aye, she was glaring at me from the steps. She’s quite protective of ye.”
“It should be the other way around,” Freya muttered. “I am the elder sister.”
He chuckled. “Then I suppose I’ll have to ask some more questions. Do ye have a habit of marrying men ye meet in inns?”
It was an unfair question. Of course it was. But after seeing his father’s men and killing two of them on their first day together, he was very much in need of a distraction.
“Nay, and I resent the implication!”
“There is no implication, wife.”
Freya scowled at him. “Must ye keep calling me wife?”
“But that is what ye are,” he reminded her. “Ye are me wife. Or have ye forgotten?”
“How can I forget, when ye remind me at every opportunity?”
He chuckled. “Fair point, lass. I’ll give ye that one.”
A beat passed.
“What do ye do when ye’re nae marrying strange men in taprooms?”
She blinked at him, then snorted. “Ride. Read. Mind me braither’s bairns. Keep Skye from writing letters to men she shouldnae.”
“And yerself? A lass as bonny as ye are, the lads must chase ye from here to Inverness.”
Her hands went tight on the reins. “No lad has chased me in eleven years,” she said sharply, “and no lad ever will.”
He let the words settle.
After a moment, she cleared her throat and asked whether his horse had a name, and he told her it did not, and she was so appalled that she spent the next mile choosing one for it.
