Beloved Stranger (12 page)

She listened at the door, not wanting to wake the Scot if he slept. He needed as much sleep as he could get. But then she heard another cry, more a moan. She lit a candle from the fire and went into the room.

He was thrashing across the bed, his face screwed into grief. He had kicked or torn the blankets from his body, and he wore only a long wool shirt that had belonged to her husband. His eyes were closed, and she realized it was probably a nightmare.

“Maggie!” he cried out.

A woman’s name. Someone from his past?

She hesitated. She was far too involved already. But mayhap his memory was returning. If so, she could send word to someone.

She wasn’t sure how, but she would find a way. Then he would be gone, and hopefully return a reward for her and Audra. Oddly, the idea was not as appealing as it had been days ago.

He uttered a guttural cry. She could no longer stand and watch. She placed the candle on the table and went over to him, put a hand on his shoulder.

His arm swung out and hit her across her mouth. It was so unexpected she cried out.

He came awake then with a sudden, violent movement that frightened her, dulling the pain of the blow against her lips. She was aware of something wet and salty in her mouth.

She was also aware he suddenly went quiet.

“Dear Mother,” he muttered as his gaze found her lip. He half sat, his face indicating the effort it took. “What happened?”

“You had a nightmare. You flailed out. Do you remember any of it?”

He ignored the question as he stared at her lip. “Did . . . I do that?”

“You did not mean it.”

A stark bleakness darkened his blue eyes.

“The nightmare,” she pressed, ignoring the blood dribbling down her chin. “Do you remember anything from it?”

He closed his eyes. “Fighting,” he said.

“At Flodden Field?”

“I . . . I . . . do not . . . think so. I . . . God’s tooth, there is something. I . . .”

“You mentioned a woman’s name. Maggie.”

She watched him strain to remember. It was painful to watch. Finally, he just shook his head.

No matter how much she wanted to know his name, she could not ask him more questions, not with the torment she saw in his face.

She sat down on the bed and placed the back of her hand to his cheek. It was cool. She allowed it to linger there, trying to comfort him.

He jerked away. “Your lip,” he said. “Your lip needs tending.”

“’Tis nothing.”

“’Tis a great deal when you have done so much for me. I cut you.”

“It will heal quickly. I startled you. I should not have tried to wake you, but you were . . .”

“Were what?”

“Shouting. I thought you were in pain.”

He struggled to sit, swaying as he did so. He brushed her lip with such gentleness that his touch soothed rather than hurt. “I wish I could care for that as well as you cared for me.”

She felt her face grow warm. Not only her face but the core of her. Something shifted inside as an almost palpable attraction leapt between them, filling the air with its intensity. “You are not well yet,” she said in a shaky voice.

“But soon to be,” he said. “Because of you.”

“You started to say that you remembered something.”

“Jumbled images. Feelings. Fear.” He hesitated, then added in a soft voice, “Something worse. I feel it. But everything is shrouded by a mist. Not solid enough for me to catch it.”

He dropped his hand. It came away with blood on it. She rose and found a piece of cloth and wiped her face with it. The cut was of little matter. She would, though, have a bruise she might have to explain.

“I will get you something to help you sleep,” she said.

“Nay, I will sleep on my own. You must get some rest.” He looked at her quizzically. “Have you slept since you found me?”

“Aye, I have. I have never needed much sleep. I used to ride with my husband on raids. We would ride two days straight.” She heard the longing in her voice. She had loved the feeling of freedom on those rides, galloping across the march and splashing across creeks.

“You liked it?”

“Aye, I did.”

She found herself sitting back on the bed, reluctant to leave. “I always thought it unfair that women had to cook and sew and work the crops, while men slept all day and rode all night. Will taught me to ride, and I loved it. Because we are isolated here, he taught me some warrior skills. To shoot a bow and arrow. To use a dagger. Even a sword.

“But then he would ride out alone, and I imagined all kinds of things. I cut down some clothes he’d outgrown and joined the group of riders as they left one night. By the time someone discovered who I was, they’d ridden too far to return. I took Magnus from the Armstrongs that night, and I was otherwise useful.”

“And your husband?”

“Angry at first, then he thought it amusing.”

The Scot’s eyes lost some of their bleakness. “And himself fortunate,” he said, his meaning quite clear.

“Nay. He died too young. He loved Audra, but he prayed for a son. I wish I could have given him one. ’Twas the least I could do when he took me without a dowry and against the wishes of his family.”

The conversation was becoming far too intimate. His hand rested on her lap, and she liked it there. It felt natural. She hadn’t realized how much she missed that kind of contact with a man.

But this could not be with an enemy. With a noble who was as far above her station as anyone could be.

She rose abruptly. “I must go,” she said, taking the candle and almost running from the room.

 
 
H
E lay back in the darkness. His hand still tingled where she’d touched him, and he’d touched her.

Since she had first brought him here, she had puzzled him. Though his past was a blank, he was quite sure that there were few women like her. Then that brought back the worry that he might have a wife.

If so, was she anything like this woman who wore men’s clothes, dragged strangers off battlefields, and took them in? Who rode with bandits and stole from the dead, yet had such a gentle way with her child?

She intrigued him, attracted him, challenged him.

If he had a wife, he hoped she was like Kimbra Charlton.

Was he now betraying her with lustful thoughts of another woman?

Despite his lack of memory, he knew that Kimbra Charlton must be unusual. And even as weak as he was, she aroused a yearning inside him so deep that it dwarfed any physical pain.

He turned over. He did not want to sleep again. The images, the emotions he’d felt during the nightmare haunted him. He tried to remember more of the nightmare, the faces within it, but they evaded him. A heavy sense of failure, of despair lingered instead.

K
IMBRA lay next to her sleeping daughter and pulled her into her arms.

Life was important. Audra’s and—because of Audra—her own.

She had to look out for herself and her daughter. That meant getting the Scot well and extracting what information she could. She had to prompt those memories.

She wasn’t sure how long she lay there before first light seeped through the windows and Audra stirred next to her.

Kimbra rose, piled more wood on the fire, then looked in on the Scot.

He was sleeping, but the bedclothes were strewn all over. She worried there had been more nightmares.

She watched him for several moments. She didn’t understand why he so intrigued her. Even beguiled her. He was nothing like Will. Yet something inside melted as she watched him. She’d tried so hard to resist her reaction to him. She’d tried to be curt with him. Even unlikable. But he always seemed to see beyond that.

She tore her glance away and put another piece of wood on the fire. Audra sleepily got to her feet and plodded over to her.

Kimbra hugged her close. “I love you,” she said. “Forever and forever.”

Audra rested her head against her mother’s heart, and tenderness flowed through Kimbra. Each moment with her daughter was so precious, she was shamed that sometimes she didn’t have more time to play with her, to tell her stories, as her own mother had not. She had so longed for her mother’s attention as a child, but her mother had never had time—nor the heart—for it. She had never quite understood, not until Will died. Now she, like her mother, had to spend nearly every moment of the day trying to keep them both fed and housed. The few picnics at the pond were the exceptions.

She’d thought the Scot her only way to provide better for her child.

Now he was more of a curse than the blessing she’d hoped. She dared not leave the cottage, and the Scot, alone.

She squeezed Audra, then set her down. “If you dress quickly, you can help me milk Bess and feed Magnus.”

“Can I ride Magnus?” Audra asked, trying to enlarge her share of the bargain.

“Aye, but just within sight of the cottage.”

It was a promise she’d made weeks ago but had continued to put off. She remembered herself as a child, wanting so much to ride, but as a maid’s daughter, she was unable to do so. When she’d married, Will taught her, and riding had given her so much joy that Kimbra wanted her daughter to share that pleasure. She knew Audra should have a pony to learn, but that was a luxury she doubted would ever be within her grasp.

She would be careful, but Magnus seemed to recognize that Audra was a child, and Kimbra would be at Audra’s side. It was the best she could do.

She prepared boiled barley and added honey to sweeten it, poured some in a bowl for Audra, and more in a bowl for the Scot. Then with a cup of ale, she took it into the Scot’s room. She had to learn to call him—even think of him as—Robert Howard, but he remained
the Scot
in her thoughts.

He was sitting up, looking better than he had the day before, though as he turned toward her, she saw a muscle throb in his throat as if stifling a groan.

“I have some barley with honey,” she said, handing him the bowl and placing the ale on a table next to him.

The side of his mouth twitched up in a forced smile as he took it and tasted it.

“’Tis probably not what you are used to.”

His gaze met hers. “It is good, and I do not know what I am used to.”

“I hear the nobles have fine feasts to break morning.”

He took another bite. “This is a feast to me.”

“That is because you have not had much to eat.”

“And I am taking what you have.”

“We have enough. I have gardens and a field of barley.”

“Who tends them?”

“I do.”

“Is there naught you cannot do?”

“Read,” she said wistfully. “I want that very much, though there is little to read.”

“Did your husband read?”

“Nay, though he could write his name.”

“I will teach you to read,” he said. “I swear it. ’Tis little enough in repayment.”

Hope leaped inside her and caused her to start. Then it faded. She had nothing here to read. He would not be here long enough . . .

“I will teach you letters,” he said, obviously reading her thoughts. “Once you know those, you can learn on your own.”

“Audra, too?”

He grinned. “Aye.”

His grin was that of a young boy given a present. A warm glow flowed through her. She believed then he could do it.

Then mayhap she could decipher the words on the crest. That thought sent her back down to earth. She had no right to it.

She sought to extinguish the glow still warming her heart. “We probably will not have time,” she said. “You want to leave. You tried to leave. You said you would try to leave again.”

His grin disappeared. “Aye, because it is safer for you. But I will find a way to make good the promise.”

But not, most likely, if he regained his memory and returned to a fine castle and an old life. “A fine promise,” she said, hearing the doubt in her voice.

Why did she care if he didn’t keep his promise? She had his jeweled crest. She could sell that.

Once again she thought about showing it to him. It might bring back memories. But then she would have nothing. That crest, and the gold ring from the night’s plunder, were Audra’s only hope for a safe future.

Guilt ate into her, though, and it was an ugly feeling. She rose and went to the door. “I have work to do, but I will stay around the cottage. If anyone comes—”

“I am a Howard,” he finished for her, the smile gone from his face.

She merely nodded and left.

 
 
K
IMBRA stepped back but kept Magnus on a long rope as the horse trotted around in a circle, a happy Audra proudly sitting upright in the saddle. She was a natural rider.

Will had said Kimbra had been, as well. She’d learned quickly under his instructions. Within a year she’d felt confident enough to fool his companions on that first raid.

Kimbra looked up at the sky. They had been out an hour, and it was past Bess’s milking time. Yet the joy in her daughter’s eyes was difficult to resist.

She stopped the horse, lifted Audra down and let her lead the horse back into the stable.

Kimbra unsaddled the horse while Audra fetched oats and water. Then she addressed the needs of Bess. The cow, still obviously disgruntled at the recent neglect, swished her tail. Kimbra ducked, spilling some of the milk. She muttered an oath she’d heard Charltons utter only too often, then heard Bear bark.

Bess was still heavy with milk, but Kimbra had no choice but to leave her. She moved the pail, just missing an aimed kick from a hoof, and hurried outside.

To her dismay, she saw two horsemen and recognized one as Cedric, the other his brother, Garrick, who was nearly as odious. Bear ran by their side, obviously trying to keep pace.

She called to Audra.