COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1) (126 page)

Sophie speaks no Gaelic. Her father would not have her learn despite her curiosity about it.

“You will stay for supper, I hope?”

Sophie nods, speechless.

After ten minutes, the woman returns. She lays out warm wine and oatcakes, and pours a cup each, lights the lamp.

Withdraws.

They eat in silence for a moment. The oatcake is impossibly good, crumbly and warm. After a moment, Sophie swallows and looks up.

“And your leg?”

              “I will have it addressed later. Mhaire will help, or Leeson, when he is back from tending the men.” He waves a hand in airy dismissal.

Sophie nods again, her eyes round and liquid in the candlelight. “Good. Perhaps I can help? I have some knowledge of such.”

He nods. “I can see that, lass. Don't fret yourself. You've done enough.”

They are quiet for a while.  Sophie is worried.

The enormity of the situation is slowly sinking in. Here she is, in the household of a rebel, in a location even she herself could not pinpoint on a map.  She has no hope of getting home.

“What is it, lass?” Bryce has been watching her. His voice is deep, and quiet, concern in every syllable of it.

“I can't go back. Not tonight.” Sophie says it flatly.

“No.” Bryce agrees, mildly.

They are silent for a moment.

“Can I... May I stay here?”

He nods. “Of course.”

He cannot help feeling a warm satisfaction at that. It is surprisingly good to have her close.

Bryce clears his throat.

“If you would like to rest now? Mhaire told me that dinner would be ready in twenty minutes.”

Sophie swallows, then nods. “Yes.”

“Good.”

They both look down, shy.

Sophie forces herself to speak.

“Can I, well, do you need help to get somewhere?”

“I should not impose.” He says it gallantly, but takes her outstretched arm nonetheless.

“Now your room is on the left. I believe they have set aside the East room for you. It has a beautiful view over the park.”

“Th-Thank you, Mister Gowan.” Sophie manages.

He laughs, a hollow sound. His eyes catch hers and they are deep and level. She looks back, transfixed.

“Bryce.”

“Yes.”

He pauses a moment, looking down at her. Then he stumbles forward, to the doors opposite, and falls through onto the bed beyond.

Sophie is left alone in the hallway. She opens the first door on her left. Inside, it has satin wallpapering in pale peach. The windows look onto a small lake with a central fountain, the dark shapes of conifers still visible. The land gives way to the encircling fold of trees: a beautiful, tranquil scene.

The bed is big enough for more than one, and elaborately covered in a cream silk. Sophie collapses onto it and ten minutes later, she is sound asleep.

***

It is early morning, the light seeping slowly through the curtains, most of the house still grey and mauve with the early hour.

Bryce is in the breakfast room, unable to sleep.

His thoughts are filled with her.
Sophie
.

His thoughts chase each other in circles, heedless and directionless, like hunting-dog pups. He chides himself for his stupidity. Sophie is the daughter of a high-ranking English officer, surely. How else would her father even have permission to bring her to a war?

How can a father risk that? He wonders.

He can understand a need to have her close.  His thoughts wander back to the evening before, when he opened the door to her bedchamber, and saw her curled up asleep on the silk of the bed, her skin like satin, reflecting the firelight there.

He had wanted, with every fiber of his being, to touch her. He has not, he thinks, ever wanted something so much.  But closed the door and left her to her rest. Dragged himself up the corridor to sleep alone.

Now, his leg is swollen, bruised and throbbing. And his mind will not settle.

Two men, at least, he lost, yesterday – captured or dead. Dougal and McLeary. Waiting for him to return, when they were caught unaware. He shakes his head.

He finds himself trying to stand.

He braces himself on the table. He is trying to summon enough energy to hobble to the bell-rope, when he catches a movement in the corridor.

“Sophie?”

There is a moment of silence, and then she appears.

“Yes?”

She is pale, in the faint light of the dawn. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, her outer dark green riding-habit removed, showing the plain white dress beneath.

“Come in.” He says softly. He cannot move from the table, where his weight is braced.

She crosses the room to join him.

“I...sorry to intrude thus, so early.” She begins.

“No.”  He contradicts her, gently. “No intrusion.” He smiles. “I was just having breakfast.”             

“Oh.”

Sophie suddenly remembers how hungry she is and swallows.

“You would like some, yes? I'll have a tray brought up.”

She nods, vigorously. Then looks down at the leg, her eyebrows raised.

“It's...better.” He says, in a bold attempt at nonchalance. “But still not fit enough for walking.”

Sophie's briskness takes over. “I'll call for breakfast, and then I am having a look at that leg myself.”

He grins, despite himself. “You are, are you?”

“Yes.”

While Bryce passes on the request for breakfast in Gaelic, Sophie considers the treatments for the leg.

Ten minutes later, she is crouched beside Bryce's chair, running a hand over the leg, grimacing at the heat and hardness she feels around the wound. Mhaire brings in a tray of breakfast and looks at the two of them, and smiles, then leaves, as silently as she came.

Sophie finishes her examination of the leg, and sits down to breakfast. Bryce smiles at the innocent relish with which she bolts it down.

“You need... you need rest.” She pronounces at last, around a mouthful of sausage. “And a bread poultice, with onion, for the swelling. And you need to drink a tea of yarrow, to clean the blood and help it set in the wound.”

“Yes, my lady.” He grins, delighted.

“Don't you ‘my lady’ me.” She grins back, her eyes slanted in mischief.  She points a fork at him, warningly, a small cube of sausage impaled on the end. “That's Sophie to you. I'll ‘Lady’ you where you least expect it.”

They find that they are both laughing.

After a moment, he sobers. “I...I have...duties...to attend to. In the forest. My men.”

She nods, silent. She had almost forgotten.

“You...” He continues, his voice quiet. “I need to get you home.”

Sophie knows that she must return.

“You... cannot come too far with me.”

“I know.” He swallows.

His voice is very quiet. It is strangely hard to think of saying goodbye. “I will...I'll take you as far as the path.” He suggests. “Then you will know the way. I'll lend you a map, which you can burn when you are home.”

“Thank you.”

They are both silent. Neither want to move.

“Well, then.” His voice is soft.

“Well?”

“We should go?”

“Yes.”

They both stand together. Their eyes meet. He leans forward, and their lips touch. Sophie closes her eyes.

Their arms find their way around each other, hesitant at first, then urgent. They are like that for a minute, it seems, or an eternity. Their lips entwine and meet and part, and the taste of her is warm and sweet. He feels the delicious shock of it go through him, igniting fuses he had thought long dead. He feels his arms tighten around her, urgent in their need to feel her close. She grips him as tightly, lost in the sweet warmth of his body and his mouth, hot and warm  on hers.

After a full minute, Sophie leans back, her breath ragged.

They both look at each other speechlessly.

“Well, then.”

“Well, then.”

They walk outside in total silence and part at the edge of the forest.

Their hands clasp, and they stand together for a moment. He leans in and, gently, kisses her cheek, her brow, her mouth. Then he is gone

Sophie feels as if her heart might tear apart. She closes her eyes breathes in and walks onto the path.

There is a shout, and the sound of horses and guns. She looks up to see a horseman riding at her, and then there is blinding pain, and darkness, and then only a long, slow silence.

***

“Can you
explain
yourself, officer? What,
precisely
, did you think you were doing?”

The voice is dangerous and soft. It is, if Sophie thinks about it, a voice she should recognise.

“Sir.” Another voice is doing its best to answer the question. It is a younger voice, subdued and miserable

The two voices continue their conversation somewhere distant from Sophie

“I...I was trained to attack anything that comes out of that forest.” The younger voice begins.  “We were tracking a dangerous rebel. Only yesterday, we shot two of his men. We were close, and I could not...take any chances with the safety of my men.”

“You assaulted my
daughter
, officer.” The first voice again. “Are you so blind, or merely stupid, that you cannot tell the difference between a Scottish rebel warlord and a nineteen year old girl?”

I am twenty, Father
.  Is Sophie's first thought. She is surprised by the weariness she feels. This is her father, her flesh and blood. But, right now, she cannot imagine anyone she wants to see less than that narrow, self-absorbed man.

She surprises herself. How long has she thought about him in that way?
Perhaps all my life
. Now, with her heart open, she can admit, for the first time, to the truth of how she feels.

Without Bryce, all things seem suddenly very small. And Bryce is gone.
He is dead
, she thinks to herself. They attacked you.
They must have shot him.
Accept it.

Part of her refuses to do so. 

You will see him again, that part tells herself. Open your eyes.

              Outside, the fight is still raging.

              “And what do you think would have happened to her? What do you think would happen to a young woman, alone among the rebels?” Her father is still shouting at the young officer, his voice raised.

              “I...” The officer is doing his best to reply.

“I am unharmed,
father
.” Sophie opens her eyes. Forces herself to sit up, despite the pain which is throbbing in her head.  “No one impugned my honour, if
that
is your concern.”

She cannot help the sarcasm of that. His only care for her honour is her marriageability; of that she has no doubt.

She smiles, wryly, at the young officer. “I am grateful for the rescue, sir.”

Both men are staring at her now. . She looks back at them. Right now, she does not care about their shock.
It serves you right
, she thinks, savagely.
If it were not for men like you, there would be no war.

Her father is the first to recover from the shock. He looks at the officer, who is gazing at her, open-mouthed.  “Don't just stand there gaping, Lieutenant!” He wheels to face the man, snapping at him. “You have no right to see her so.”

The man blinks.

“Daughter?” Colonel Hogarth addresses Sophie. She stares at him, detachedly. “Cover yourself, and please accept the apologies of Lieutenant Brand. He has... had a trying day.”

He turns to the lieutenant, who is looking even more distressed and confused. Under other circumstances, Sophie would find that amusing.

“Officer,” her father's voice is brisk, “you are dismissed.”

The lieutenant nods. Remembers in whose presence he is. “Sir.” He salutes, crisply and exits.

“Daughter?” Her father starts again. “You are well? No harm has come to you?”

She keeps her eyes closed. Why can they not just leave her alone? She is weary and heartsick. Al she wants is sleep.

“Physician.” Her father snaps over his shoulder.  “Give her something. She is weary and she needs to sleep.”

With that, he turns and walks out of the room.

Sophie is too tired and too uncaring to resist the dose of laudanum the camp physician presses to her lips.              

She slips down into the blackness of the poppy-induced sleep and lets its dark waves wash over her head and claim her. Her last thought is of his face. Bryce.

***