In the Highlander's Bed (8 page)

Gathering his tartan around her shoulders, she followed the edge of the stream a few yards before she caught sight of Gordon alone. He’d removed his jacket and was kneeling in front of a brush’s maze of winter bare branches that formed a cage where a frightened bird was trapped.

He was trying to calm the bird. That was the whispering she’d heard. She doubted if he’d be successful.

The poor creature was so frantic it couldn’t notice that Gordon had broken some of the branches to give it a path to freedom.

The bird was a blue-gray dove, a fat one.

Constance waited, admiring Gordon’s patience. Not many men had that…or, at least, not the men she’d known in her life.

The dove finally realized it didn’t need to be afraid. It halted its panicked fluttering, eyeing Gordon warily.

“Go on,” he crooned.

“She doesn’t trust you,” Constance whispered.

His piercing green eyes met hers. “I’llwin,” he promised.

At that moment the peace was broken by the sound of a horse coming through the woods toward them.

“Gordon, we’re hungry,” Thomas complained just as the dove realized there was a way out of the maze.

It shot through the hole Gordon had broken for it.

“What’s that?” Thomas asked. “A bird? Catch it! That’ll be our breakfast.”

The dove had been injured. It didn’t fly well, and Gordon could have knocked it down before it managed to fly up to the safer branches of a tall pine.

“You don’t want that bird,” Gordon told Thomas.

“I like dove,” Thomas insisted. “I’d like anything to fill my belly at this point.”

“And I like seeing it have another chance,” Gordon said. “You’ve got oat cakes in your kit. Eat that.”

Thomas eyed the bird sitting on the tree branch over their heads. “I could shoot it through the head.” He reached for the pistol in the belt at his waist. “It would be an easy kill.”

“No,” Gordon said. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. One word was enough.

The giant stared at him. Constance sensed the man ached to challenge Gordon. The giant had brute strength over Gordon…but he lacked Lachlan’s quiet confidence.

Thomas drew his hand away from his weapon and took up his reins. “Damn bird’s not worth the shot.”

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“That’s what I said,” Gordon answered.

There was the rustle of damp leaves. A beat later the other two, Robbie and Brian, rode through the woods to join them. “Thomas, have you found Gordon?” Robbie was saying as he approached.

“Aye, I did,” Thomas answered easily. “Caught him freeing a bird. I wanted to eat it, but he’s a soft heart. Wouldn’t let me touch it.”

Robbie and Brian both nodded, smiling. “You never know which way Gordon will go,” Brian answered.

Constance thought those words true. And she’d seen the look in Thomas’s eye. He didn’t think Gordon soft, and it bothered him. She’d witnessed numerous of these standoffs among trappers and frontiersmen.

Sometimes they were over ridiculous matters, and she’d learned they had more to do with one man’s need to assert himself than who was right or wrong.

Gordon turned his attention to her. “Are you ready to ride, lass?”

She raised a distracted hand to her tangled hair, wondering if some of what she’d been thinking had shown in her expression. She hoped not. “Not quite yet,” she said. “A moment more.”

“Three minutes,” he informed her. “Then we leave.” He walked over to his horse. His men already moved toward the road. Thomas asked Robbie for an oat cake.

Gordon began seeing to his horse, an act he’d obviously been involved in before he discovered the trapped dove.

Constance began combing her hair with her fingers and twisting it into a braid that she tied off with a piece of lace torn from her petticoat. She was glad now that she hadn’t tried to run.

When she did make her escape, she’d best be certain it was at a time when Gordon couldn’t come after her.

He glanced over at her, his expression serious, as if divining her thoughts. Like Thomas, Constance was tempted to take a step back. Instead, she stood her ground.

Overhead, the dove gave its low call, a warning if ever there was one.

Six

Gordon called Constance when he was ready to leave. She didn’t hesitate, glancing up at the trees as she approached and noticing, “Your dove is gone.”

He grunted a response, apparently a sign he wasn’t in a good mood. She could have said something about lack of sleep but murmured instead, “Lucky bird to be able to fly away.”

If he caught her barb, he gave no sign. “Here’s something to break your fast,” he said. He offered her an oat cake from his saddlebag and a leather flask of beer.

Munching on the flat-tasting oat cake and washing it down with beer, Constance asked, “How much farther will we travel?”

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“Far enough,” he answered.

“Are you going to retie my hands?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then he answered, “No.” He took the flask from her, recapped it, and mounted his horse. He offered his hand to help her up.

Constance gave a heavy sigh of resignation but placed her palm in his. His fingers wrapped around her wrist and he lifted her as if she weighed nothing and settled her once again in front of him.

Her legs and bum wanted to protest against more riding. She’d grown soft since she came to England.

However, this time, because her hands were untied, she didn’t have to lean awkwardly against him. She could rest her back against the hard, flat plane of his chest, which was infinitely more comfortable.

He set his heels to the horse, his arm around her waist to keep her steady, and they were off.

They didn’t ride with the urgency they had before. Thomas and the others kept up a lighthearted banter but Gordon was quiet. Constance listened to the men, picking up a name or two from their conversation but little other information. She couldn’t help but lean her head against Gordon’s chest. His strong arms prevented her from falling. She wanted to keep alert, but after a time, lulled by the safe, warm haven of his body, relaxed enough to doze off.

When she woke, the forest around them had grown more dense. There was a chill in the air though the sun was high in the sky. She pulled the tartan closer around her shoulders. Her stomach rumbled. She decided Gordon had been quiet long enough. “Are we ever going to eat?”

“You had an oat cake,” he answered, not looking at her.

Constance frowned up at the stony set of his features. That little bit of sleep had helped restore her spirits. “I need something more than that.”

The others had quieted, listening.

“We don’t have time to stop for a meal,” Gordon said.

“You don’t need food?” she challenged.

As if in response, his own stomach growled.

Constance arched an eyebrow, daring him to deny his simple human hunger.

His first response was to scowl at the others as if they were the ones responsible for her questioning him.

They fell back without a quibble.

“You act as if this is a game, lass,” Gordon warned.

“Captives must be fed,” she dared to remind him.

He whipped his horse around sharply. The animal heeled back, threatening to unseat them both. “Are you mocking me?” he demanded. “Because you’d best beware. This is no game.”

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Fear shot through her, but with it came anger.

He thought of her as some simple debutante, some pampered daughter of theton , in spite of her actions to the contrary. She lashed out, “Oh, I’m wary, Lachlan. But you see, I’ve already faced danger and experienced terror the likes of which you’ll never know. My mother and baby brother died at the hands of the Shawnee during a raid. They scalped my mother and smashed my brother’s head into the trunk of a tree. Do you think you could be more bloodthirsty than that? Because that’s the length you’ll have to go to make me tremble.”

He’d pulled back at her tirade as if physically struck by the flow of words.

Her hands had started shaking. She gathered the tartan around her, trying to hide them…knowing he’d noticed.

He was quiet, watchful.

She gritted her teeth. Pressed her lips together. She never spoke of that day. Ever. She and Charlotte had been in the woods collecting kindling when Miranda ran to tell them to hide, that the Shawnee were attacking the house, that their mother was dead.

And yet, now that she’d started, she discovered she couldn’t stop. It all came back with frightening reality. “The three of us hid in the woods,” she said, her voice distant even to her own ears. “We spent a long, cold night hiding by the trunk of a rotting tree. I knew better than to complain, because they were out there looking for us. We held each others’ hands. I was so frightened, I squeezed Charlotte and Miranda’s fingers to death and I wouldn’t let go all night long.”

Her eyes burned. She stared at a boulder beside the road, noticing everything about it from the crack through its center to the lichen growing in its grooves. Anything to keep from remembering, because after their mother’s death had come the angry years.

Her sister Charlotte remembered when their father had been happy, but she didn’t. He’d always been a bitter, mean-spirited man to her. From him, she’d learned not to show weakness. Not to anyone. Not ever. When one was weak, one was vulnerable. That was the lesson of the wilderness.

Lachlan sat quiet, not a muscle moving in his arms, on either side of her. She felt the horse shift its weight and paw the ground, anxious to move forward. Lachlan held him back, but he didn’t speak. She could feel him waiting. It was as if he knew her better than she did herself.

And he was right. She broke.

“I’m not what you expected, am I?” She did not look at him, too aware of how weak she must appear to him, to the others. She held out her hand. “See? It trembles. I suppose I’m not a good captive.”

There was a beat of silence, and then he said, “None of us are.” He turned, bringing a protective arm around her as if shielding her from the others. “We’ll stop for food at the first cottage we see,” he instructed his men. “Brian, ride ahead and see what you find.”

“Yes, Gordon.”

“I’ll go with him,” Thomas offered, and didn’t wait, kicking his horse into a trot.

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“All right if I go, Gordon?” Robbie asked.

“Go on,” Gordon replied.

“They must all be hungry,” Constance said quietly after they’d left.

“Either that or they are uncomfortable around a woman’s tears,” Gordon answered.

“I didn’t cry,” she shot back.

He lifted his eyebrows, and she was honest enough to concede, “Do I look that bad?”

“The color is coming back to your cheeks, but you had me worried,” he admitted.

There was a gentleness in his voice that threatened to unnerve her more than his earlier temper. “Well, now I know how to scare the lot of you. I’ll threaten to go off in a fit of tears.”

He laughed, the sound full-bodied and masculine. It changed him, eased years off his face, made him appear almost boyish. “I wonder if we can cry the English out of Scotland?” he said.

“I could lead the brigade,” she answered.

Gordon shook his head, moving his horse forward. “Come now, you didn’t shed a tear back there. You cried more over my kiss than any of what you just said.”

She studied the weave in his tartan’s plaid. “I think I like you better when I’m angry at you.”

He threw back his head and roared with laughter. Constance glanced up, noticing the muscles in his neck, the shadow of his whiskers along his jaw, and her heart seemed to twist in a funny little way she’d never experienced before.

She didn’t want to like him. At all costs, shemustn’t be attracted to him. She wasn’t staying in Scotland or England. She wouldn’t.

And that quickening inside her, that consciousness of exactly how close his body nestled her, that awareness of his very scent, his every breath—that couldn’t happen, either.

She had to be strong. For the first time, she understood what the prophets meant when they said, “Gird your loins.”

Her loins needed protection now. She didn’t know what a “gird” was, but an iron wall would be a start.

She didn’t have an iron wall. She had words, and she used them. “If you aren’t careful,” she warned, “it will be hard to murder me if the duke doesn’t give you the sword.”

That sobered him. The camaraderie, the connection between them, vanished.

He looked away, frowned. “You aren’t easy, are you, lass?”

“I just want to go home.” She’d never meant those words more.

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Gordon nodded as if he knew. “The problem may be that you can’t. It’s not easy to go back to what you’ve left…and that may be what scares you.”

He’d summed up her doubts perfectly.

No one had ever paid this much attention to her. She was the youngest, the afterthought. Everyone was always too busy with important matters to think of her.

This man, herkidnapper, understood her better than her own sisters. No wonder she had to gird her loins.

“I just don’t like making a fool of myself,” she admitted.

“You didn’t. I pushed you.” He kicked his horse forward. They rode a bit before he said, “Sometimes we are all too hard on ourselves. But I’ll tell you a secret. Often, when life takes us where we don’t want to go, that’s where we find what we truly need.”

“And you need rebellion?”

He considered her words a moment. “I needed to stand for something. Six years ago, you and I would have met at a ball. My collar points would have been up to here”—he indicated a position halfway up his jaw—“and my boots would have shone with champagne blacking. Or at least, what was left of the champagne after my friends and I had a go at the bottle.”