Ann Lethbridge (14 page)

He smiled, but did not look up, his large hands easing the small ball down the barrel and ramming it home. ‘Aye. And then done just as you wished.’

She laughed. ‘You know me too well.’

He did look up, then, and heat blazed in his eyes. An answering flush ran through her body. Attraction. Desire. All the things she must not feel for this man. She turned her face away.

‘You are as courageous as any man I know,’ he said softly. ‘You have been through a great deal these past few hours. Most women would be having a fit of hysterics.’

He thought her too much of a hoyden. ‘I could faint, if it would please you better,’ she said somewhat bitterly.

‘No. I beg you do not.’

She couldn’t help chuckling at his horrified expression. Perhaps he did not think her too hoydenish after all, but she wasn’t entirely without feminine arts. Careful not to shower crumbs on the bedcovers, she folded the napkin and put it back on the chest beside a silver-backed hand mirror. She picked it up and peeked at her reflection. ‘Oh, heavens, my hair. What a mess. Now that is enough to make me faint.’

He laughed. ‘You look lovely.’

‘No need for sarcasm.’

He sobered. ‘I mean it. You look like a creature of the glens. Wild and beautiful.’

She threaded her fingers through a hank of hair, pulling at the tangles. ‘I see what you mean about wild. It will take days to get these knots out.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘And the smell of fish.’

‘I can’t smell it,’ he said.

She leaned forwards and held out a handful. ‘Surely you can.’

He sniffed. ‘I can only smell you. And you smell of heather and roses.’

Her insides curled pleasurably. She batted her lashes just to prove she knew he was joking. ‘Flatterer.’

He smiled. And the sensations inside her only intensified. She felt restless. On edge. Because she wanted to touch him. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted to feel him against her. She could feel her hands itching to reach out to him.

To give herself something to do with those wanton fingers, she sat back against a cushion and worked at the knots, one strand at a time.

He tucked his weapon under a pillow. ‘Sean,’ he called out.

‘Yes, Mr Gilvry.’

‘Do you happen to have a comb among your wares?’

‘I thought you would never ask. The penny combs are in a basket at the foot of the bed. You can leave the penny in its place.’

Niall grimaced. ‘I’ll have to owe you.’

‘Then consider it a gift,’ the gypsy said.

Niall tossed Jenna a comb and she began work on her hair. Soon her eyes were watering and she was hissing in pain.

He came around behind her on his knees and took the comb from her hand. ‘Let me.’

Surprised, she looked back over her shoulder. ‘Playing lady’s maid now as well as knight in shining armour?’

‘Hardly that. But I can’t bear to see you cry.’

She laughed. How did he know how to make her laugh when she ought to be worried? He took the comb from her hand. ‘I promise to be gentle.’

Braced for the pain she knew was inevitable, she gave him her back, squaring her shoulders, only to be surprised by his gentle, skilful touch. She relaxed, leaning back on her elbows, and enjoyed the sensual pleasure of the feel of his fingers amid her hair. Her limbs turned languid, her eyelids drooped and a strange kind of tension built inside her. Yearning laced with desire.

Sensations she had no business feeling.

The rhythmic stroking was interspersed with small shiver-making touches as he teased out the knots and his knuckles occasionally brushed her nape or her scalp. She felt herself drift. She yawned.

‘You get some sleep,’ Niall said. He yawned, too. ‘I can barely keep my eyes open,’ he muttered.

At the suggestion, she closed her eyes as if they were weighted by lead. She leaned back, yawned again and closed her eyes. The last thing she heard was Niall organising the cushions to act as a barrier between them. He reached up to put out the lamp. She gave a little shiver and put a hand out. ‘Leave the light. Lately, I have spent too much time in the dark.’

He nodded. ‘You have been verra brave, Lady Jenna. Now relax and I will see you safe.’

Yes. She believed he would. With him beside her she could relax.

* * *

Niall came awake with a start. Or rather became aware of a raging arousal. It took a moment for the rocking motion and sounds of hoofs and wheels to make him realise where he was. Damn. He’d fallen asleep when he had intended to keep watch. How long had they been travelling? The lantern had gone out and no light showed through the canvas. Perhaps he’d only dozed?

With Jenna snuggled up against him, he wasn’t sure how long he could stand the torture.

Short of leaving the protection of the canvas and sitting up in front with Sean, which would wake her, he didn’t see any way to end it. Carefully, he tucked a pillow under her cheek and eased his shoulder and his leg out from beneath her. Breath held, he shifted until his body was at the very edge of the mattress. Moments later, she was once more pressed up hard against him, one leg draped over his knee, her hand very close to...

Hellfire. He gently lifted her arm away.

‘What?’ she mumbled.

‘You are crowding me,’ he said. ‘Roll over.’ Back to back, he just might be able to survive.

In agony, he waited for her to break the contact ‘I’m cold,’ she murmured.

He was burning up.

He sat up and found the quilt at the bottom of the bed where one of them must have kicked it off and pulled it over her. ‘Better?’

‘I dreamed we were back on the other cart,’ she said in a small voice. ‘When I thought I was all alone with those men. I was terrified.’

‘You are safe now.’ At least he hoped so. He felt under the pillow for his pistol. He breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Go back to sleep.’

She was silent for a good few heartbeats and he started to relax, to think he had come off pretty well. ‘I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see them.’

Damn. Damn the men. And damn him for his surge of lust at the sound of her voice.

‘Will you hold me? Just until I fall asleep?’

Inwardly he cursed long and hard as he put an arm beneath her and drew her close. He felt a shudder ripple through her body. She had been so strong, so courageous—he hadn’t realised she was also afraid. He was such a dolt.

‘Will you kiss me?’ she whispered.

His blood roared to life, blistering hot, racing south. It was all he could do not to groan at the pleasurable pain of it. ‘Jenna, I don’t think that is wise.’

‘When you kiss me, every bad thought goes out of my head,’ she said.

And every thought out of his. A very dangerous thing, because he tended to forget he was supposed to be a gentleman, not a schoolboy with a bad case of lust. Only it went far deeper than lust, because he wanted to possess her, not just physically. He wanted more, so much more. He could not believe he was so utterly full of desire for this woman who reminded him of a faery.

Had been since the first time they kissed. All right, now he’d admitted it. But it didn’t mean he could do anything about it.

‘Jenna,’ he groaned, ‘we can’t. You are perfectly safe.’

‘Hmmph,’ she said and turned her back to him. He let go a sigh of relief and lay staring up into the dark, listening to the sound of her breathing, until he was sure she had fallen back to sleep. He just wasn’t sure he would be able to resist the temptation to pull her into the cradle of his body to keep her warm.

* * *

Jenna’s stomach felt hollow. Hungry. As a hunter. And then another more urgent need required attention. It was still dark. She sat up, realising the wagon had stopped. Oh, had they arrived? Beside her she felt Niall move.

‘Are we here?’ he said in a low voice.

‘We must be.’

‘Sean?’ Niall said.

The now-familiar sound of things moving at the back of the cart. ‘Out you come,’ Sean said.

Jenna squeezed through the opening he had made and he held her hand as she jumped down. She looked around her expecting to see the castle, nearby or in the distance. Nothing but heather in the light of the rising sun. Right now she didn’t care. She made straight for the nearest gorse bush. Taking care of business was the only thing on her mind.

As she crouched behind her bush, she could hear the low rumble of male voices and then silence.

When she returned to the wagon, Sean waved to a clump of gorse on the other side of the wagon. ‘He’ll be back in a moment.’ He busied himself making a fire.

Jenna frowned. It seemed to be getting darker, not lighter. She looked at the horizon. There weren’t any clouds and the sun was definitely sinking. ‘What time is it?’

‘Sunset.’

Sunset was about nine. In the evening. ‘It can’t be,’ she said. ‘That means—’

‘It means we slept for half of a night and all of a day,’ Niall said, striding towards them, sounding hugely irritated.

‘Then why aren’t we at Carrick?’

‘If we were ever heading towards Carrick,’ Niall said, his grim expression caught in the dying rays of the sun as he stared hard at Sean, who had got his fire started and was hanging a pot on a tripod.

‘Sean?’ Jenna said. ‘Where are we?’

The gypsy looked up. ‘We are farther from Carrick than we are from Braemuir.’

She wanted to shake him. To put her hands around his neck and choke him. ‘What are you talking about?’

Niall put his hands on his hips. ‘What the blue blazes is going on here, Sean? You were supposed to return us to Carrick, not drag us halfway across Scotland.’

The gypsy spat into the fire and muttered something under his breath. ‘Please do not dishonour my hearth with your curses.’

Niall glared at him. ‘Answer me, man.’

Sean shrugged and looked at Jenna, his dark eyes glinting. ‘She is needed at Braemuir.’

‘I was on my way. Soon. With a husband. I said so in my letter.’

‘Ah, the husband.’ His gaze slid to Niall and back to her. ‘I heard about the test. Did you choose wisely?’

She gasped. ‘How could you have heard?’

‘Servants’ gossip spreads like ripples in a pond.’

‘If you heard about it, why have us abducted?’ Niall threw at him.

‘I had no hand in your abduction.’

‘What do you call this?’ Niall looked ready to throttle the man who sat so calmly beside the fire as if all was well with the world.

‘I call it helping a friend.’ He raised a brow. ‘There is a burn yonder,’ he went on as if the air wasn’t crackling with outrage. ‘You will wash before dinner,
chavvis
, yes?’

‘You are a scoundrel,’ Jenna said. She looked at Niall. ‘But I don’t think he is with them. I really don’t.’

Niall shook his head and took a deep breath. ‘All right. So we will take your word for it. But that doesn’t mean to say I trust you.’

The gypsy flashed them a smile and held out two chips of soap and what looked like a bundle of washing. ‘Clean clothes,’ he said at Jenna’s look of enquiry. ‘Drying rags. You will need to wash what you have on. It stinks of fish.
Chummer
,’ he said, insistently pointing to a rise beyond which she assumed there must be a stream. ‘Or not eat.’

‘I’m starving,’ Niall said, ‘and filthy. I see no reason not to do as he asks.’ He took Jenna’s hand and led her through the heather.

When they were out of earshot of the camp, he turned to her. ‘We could make a run for it, right now.’

So that was why he had given in so easily. ‘I know it sounds strange, but I don’t think he means us any harm. Mr Hughes would never have sent him had it been otherwise. We should give him the benefit of the doubt.’

He looked grim. ‘I tend to agree, but I would hate to be wrong. Under the circumstances, I plan to watch him very carefully from now on, I can assure you.’

They continued on to what turned out to be a shallow, fast-flowing burn. Niall emptied the bundle onto the ground. As Sean had said, there were rags for drying and clothes for both of them. A blouse and kirtle with petticoats for her, and shirt and trousers for him. She stared at the stream. ‘It looks cold.’

‘Something I’m used to,’ Niall said and removed his shirt. A beautiful chest and shoulders of carved muscle and bone and sinew. Jenna could not stop from watching the slow unveiling. When he began to unbutton his breeches she gasped.

‘Turn your back,’ he said tersely. ‘If I’m going to feel clean, I must needs wash all of me.’

Reluctantly she did as he asked, but risked a peek as he pulled off his boots and peeled the buckskin fabric down his legs. The flanks and rear end bared to her view were hard and firm. So unlike her own soft curves. Her body gave a little pulse of pleasure. She turned her gaze away, shocked at the delicious needy sensation.

She heard him splash into the water and gasp. ‘Hell, that is cold,’ he said.

She risked another peek over her shoulder. The dying sun made his beautiful torso glow with warm light. Her fingers tingled with longing to touch those beautiful shoulders, smooth her hands over the expanse of his back.

And when he climbed up the bank, her body clenched at the beautiful sight. The mat of hair on his chest glistening with drops of water, the wide expanse of delineated ribs, the ridges of muscled stomach, the slender hips and his male part, nested deep in black curls. So much smaller than she recalled it from her exploring fingers in the dark of that horrid cart.

He picked up a towel, rubbing at his body, his legs, his back, his behind and finally that part of him that she found so fascinating.

He glanced around, caught her looking and shook his head at her. ‘Jenna,’ he said reprovingly, turning away, but not before she saw that part begin to swell, jutting away from his body, as if it had a life all of its own.

She flushed hot all the way to the roots of her hair, shocked by her fascination, her wantonness, and averted her gaze.

‘It is your turn to bathe, you know,’ Niall said. ‘Come on, out of that gown and into the water.’

The thought made her shiver. The thought of being free of the smell of fish... She undid the fastenings of her habit and shirt and let them fall to the ground. ‘You will have to untie the laces of my stays, I seem to have a knot.’