‘I mean you nae harm,’ he continued in Gaelic. ‘What do you do here?’
‘Now, that should be a question I should be asking you.’
‘I am but a traveller.’
‘An English one despite your trying to use our language you’re mangling,’ she pointed out. ‘What is your name?’ she asked in English.
She spoke the King’s English. If she was a villager, she was no simple one. ‘I’m called Robert of Dent and there’s hardly a crime to being English.’
‘There is when we stand in a village where my kin were killed.’
She straightened; the dagger did not waver. His hands were still tied, although he was fast loosening the rope. ‘I have just recently come. I had no play in this. What do they call you?’
She ignored his question. ‘How am I to know you had nae hand in their deaths?’
He was surprised by her response. ‘So are you not one of the villagers?’
Even in the dim light, he could see her features pale, then darken with anger. ‘Nae, you weedy outwale! How’m I to be a villager? I’m alive, I am.’ She stopped. Tears sparkled, when she continued, ‘You must have seen what happened to the villagers when you passed this way.’
He didn’t understand. ‘You escaped.’
‘Nae, I’m a traveller, too, and came too late.’
Her reply was too careful and his wrists were now free. ‘You are more than a traveller, you said you had kin here,’ he replied. ‘Did your kin perish?’
Her body jerked at his question. ‘You just be passing by?’ she asked.
She ignored his question. Given their surroundings she had a right to be suspicious of him.
‘Aye,’ he lied.
‘Hah! You with a sword drawn and a fine dagger, I’m to believe you?’
He could tell this wouldn’t be easy. ‘Pray—’
Running footsteps behind them!
‘Auntie Gaira, there’s a horse at the top of the hill. Auntie Gaira, it smells and I can’t see anything. Are you all right? I’ve come to warn you!’
The woman’s attention flew to the door. It was all the diversion he needed. Dropping the rope, he sprang to his feet and caught the boy entering the hut.
‘Put him down!’ she shouted. ‘He’s done nothing to you! Put him down, I say!’
The boy, absorbing the woman’s panic, wriggled and fought in earnest. Robert grunted when sharp teeth chomped into his side. Yanking the boy free, he held him out in front of him. ‘Seems I’ve got something of yours.’
‘He’s innocent, I tell you.’
‘He may be, but it seems we’re even now. You’ve got the dagger, but I’ve got your boy. I’ll guess you’ll not throw that dagger any time now.’
The woman looked defiant and he tensed, ready to dodge if the dagger flew. Regardless of what he said, he had no intention of the boy getting hurt.
She threw the dagger at his feet. ‘You may do what you wish of me, but I beg you to leave the boy be. He has seen enough.’
He took the dagger and the boy flew into the woman’s arms. The darkness would not allow him to discern her features, but he sensed her relief and something else.
‘Can the boy leave the hut before we begin?’ she asked.
Her voice was uneasy. It was so different from before that he didn’t comprehend her words, but then he understood. She thought he’d rape her. What horrors had she known before he arrived? He’d been here only moments, but seen charred ruins and shallow graves.
It had been two days since the attack. From the rancid smell, he knew some had died of sword wounds, but many more had been burned. She’d been here longer than him and seen too many horrors.
‘I’ll not be harming you or the boy. I may be English, but I meant it when I said I came in peace.’
‘We are beyond your peace.’
Guilt. An inconvenient feeling along with his need to protect, but he suddenly felt both. It had to be the woman.
Her arms were around the child. She was vulnerable, yet she still challenged him. She was brave, but through the filtered moonlight, he could see the exhaustion in her limbs and hear the grief in her voice.
He lowered his eyes. Her ankle was crudely wrapped and didn’t hide the swelling. It was her feet he had seen in the tracks. Only hers.
‘I passed by your...garden. Are you the one doing the bedding for the spring?’
Instead of answering, she fell to a crouch and tried to turn the boy to face her. ‘Alec, please go up to the camp.’
The boy wrenched his head to keep his wary eyes on him. ‘Doona want to.’
‘Alec, you be listening to me on this. You know I forbade you from coming to the valley. You disobeyed me. But I’ll be letting any punishment go if you leave now.’
The boy didn’t move.
Her tone softened. ‘Alec, if you go right now I’ll give you my last honeycomb.’
The boy looked at her, his face scrunched up. She nodded vigorously at him. With barely a glance back, he ran out of the hut.
As the boy’s footsteps faded, the woman slowly straightened.
‘My life for a sweet. Ah, to be five again,’ she said wistfully. She smiled and grasped her hands in front of her. ‘I fear we had a misunderstanding. I’m Gaira of Clan Colquhoun.’
He wondered where her anger and defiance had gone. Her stance, the very air around her, had changed. He was suddenly suspicious. ‘Your manner has changed.’
‘Aye, you may be English, but you are different than the men who burned Doonhill.’
This woman made no sense. ‘Aye, I am, but how do you suddenly know?’
‘Gardening?’ she said, looking at him in exasperation.
He was thoroughly confused. Did she want to speak of plants?
‘You did not ask if it was I burying the dead. You asked whether I had been gardening. Any man not wishing to hurt the feelings of a child cannot be the same as the monsters who destroyed this village.’ As she turned her back to him and bent down, the large tunic fell forward and exposed her stretched backside under the tight leggings.
All thoughts left his head. He knew the moonlight played tricks on him; knew his thoughts were filling in what his eyes couldn’t possibly be seeing. But still his mouth turned dry. The fine strong curve of her legs seemed to stretch to heaven and her derrière was round, full, lush and entirely too...there.
All these years without a woman and he had never been tempted. They had pressed against him, flashed their breasts, licked their lips and he hadn’t felt a flicker of emotion except annoyance. But this woman’s backside, wrapped tight in a man’s leggings, struck him across the loins with heat. He felt the rush, the quickening, and forcibly focused at the object in her hands.
It was a sword and pointed towards him.
‘I thank you,’ she said, her tone still polite. ‘I have been trying to protect him from what really happened to the people here.’
She cleared her throat. Paused. She was waiting for his response.
It wasn’t just any sword. It was his sword. Embarrassment doused his lust. What would Edward think of his soldier now? The sword flexed slightly as she wiggled the hilt.
It