Читать книгу The Highlander - Heather Grothaus - Страница 10

“Well.” The willowy woman looked quite taken aback, in Conall’s opinion. She opened her lips as if she was about to speak again but then pressed them back together and twisted one hand in the folds of her skirt. She was quite fetching, Conall had to admit, discomfited as she was, and thinking hard about something.

“Well, indeed,” Conall said. His own head was still spinning with the realization of their predicament. He needed time to sort it out, to make sense of it all.

“Well,” Evelyn said again. She seemed to stand taller in her threadbare gown, which at one time had likely been quite fine. “Thank you very much for the welcome.” Her eyes met his briefly and then danced away to the floor, the pens, the ceiling. “Er…good day, then.”

Conall shook his head with a grin and then strode back to the hut’s low door, pressing the side of his face to it. “I’m nae going anywhere, lass.”

“Oh, of course not this instant,” Conall heard her say from behind him, a nervous laugh in her voice. “I do not expect you to—”

“Shh!” Conall held up a palm. “Quiet!”

“—to go while the wolves are still about,” she continued in a loud whisper. “Do you hear anything?”

He raised up from the door and sent her an exasperated look.

She winced. “Quiet. Yea, of course.”

Conall shook his head and then turned back to the door, taking hold of the bar that spanned it. Behind him, Alinor gave a low growl. “Take your beast in hand, Eve,” he said over his shoulder. He began to ease the bar from its brackets.

“Why? What are you doing? I thought you said you weren’t leaving?” she demanded in a prissy, anxious tone, although Conall knew she obeyed him by the way her voice now carried from the opposite side of the hut. “Come, lovely,” she crooned to the wolf. “To me, Alinor.”

Conall rolled his eyes at the rough-planed wood in front of his face. “I left me pack beyond the clearing. There’re supplies to be had if the wolves havena ripped it to bits.” He leaned the bar against the wall and then braced his shoulder and hip into the door, taking hold of the pull.

“Oh.” Her voice sounded next to him and he glanced at her. Her arms were folded stingily against her bosom and the black wolf stared at the door, head down, ears back. “Of what sort are the supplies?”

“Nae sense in telling you until I see they’re still there. But we shall be in sore need of them if we are to survive the season,” he answered. Could the gel speak in naught but questions? “And I said to take hold of the animal, lest you wish her to bolt from the house.”

“I can assure you that Alinor has no more desire to be in the company of those savages than I do, sir. She’ll not bolt if they’re still about.”

Conall shrugged and eased open the door but a hand’s breadth, bracing it against his body lest one of the grays lay in wait. He scanned the dooryard beyond.

Empty, except for the body of the slain gray.

Conall slid his foot back half a step, opened the door a bit wider, and poked his head out. It was eerily quiet.

Conall ducked back inside quickly and collided with the woman and her animal, who had both eased closer to him during his perusal.

She squeaked at being jostled and threw him an offended frown when Alinor whined and pulled a paw from beneath Conall’s booted foot.

“A bit of a warning next time, sir, if you don’t mind! Alinor is still recovering and is not yet as nimble as she once was,” she snipped.

“I didna know the pair of you would try to climb me when I turned my back,” Conall growled, and then drew his long sword from his sheath. “I’ll have a look ’round, then fetch the pack if ’tis safe. Stay here.”

The woman nodded eagerly and clasped her hands at her waist.

A bit too eagerly, Conall thought as he made to step through the portal. He turned abruptly, causing another scuffle as the woman retreated farther back into the cottage once more.

“And I’m warnin’ you, Eve,” Conall said sternly. “Should you think to bar the door after me again, I’ll set fire to this hut, you ken? By all that is holy, I’ll burn it to the verra ground.”

Her eyes narrowed, as if debating the sincerity of his threat.

“The verra ground,” he promised, and then stepped though the doorway into the clearing.

Evelyn’s knees were shaking so badly that she sank to her bottom next to Alinor once the door closed after the highlander. Her heart thudded in her chest and she realized she was covered in a thin layer of icy perspiration, although the hut was still quite cold inside.

Her lie about her lineage might very well have saved her and Alinor’s lives—she was no more Buchanan than was the king of England. Thanks be to God Evelyn had known just enough about Minerva’s kin to satisfy the highlander’s inquisition and stay him from throwing them both to the grays.

For now, any matter.

Evelyn knew that either she and Alinor or the highlander would have to go. ’Twas too dangerous by far to risk being found out. Obviously, Conall MacKerrick was on familiar terms with the Buchanan clan by the quick manner in which he’d known Minerva and Angus by name.

And he was Ronan MacKerrick’s very nephew, no less. The man Minerva had called for in the last moments of her life. This was Ronan’s hut.

For all Evelyn knew, the MacKerricks and the Buchanans were great allies, and Angus might appear in the clearing one day, come for a fortnight of hunting sport with his neighbor, Conall.

Evelyn shivered at the imagined repercussions. Every fiber in her being screamed at her to get up and bar the door to the hut, but Evelyn was not at all certain the highlander would not do as he promised and burn the cottage “to the verra ground,” with her and Alinor inside. After all, he would have already sacrificed them to the grays had she not come up with the blatant falsehood to save her own life.

The beast.

Should she and Alinor be found out now, MacKerrick would evict them from their cozy little home—likely without even their few paltry belongings—making them easy prey for the wolves. Nay, if ever they must abandon the hut, ’twas far better they do it of their own accord, with time to prepare.

Alinor sat down beside Evelyn with a breathy whine, the bow of her rose-colored bandage brushing Evelyn’s face. The forgotten sheep bleated from its pen as if in answer and Alinor turned longing yellow eyes to the rear of the hut.

Evelyn patted the wolf absently. “I think not, lovely.”

’Twould be nobler for Conall MacKerrick to take his own leave, although Evelyn doubted by the man’s heretofore incessant rudeness that he had any notion of the word’s meaning. Evelyn’s leg was healing, true, but too slowly to undertake a journey of any length. And her energy seemed to wane only moments after waking in the mornings, likely from lack of adequate food. Alinor was still recuperating from the attack and there was no other shelter for either of them in this deepest part of winter. The towering Scot had to have come from a village of some sort, and he could very well return to it posthaste. Surely, barbarian though he was, he did not expect to cohabitate with an unmarried lady in such intimate quarters.

Evelyn’s eyes instinctively flew to the narrow box bed at the end of the hut and she felt her face warm at the lurid possibilities the piece of furniture now evoked in her imagination. Smiling amber eyes and flashing white teeth caused her to shiver once more.

“Sinful,” she whispered aloud, and then crossed herself—an exercise she hadn’t performed in months—as if she’d come face-to-face with the devil himself.

And then she was decided. One way or another, Evelyn had to get away from Conall MacKerrick.

Conall could not let Evelyn get away.

He stepped over the dead wolf with care and crept across the narrow clearing, turning in slow circles with his sword at the ready, his eyes scanning the wall of trees that surrounded the hut like a stockade. His breath hung in steamy clouds ’round his head and he tried to stay focused on the task at hand, lest he be ambushed and killed before he had chance to work out his scheme properly.

Find the pack. Get the supplies…

But there was a Buchanan woman—a young, shapely, smart-mouthed, sneaky, uppity Buchanan woman—in his own house! It was a bloody miracle. Perhaps—

A sound like the snapping of a twig underfoot startled Conall so that he jumped and gave a strangled cry. He swung his sword around in a wide arc and fell into a crouch, but the clearing was still empty. Sweat ran down his back in a slushy river.

Concentrate, damn you!

Conall sidestepped to the gentle bank on the edge of the clearing and let his eyes flick over the sloped shoulder. He saw the curve of his bow poking from a drift, and his pack lay where he’d dropped it; both appeared undisturbed save for the rutted paths of tracks circling them. It looked to Conall as if the wolves had indeed sniffed his belongings and perhaps turned them over on the packed snow, but the animals had not destroyed the precious items as Conall had feared.

He crouched down on the cusp of the bank for several moments, listening intently for any sound that might indicate that the bloodthirsty beasts were near. When all remained still, Conall dropped over the rise and scrambled through the snow to his pack.

He vowed to kill every last gray wolf in Scotland when he looked down upon the satchel and saw the dark puddle run off one bottom corner into a well of yellow snow.

Conall jerked the pack up by its strap and held it away from him, looking at it distastefully and biting off whispered curses.

“Nasty beasts,” he muttered, setting the pack back down in a clean patch of snow. He sheathed his sword and dropped to his haunches over the bag, quickly undoing the ties and peering inside. Satisfied that the contents still seemed wrapped securely in the pieces of oilcloth he’d packed them in, he allowed himself to pause with his thoughts.

Evelyn Godewin Buchanan—Angus Buchanan’s own…niece? Granddaughter? Conall felt a wave of dizziness come over him so that the snow on the bank seemed to advance and retreat in quick turn. Sweet God in Heaven—’twas rumored that Angus Buchanan’s daughter had fled to England those many years ago with Minerva Buchanan and had born a girl child. Could Evelyn be her? Now alone with Conall in the deepest, most dangerous thickness of the forest in high winter, and the Buchanan had no knowledge of it?

Conall wanted to shout, to laugh, to vomit on his boots from the nervous excitement that threatened to shake his bones from his flesh.

Only heartache and toil shall you reap, until a Buchanan bairn is born to rule the MacKerrick clan…

Conall thought of his crippled and dying town, his people sick and starving from the black curse that had smothered them these nearly two score years. He thought of the seasons of empty animal shelters and the smell of diseased cattle flesh being consumed on the charnel fires; of grain stalks moldering in flooded fields; of the dry, baked riverbeds in summer, where no fish swam to spawn.

He thought of the haggard faces and thin bodies of the people in his care, a people who had looked faithfully to him for longer than loyalty should have bidden them. He thought of Nonna and the wee girl bairn.

The weight of it all was crushing.

And now, the hag who had once damned them all had carried back with her the very cure for this evil fever and delivered it directly into Conall’s trembling hands.

One of those trembling hands went to the stiff leather knot tied ’round his neck. He gently rolled the small lump against the knuckle of his forefinger with his thumb.

Conall had lain with no other woman save Nonna the whole of his life, and he’d not lain with even his wife since the night she’d taken his seed which had bravely become their child. He closed his eyes against the pain that welled up inside him, the shame.

Conall pinched the bridge of his nose and drew a deep, shuddering breath before rising. He slung his bow, quiver, and pack over one shoulder and drew his sword once more. Gaining the crest of the bank in five great strides, he then paused to look at his uncle’s hunting cottage, thinking of the possibilities that rested with the woman beyond its sod walls.

Evelyn Godewin Buchanan. Eve.

Conall began the short walk across the trampled clearing, his mouth set.

The slain gray was gone.

Conall halted and stared at the shallow depression where the dead wolf had lain only moments ago. There was not a drop of blood to be seen against the flattened snow, although Conall had plunged his sword into the beast’s chest and the red flow had painted the ground. He looked down at his blade: clean and gleaming in the fading daylight.

No drag marks leading to the forest. Not even a single wiry gray hair.

A gusting wind barreled through the clearing and the night seemed to lean over the wood suddenly. Conall shivered, and although he was no coward, an awesome feeling of lonely longing wrapped arms about him on the frigid breeze and licked his icy cheek obscenely. Conall had the immediate urge to run to the hut and bolt himself and Eve inside.

He forced himself to walk calmly, though, backward and facing the rippling darkness of the forest. He felt behind him for the door and was grateful when it pushed open easily.

Conall stepped inside and quickly shut out the single, mournful, high-pitched howl, calling to him through the twilight.

The highlander stumbled backward into the hut and slammed the door shut, slinging a bow and a large pack to the floor and leaning against the door while he scrambled to drop the brace in the brackets. When he turned to face her, Evelyn noticed the paleness of his lips, his furrowed brow.

“Have the grays returned?” she asked, praying silently that they had not—even one night alone in the small hut with this man would be too many. Evelyn felt she should advise him to be on his way quickly. For his own safety, of course.

And possibly her own, from the haunted look in his eyes.

He shook his head as if coming out of a daydream. “Nae.” MacKerrick scooped up the pack and walked past Evelyn and Alinor to sit upon the low stool. It piqued Evelyn how the man so quickly made himself at ease in her home. He set the bag between his boots and did not look up at her as he began to rifle through its contents. “Even the one I took is gone.”

“Gone?” Evelyn frowned as Alinor slid from beneath her hand and ambled cautiously nearer the highlander, circling his stool and sniffing the floor around him.

“Aye. Gone.” He pulled a small jug from the pack and attacked the cork with his back teeth. He spit the dislodged stopper into one palm and lifted the jug to his mouth, drinking deeply. While he was occupied, Alinor sidled closer and began sniffing the bottom of his pack in earnest.

“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Evelyn demanded. “Alinor, to me.”

MacKerrick lowered the jug and rested it on his knee. “I mean, the gray wolf…I just killed…is…gone.” He looked at her curiously and then at the jug on his leg. He held it out to her abruptly. “Mead?”

Evelyn nearly refused it. But the opportunity to drink something other than melted snow—anything but melted snow—was too tempting.

She reached for the jug with both hands. “Thank you.” She paused before drinking, although the sweet, mellow scent coming from the mouth of the vessel was enough to flood her mouth with saliva.

Alinor was now rudely scratching at the man’s pack.

“Alinor! To me!” she commanded.

The highlander glanced down at the wolf, then waved a careless hand at Evelyn. “Drink your mead, Eve. She canna harm it.”

Evelyn was not at all certain she appreciated being told how to handle her animal, but she raised the jug to her lips and let the mead flood her mouth—explosions of rich, tangy honey—while the highlander addressed the wolf directly in his low brogue.

“But if you do harm it, wolf piss or nae wolf piss, I’ll have your hide for a new one.”

The delicious mead in Evelyn’s throat backed up into her nose and she choked. “Sir,” she gasped, coughing and wiping at her mouth. “Language, if you please!”

“What?” The man looked at her mildly. “One of the bloody beasts pissed on me pack. I doona wish for yours to take out hard feelings against my personal belongings.”

Evelyn could not stop her chirp of laughter, but she quickly covered her mouth, shocked at her own crudeness, and handed the jug back to its owner with no little regret.

The highlander grinned at her. “I’d be thankful to trade a taste of the meat I smelled you cooking for the swallow of mead you’ve enjoyed, Eve.”

Evelyn’s gaze flew to the shelf on the wall and she winced. She and Alinor could hardly afford to share what little food they possessed with a man who would soon be leaving them, but the sweetness of the mead still lingering on her tongue roused her conscience.

“I’m not certain ’twould suit you, sir—’tis rather…dry.” She hesitated. “A bit burnt, as well.” She tried to laugh. “I’m afraid as a cook I’m no prize.”

The man looked at her as though she was daft. “I’m hungry, lass. Would you deny me food because you doona wish me to criticize your cooking skills? Vain woman—I wouldna care a fig were it horsemeat and you served it raw.”

Must he find a way to insult her with every breath?

“Very well.” Evelyn let her lips curve in a small smile as she crossed the floor to the shelf. She picked up a scrawny strip at first, but then replaced it in favor of a longer chunk—thick in the middle and guaranteed to be a bit…chewy.

She faced the highlander once more and he took the piece eagerly. “Here you are, then. Enjoy.”

MacKerrick bit into the strip and chewed and chewed…and then looked at Eve, his mouth slack around the half-masticated wad of meat.

“Iss hors-meet, innit?”