A Soldier's Salvation (Highland Heartbeats Book 7)(33)

She came to a stop before reaching the gray mare, freezing in place except for the eyes which moved over the four of them. “You’ve been talking about me,” she surmised.

“Aye,” Rodric replied.

Fergus shot him a look of surprise, Rodric merely shrugged. There was no sense in lying to the lass. She already knew they’d been discussing her. Why wouldn’t they?

“Have you reached a conclusion? Am I to be abandoned? Taken back to my husband?” She lifted her chin in a defiant stance, as though daring them to lay a finger on her. Rodric’s heart swelled with pride. Though she wasn’t his and had never truly been, she was still the only lass he’d ever loved or come anywhere close to loving.

And at this moment, he loved her still.

Brice looked down at himself as though making an examination. “I realize, lass, that we hardly look the type to be kind or thoughtful. But we aren’t entirely cruel. And we’ve little time for men who treat women cruelly.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” she said with a shaky laugh. “Very happy, indeed.”

“I suppose we ought to keep going,” Fergus announced. “If we’ve so much riding ahead of us.”

Rodric’s spirits sank at this. Yes, they had to get her back to where she’d be safe, even if it meant having to part ways with her once they reached Fiona’s home.

He rode beside her as they traveled the woods, with Brice and Quinn ensuring the path ahead of them was clear and Fergus keeping watch behind them.

“Is it pleasant there, on Fiona’s farm?” he asked, feeling rather at a loss.

“It is. Fiona is a wonderful cousin. It’s a very pleasant place. I don’t believe Kent is glad to have me there any longer, however. If he ever was, to begin with.”

“No?”

“Would you be? We aren’t related through blood. Fiona and I were never close, which was what made her a safe choice. Alan didn’t know about her. Kent is more concerned by the day, every day I spend there. He feels threatened, naturally. What happens if I’m discovered? They’re peaceful people. They mind their own lives. They care little for clan matters.”

“I understand. I’ve felt the same for most of my life.”

“Evidently, since you did not return on your father’s passing.”

He gritted his teeth, determined not to argue with her in front of the others. It wouldn’t do for them to witness how easy it was for her get his blood up. “I expect you wouldn’t know this, having never been part of an army, but it isn’t possible for soldiers to simply pack up and return home until they’ve been dismissed from service.”

“I know it’s possible for a soldier to return home when there are important matters to attend to. Such as a parent who’s died.”

“You’re an expert, then.”

“I know what I know.”

“It isn’t that simple,” he explained. “I didn’t receive word of my father’s passing until at least a fortnight after he had already died. It would have taken days to reach the clan’s territory. And since you seem to know so much, you’ll surely remember that the weather at that time of year was rough. There was no way to leave my unit. They wouldn’t have allowed me to leave under such conditions.”

She seemed to take this in, riding in silence for several minutes while her gaze moved this way and that, taking in a pair of rabbits which fled from the approaching hooves and a squirrel which leaped from the branch of one tree to another almost directly overhead.

“I suppose there was little you could do, then,” she eventually decided with a sigh. “I must admit, it’s nearly a relief to know.”

“To know what?”

“That you didn’t mean to simply never return. That you might have perhaps cared enough to be home, but couldn’t.”

“That I might have perhaps?” he asked. “Did you ever know me at all? Did you not believe I’d want more than anything to be home with my father? To at least pay my respects at his burial?”

“Frankly, I wasn’t certain for a long time of whether I knew you or not,” she admitted. “I don’t mean to start an argument. Truly, I don’t. You grew up, became a man. Men change when they’ve grown up. You had been to war, you’d seen so many things. Who was to say who you had become?”

It was his turn to go silent for a while, allowing the songs of the birds and the babbling of a narrow brook which ran alongside the woods fill the silence.

“I never would’ve changed that much,” he announced.

“I didn’t want to believe you had, of course. It’s a relief to know for certain, now, that it was not a lack of feeling which led to you not returning.”

He snorted softly, remembering his great distress when he received word of his father’s death. “To the contrary,” he murmured.

“Your father…” She trailed off before shifting in the saddle as though something pained her. “Your father cared a great deal for you. A very great deal.”

“You don’t need to soothe me, lass. I’m not a child.”

“I wasn’t trying to soothe you. I was merely attempting to remind you that he did, since he cannot tell you himself and likely never did, as that wasn’t his way.”