The Raider (Highland Guard #8)(32)

He couldn’t tell whether she was scared or aroused.

She sucked in her breath and awareness crackled between them. The soft parting of her lips answered his question: aroused. Hot with it. Soft with it. Ripe with it.

His eyes fixed on her mouth. A desire so fierce and strong rose inside him, every muscle in his body went rigid. He was a hairsbreadth from lowering his mouth down onto hers.

What the hell was he doing?

He let her go and took a step back. “If I were you, I’d be hoping you were wrong in your estimation of my character. A less-than-honorable man might think about taking you up on your invitation.”

Her eyes widened, the vivid emeralds sparking with indignation. Lady Rosalin Clifford might look sweet and docile on the outside, but as he’d seen with her defense of her young nephew, the little kitten had the claws of a she-tiger when stirred. Usually he preferred women with more of an edge—experienced women who knew what they wanted. He’d assumed sweet meant boring. It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again. Her combination of sweet and fierce was oddly arousing. Maddeningly arousing.

“An invitation? By God, you must be mad! I don’t know what you think you saw, but I assure you, I am no longer a naive, starry-eyed maiden susceptible to a generous display of flexing muscle.” She smiled sweetly, her gaze skimming over some of those flexing muscles. “I outgrew oversized barbarians when I turned seventeen.”

Claws and a sharp tongue to go along with it. Part of him admired her spirit, while another part of him wondered whether she spoke the truth. Had he imagined it?

His eyes narrowed at something else. Seventeen. Christ, how the hell young had she been?

The kiss that neither of them wanted to mention hung between them.

“You weren’t eighteen,” he said flatly.

Her small smile had a distinct devilish glint, as if she knew how much the answer would bother him. “Nay, just sixteen.”

He grimaced and swore. Which meant she was only two and twenty now. Compared to his two and thirty, she was a child. God knew, in those ten years he’d seen a lifetime of pain and suffering.

Suddenly, in the eyes of this beautiful girl brimming with youthful innocence and radiance, he felt very tired and very old.

“You have until the morning to reconsider. But if I were you, Lady Rosalin, I’d take the offer. ’Tis not one you are likely to get again. I do not think you will find the hardships of war to your liking.”

She stayed. Not that there had ever been a question on her part. Rosalin wouldn’t leave Roger to face the brutes and brigands on his own. They were in this together, and together they would get through it. Preferably without having to spend another wretched night sleeping on a dirt-floored cave with little more than a plaid for cover.

Boyd was right. She didn’t like the “hardships” of war, especially living like an outlaw without even the most basic of necessities. She’d thought travel before difficult, but then the long stretches of riding had been broken up by stops at castles—or at the very worst an inn—with her own bedding and plenty of servants to attend her every need. Here, she didn’t even have a pitcher to wash her face or a comb to run through her hair.

She supposed she should be grateful that she wasn’t sleeping outside surrounded by a bevy of brutish barbarians but was instead in a cave alone with Roger. But it was hard to be grateful for small mercies when they were imposed with such harshness.

Boyd’s coldness toward her stung. She didn’t know what she’d expected him to be, but it wasn’t this horrible and unfeeling brute. He’d hardened to stone—just like that muscled body of his. He seemed a shell of the man he’d once been, consumed by vengeance and intent on vanquishing the enemy at any cost. Finding out she was Cliff’s sister had seemingly erased whatever good favor she might have curried by releasing him. She wasn’t surprised that he hated her brother or the English; she was just surprised by the depth of that hatred and that it included her.

How dare he act like this after what she’d done! To Hades with the blighter. She supposed one good thing had come out of all this: he’d certainly cured her of any romantic fantasies. She would marry Sir Henry when this ordeal was over and never look back.

As it was clear he had no intention of releasing Roger, her thoughts turned toward escape. Although she and Roger had been permitted to be together in the cave, the moment they woke and tried to go down to the stream to wash, they were separated. Roger was taken to rejoin the rest of the group, while she was permitted a few moments—a very few moments—of privacy in which to tend her needs, wash her face and teeth in the icy water, and run her fingers through her hair before braiding it with the one frayed ribbon she had left. On second thought, she left her hair loose and tucked the ribbon in her purse, which hung from the thin leather girdle belted around her waist. She had an idea.

The best part of the morning, however, was when she was led back to camp and learned that over half the men had departed, including—to her and Roger’s great relief—the Black Douglas. Apparently, they were taking all the ill-gained pirate plunder from the raids to Robert Bruce in the North. She and Roger were being taken elsewhere. Their captor was far less forthcoming about that, but from the southwesterly direction they’d been riding, the daunting Ettrick Forest still seemed a likely destination.

The second-best moment of the morning had been learning that horses had been arranged for her and Roger, so she would not be forced to ride tandem with the stoic and taciturn Callum. It also gave her an opportunity to begin implementing her plan.