Winning Her Highland Warrior, page 14
With one arm still around his shoulders, she angled a perturbed look his way. “Ye know I could sit beside ye on the bench.”
“Aye. Ye could.” He leaned back and squared her more comfortably on his lap. “But I like this better.”
“Ye sound like a spoilt bairn.”
“With ye, I am spoilt.” He smoothed his hand up and down her back, pained by the bony ridge of her spine bumping against his palm. She had thinned out far too much. A powerful gust would carry her away. “There is something I need to ask ye,” he said, forcing out the words. Best get the unpleasantness over with.
“Yes. Ye can go. Have I not told ye that already?”
“Let me finish.” He snatched up her hand and pecked a scolding kiss across her knuckles. “I dinna wish to leave ye here for any length of time.”
“That’s exactly what ye planned to do when ye married me. Ye said so yerself.”
“Aye, well…things change.” While fighting to keep her alive, a burning protectiveness for this wee hellcat had grown within him, taken him over. He knew now he could never entrust her care to another. Nor could he bear to be away from her. At least not yet. “I know the McBrides would take fine care of ye, but I canna in good conscience or the wants of my heart leave ye here with them.” He settled her back and rested her head on his shoulder. “I need to see ye every day, Satia. Need to know ye’re hearty and hale.”
“As much as I hate to admit to weakness,” she said, then interrupted herself with a frustrated huff. “Ye know I canna make the ride to Edinburgh. Not yet, I’m afraid.”
He slowly nodded. “I agree, love. And if the weather turned, another drenching could verra well be the end of ye.” He combed his fingers through the silkiness of her hair, glad that Anne hadn’t yet bound it in a braid or bun. The coolness of the curls slipping across his palm mesmerized him.
“So, when do ye leave?” she asked, interrupting his reverie. “Because ye must,” she said. “Dinna think I havena laid on that cot and heard a great deal of what’s been said.”
“Do ye think ye could manage the trip to Edinburgh in a carriage?”
“In a carriage?” She raised up and eyed him as though he had threatened to dump her out of his lap. “What sort of carriage do they make in this century? I verra much doubt it has the lush, padded seats of Cinderella’s enchanted pumpkin.”
“Now I’m certain ye’re fully on the mend because I have no idea what the hell ye just said.”
“It’s a fairy tale about a…oh, never mind.” She loosened the shawl around her shoulders and once again lifted her face to the sun, closing her eyes as she soaked in the warmth. “Where is this carriage? I have not seen it.”
“Jac and Rob are procuring it.”
“Stealing it, ye mean,” she said without opening her eyes.
“Jac used the word borrowing.”
A lazy laugh escaped her. “Aye. That’s the word I used to use, too.” She lounged back against him and bent her legs, balancing her bare feet on his knees.
He fluffed out her shift and blanket, resettling their folds to ensure she was properly covered. “They should have it by tomorrow. Or so I expect.”
“I thought the Bruce stayed in the Dumfries and Galloway area, mostly,” she said, the question of the carriage apparently ended. “I understand he took the castle just last month, but that’s no reason for him to still be in Edinburgh. Of course, in June, there will be Bannockburn and Stirling. I guess Edinburgh makes sense if ye keep that in mind. It’s not all that far.”
“Do ye feel strong enough to make the trip in a carriage?” She had never answered, and that worried him. Would she be honest? With herself, as well as him?
“All I can do is try.” She opened her eyes, leveled a somber gaze at him, then shook her head. “But we need a backup plan. If things go sour, what could we do? I couldna verra well drive the carriage back here.”
“I shall bring ye back.”
“That defeats the whole purpose.” Her somberness turned to that flinty sternness he had come to know so well. “One way or the other, it’s time ye returned to the Bruce.” She looked away, staring off into the distance at nothing in particular. “I’ve read accounts of the man. Some respected and worshiped him. Others feared and hated him. Either way, I dinna think he’s one to be ignored or crossed.” She turned back to him. “Have ye ever heard the saying keep yer friends close and yer enemies closer?”
“No. But it makes a good deal of sense.” He tucked back her silvery blonde curls that kept blowing into her eyes. “If ye canna make it, I shall have Rob bring ye back. Then I will return to ye as soon as I can.” It killed him to say it, but her intense stare pulled the words from him. It was what she wished to hear.
“I will do my level best to make it,” she promised. “My stubbornness has fueled me before when my body wanted to give up.”
“With any luck, it’ll take Jac and Rob a day or so to borrow a carriage. That’ll give ye a wee bit more time to work on yer strength.”
“The pampering must stop then. Understand?” She wiggled out of his lap and plopped onto the bench beside him. When she frowned and shifted from side to side, he leaned forward and studied her.
“What is it, lass?”
“Apparently, my arse has become quite bony. I dinna remember this bench being so hard.” She pushed to her feet and held onto his shoulder to steady herself. “Come. Walk with me a bit. It’ll do me good.”
While he agreed with her intent, he wasn’t so sure strolling around the loch barefoot and wearing nothing but her shift and a shawl was the best way to go about it. “Perhaps ye should dress first. The ground’s still damp and cold enough to chill ye.”
She looked down at her toes, wiggling them atop the packed dirt in front of the bench. “Perhaps ye’re right. It does seem a mite on the cool side.” With a determined dip of her chin, she turned and headed toward the door. “We should tell Mairi and Anne so they can help me get ready.” She stopped and frowned. “I’m going to miss the twins.”
“We’re nay leaving forever,” he reminded. “Just until we can sort out the Bruce and convince him to reward me with the land he’s been promising all these years. After all, we need our own home to fill with our bairns.”
“Bairns?” she repeated, not only looking leery but ready to run.
“Aye. Do the women in yer time not wish to become mothers?”
“Some do. Others don’t, and I know from personal experience, that those who dinna wish to have children, shouldna be pressured into doing it.”
Her tone echoed with uncertainty and something else he wasn’t so sure he liked. Was she saying she didn’t wish to have his child? He tried to read her expression. Shadows subdued the vivid green of her eyes. Nothing told him what he wished to hear.
She stared at him. Her troubling expression shifted to a worried frown. “Now is not the time for us to have this discussion. Our first order is to get ye sorted with the Bruce, then we’ll figure out the rest.” She reached for him. When he took her hand, she squeezed it. “Ye had to have known that a life with me wouldna be easy or uncomplicated.” She paused, then peered at him more intently to pull the answer from him. “Ye understood that, aye?”
“Aye, I knew that.” He gently pulled her into his arms and held her. “And I dinna regret my choice for a moment, dear one. Not for a blink of an eye do I regret it.”
She rested her head on his chest as if weary beyond measure. “I’m glad,” she whispered. “Most have always given up on me.” She shifted, lifting her face to his and stirring his heart with a loving smile. “But not my fine Highland warrior.” She patted his chest. “Now, give us a kiss, then help me inside so we can speak with Anne and Mairi about our plans.”
Her supple lips tasted sweet as ever. Sweeter, if possible. Once the kiss started, he hated to end it, but her health came first. She barely possessed the strength to walk across the length of the cottage. Lovemaking would wait until she was stronger. He ached in anticipation.
Chapter Ten
“Are ye comfortable? Enough pillows and blankets?” Kane tucked the throws and shawls around her, fussing worse than a mother hen tending her first clutch of chicks.
“I am fine.” Satia caught hold of his hands and leaned forward. “Now give me a kiss for luck and go get on yer horse.”
His face, a storm cloud of worry, he leaned closer and framed her face with his hands. “I dinna need luck. I need yer love and good health. That is all.”
“Ye have it.” She struggled to keep her lips from trembling as she tried to placate him with an encouraging smile. How could she already love this man so hard, and he really love her back? “I love ye, my fine warrior. Now, let’s get on with this trip.”
He kissed her again, slow enough that his reluctance to start the journey flowed into her. As much as she hated to, she gently pushed him away. “Go. Now. I’m sure the lads are getting antsy.”
“Antsy?”
“More than a little ready to get going.”
Understanding filled his face. “Aye, I’m sure they are.” He turned and fixed Anne with a pointed stare that betrayed his concerns even more. “Call out if she has need of anything at all, ye ken? Dinna listen to her. Do what she needs to keep her safe and comfortable, aye?”
“Ye know I will.” Anne gave a gracious nod, then shooed him away. “On wi’ ye now, or ye’ll wear her out before we even get started.”
With a curt dip of his chin, he stepped down from the boxy, four-wheeled contraption, closed the door, then tested the latch to make sure it caught before striding out of sight.
“I swear that man worries worse than a new mother,” Anne said. “I’ve never seen him fuss this way.” She cleared her throat and settled more comfortably into the pillows on her side of the carriage. “Ye couldna ask for a better husband, ye ken?” She offered a faint smile as she drew her knitting from a bag beside her.
“I’m beginning to understand that.” Satia peered out the window, quite comfortable, lounging with her legs stretched across the seat. A cushioned seat even. Jac and Rob had borrowed well. Thank goodness they’d not gotten caught. They had postponed the trip to Edinburgh for a few days while they scraped away the red tint from the carriage’s sides. They dulled it even more with a drab black concoction mixed with fat and other questionable substances to make it waterproof and lasting. By the time they finished, she had to admit, the conveyance looked nothing like it had when they showed up with it.
She liked the wide windows with the leather flaps rolled up and secured to let in the breeze and sunlight. If the weather turned, the shades wouldn’t keep out all the rain, but they would be dryer than the men on horseback. She adjusted the knitted fingerless gloves that reached to her elbows, keeping her forearms cozy and warm. “These are lovely, Anne. Such a soft blue. Thank ye again.”
“Ye are quite welcome.” Anne didn’t lift her attention from her knitting. “With not a bit of fat on yer bones, ye’ll chill too easily, even with it being almost May. I thought them proper and needed.” She looped the yarn around the tips of the long wooden needles, worn smooth and stained a dark brown with much use.
“What are ye making now?” Satia found Anne more difficult to talk with than Mairi. While the young woman possessed a kind temperament, she had no use for frivolity or mindless chatting, and she wouldn’t hesitate to tell you so. “Is it a scarf?”
“Not exactly.” Anne held up her creation. It looked like the beginnings of a cowl-necked sweater Satia once owned. “’Twill stay around yer neck and shoulders with no pins, ye ken? Ye can even pull it up to cover yer head if ye wish.”
“Verra grand, indeed.” And it was. Satia couldn’t imagine attempting to make such a thing.
“I can teach ye, if ye like.” Anne glanced up from her work, her perception perking like a cat spotting a mouse. “But ye wouldna like to learn, would ye?”
“I’m afraid I wouldna have the patience for it.” Satia gave a faint shrug. “Sorry.”
“Dinna be sorry.” Anne returned her full attention to her knitting. “Ye are who ye are.” Her lips pursed as her head tilted slightly. “But ye will need to learn knitting and sewing so ye can do for yer bairns, ye ken? Babes need their caps and blankets.”
There it was again. Bairns. Was procreating such a priority in this century? It occurred to her that since she had now been in the fourteenth century for well over a month, any prescription measures to level out her hormones as well as prevent pregnancy had long since weakened to the point of being useless. As a fertile young woman, or so she assumed, if she didn’t wish to become a mother, she better figure out a means of birth control.
“Ye dinna want bairns,” Anne noted, her knitting needles pausing mid-stitch. It didn’t sound like an accusation, merely an observation.
“Not really.” Honesty seemed best with Anne, even though it might make or break any chance of friendship with this particular McBride sister. If it quelled their friendship, she’d be down to two: Mairi and Jennet.
Anne’s dark brows rose until they nearly touched her light brown hairline. “I see.” Without another word, she returned to her knitting.
“Ye see?”
Her forehead puckering with concentration, the lass brought her knitting closer and squinted at what appeared to be a difficult stitch. “Aye. I see,” she repeated, sounding distracted.
“No preaching?” Satia needed the woman’s approval, for what reason she couldn’t fathom.
“Preaching?” Anne frowned at the knitting, pulled one needle free of the yarn, and unraveled several rows of stitching. “Do ye mean scolding?”
“Aye. Scolding that I should do my best to pop out as many babies as Kane can father.” Perhaps she could have worded that better, but it was too late now. She heaved a grand sigh and folded her hands in her lap. “I dinna wish to have children because I dinna wish to ruin them the way my mother ruined me.”
Her expressive brows quirking again, Anne stared at her for an uncomfortable amount of time, then looked back down at her yarn. “Ye dinna seem ruined to me.” Her head tipped to the side with another twitch of her shoulder. “I will admit ye are a mite odd, but I wouldna say ruint.” She paused her stitchery and looked back up. “Why do ye think yerself unfit to be a mother? The twins love ye like another auntie, and ye seem to like them well enough. I’ve never seen ye do anything ill against them.”
“It’s complicated.” Satia wasn’t about to rehash the details of her childhood, both for Anne’s sake and her own. Some pasts were better left unvisited. She lowered her voice even though the loud, squeaking rattle of the carriage bumping across the rough ground would hide a conversation better than a soundproof room. “How do women in this time not have children?”
“They dinna lay with their husbands—or any other man for that matter.”
“Well, obviously.” Anne wasn’t making this easy. “But if they do lay with their husbands, then how?” Satia hoped the woman would come out with something other than prayer or wishful thinking.
Anne stole a glance out both windows as if about to commit a crime. “Seeds of the wild carrot. Ye must chew them within a few hours of bed play. Or a bit of wool soaked in tansy oil. Put it up inside ye before ye lay with him. If ye canna find tansy, they say vinegar works, too.” She leaned forward, looked out the windows again, and checked all directions. “But ye must never speak of such things with anyone other than myself or my sisters. The church forbids it, and they have accused many a woman of witchery when, in fact, she’s done nothing more than try to control her own life and her body.” Her scowl hardened. “And even the seeds dinna always work. Mairi’s bairns survived them.” She hurried to lift a forefinger and shake it. “Now, dinna think I dinna love those two wee mites more than life itself. But when Mairi first discovered she carried them, we sorely feared she would end her life because of it. Every time they moved, it reminded her of that cruel bastard and what he had done.”
“It had to have been a terrible time.” She did her best to put Anne at ease. “I’m honored to know all of ye. Ye’re some of the strongest women I have ever met.”
“Ye possess a fair bit of braw canniness yerself.” Anne gave a friendly wink. “All the lads fear ye. Ye must tell me yer secret someday, so I might use it myself.”
Satia laughed. “Ye’re more powerful than ye realize. Not a one of them would cross ye.”
“Well, we must keep them in line.” With the errant stitches corrected, Anne reinserted the rod of wood back into the yarn and returned to her work, the rhythmic dance of the needles mesmerizing.
“I do want to make him happy,” Satia said, needing Anne to understand. The admission somewhat surprised her. It wasn’t that she wanted him unhappy; she had just never expected to have a husband. “I’m afraid I’m ill-equipped in this centur—I was never taught that much about being a married woman.” She bit her tongue, hoping Anne would be gracious enough to ignore the bungling near slip.
Anne didn’t. The dance of the knitting needles halted. “What did ye start to say and then stop yerself? Mairi and I noticed ye do that a lot, but we thought it might be confusion caused by the fevers. Is that so, or have ye always been this way?”
Satia took the easy out. “The fevers.” She bobbed her head with a quick nod. “Definitely, the fevers. Seems like my thoughts get all jumbled while I’m trying to talk.”
Anne gave her a commiserating look. “Poor lamb. I’m sure that’ll get better with time.”
“I hope so.” Satia meant that more than Anne could ever realize. “I can sew buttons and stitch rips and tears,” she said, trying to veer the subject back to safer ground.
“That’ll be more than a little handy.” Head bowed over her work, Anne’s nimble hands moved the needles faster. “What about cooking and cleaning?”
“Well, of course, I can clean.” Satia flipped a hand at the silliness of the question. Of course, there was no risk of Anne ever seeing the jumbled state of the flat she and Breanna had shared.
