The Lady and the Knight (Highland Brides) Page 4

  Reaching behind him, Boden opened his saddle pack and withdrew a chunk of bread wrapped in linen. He pushed it toward her. "Eat this. Tis all I can offer for now."

  She glanced up at him. An errant slash of sunlight found its way through the leaves beside the trail, and in it he saw that her eyes were an unearthly blue. "What do ye plan to do with us?" she asked.

  What did he plan, or what did he wish to do with her? They were far different things. But he guessed she would not appreciate his advances, for there was still fear in her eyes.

  "Why are you afraid of me?" He asked the question out loud, though he hadn't meant to.

  She was silent for a moment, then. "Twas it na ye who accused me of abduction and worse?"

  "Well..." He scowled, feeling guilty.

  "Wasn't it ye who ran me down as if I were a rabid hound, who threatened me with death?"

  "Aye, but..." He winced as he shrugged. "I'm granting you a ride on Mettle now." The statement sounded lame even to his own ears.

  She turned to face forward. "What are ye planning for us?"

  "I'm not planning murder or ravishment if that's your worry," he told her. "Eat this."

  "It seems I am already in your debt."

  "Tis good of you to notice," he said irritably.

  "I but thought ye were one of the brigands," she explained.

  "You can be certain in the future I'll declare my intentions clearly before rescuing any damsels in distress."

  Her gaze skimmed to his arm. She grimaced. "I am sorry about your wounds."

  "Not nearly so sorry as I, I'll wager."

  Her expression became even more contrite. "I canna take your bread," she said. Her profile was almost painfully perfect, her nose dusted with just a sprinkling of pale freckles.

  "The last thing I need is for you to faint dead away," he said. "Tis bad enough supporting you when you're awake."

  She centered herself immediately, leaning her slight weight out of his arms, and he smiled at the back of her head. Whoever this woman was, she was far too conscientious.

  "Eat the bread," he said. "I'll hunt soon."

  "Nay." Her voice sounded panicked. "The babe canna last much longer. We mustn't stop until we find milk."

  Boden scowled at the top of the infant's head again. He'd heard that some women yearned endlessly for such a helpless babe to nurse. Looking at this one, it seemed difficult to believe. Still, twas his duty to protect. He had taken an oath.

  "Take this," he demanded, lifting the bread toward her again. "You'll do the child little good if you're dead."

  She finally did, slowly, though her hand shook, proving the depth of her need. She took a bite while he watched. Mettle turned and laid back his ears. The steed had a weakness for bread. Boden ignored his histrionics.

  "Will the babe take water?"

  "Aye."

  Boden abruptly realized she had ripped the bottom portion of her green linen cloak in half to make the baby's sling. She pushed the remainder of the garment aside now, showing him a strange, hollowed gourd that hung from a strip of cloth. At the bottom it had a small growth perhaps the size of his little finger.

  "Each day he's taken a bit of water from the tip of the gourd, but he needs milk badly," she said.

  "Nursemaids are hard to find in the midst of nowhere," Boden warned.

  "But I must." She raised her eyes again. There was panic there and pleading. "I must not stop until I do."

  He should hunt, let Mettle rest, see to his wounds, which, by the by, hurt like hell. But her eyes were very blue, and the thought of refusing her never crossed his mind.

  "The roads may be watched," he said.

  "Watched?"

  "What did they want? The brigands who attacked you."

  "I dunna know. The usual, I suspect. Coin, jewels."

  "And the villains that attacked Caroline's party, what of them? What did they want?"

  "I couldn't say."

  Boden glanced down at her. Her response had been very quick, almost as if she were hiding something. His musings had been to himself, for rarely did he ride with a companion of any sort, other than Mettle. Although the charger was like a wildcat in a pinch, he wasn't much of a conversationalist.

  And in a thunderstorm he was little more than a damned nuisance.

  "What time of day did you say you were attacked?" Boden asked.

  "Evening. Twas the day afore yesterday."

  "How many brigands would you guess?"

  "Ten? But mayhap fear multiplied their number."

  "Did they attack from the woods as you passed, or had you stopped for some reason?"

  "We stopped, as I told ye. Shona's mount had gone lame."

  "How?"

  "I dunna know."

  "How many guards did you have with you?''

  She paused.

  "Four."

  "Why so few?"

  "They dunna work for naught."

  "But you said your father is wealthy. Surely he would help you pay."

  "But I—"

  "What's your father's name?"

  "Gregor—MacDuff."

  "A Scot?"

  "Aye."

  "But Bernadette is a French name."

  "My mother is French."

  "I thought she was dead."

  She stopped. Was there panic in her eyes? "I did not say she was dead."

  He still watched her, trying to read her thoughts. "I must have gotten the wrong impression."

  "Ye think I lie," she deduced.

  "Nay," he said. They'd come to a road, a gray ribbon of trail that wound between the trees into the gathering night. He urged Mettle into a high-stepping canter. "Why would a lady lie?"

  Sara laughed. She was with Liam and her cousins—clever Rachel, fiery Shona. They were en route to a fair, bouncing along on the hay in a wagon, braiding wild-flower wreaths and laughing at Liam's tricks.

  The weather was idyllic, the sky an indigo blue, dotted with puffy clouds that threatened nothing more dire than tickling the imagination. Beside them the countryside rolled away in verdant shades. A river wound along the road, and there, just to their right, was a single boulder, shaped like a great white shell. If they went past the boulder and up the hill they would find a crofter's cottage, she knew.

  But they would not. They would proceed on to the fair and the revelers there. Maybe her father would buy her a trinket. A silver mirror perhaps, or— Lightning shattered her world. A voice shook the earth. Eerie, opaque eyes glared at her from a wizened face.

  She awoke with a cry of alarm.

  "Easy."

  The voice startled her and she jumped, straining away to stare at the man behind her.

  "Who are you?"

  "It matters little how long you sleep, I'll still be the same man," said Blackblade.

  "Oh." Reality was settling in, and though she knew her circumstances were grim, they weren't so bad as she had dreamed. Could she really have slept through the night? she wondered, seeing the sun's first rays sweep over the trees ahead. She gripped Thomas to her, suddenly afraid she would find him gone. But he was there, fast asleep in his makeshift cocoon. Her breathing came easier. "I must have fallen asleep."

  "Tis a possibility," he said, and flexed his arm, as if to stretch the stiffness from it.

  "I am sorry. I did not mean to be a burden."

  He watched her face for a moment, making her blush. Time and silence stretched between them.

  "Perhaps you should not have stabbed me then." He paused. "Twice."

  "I am truly sorry." She fingered Dragonheart. It felt warm where it lay against her skin. "I thought ye were a brigand."

  "So you've said. And now that you know better?"

  She watched him as she searched for words. His eyes were dark, his brows black, his skin tanned. His jaw was strong and stubbled by several days of growth. A stranger's face, and yet it was hauntingly familiar. The face from her dreams. "I know not what to think when...

  "Look!" She jerked her ga
ze to the left where a white, shell-shaped boulder lay near a rolling stream. "The rock! The rock by the crofter's cottage."

  He stopped his steed with the slightest of motions. "You've been here before?"

  Messages blurred in her mind. Time sagged. Reality wavered, then firmed.

  "No," she murmured. "No I have not" She could feel his deep gaze on her face. ' 'But it seemed... so familiar somehow. My dream. We were in a wagon. Liam had filched Rachel's hair for ribbons and turned them into bluebells while Shona and I told riddles." She stopped abruptly, noticing his gaze hadn't shifted for the briefest of moments from her face. "Ye think I am daft."

  "The possibility has crossed my mind," he said, his deep voice barely audible in the stillness, his body pressed up against hers so that she could feel his warmth, the strength of his arms around her.

  "And are ye in the habit of humoring daft women that ye find in the woods?'' she asked breathlessly.

  "That depends."

  "On what?"

  "On whether they have any more knives stashed away on their person."

  She shivered a little, but whether it was from fear, or a chill, or the gravelly feel of his voice on her ears, she couldn't tell. "I'm fresh out of knives," she whispered.

  The corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "What did you have in mind?''

  "Over the hillock and down, might it not be a likely place for a farm?"

  "Tis a long way from nowhere, with little defense."

  A warrior's logic, she thought. "My wee babe canna go much farther. He must have milk."

  The knight's eyes were piercing. For a moment she thought he would insist on continuing on, but finally he lifted his hand and turned the stallion from the road.

  Chapter 3

  The countryside was bumpy with tussocks of springy, green grasses and flat, gray rocks. The charger struggled over them, breathing hard. Sara leaned forward, placing a hand on his muscled neck and gazing breathlessly over his armored poll. There had to be a farm up ahead. There had to be something. She and Thomas had survived against the odds this long. Surely God didn't intend for them to die now.

  They topped the hillock, weaved through a stand of gnarled elders, and stopped.

  "There!" she cried, seeing the small crofter's cottage through the trees. "God be blessed. There it is."

  "How did you know?" Boden asked, sitting very still behind her.

  "I did not know. I but hoped."

  "But how could you guess there might be a farm here?"

  How indeed? She had no answers, and feared voicing her own questions. "There is no time to spare, sir," she said. "The child needs milk and he needs it soon. Please."

  "There's little hope of finding a nursemaid this far afield," he said, but he cued the stallion to move forward. Mettle, however, remained as he was. "There might be mares," Boden murmured and kicked him more soundly.

  The steed flickered his ears back, remained still for a moment as if in thought, then arched his neck and pranced forward. They moved with cadenced grace now, through the woods, past a lean-to to a squat, dark cottage.

  There was a bang and clatter from the hovel, then, "Hold still ya damned bitch!" someone roared.

  Sara started at the noise. Mettle stopped, dropping his big head and champing his bit.

  With the slant of the morning sun, they could see well into the house.

  A white-haired man stood in a bandy-legged stance with his back to the door. A fawn colored goat leaped from the table, trailing a frayed rope behind her. Three others skidded out the door. The man cursed again, then turning, saw his visitors and jerked in surprise. But in a moment, he'd collected himself and grabbed a pitchfork from outside the door.

  "Off with ya!" he yelled. He stood, scrawny legs spread as he brandished the weapon. "Off with ya, if ya hope to see the full light of day."

  Boden sat very still. Could it be that some years from now he would be in just this situation?

  He could imagine himself standing splay-footed, armed with nothing but a two-tined wooden fork as he defended himself against an armored knight on horseback. It seemed a distinct possibility, since he had failed this all-important mission. But as things stood, he was not so lucky as to have a hovel like this to call his own. The thought was almost depressing enough to make him beg the old man to run him through with the fork.

  "We've not come to harm you," he said instead. "The babe is in need of milk. We hoped there might be a nursemaid about to aid us."

  "What?" The old man turned his head sharply to the side in an attempt to hear better.

  "Might there be a maid hereabouts that could nurse the babe?" Boden asked, raising his voice.

  "Huh?" A blue-veined hand raised to an oversized ear.

  "Do you know of a nursemaid in these parts?" Boden roared.

  "A nursemaid?" The old man lowered the fork slightly.

  "Aye."

  "A young woman to suckle the babe?" the codger shouted.

  "Aye," repeated Boden. "The babe cannot last much longer without sustenance."

  "Well, twould seem that luck be with ya this day," the old man yelled and cackled. "My Mabel twould be the one for the job. Mabel. Mabel," he croaked.

  Boden felt Sara stiffen with breathless hope.

  Then, through the doorway an old woman tottered. She was a hundred if she was a day.

  "Mabel," rasped the old fellow, "these good people need a maid to suckle their babe. I told them ya'd be up to the task."

  The old couple looked at each other then burst into cackling laughter.

  Sara drooped in Boden's arms like a plucked daffodil left too long in the sun. Anger ran through him, and for an instant, he considered rapping the old codger on the head just for sport. But he stifled that ungentlemanly impulse and settled for a scowl.

  "Mayhap you know of a maid nearby that might be better equipped," Boden said, but this suggestion only spurred the couple to greater hilarity.

  "Where do ya think ya be?" gasped the old man as he set his fork aside, "at bloody court? Nay.

  I've no idea where—''

  "A goat!" Sara gasped.

  The codger's guffaws quieted. "What?"

  "You have a milch goat," she said, her tone rife with excitement.

  The old man scowled, cliffing his brows over his watery eyes. "Aye, we have that, but I don't see what good that will do you."

  Sara lifted her gaze to Boden's for one quick instant. St. Peter's ears, her eyes were blue and entrancing as a summer sky! But Boden managed to wrench himself back to the business at hand.

  "Might we purchase a goat?" he asked.

  "Ya need a mother's breast to feed a babe," the woman said, letting her chuckles subside as she squinted against the sun at them.

  "We've no choice," said Sara. "If the babe does not get milk soon, he will surely die. Please help us."

  "Well!" The old man shifted his bird-bright gaze to his wife who met it and reflected the same fierce gleam. "Tilly could fulfill their need."

  "Aye. Tilly could." The old crone shifted her gaze to the pair on the horse and back to her husband. "But nay! They'll not have my Tilly."

  "There now," soothed the codger, creaking forward to pat his wife's humped back. "Tis for the babe."

  "Nay," croaked the woman, grasping her husband's sleeve with gnarled fingers. "Twould break my heart to part with our dear Tilly."

  "There there." He patted her hand and shouted the words. "Think of our David. When he was small."

  The old woman's face twisted into what might be called a reminiscent smile. "Such a sweet babe."

  "Aye, aye. Remember how he would cough?''

  The crone nodded. "David. Aye. He did cough."

  "Robert's daughter brought by a potent."

  "Such a sweet lass."

  "Aye, she was, and surely saved our David's life."

  The wife scraped a weathered finger below her eye as if wiping away a tear they could not see.

  She sniffled once. "But to give up our Tilly.
.."

  "Tis our Christian duty."

  She sniffled again, then turned, twisted her husband's tunic in her hands and wailed loudly into it.

  "There there." He patted her back as he shouted condolences. "There there."

  She continued to cry, loud, hacking noises that echoed in the open space. He patted her again.

  She lifted her face, sniffed. He patted.

  "Twould not be Christian to—" he began, but suddenly the wife wailed with renewed vigor.

  The old man scowled and patted harder. "There there!" he said, more forcefully this time.

  "We will pay, of course," Boden said, watching them closely.

  The old man nodded, seeming to have no trouble hearing those words. "We would not accept payment, but..." He paused and sniffed as if he, too, might join in his wife's piteous outburst. "We'll have to replace her—"

  "Replace Tilly!" the wife sobbed, looking up at them. "It cannot be done."

  "I am sorry." Sara's words were little more than a whisper. "If our need were not so great I would not ask."

  "Nay." The old woman waved a bent hand. "Ya must do what ya must for the child."

  "Aye," her husband agreed quickly. "What'll ya give us for her?"

  Boden watched the man for a moment, then opened a pouch behind his saddle and drew out a woolen blanket.

  But the old man was already shaking his head as he hobbled forward. "I've got blankets aplenty.

  What else have you got in there?"

  Frowning, Boden draped the blanket over Mettle's rump and pulled out a tightly wrapped bundle of soft hide. "Tis fine leather," he said. "Carefully tanned and dyed."

  "What is it?" the codger asked loudly.

  "Tis leather," Boden said. "Ready to be crafted into whatever you need."

  "Crafted! Do I look like a bloody tanner? Nay. By the time I got it made into something useful I'd be in the ground. What else have you got?" he asked, dipping his papery hand into the pouch and pulling out another bundle of leather. When he drew it out it fell open to reveal a finely tooled doublet.

  The old man smiled toothlessly up at Boden. "Ain't much to ask for the life of a child, I suppose. But it'll do."

  Boden scowled at the elderly couple. "I'd rather not part with that."