Every Time with a Highlander (24 page)

“Here,” Undine said, tired to the bone and shivering in the night air. “Now.”

Michael slowed his walking long enough to give her a sidelong smile. “I've heard of forward women before, but that pretty much tops it.”

“
Ha.
” Her feet ached, her shoulders hurt, and she was nearly asleep on her feet. But the patch of red clover they were walking through would make a fine pillow for her head. “If I could move a muscle,” she said, kicking a few stones aside, “it wouldn't be to, well…”

“Do this?” He took her in his arms and gave her a thorough kiss. At once, her shoulders relaxed.

“You tempt me, sir.”

“What if I told you that you wouldn't have to move a muscle?”

“Could you tell me I wouldn't have to remain awake?”

He laughed and dropped his bag on the ground. “Unfortunately, there's a rule about that in the gentlemen's code. But if you insist…” He lifted her into his arms, laid her on the mound of clover, and then settled beside her with his back against a tree.

She sighed and closed her eyes. “This is more comfortable than the bed of the Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg.”

Michael made a noise that, if she'd forgotten, would have instantly reminded her he was Scottish.

“I'm going to assume that's a saying of some sort,” he said.

“Oh, aye.” She smiled and stretched her legs in the coolness of the stems and leaves. “It's a saying.”

He took her foot, and she stiffened. “What are you doing?”

Michael slipped off her mule. She cursed herself for changing for Morebright's dinner. Her boots would have been far more comfortable. “Did the prince not perform his duty as a masseur?” he said.

“Masseur—? Oh
my
. What are you doing?” He was rubbing the ball of her foot between his palms. She arched her back and closed her eyes. “That's…that's…soul splitting.”

“Naiads have souls?”

“Of course they do. What sort of a being do you think I am?” She sniffed.

“Slippery.”

“Pardon?”

“Slippery. Like the silk on corn or the mists on water. Hard to pin down. Hard to know. Yet as immovable as Ben Nevis.”

“That's not overly flattering.”

“It's not? I rather like it. It's like reaching out and never knowing if you're going to touch velvet or the fur of a tiger.”

With one hand on the ball and another on the heel, he twisted and turned her foot, releasing more of the soreness.

“You have a taste for danger, Michael Kent.” She groaned with pleasure.

“I have a taste for something else as well.”

Despite the hour and her feet, the hollow space in her belly began to fill. “Do you?”

He removed the other mule and squeezed her tender instep. She pressed her other foot against his thigh and could feel his long muscles move under her toes. His presence was an elixir like none she'd known.

“I gave you the most powerful travel herbs I know,” she said. “Why did you not use them?”

“You sound disappointed.” There was a smile in his voice.

“It used every bit of twinflower I owned—and that's not easy to come by.”

“It sounds like you wanted to send me as far away as you could.”

“I did.”

It was the truth, or had been then, and she couldn't disavow it. Any man who wished to stand beside her needed to speak the truth and be able to hear it as well.

He made a small
hmm
and tightened the circle in which he rubbed.

“Seducing my feet will not force me to retract my statement, you know,” she said, though, in fact, she would have promised nearly anything if he promised to continue this unorthodox rubbing.

“I am aiming somewhat higher.”

She snorted. “'Twas a home-finder spell with marigold
and
naiad tears, and I wouldn't have been the least surprised to find you took half the residents of Peeblesshire with you when spread the herbs.”

He held her foot between his palms in a long, apologetic embrace. “Well, that would have been a bit hard to explain. I wonder, is it even safe to have the herbs in my trouser pocket?”

“I can't say what might happen,” she said. “I can only imagine you'll end up being led into the performance of some very salacious penance.”

“Like rubbing your feet?”

“For a start. When I consider the power of your magic, I am half-inclined—”

“Undine, please tell me you know I hold no magical power over you. I should be very sad to have my acting overshadow the feelings—the true and unalterable feelings—you might have for me.”

He spoke soft and low, and the plea in his words unnerved her.

“The way you've made me feel…” She shook her head, afraid to believe. “I've never felt anything that so radiated magic.”

“But that doesn't make me a magician—just a man who fell in love with a woman who he hopes has fallen in love with him.”

She looked at her hands and feet as if the answer lay in some external force. “'Tis a very powerful force.”

“The most powerful of all.”

She sat up and reached for him. This kiss was different from the others they'd shared. This kiss—as light and open as a ray of sun—sealed a promise.

“I misjudged you,” he said, “and dishonored your work. I hope I'll earn your forgiveness.”

She smiled. “Oh, I believe you might.”

With a pleased sigh, she turned on her side and tried pushed her worries about Nab from her head. “You think he'll be there in the morning?”

“Aye,” Michael said. “I do.”

The Tweed gurgled a short distance from where they sat. For some reason, the sound made her think of her mother and all the things she'd lost.

“Tell me about your wife,” she said.

His hands stopped, but only for an instant. “Young,” he said wistfully, “beautiful, smart—
so
smart.”

“Was she a director too?”

“No.” He chuckled. “Nor an actor. She taught at the local school.”

“In Bankside?”

“No, but not far. We lived in Lewisham. We had no money.”

His rubbing had slowed. She'd opened a dam somewhere in time with her question, and he was making his way slowly upstream.

She turned around, laying the back of her head upon his thigh, and he began to comb his fingers absently through her hair.

“She died.”

“I could see the pain,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

“In a car crash. ‘Car.' It's sort of like a carriage without the—”

“I know what cars are.” She patted his knee, hoping to help him through the current.

“Right. Of course. Well, we hadn't been married very long. Four years. She was coming home from the chemist. She needed bandages. She'd burned herself cooking a stew the day before and wanted to cover the blister. She wasn't a very good cook, but she was determined to ‘make her mark,' as she said. I wouldn't have cared if we ate biscuits and tea every night. Honestly. Anyhow, the bandages were on the floor of the car—after, I mean. I remember thinking how weird it was that the crash had killed her but the bandages were still there.” He shook his head and sighed. “A lot of odd stuff goes through one's mind at a time like that.”

She took his hand and laced her fingers in his.

“I can see her,” Undine said. “Hair the color of warm coffee. Eyes like Grasmere lake. Ready smile.”

“As I said, she was everything back then.”

“I don't mean back then. I mean I can see her now.”

His breath caught.

“She's quite content, Michael. They don't have the regrets we have, you see. She's around you at all times. She wants you to know she didn't feel or know anything when it happened. No fear. No pain.”

Michael's hold on her hand grew tighter, and she knew he was crying. Undine didn't
know
everything she'd just said. That wasn't how the information came to her, in neat, readable summaries. But the colors of his young wife in her head were a mix of cool and settled violets, and one said what one needed to, to bring people peace.

Undine squeezed his hand. “She also says you're too good an actor to have given it up.”

This happened to be Undine's own opinion, but she had no doubt it was his wife's as well. The violets swirled and lit.

I shall care for him
, she said
. You may rest now.

For a long time Michael said nothing. And the next thing she knew, she was asleep. And the after that, he was asleep too, breathing steadily, arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

Nab jerked awake to the screech of the stable doors being opened. It was still black as pitch out, and he was so tired, but he knew he couldn't have slept more than a bit. This part of the stables' low-pitched roof was hidden by the trees. He could lie comfortably and still observe the entrance.

He sat up, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

“…why we have to leave in the middle of the night, I don't know.”

“It's not for us to wonder. Just get the horses ready.”

The second voice was Tom's. The first must be another servant.

“I hear old Morebright sent out a search party,” the first said. “Do ye think Bridgewater's new lady threw him over? They were just married this evening! I don't think my wife threatened leaving until we were married at least a year.”

“That has to be a record for men in your family.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Stop talking and get the horses, aye?”

Nab had slipped the papers through a narrow slit in the wall closest to him. He hoped the papers hadn't ended up near where the tack for the horses was stored.

Silently, he climbed down the nearest tree, swallowing the groans his bruised ribs and legs were causing, and waited. The men worked near the far wall, and as his eyes got used to the dark, he could see part of a stall inside that would cover his movements if he was quiet.

The building was dark and smelled of hay and shit. The horses had begun to nicker and move in their stalls, surprised to be aroused at this hour, and with their noise, he ducked easily behind the stall wall. The floor at his feet was piled high with sodden straw, and in a pinch, he could dive into it, though he dearly hoped that wouldn't be necessary. He felt gently along the wall for the slit and found it at last over some brooms leaning against the wall. The men were consumed with their efforts to adjust an uncooperative buckle.

He ran his hands gingerly over the ground, trying to avoid the wettest sections.
Ugh.
He wasn't too particular, but even he was going to want to wash off in the river after this. He found the papers, which made a crackle. The men stopped talking. Nab held his breath.

“Do ye think that'll hold?” the first man said.

“It'll be good enough to get us to Coldstream.”

Nab slipped out the door and edged quickly around the building until he was out of sight of the house and the men in the stables. Then, he folded the papers and stuffed them in his pocket. He was flushed with the success of his mission. The words on the paper would damn Lord Bridgewater to a fate worse than death—though death would be a pleasing proposition for a man planning to stage a clan attack on English soldiers. Kent assured him the uncovering of the plan would put a nut in England's plans for the treaty as well. But most of all, Nab was happy because he knew he'd have earned his place among the grown-ups in the secret group of rebels. He thought of his mother and how proud she'd be, and his heart ached a little. He wasn't a child anymore and didn't need to be taken care of, but he hadn't been to Langholm in a month at least, and he missed her and his baby sister.

He rubbed his hands on his breeks and jogged toward the river. A quick washup followed by a walk long enough to put him out of the reach of Morebright and Bridgewater, and then he could sleep for a bit and still meet Undine and Kent in the morning.

He shoved through a tangle of low branches and a metallic
click
made him stop.

“Good evening, lad,” Bridgewater said and slapped a hand on his collar. “I think it's time for you and me to have a talk.”

General Silverbridge's makeshift camp outside Caddonfoot was appropriately busy for the morning, and a polite soldier directed them to the church in a town three miles away, where Silverbridge was holding office for the day. Michael hoped Nab would be given the same direction.

The morning was pleasant, and before another hour passed, he and Undine came to the town and made their way to the church. Michael felt his ire rise when he saw the poor clergyman standing outside, having, it seemed, been evicted from his home by a bunch of war-waging English soldiers.

“Good morning, Father,” Michael said, bowing deeply. He'd decided to put on Duncan's plaid that morning, feeling very much a Scot when he woke, and the hem brushed his shoes.

“G'day to you, son,” the man said, though he couldn't have been more than a few years older than Michael himself. He had jet-black hair mixed with gray, a friendly smile, and eyes as piercing as a hawk's. “Welcome to our town. Are ye and your wife traveling through?”

Michael realized the curate must know every face in the village and therefore knew them to be outsiders.

“We are, though she's not my wife,” he added, finding himself unable to lie to a churchman.

“Not yet,” Undine said with a smile and a curtsy.

Michael introduced them and explained they were looking for the general.

“
Och
, well, ye dinna have to look far,” the clergyman said. “He and his officers have been camped out in the church since sunup.”

Michael's eyes were drawn to the quaint, moss-covered roof, humble steeple, and ancient, arched side door.

“I apologize for my countrymen,” Undine said. “They show their ill breeding and worse when they take what isn't theirs. And a church, no less.” She clucked her tongue.

Michael started so hard his companions turned.

“That's Kirk of the Forest, isn't it?” he said, pointing to the church, shocked to the bone.

“Aye, it is,” the clergyman said proudly.

“Th-that's where William Wallace was declared guardian of Scotland.”

“Indeed, it is, sir.”

Michael didn't know why he was so shocked. He'd spent his childhood half an hour away and had come many times to the place Scots held an almost religious fervor for. Then he realized why he was surprised. The kirk he'd visited as a child had been in ruins. The one before him now was fully functional—the kind of charming village church you'd find in the center of every Scottish town, from Gretna to John o' Groats. He spun around to look at the kirkyard and was instantly transported to shoving match between him and Rob MacBain that ended in an excruciating detention for both of them. It was a wonder he'd made it through school.

“Do ye want to go in?” Undine said.

“Oh, aye!” And there it was again, he thought, the accent of his childhood. If he stayed here much longer—

He stopped. Much to his surprise, he found he had no desire at all to return to London of the twenty-first century. Sure, it had theater and Indian food—any food at this point, really, as he hadn't eaten since the night before—and cars and full-bodied Tempranillos and clean, white sheets and the house he'd lived in with Deirdre—

Aye, even the house he'd lived in with Deirdre. He'd give that up to be here, with Undine, feeling useful again, feeling needed again, feeling alive again. And somehow, he knew Deirdre would approve.

Apparently, running for his life, going hungry, and sleeping rough was not too bad a hardship for him. He looked at the long, sensuous curve of Undine's neck and remembered how soft the skin he'd caressed there had been. If that was sleeping rough, he'd choose it over a real bed any day—even the bed of the Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg—the blackguard.

The clergyman, whose name was Mr. Fleming, led them to the door. “I willna venture in, but if you say the officer has an appointment with you…”

“I'm most aggrieved on your behalf, sir,” Undine said. “And I will certainly say something to General Silverbridge about taking up residence in your church.”

“Dinna fash yourself, lass. In truth, it probably does their souls good,” he said, then added under his breath, “and I think they can use as much help as they can get.”