Lois Greiman (16 page)

T
he sun sank deep in a crimson sky.

Fatigue rode Keelan like a demon. He had given the girl Chetfield’s old tunic sometime back, saying it was for chivalry’s sake, but it was more for his own peace of mind. Her impromptu moorings hadn’t held her bodice in place as well as she might have hoped, thus he had covered her in gray muslin from shoulder to knee. Still, the feel of her back against his bare skin was almost more than he could bear.

By the time they reached Ramston, Keelan was at wit’s end. By the time they reached the Fox and Hounds, his hands were shaking. If pressed, he was prepared to blame it on fatigue.

They had gathered something of a crowd, but Charity rode straight as a ramrod despite her bare legs and tousled hair. Even Lambkin, whose head poked inquisitively from a giant
saddlebag, did nothing to ruffle her haughty demeanor.

An innkeeper bustled out of his establishment, eyes as round as his belly, already talking as Keelan shoved Lambkin deeper into the bag. “I fear we’ve no room—”

“My good sir,” Charity interrupted, tone arrogant, “I am Lady Tempton. As you may have guessed, we were set upon by miscreants. My manservant…” She glanced imperiously over her shoulder.

“Was lost,” Keelan said, kicking his mind into gear before he was relegated back to rodent status. Slipping from the gelding’s haunches, he tried to match the girl’s noble demeanor. “A terrible thing. Terrible. Poor Davey.” He would never obtain the lassie’s sterling ability to lie, but he would give it a mighty effort. “He was like a brother. Upon a time we would—”

She toed him in the ribs with the tip of her tattered shoe. He gritted his teeth and tried not to glower.

“We realize how we must look to decent, God-fearing folk such as yourself,” she said, “but we cannot turn back. My dearest father, the Duke of Bant, is at death’s very door, and—” Her soliloquy was stopped by a quiet deluge of tears.

Keelan glanced up, impressed as hell. ’Twas all but impossible to keep pace.

“There, there, my dear,” said the innkeeper, hobbling forward and patting her knee. It was bare. She glanced at him from the corner of a sloppy eye.

“I do not mean to seem indelicate,” he said, and cleared his throat, though his tone was just as nasal when he spoke again. “But I’ve heard tales before, only to be left with no coin while my guests slip away in the night.”

She straightened in the saddle, pushing her breasts out against old Chetfield’s damnably lucky shirt. “Do I look like some vagabond—”

“We shall sell the horse,” Keelan interrupted, doing his best to hush his wild Celtic burr. “In the morning. And give you a goodly share.”

The innkeeper narrowed his eyes. “But what of the lady’s father?”

Damn! He’d forgotten entirely about the poor Duke of…whatever. Fook it! He was too tired to remember the angles.

“We shall be forced to procure another means of travel,” Charity said. “As I do not believe in incurring debt.”

The fat man eyed them carefully, then: “Very well,” he said finally.

Some minutes later they were ushered into
the inn. The stairs were almost more than Keelan could manage, but he followed the girl’s backside up the steps to their rented chamber.

The room was nothing special, or would not have been, had it not been for the bed. It called to him like a siren song, but Charity reached it first. Seated on the mattress, she pulled off the filthy tunic and tossed it to the floor just as Keelan lifted Lambkin from the bag. Breasts all but bare, she scowled at him.

He stared dazedly back, but before he made any sort of move, she had turned her back to him and fallen asleep, staff clutched in one grubby hand.

A dozen possible scenarios kept him awake far longer than he would have thought possible, but finally he set the lamb between them, dropped onto his side of bed, and fell soundly into sleep.

He awoke to waning daylight, but as far as he could tell she had not yet moved. Her lashes made dark crescents over her pale cheeks, and her hand was still curled firmly over the staff.

Thus Keelan lifted the sleepy lamb from her warm cradle, hid her in her leather pouch, and wandered groggily down the stairs. The air outside was cool and rain-washed. Leaving Lambkin to graze on a patch of sweet clover that grew be
tween the inn and the smithy’s shop, he secured a simple meal of bread and honey, then settled beside the little ewe. From this vantage point, he could watch the window of the chamber where the girl slept. Behind him, a dark-haired fellow with forearms like country hams pounded nails into a gray cob’s near fore.

Keelan sat quietly, remembering the hours just past. Surprisingly, he had dreamed, but not of evil times long past. Instead he had imaged Toft standing at his bedside, looking down, watching him sleep. Or had it been a dream a’tall? If the old man had used his eerie gifts to arrive there in the flesh, he could have at least left a bottle and a loaf. Although a score of battle-ready soldiers would have been even better.

Near the smithy, a tall boy of ten or so watched from the shade of a spreading walnut tree. His auburn hair poked out at odd angles above evergreen eyes, and his dark, hand-me-down garments looked stark and baggy against his pale skin.

Dipping into the saddlebags taken from the gray, Keelan brought out the only thing of value that had been found there—a hand-carved wooden flute. It was a quick conversation after that.

Five minutes later, Keelan draped his newly purchased garments over his arm. After setting
a meal on a simple wooden board, he bore it and Lambkin back up the slanted stairs.

Upon reaching the top, he pushed the door open and stepped inside. Charity turned toward him as he entered, eyes half mast and red lips swollen. The drawer lace, he couldn’t help but notice, had completely abandoned its post, tearing through the last remnants of her bodice.

Keelan’s throat felt dry. Other parts weren’t so arid. “You sleep like the dead,” he said, and set Lambkin on the floor.

She sat up, tugging the bedsheet over her breasts. “That for me?” she asked, eyeing him sleepily.

A thousand bawdy replies rumbled through Keelan’s mind, but he merely handed over the tray.

The sheet slipped a hair as she settled the tray onto her lap and broke off a hunk of dark bread. Keelan watched as she drizzled on honey and licked her lips. He cleared his throat and turned toward the window. It had been far safer outside on the patch of sweet clover. “I found ye some clothes.”

She gave him a glance out of dark, bedroom eyes, lips quirking. “Because you can’t keep yourself from me much longer?”

He clenched his jaw, grinned, and sat down on the room’s only chair. “Because some think it improper to go aboot naked as a new-birthed bairn.”

She washed the bread down with a mug of cider and glanced at the breeches that hung over his arm. “Seems rather a small village to be stealing some poor gaffer’s only garments.”

He snorted and shifted uncomfortably in his chair, hoping she wouldn’t notice. “Mayhap ’tis some bonny maid’s husband’s.”

Taking the breeches from his arm, she held them up for inspection. “About my size, is he?” she asked.

He shrugged, nonplussed. “Mayhap she desired something on a grander scale.”

“You’re not exactly a brute, Highlander.”

“I wasn’t talking aboot me height, lass.”

“Still trying to impress me? Even after I’ve seen you…fully exposed?”

“Ye’re na me type, lass, or I would have been even more imposing.”

She laughed.

He gritted his teeth. “We should be off.”

“Should we?” Something flashed in her eyes. The realization that he had no idea what it was disconcerted him. “I was thinking this might be the best place for us till daylight.”

Certain of Keelan’s body parts agreed. But what of the ramifications of spending the night in such close quarters? Seeing her. Hearing her. Keelan had never been good at resisting temptation. Hell, maybe he’d never tried. But he could not trust this girl. Not as far as he could spit, and this once, this singular time, he must not fail, for his plans had changed, had morphed into something far different than he had intended. “I dunna think so, lass.”

She stared at him a moment, then canted her head as if in sympathy. “So that’s it,” she said.

“What’s it?”

“You don’t trust yourself with me.”

“Are ye daft?” he snorted, sounding winded. “’Tis ye I canna trust. I had to do the entirety of me business dealings below yon window for fear ye might flee at any given moment. Damned bright-eyed lad all but robbed me blind in exchange for his breeches and a wee bit of his time.”

She laughed and set the tray beside the staff, then rose to her feet. The sheet fell aside, baring all, or enough to make him feel faint.

“Tell me, Highlander, what would you pay for a bit of
my
time?” she asked.

Fook it all, his hands were shaking again. “Not as much as I paid the lad for his breeches,” he said.

“So you don’t find me attractive?” She stretched her arms above her head, pulling her breasts taut between the ragged edges of her bodice.

Merciful Mary! “’Tis yer bloodthirsty nature I find somewhat less than appealing,” he said, but the truth was less intelligent, for just then he thought it might be well worth death to lie with her just once.

“You’re afraid of me then?” she asked.

“I’m na a complete fool.” In fact, he actually was. His windpipe seemed to be seizing up at the sight of her.

She laughed and turned away as if to contest his statement. “Then it won’t bother you if I bathe?”

“On the contrary, me nose would welcome the change.”

She gave him a smile over her shoulder, then, bending at the waist, fed the remainder of her bread to the lambkin. Her buttocks pressed against the fragile fabric of her simple undergarment. “Have we any soap?” she asked.

He cleared his throat, tried to do the same with his mind. Impossible. “Mayhap,” he said, and pretended to search. A bar of soap lay on a worn towel near the basin. He picked it up and turned, only to see her just shedding her drawers. He felt his chin hit his cock.

“Scotsman?” she asked, and pivoted toward him.

“Holy God.”

“What’s that?” she asked, but he was already recovering, getting his wind, steadying his heart.

“Tell me, lass,” he said, and managed, just barely, to fumble the soap into her hands. “What has given you such a fook—refreshing lack of modesty?”

“Maybe it was my profession.”

“Which was what?”

She poured water from a chipped pitcher into a basin, dunked the soap, and began washing her hands. “An opera dancer,” she said.

“I dunna ken what that is.”

“Some say it’s a whore.”

He nodded numbly, picked up Lambkin, and held her on his throbbing lap.

“But prostitution…it’s quite a worthy profession really.”

Good God. And all this time he’d been keeping himself from her, thinking she was pure, unsullied. Or maybe it was because Chetfield would have killed him. Either way, it seemed like a horrid waste of time now. “I would never have guessed it. Not back at Crevan House.”

She rubbed her arms, working up a feeble
lather. He could just see the curve of her left breast past the snowy sweep of her back. “I have the theater to thank for that.”

Lambkin curled up on his lap. “So ye were an actress…also?”

She laughed. “I was an actress.”

He felt breathless. “I’m na sure how Myrtle fits into the image,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes for a moment, then laughed. “Myrtle. Mother’s milch cow. You’ve a good memory, Highlander. But I fear I lied. Mother was also a thespian by trade.”

What the hell was a thespian? His head was spinning. His wick was more focused. “And yer da? He approved of yer…way of life?”

“I didn’t actually know my father.” She kept her back to him when she said the words. Though it wasn’t as if he would have learned anything from her expression even under the best of circumstances. “So what of you, Scotsman? Were you born with a silver spoon?”

“Do I look the gentleman to ye?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “A bit.”

“I thought ye quite astute until this moment, lass.”

She watched him, eyes narrowed. “If not, then why your aversion to…the fashionable impure.”

“Is that a whore also?”

“Where have you been, Highlander? Certainly not among the improper beau monde.”

“I’ve been busy the last few…” Centuries. “…years. And I did na say I had an aversion.”

She laughed. “I’ve been walking about all but naked for days. Yet you’ve barely glanced at me.”

“Mayhap I have an aversion to being killed whilst I take me pleasure.”

“Ahh. A practical man.”

“I like to think so. But I’m flattered that ye are so verra attracted to me own humble self that ye would feel the need to disrobe at every opportunity. Especially considering yer vast amount of experience.”

She smiled. “How sweetly naïve of you.”

“Are ye saying ye dunna want me, lass?”

She dried her arms, breasts bobbling. “That is, in fact, what I am saying.”

“Then why are ye forever strutting aboot…” He indicated her with a sweep of his hand. “…as ye do?”

“I don’t like to see men think too hard.”

He raised a brow.

“Admit it, Highlander. You’ve thought of little else since I removed my first layer some days ago. Regardless of the fact that there were
more than a few who hoped to see you dead.”

He considered denying it, but ’twould do little good. “What was your price?” His voice sounded dry, unused.

She glanced at him over her shoulder.

He felt flushed, untried, shaken. “For…dancing,” he said.

Her smile was goodness personified. She must have been peerless on the stage. “You can’t afford me, Angel.”

“I have a gold bobbed staff.”

“No you don’t.”

The room was quiet. Good God, she was beautiful, stealing his breath, depleting his dubious good sense. “When this is through ye’ll na need to sell yerself again.”

She caught him from the corner of her eye and slipped her arms into the boy’s tunic he’d brought for her. “Maybe I liked it.”