The Highlander’s Passion (Iron 0f The Highlands Series Book 3) Page 4

  Camden’s brown eyes held his and he nodded. A spark of admiration jumped between them. It was a long time, Everett thought, since he’d felt such a connection with another person. He had worked on his own for so many years – as a crewman, but always on the edge, the one the others shunned because he was too young, or too foreign – Highlanders were regarded with some suspicion in the dockyards – or too self-contained.

  “Aye, we’ll not,” Camden agreed. “Well said.”

  Everett went back to his dinner. When he was done, he leaned back and looked at the sky. It was dark, the bright firelight making it harder to see the stars overhead. It was cold out here on a hill in the woodlands overlooking the town, but with his cloak around his shoulders, he was warm.

  He was tired. It had been a long day, the second of the two days they had planned to spend recruiting to their cause. He was upset they had not managed to recruit anyone thus far.

  Maybe I’m a fool, with foolish thoughts.

  He closed his eyes. He wished for a moment that he could ask his father for advice. The man was a measured, sensible thinker. Somebody who might lack the heights of ambition, but who was solid and down-to-earth. He felt sure that his father would have been able to steer a sensible course through the mess they’d ended in.

  “I’m ready to go to sleep,” he admitted, stifling a yawn. Camden chuckled.

  “I might not wake up tomorrow – it’d take trumpets fit tae break into Jericho tae get me upright.”

  They all laughed. Even Lewes appreciated the humor, and often contributed his own ironic commentary. It was one of the only reasons Everett tolerated his presence.

  “Let’s go to sleep, then,” Everett agreed.

  He unrolled his cloak and lay down on the cold ground, making sure his side was close to the fire. It was the only way to stay warm out here.

  He was surprised when his thoughts drifted from plans to the time in the street. He couldn’t get the lass out of his recollections.

  Across from him, on the other side of the fire, Camden shifted and drew his cloak about him, making the leaves crackle underneath him. Everett sighed.

  Go to sleep, man.

  He tried to convince himself to just rest and forget about her, forget about the day. However, it proved harder, here alone with nothing else to think about as distraction. In his mind, he saw her again before him, her long hair unbound around her shoulders, her face stern as she looked at him, her height making it such that their eyes met.

  He shivered, though it wasn’t cold this close to the fireside. It was something to do with the way she confronted him, fearless and directly. He had never experienced that before – not from another person, male or female.

  He found his mind filling in details of her body. Her high breasts, her fine curves. He knew that he wanted her and he couldn’t deny it, no matter how hard he tried to convince himself otherwise.

  “I should have acted differently.”

  He couldn’t help but be wistful, imagining another outcome to the situation. He could at least have made friends with her, have managed to make her smile.

  Would it have been any more intimate, had you managed that?

  It seemed foolish to think it, but he’d felt almost as if, in that look, there had been a physical contact between them.

  He felt his body stirring as he recalled her wide gaze, those soft lips. He groaned and rolled onto his back, wrenching his blanket around him. Beside him, Camden snorted in alarm.

  “Sorry,” he murmured under his breath.

  Soon, his companion was sleeping again, his breathing deep and cyclic. He wished he could sleep so easily. However, his mind was troubled by his lack of success, and by the dark-haired presence.

  He must have slept, because the next thing he knew was the filtered pale morning and somebody singing.

  “Shut it, Lewes,” he groaned. He sat up, rubbing his hair. He heard Camden chuckle and turned to the fire, where Camden had set a pot over flames.

  “Making tea.”

  “Oh.” Everett smiled. “That’s nice.”

  He breathed in and caught the smell of bread and cheese. At least they had some breakfast to speak of. Running a hand through his dark hair, he reached for his cup to rinse out in the nearby burn.

  “You slept?” Camden asked him as he came back to the fire and sat down, wincing as his knees cracked. It was never particularly warm, sleeping out – he always woke with stiffness in the joints.

  He shook his head. “Not really.”

  “It isn’t the only town, Everett,” Camden said.

  Everett shook his head. “It’s not the army as is bothering me.”

  “What, then?”

  Everett drank down his tea, grimacing as the hot fluid ran down his cold throat. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Camden looked at him.

  “What?” Everett asked, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He felt his sourness of mood returning and made to stand, not wanting to sit and be bothered by his friend.

  Camden shrugged. “Just wondering what was making ye so restless.”

  Everett sighed and looked at his fingers. He didn’t want his sour mood alarming his colleagues in this venture. It was bad enough that their first recruiting mission had yielded so little, without his making them alarmed.

  “It’s something else,” he said. “When I was in town, I was surrounded in the street and…and somebody came out, to help. It was…she was a rare sort.”

  “She?”

  Everett looked sideways at his friend. “Aye. A lass. You want to laugh about it?”

  Camden looked into his eyes and must have seen an expression there that made him pause. He dropped his gaze. “If she saved ye, she must have been a rare lass.”

  Everett nodded. He ate some of the bread, sitting thinking about it. He felt ill at ease and uncomfortable, restless. It wasn’t anything to do with the unfortunate beginnings of the mission, and lots to do with her.

  Camden was looking at him when he looked up again.

  “What?”

  Camden shrugged. “I was just thinking, is all.”

  “Anything you want to tell me?” Everett narrowed his eyes at him.

  Camden was silent for long enough for Everett to think that he’d decided not to say anything. Then, surprisingly, he cleared his throat. “We don’t have tae leave until two days’ time. Ye said that. That we should stay and try to recruit in the nearby villages. So, why don’t you go to town?”

  “And do what?”

  Camden’s eyes held his and Everett knew what he was thinking even before he said it.

  “And, well, see if ye can see her again.”

  “No,” Everett said instantly. He was so sure the lass wanted nothing to do with him that he wasn’t about to risk seeing her. However, the moments of consideration showed him that it was not a bad idea.

  “When we go out to the villages, will you keep everybody back for a while?”

  Camden nodded. “Of course.”

  Everett finished his tea and stood. “Come on, lads,” he said. “Let’s go to the villages.”

  Lewes got to his feet, a strange look on his face. He resented his nominal authority, Everett knew. Yet, so far, he had kept silent about it, which was good enough.

  “When should we return?” Lewes asked.

  Camden glanced at Everett, who nodded to him.

  “We should be back here by six o’ clock.”

  The others nodded and, ten minutes later, Everett was headed down the hill again. He was heading down towards the main road that went to Leith.

  “This is not a bad idea,” he told himself firmly. What harm could it do? He’d have a chance to return to the town, and mayhap find out more about the state of the town, and these soldiers Camden heard about.

  He was whistling as he walked down the road toward the main gates.

  “State your business,” the guard demanded.

  Everett felt his hand clench into a fist at his side, but
he kept his face carefully neutral. “I’m here tae ply my trade,” he said. “I’m a mender.”

  The guard looked at him disbelievingly, and Everett shrugged and produced his sharpening tools.

  The guard yawned and let him past.

  In the town, he looked left and right. The gray mist rolling in off the river made the place seem dark and dank. He took in a deep breath, and was surprised by the excitement rolling in his stomach.

  He considered going to the inn, to glean information. It chafed on him to even think of it, and he found his feet taking him towards the street where the riot had been.

  He looked down the narrow street and headed up to where the captain’s house was. He couldn’t forget about the last time he had visited. His memory of the moment when she’d turned in the street and faced him flared bright inside him.

  “Come on, lad,” he told himself firmly.

  He found his feet taking him to the spacious house by the storage houses. As he passed the window, he paused and, drawing back against the frame, he peered inside cautiously.

  A fire was burning in the grate. He guessed the room to be some sort of kitchen – there was a table and a fireplace, and three people sat at the table. The window was a hole in the wall, covered with shutters, and he put his eye to the slit in the wood to peer in.

  One of the figures was the lass. Miss McCarrick! He could see her long brown hair, loose and face-framing. She was in the seat facing the window. On her left sat a man with gray hair and a long oval face and elegant nose, much like Miss McCarrick’s own. He guessed that to be Captain McCarrick. Beside the lass on her right side sat another man.

  Everett narrowed his gaze as he studied that long, grave face, the eyes surprisingly watchful. He felt an instant antipathy toward the man, though he could not have explained why he should have. He studied the other two people in the room, trying to gauge the identity of the third man.

  A son? He frowned. This man was younger than McCarrick, and had a long face and thin nose, and he could just possibly have been a son, assuming that he looked more like his late mother than he did like McCarrick himself.

  He watched as Miss McCarrick leaned across, asking him to pass her a dish. Her touch on his wrist was subtle, but obvious. Everett felt his heart fill with sudden anger.

  He made himself breathe out. The man was her husband, in all probability. What business of it was his?

  She’s not wed. They called her Miss McCarrick. Not Mrs.

  He felt himself breathe a little easier. He would have laughed at his own comic reactions, except that he wasn’t all that amused. He felt quite possessive of her already, even though he’d only met her two days earlier.

  He watched as the three people ate their midday meal, smiling and laughing and seeming in light spirits. He fancied that Miss McCarrick was somewhat subdued, but he dismissed the idea as arising from his own envious mind. Why would she have any reason to be uncomfortable around her own friends and family?

  He made himself turn away, intending to go back up the street and to the inn. Then, suddenly, somebody spoke from behind his shoulder.

  “I’ll just let some air in,” Miss McCarrick called out.

  The shutters flew back and one of them hit him resoundingly. He froze. He saw her stare through the gap in shock. Her eyes looked straight into his and her mouth fell into a surprisingly lovely little “o” of shock.

  Everett froze where he was. It was far too late to make himself scarce – she’d already seen him. All he could do was stay where he was and pray that she didn’t set the watch on him. He waited, heart thumping, while he heard her return to the table, the scrape and creak of her chair as she took her place there.

  Every instinct in him told him it was time to run. He whirled around, heading for the front of the house. As he disappeared into the alleyway, he heard a voice like the sound of a whip, cracking.

  “Wait.”

  He spun around. There, in the doorway, stood Miss McCarrick.

  He swallowed hard, his whole body on high alert. All she had to do was call the watch and then tell them he was the traitor who’d been stirring dissent. He’d be hanging from a tree branch, slowly choking to death, before he could count to twenty.

  “Hello,” he said.

  She stared at him, and he got the impression she was not all that impressed by what she saw. He went red, and felt a bit offended. How dare she look at him like he was nobody?

  “What?” he challenged. “I was just visiting a friend. There’s no law against that?”

  She gave a mirthless grin. “Not against that, no. Against fomenting uprisings? There’s a few laws, and I reckon you’d do best to remember that before ye find out how much people dislike it.”

  He lifted a brow. “I ken all about that, Miss.”

  They looked hard at each other and his body warmed up as she held his gaze and he looked away sharply.

  “What were you doing? Spying on us?” she asked. This time, the smile crinkled the corner of her eyes, which were a stunning blue color.

  He flushed. “I wanted tae see ye,” he said.

  She shot him an angry look. “Why?”

  “Do I need tae catalogue my reasons to ye?” he asked. He felt angry too now. “Why do ye ask me now?”

  She let out a huff of a laugh. “Why do I ask? I reckon I have a right tae be worried by some brigand hanging about outside my own home.”

  “A brigand?” he shouted. “Is that what I am, then?” He felt deeply insulted by her flippant dismissal.

  She raised a brow. “That set ye off.”

  He stared at her. She looked pleased, as if ruffling him had been her intent all along. He felt surprisingly annoyed by that.

  “What?” he muttered.

  She smiled. “I was just intrigued,” she said. “You came back, and ye came here.”

  “So what?” He asked rudely.

  She grinned. “I just thought it was strange, is all.”

  “None of anyone’s business, where I choose tae go, or how I spend my time,” he said defiantly.

  She smiled. “Thank ye for coming tae see me,” she said. Her eyes sparkled and he blushed pink.

  “Well, I’ll be on me way,” he said. He shifted from one boot to the other, feeling like a lad hauled up before the crew for thieving rations. He felt as if he’d been caught doing something shameful.

  When he looked up, she was watching him. Her blue eyes sparked and he thought they were curious. He blushed again.

  “I’ll be off.”

  “Alright.”

  They looked at each other. She said nothing, and he said nothing. Again, he had that peculiar feeling as if her eyes touched his own. His hands twitched at his sides and he stepped from one foot to the other.

  “Goodbye.”

  “Goodbye, then.”

  He lifted his hand and turned swiftly away, before she could say anything more.

  The street was silent except for the sound of his heart, thudding deep within him, its beat swift and irregular as if he’d run far.

  THE HEART’S QUESTIONING

  Seonaid watched as Everett walked slowly up the alleyway towards the wharf. She felt a strange stirring in her heart as he went away, a sort of longing mixed with wistful pangs.

  There goes a rare sort.

  She frowned at herself. She shouldn’t be sparing so many thoughts for such an odd man. He was nothing to her, and she should set her mind on more sensible, practical goals, such as appealing to the man her father had suggested as her future companion. He was, after all, a far more suitable match.

  “Come on, Seonaid. Stop moping about this fellow. He’s nobody to you.”

  She closed the front door, leaning on it while she caught her breath.

  “Daughter?” her father called from the hallway. “Who was that? What happened? Are you alright?”

  She looked into his worried face, blinking to clear her thoughts. “Yes, Father,” she nodded, somewhat confusedly. “Why should I not be?
”

  He frowned into her troubled gaze. “No reason,” he said. “I just thought you were a long time outside. Silly, really,” he shrugged. “I was just troubled.”

  She took his fingers in hers, noticing with worry how cold they felt. “Sorry, Father,” she said. “I didn’t mean to cause you any worrying.”

  He squeezed her fingers back. “Och, lass. I’m just an old fool. I suppose I’m worried because soon I’ll be at sea, and won’t be here to keep an eye on you. Not that I’m much use to ye,” he added with a sorry smile.

  “Father, don’t say that,” she said swiftly. “You’re always useful to me. Even if you weren’t, what matters it, when all that matters is that I love you?”

  He chuckled. “You never lie, do you?”

  She laughed. “That’s true. How is our guest?”

  “Fine, fine.” Her father nodded. “He seems very taken with your cooking, you know, lass.”

  She closed her eyes to hide the flash of annoyance in their depths. “Oh?” she asked. “Well, that’s hopeful.”

  Her father, missing the irony, nodded. Together, they went back to the dining room. Seonaid looked down at her plate as she silently took her seat.

  “Ah. Miss McCarrick.” The young captain stood swiftly, then sank back into the seat opposite her again. “I was concerned. This stew is excellent, and I was concerned yours would be cold.”

  She raised a brow. “No – it’s quite alright.”

  “Grand,” he said mildly. “I am most impressed by your female pursuits. You sew as well, I understand?”

  She stared at him and bit her lip, ensuring her jaw hadn’t fallen open. After casting a horrified glance at her father, she nodded. “Yes. A bit.”

  “Grand,” he said. “It’s a grand skill.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered. Inside, her soul quivered, though with shock or rage, she wasn’t sure. How dare he? Her thoughts demanded. How dare he?

  “Are you unwell?” the captain asked her after a long silence.

  She looked at him expressionlessly. “Not really. Why?”