Chapter Eight

Duncan’s breath caught at Fiona’s words, and he glanced over sharply, taking in her features. So something else had repulsed her? She kept her profile to him, seemingly intent on how the pony’s mane sifted through her fingers.

As if Fiona read his mind, she said, “Nothing about you, er, disgusted me. I thought you should know.”

Hope sparked and flared to life in his chest, but he squashed it flat. No good ever came from indulging in that emotion.

He opened his mouth to ask why she had turned away then. Not knowing bothered him. He caught himself and snapped his mouth shut—he’d look the fool for asking.

As they rode, he allowed himself to observe her face and her reactions to him as they continued down the incline and picked their way through Glenquoich Forest. He didn’t gawk at her like a lovesick lad, but he stole glances, keeping it under the guise of aiding her pony across the difficult terrain.

After a time, she spoke. “Now that you’re here, you can take the place of my guide. The others are probably sick of my questions.” She laughed lightly, but he noted a nervous edge. She pointed ahead. “What’s that mountain up ahead called?”

He took in the jagged peak. “That’s Sgùrr a’Mhaoraich.”

As they discussed the terrain, he grew bolder and allowed his fingers to linger just a touch longer against her arm than necessary the next time he steadied her. His pulse quickened, not only at the resulting jolt, but also at her reaction—a shaky breath and pinkened cheeks.

Aye, ’twas clear now that she wasn’t repelled by him. Nay, she found him attractive. As they rode, their mounts side-by-side, and he played over her reaction and their earlier interactions, the answer struck him. Maidenly shyness. Maidenly shyness could plague some English lasses and would explain why she’d pushed him out of the room after they’d begun undressing for their wedding night.

An overwhelming need swamped him. A need to protect. A need to hold her carefully. Reassure. And place himself between her and any who dared her harm.

For the rest of the day’s journey, he remained by her side, and as the miles stretched behind them, the knowledge that he’d misread her completely settled into his bones. Made him realize that, aye, he might be able to further test the foundation of their attraction.

Except. There was the not-so-small matter of how he couldn’t possibly pursue anything with her without bringing the wrath of Malcolm and the MacLeods down on his clan. And his time was drawing short for a solution. These thoughts plagued his mind until they stopped to camp for the night.

Duncan eased his pony closer to Fiona as they entered the clearing. Already, those who’d been farther ahead were setting about erecting temporary shelters and unloading supplies. Shouts and laughter filled the clearing. Fiona reined in and, like the independent lass she was, began to swing her leg around in preparation for dismounting.

Hastily, Duncan sprang from his own mount and grasped her waist, steadying her descent. To hold her in his arms, even in such an innocent manner—the curve of her waist fitting perfectly against his palms—och, it affected him, his pulse quickening at her nearness. And satisfaction fought to make him smile when he saw Malcolm had intended to do the same. Tension crackled the air between them.

When her feet touched the ground, he carefully stepped back, his hands begrudgingly slipping from her waist. The tension didn’t fade in proportion to the distance. If anything, it grew. She smoothed her skirts with shaking hands and kept her gaze averted, though her cheeks were flushed. “Thank you.”

He cleared his throat and took another step back, flexing and unflexing his fingers, the ghost of how she felt against his skin still imprinted there. “Do ye need anything?” His voice emerged lower than usual.

She shook her head. “I’ll just, er, find a place to sleep.”

Duncan nodded and, heart pounding, moved up the line, not trusting himself in her presence. After he aided the other women to the ground, he gathered them near Fiona.

Fiona unfurled her thick plaid and snapped it open with the breeze coming down from the nearby mountain. She spread it, arraying it to maximize the cushiness of the grass on the ground. She and the other women were ranged around the central fire, with several other fires hemming them in.

As near as she could tell, they’d traveled eight hours or more, and while daylight would stretch ahead for many more hours, their ponies had to rest. They were camping here for the night along a stream in yet another valley surrounded by peaks. To her right lay the heights of Sgùrr na Sgine and the Kinlochhourn Forest, she was told. All day, they’d followed one tiny crease of a valley after another, each sporting some kind of river. And the rivers! Tiny brooks that looked like a giant stuck his finger into a green cake and dragged it along in erratic jerks—no bank, no nothing, just a deep groove—to broad streams lined with river rock on either side, and variations in between.

The empty, rugged beauty had held her in awe—a view only seen by avid hikers or Munro baggers in her own time, because the A87 ran farther north of here.

She’d never tire of the scenery. Every turn and bend afforded another spectacular view, be it a burbling stream bouncing and racing down the side of a mountain to spill into a loch or the way a river twisted between the hills and the sun and clouds were situated just so. God, it was a landscape photographer’s wet dream.

Duncan approached from a nearby copse of trees, loaded down with dry branches and other tinder. His long, powerful strides were aimed straight for her, and her heart shouldn’t have gotten all fluttery at that realization, but it did. He held her gaze, his expression intent, though his hair was ignoring him, as usual—it looked carefree and tousled, and Fiona itched to push her fingers through it. There were women who would kill for his hair.

Duncan passed some of the MacLeod men, and one of them held up a hand and barked out a command. Fiona stiffened, worried there was trouble, but relaxed when Duncan gave a slight smile. Still, Malcolm was in the bunch—he was looking at her with an appraising but puzzled gaze—and it felt like a test somehow. Duncan replied, his words measured and lilting. The others, even Malcolm, laughed, and Duncan continued forward. He squatted at her fire and tossed more kindling and a good-sized branch onto the blaze. The flames sparked and flared and then settled. She would not lean over to peek under his kilt. She would not.

To prove she was well behaved and not going to touch him, she raised her knees to her chest, her skirts hiding her limbs, and wrapped her arms around her shins. God, her thighs were sore from all the riding. She propped her chin on a knee and contented herself with admiring his muscular calves—bunched from his position—and let her gaze travel up the folds of his kilt to his linen shirt and short jacket, stretched taut across his broad shoulders.

He regarded her, face inscrutable. Her face grew warm. Had he noticed her perusal?

“Ye hungry?”

She nodded. She’d been working up her nerve to ask before he’d appeared.

He stood and crossed to another section of their camp. She sighed. He really did have a great walk. He was huge. Well, anyone was huge compared to her, but this guy was legit tall, with powerful muscles. But for all that, he was strangely graceful. As economical with his movements as he was with his words. She sighed again, but turned it into a cough when the women closest to her gave her funny looks.

Duncan returned and settled beside her. It took all of her willpower not to lean closer, take comfort in the shelter of his warm, strong body. Nothing like traipsing across the rugged countryside of seventeenth-century Scotland to make one feel just a “wee” bit out of one’s element.

He cut off a hunk of the dried meat he held and passed it over, along with a bannock. There was something strangely intimate about having someone feed her like this. “We’ll reach the shore by noon. Sleep tonight if ye can, for we’ll rise early.”

She bit into the meat. The smoky taste had her mouth watering, but it didn’t tear off easily. Mention of sleeping, though, made her thoughts veer into dangerous territory. How far away would he be sleeping? Would it be so close that her body might betray her by rolling into his side? And if she did, would he push her away, or would she find a certain part of him hard? Hard for her.

“Suck on it a wee bit. That helps,” his voice rumbled.

Heat flashed down her chest, and she jerked her gaze to his before she realized what he was talking about. The heat left her girly parts station and zipped up the express track to her cheeks. Jeez, she had a dirty mind. The man was just helping her eat.

“Um, thanks.” She smiled weakly and did as he suggested, though the delay only made her stomach growl.

His face had been completely serious when he’d given his suggestion, but as she sucked on the sliver of meat, his gaze touched on her mouth. The space between them seemed to take on a heady weight as his eyes slowly rose and held hers. And for one perfect, brief second, his eyes were not inscrutable.

Not at all.

No, he hadn’t meant anything else, but her actions had turned his mind along a similar path.

He cleared his throat and scanned the group as they also settled down to eat around the various fires.

He polished off his food and pulled a sharpening stone from his sporran. “Were ye…?” He swallowed. “Were ye comfortable in the saddle? Iain said you’re not used to the riding.”

“A little sore, but it was fun.” Finally, she was able to chew the meat, and her stomach sent up a thank-you flare.

He looked at her and back to his knife. He pulled it slowly across the stone. “Ye have a strange notion for what constitutes amusement.”

She swallowed another bite and waved her hand around. “What’s not to love? Riding on a pony across such a beautiful landscape. And not once did it drizzle.”

“Aye. Perhaps a day without rain in Scotland would be enough to qualify.”

“My goodness. Was that a joke, Duncan?”

He didn’t pause with the knife-sharpening business, but she was pretty sure his lip curled up a smidgeon.

She wanted to coax him to talk more. She knew it wasn’t good for her to indulge—nothing could come from it—but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “What was that about earlier?”

He paused his knife on the rock and looked up.

She thumbed to Malcolm and the others. “When you were returning with the kindling.”

He looked over his shoulder. “ ’Tis a custom with some of the island clans. If one leaves their company, no matter how short their absence, upon their return they must apologize.”

God. There were more etiquette pitfalls than she realized. “Wow. Touchy bunch.”

“Nay. ’Tis all but a wee bit of diversion.” He went back to sharpening his knife, the soft shhhrope of steel on stone blending with the crackle and pop of the fire and the nearby murmuring voices.

“Diversion?”

“Aye.” His gaze returned to hers, and they held the slight suggestion of an honest-to-God sparkle. “For you must compose it in rhyme.”

He’d been sitting next to her, his posture stiff. But as they talked, his body relaxed by degrees. Was it possible he hadn’t been sure of his welcome and been poised for a quick escape? While she was glad he finally believed she wasn’t going to swat him away, it came with a swirl of emotion. She couldn’t be fixated on him and her potential feelings—not when she had the legend to fulfill. Not when she wasn’t sure how she could have both him and the legend.

“How do you know where to go?” she asked to redirect her thoughts. She’d seen no one with a map. Not that she expected one, but it was still strange for them to be traveling without some visible means of how to navigate.

“Much the same as in your land.” He tested the edge of his knife, returned it to the sheath at his belt, and waved a hand across the landscape. “Each hill and river has a name. We know which we need to follow to find our way. The farther we travel, the fewer names we know, but of a certainty even that large rock perched along the bend of that nearby creek has a name.” He pointed to the nearby stream whose tinkle-burble composed the soundtrack to their campsite.

Fiona nodded as if that was quite normal. But perhaps it was similar. Instead of saying Left at Michael Street, here they’d say, Go along River Garry until you reach such-and-such rock.

He reached forward to grab the flask he’d set before him. His forearm brushed against hers. They both froze, and goosebumps broke out along her skin.

Jeez, they’d just bumped arms not uglies, and yet she was strangely alert and…aroused. With him being inches from her, sitting on the ground, and accidentally brushing against each other. Whoa.

The air fairly crackled with tension.

He resumed leaning forward and grasped the flask. “Some whisky to clear your throat.” His voice sounded deeper. Rougher.

He held the flask out and watched as she reached over and grasped it. Watched as her fingers curled around it. Then those eyes traveled, oh so slowly, up her arm until they lingered on her mouth.

Oh, she wanted to kiss him, finish what they’d started, but she couldn’t. Though the pull he exerted made it hard to remember exactly why it would be a bad, bad idea.

His eyes flipped up to hers, the lids hooded. Then back to her mouth. The crackling tension now sparked across her skin.

A shudder wracked her. And not from the chilly summer air. Jesus, this guy could turn her on with just a look, as warm heat coiled down below.

She was so screwed.