“Where are ye heading, lass?” Before Moira had time to offer a retort, Fergus held up a hand as if to defend himself. “No sense in offering the sharp side of your tongue. I merely asked because I thought we might make good partners.”

She bit her lip in thought, the faint sting when she did a reminder of how hard she’d bitten down only that morning, while he’d been having a swim.

Would that she might forget all about it. She wanted to, so badly.

Nothing good would come of it.

Just as nothing good could come of their riding together.

She ought not even to have followed him throughout the day, but the temptation had proven too strong—along with the prospect of showing him up while on the hunt, which she had quite neatly managed. The moment she’d seen him slow to a stop, some yards ahead while she’d ridden close to the riverbank, she’d known what he had in mind.

How? There was no telling. She had simply known the way she knew that night followed day.

And he had tried to fell the doe, and she had bested him. There was no small sense of pride in the knowing of it.

But riding with him? Out in the open? The last thing she ought to be doing was spending time with the man. She ought to be riding away from him, perhaps to the north if he intended to continue westward.

What if she accidentally revealed her true identity?

He expected an answer—not only that, but he expected the answer he desired. She hated to disappoint him.

“I do not take partners.” She tossed the bones left of her portion of venison into the fire and wiped her hands on her skirts. She’d already washed the blood-stained kirtle as best she could, the doe’s blood still fresh when she had, and had replaced it with the one she’d washed the day prior.

Simple garments, roughly and cheaply made. All she could afford. Worn at the seat and elbows, perhaps a bit tight at the bust.

She ran her hands over her hair, aware of it once again in a way she despised. This was what he did to her. He made her overly conscious of herself, and she did not enjoy it in the least.

Why would she then subject herself to more of his attention?

Why would she wish to torment herself?

“Nor do I, except for a group of friends I ride with,” he admitted. “I would not ride with anyone else but them if given my choice in the matter. I am not easily impressed and can become rather ill-mannered.”

She merely smirked in reply.

“Thank ye for holding your tongue,” he chuckled. “I ask ye because I’m impressed with ye. I believe your skills as a hunter and mine as a tracker will serve us well. We would make a strong team.”

Why did he have to use such language? They were not a team. They might have been, but she did not wish to marry him and ought to run away screaming from any hint of their working together.

She ought to.

She did not wish to, however.

Was it the memory of that morning by the river?

“I… thank you for the compliment,” she mumbled, stumbling over her words as though her mouth was unaccustomed to them—but then, it was, for who besides her brothers had ever complimented her for any reason? “I know what it is to dislike being with others, and to be unimpressed with most people.”

He laughed. “I suspected ye would, lass, for you are unlike others.”

Why did he insist upon flattering her? All it did was weaken her resolve. She wished he wouldn’t… even as her heart craved it, for she had never been the subject of flattery before.

“I do not believe it would be wise for us to travel together,” she insisted. “We would fight like wild boars, butting our heads and tearing with our tusks. We do not get along well for very long at a time.”

“We are getting on well at the moment,” he pointed out in a quiet voice she fervently wished he would not use.

“Yes, that is so, but for how long?”

“Where is it ye are going?” he asked again, more determined this time. “Are ye merely wandering the wilderness on your own?”

“And if I am?”

“If ye are, ye are a fool I had not taken ye for.”

She all but growled. “What makes you believe I would go anywhere or do anything with you after this? Must you insult me? And this, after I have already proven what I can do!”

“A band o’ thieves will not see a clever, strong lass,” he murmured. “They will see a lass. I do not think you could fight off a band of them, though ye might try. And they might anger at your cleverness and strength and determine among them to break ye.”

His words hung heavy between them.

Moira was not a foolish person. She knew all too well how right he was and would put nothing past a man brutal enough to make his living from the sweat of another’s brow. Thieves and cutthroats used violence to get what they wanted and would stop at nothing, the base creatures.

“It’s sorry I am if I offended ye,” he muttered, looking down at the ground between his feet.

“You have not done anything of the sort.” She held her head high. “And if you must know, I live as I do because I have no home to go to. There are times when the threat of what might come is not as terrible as the threat of what is.”

It was his turn to look uncomfortable over something she’d said. “Even so,” he ventured, “ye do not have to go it alone. It sounds daft even to my own ears, but I must tell ye that I felt sorry when I thought you’d gone off on your own this morning.”

Her heart betrayed her by skipping a beat. “You did?”

He shrugged. “My better nature plagued me, ye might say. If there was anything I could do to help ye get to where ye were going, I would have liked to. It is what I do, I suppose ye could say. Part of it. My friends and I.”

“I have nothing to offer you.” She was truly grasping at anything she could imagine would put him off the subject for once and for all. Her protests sounded weak and pitiful.

He grinned, studying her from beneath a sweep of dark brown hair which hung over one eye. “I do not recall asking for compensation, lass.”

“If I have no set destination in mind, how do you plan to escort me?”

“I was on my way to a village not far from the River Nevis, where it meets the River Lochy. Ye might find some helpful person there. Perhaps ye might rent a cottage outside the village, that ye might not be alone should ye be in need of help.”

She gritted her teeth, drawing a deep breath through her nose, so the nostrils flared. He knew not how dangerous it was to put her in such a mood.

He would find out.

“How many times must I tell you?” The words burst forth in a rush. “I do not need you to determine my life for me! I am glad to live as I do. You need not help me, because I do not need your assistance! I need no man to tell me what I can and cannot do!”

She wished fervently to tell him the rest. That it was his fault she’d left home. If it had not been for him and the marriage arrangement, she would not live in the woods. Alone.

The very thing he wished to rescue her from was that which he had caused, whether he’d meant to or not.

Instead, he sat by the fire, smug and secure. Certain that he knew what was good for her. He knew nothing.

The fact that she could not alert him to how foolish he was merely served to fuel her fury.

Fergus waited, his face still. “Are ye finished?”

“Would that I had shot a bolt into your chest rather than that doe.”

He pursed his lips before nodding. “Aye, but I do not think I would be as good eating as the doe.”

She was not impressed.

He stood. “I need a minute’s privacy. While I step away, I ask ye to consider that ye do not need to accompany me all the way to the village. But if we are both riding in the same direction, it seems there is no reason not to ride together.”

She hated his arrogance.

She hated his calm in the face of her fury.

She hated how he made good sense.