“I could use a hot bath,” Fergus grumbled beside her.

Two days. For two days he’d been telling Moira how much he needed a hot bath. For two days she’d listened to his complaints, his grumblings, his muttering.

“Could you, indeed?” she asked, favoring him with the same smile she’d shown up to then.

An old tactic, one she would not fall victim to.

He forgot she’d already raised two willful lads.

“Aye,” he snarled, raising an arm and ducking his head to smell himself. “I might just as well burn this.”

“You would not want to go to the trouble of washing it,” she observed, still smiling.

“I need good, hot water and soap to get the smell of me from it,” he groused.

“It’s a good thing we’ll reach the village before nightfall, then.” She took care to keep her eyes on the road and away from him.

He had to see how unaffected she was by his deliberate attempt at making her miserable.

Her behavior had the effect she desired; he was fit to be tied, muttering under his breath whenever she did not respond as he wished. For he wanted her to argue. He wanted her to fall into despair and join in his complaints.

He wanted to hear her swear an oath that if he complained once more, she would slice his throat and give him something to truly complain about.

She might have won their wager, but he was not about to make life easy for her as a result.

Just as the twins had done when they were younger. No more than bairns! And he, a grown man, resorting to the same childish behavior.

She was of a mind to ask how he’d managed to avoid growing up since the day they first met but knew better.

He might just as easily call off their bargain and refuse to have anything to do with her.

She couldn’t have that.

For this was the first real, true adventure of her life.

Keeping body and soul together while living in the wilderness was a challenge, to be sure, but it was one she’d long since become accustomed to. There was nothing to it once a person decided to survive and thus did whatever it was they had to do to make it so.

Hardships mattered little at such times.

She knew they mattered little to Fergus, as well. He’d been traveling the countryside for years, and she would have made another wager—that it bothered him little, if at all, to smell as he did.

Further, if he’d ever shared his complaints with his brother or friends, they would have surely shown him the true meaning of misery. Men such as they did not make a habit of voicing every grievance.

It was only when they wished to make a woman regret having set eyes upon them that they behaved so.

She would not—could not—allow him to trap her that way. The worse he complained, the louder and more determined he became, the sweeter her temperament. The more it pleased her to drive him mad.

Perhaps there was something to be said for holding her tongue, after all. She never would have believed it.

Time such as these called for a new way of behaving, it seemed. For she’d certainly never imagined herself as part of a band of former soldiers who accepted payment for protection and—she assumed—committing acts of violence on behalf of those who paid well enough.

It was a dry day, and warm. Sweat soaked into her braid and caused it to hang heavier than usual against her back. The kirtle stuck to her back, under her arms, in wet patches. Would that she had a hat to shade her eyes and prevent her face from burning.

A strong gust of wind blew dirt and grit into her eyes. She grimaced, knuckling away what she could, tears springing up to wash away what remained.

“Uncomfortable?”

She could not see him, her eyes watering as they were, but she heard the knowing sneer in his voice.

“No more than I would expect to be. Remember it well, lad, I did not have a comfortable life when we met. This is like a happy dream compared to caring for two bairns whose guts seem determined to release anything that touches them—from one end or the other, sometimes both at once.”

He grimaced. “That does not sound pleasant.”

“I would not suffer it again, for mind you, I was of the same condition as they. Exhausted, unable to eat without it coming right back up, unable to drink more than a sip of water at a time. Dizzy, weak. And yet there were two eight-year-old lads who needed caring for. Someone had to do it.”

His face softened. “I suppose this does not seem like much after that.”

“A hot day? No, I’ve been through them before. And cold days, and days with no food. Days spent hunting for any little thing I might catch, with the trees coated in ice and my fingers feeling as though they may freeze and fall off. Cold enough to make them bleed when I used the bow.”

“Can ye do something for me? It may sound strange.”

“No stranger than anything else you’ve asked of me, I would wager.”

He snorted. “I hoped you would share a happy memory. Something pleasant, at least.”

“Am I bringing you sadness with my memories? Am I speaking too much of those times?”

“Not at all. Do not mistake me, lass. I had only hoped ye might speak of something pleasant. Do ye have any such memories?”

“Do you?”

“I asked ye first.”

She rolled her eyes with a sigh. “The day Kin—my father—presented the twins with their bows and quivers. Their last birthday. That was very nice. They were so pleased.”

It made her smile to remember their shining faces, their eagerness to get out-of-doors to practice. “They were none too happy with me when I told them it would not be as easy as going straight out to practice. They had to first learn how to use them, and I would be the one to instruct. Otherwise, they might just as well have impaled each other.”

Fergus chuckled, his misery—real or imagined—seemed forgotten for the moment. “I know Brice and I would have done the same. But I was speaking of ye, lass. What of yourself?”

“I do not understand.”

He sighed. “I thought as much. I wondered if ye had any pleasant memories of your own. Just yours. Not of the twins.”

She bristled, then wondered what bothered her so. It was an innocent question, was it not? Perfectly ordinary.

“Why do you wish to know?” she asked nonetheless, her jaw set in a firm line.

“Not to bring about your anger, lass. I was merely wondering.”

He sounded sincere. He did not wish to make a mockery of her, or to make her think twice of having accompanied him on the ride.

“I can tell you of the last pleasant memory I have before my mother died,” she offered.

“I would like to hear it.”

She bit the corner of her mouth; he thought he would, but she knew he would likely feel differently when she began to speak.

“I remember watching an older lad ride a stallion. Bareback.”

He growled softly, out of her line of sight, and she bit her mouth again to hold back her laughter.

“I remember how the lads all around me both admired and hated him,” she continued.

“Hated him?” He sounded surprised by this.

“Oh, yes. Because he was so good, and he knew it, and they knew he knew it. Nothing is worse than a person who knows how good they are at something and does not bother to feign ignorance.”

“Perhaps he was too young to understand,” he mused.

“I suppose. He was too young to know a good many things, if I remember correctly.”

“Such as?”

She shifted in the saddle, and not only because of the chafing caused by so many days of riding. “Such as how embarrassing it is for a young girl when a lad asks for a kiss as though it were a dare. Especially when it does it in front of so many others he wishes to impress.”

“I thought you said this was to be a pleasant memory.”

She snickered, catching him out of the corner of her eye. “It is pleasant. I remember kicking the lad in the shins hard enough to make him howl like a skinned cat.”

“I dinna know that he howled quite so loudly,” he muttered.

“Oh? You know the lad?” She laughed when she turned to him and found him scowling, his eyes narrowed and trained on her.

“Ye know I remember it well, lass.”

“I thought you would. A person does not forget such a shin kicking, no matter how many years have passed.”

She sighed, returning her attention to the road. “I found you quite dashing before you made that mistake.”

“Ye did, now?”

“What young girl would not? You looked so impressive on the horse, keeping your seat no matter how he tried to buck you from him. You could not have been much older than the twins are now, and I cannot imagine either of them managing such a feat.”

She could all but feel his chest puff with pride. “I’d been practicing for quite a while, whenever I could get away from my father’s watchful eye long enough to do so.”

“It showed.”

They fell single file to make room for a wagon coming from the opposite direction. A peddler, slow-moving, household goods and other wares all but overflowing from the wooden box which creaked along on four uneven wheels.

She was glad for the distraction, as she did not wish to explain her reason for kicking him. He would more than likely ask, knowing him and his devilish ways, and she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing just how closely she’d watched him in the horse pen.

Once they were again abreast and alone, Fergus cleared his throat. “Ye know, my pride smarted much worse than my legs that day, lass.”

“I expect it would, but you were the one who embarrassed me, after all. I would not have pursued you and kicked you, had you, certainly, in fact…”

She looked away, off into the woods, wishing she had stopped.

“Please. Go on.”

She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “I only meant to say, I might have… allowed you to kiss me, were it not for several dozen pairs of eyes on us. If I had not known you merely wished to show off further in front of them, as though riding the way you were was not enough of a display.”

He made a thoughtful noise, as if to consider this. “Aye, but I would not have wished to kiss ye were it not for their presence.”

She thought she ought to be insulted by this, but knew he wished only to pull a reaction from her. To make her lash out. Instead, she chuckled. “I know.”

“And that was the last pleasant memory ye have? Truly?” There was no mocking laughter in his voice. No attempt at jesting.

“Yes. I believe so. Watching you ride and wishing I could ride that way. Perhaps along with you, behind you, holding on. I imagined how free it would feel. Free and exciting.” Her smile faded. “But then, you disappointed me. And when I reached home… everything had changed.”

Neither of them spoke again until the distant village came into view, just as the sun was sinking in the west.