It was a relief to wear a clean kirtle again. To be clean. Free of the blood of another.

Quinn left her on her own at the stream’s edge the morning after that first night by the fire, when she had quickly fallen into a deep slumber once her appetite had been sated.

He was beginning to trust her. She wanted so badly to run, but the time had not yet arrived to make an escape. She needed to earn more of his trust, first. To lull him further, so that he would not be watching or listening for her at all.

When she was alone, she could check the wound on her thigh.

He’d done it. The man Quinn had killed. With the dirk he’d been holding as he touched her. When Quinn had speared the man’s neck with his dirk, the man had jerked in response. He had sliced through her kirtle and into her leg.

It looked like any ordinary wound, like the wounds she had earned as a child while playing in the woods or by the river. It had stopped bleeding in the night, thank the gods, though it was still tender and would require care when she rode.

“Ysmaine?” he called out from where he’d been working on covering what was left of the fire.

“I am still here,” she called back with a roll of her eyes. She finished braiding her hair before pulling on her stockings and shoes, then returned to the clearing.

He helped her onto her horse. She winced, and he made a sympathetic noise. “The riding is a bit much for ye, is it not? You’re not accustomed to it.”

“Yes. A bit much.” As long as he didn’t know about the wound she’d been inflicted. Why was it so important to keep it from him? She couldn’t say. All she knew was that he couldn’t think her weak.

He mounted his horse. She stared at him.

He had not tied her hands.

“You’ll be wondering why I haven’t tied ye,” he observed, raising an eyebrow. He was rather handsome, she thought again, and wished she hadn’t.

“I had hoped you had forgotten all about it.”

He favored her with a smile, but a faint one. “I think it is past time for us to come to an understanding. I only ask that ye listen and stay still while ye do.”

“I will.”

He nodded. “All right, then. We rode throughout the first night and throughout yesterday, did we not?”

“We did. It was exhausting.”

“And yet we covered little ground. Why is that?”

“Because we were moving so slowly. We weren’t on a real road. Because you could not risk our being found by other riders.”

“Because…”

“Because I was tied, your captive, and others may have tried to help.”

“Aye to all of it. At this rate, we’ll never reach France. We will not even make the next harbor.”

“What do you think we ought to do, then?”

He fixed her with a cold stare. “It’s important to ye to get to France, is it not?”

“Yes. Very.”

“And it is important to me that I collect the ransom for ye. But if this is to happen, and to happen soon, we must travel along better roads. Faster than we have before. This means I cannot tie ye, as we will attract attention. And I need to trust ye to not scream for help the first time we pass another rider.”

She nodded slowly, pretending to be thinking this over. There was no thinking needed, of course. She wanted him to trust her, and this was the perfect chance to earn that trust.

“All right,” she agreed. “I will remain silent as to why we are together, and I will stay with you. You can trust me. I only wish to reach France and settle my business there.”

He held out a hand for her to shake.

She took it, squeezed as tight as she could. Met his gaze, held it.

And so, they started out.

* * *

She held out her arms to him for help in dismounting. The pain was worse than it had been the day before, along with the stiffness in her arms and legs.

But she had made it through the day with both hands free, leaving her to control the reins. This was a good thing, even if her palms were terribly chapped and beginning to blister.

Anything was preferable to the sensation of being unable to control the horse, and at least she could now feel her hands, rather than succumbing to numbness.

Quinn seemed almost friendly as he built a fire. “Cherbourg, is it?” he asked.

“Yes. That is where the Marquis lives.” She eased herself to the ground with an audible groan, keenly aware of the pain in her thigh from the wound. Would that she had something with which to ease it; she’d availed herself of healers in the past, but they had not yet passed through a village.

“We would most likely find a ship in Burghead, on Moray Firth,” he decided, feeding the fire with small twigs to help it grow, unaware of her pain. “I’m not overfamiliar with France or Cherbourg, but if we are going to find a ship to take us there, Burghead would be the closest harbor.”

“You would know more of these things than I would,” she shrugged. “Until now, I had never traveled further than Inverness.”

“Truly?”

“Why would I?” she asked. “I had no need to. As a young girl, I lived with my parents. Once they were… gone… I accepted tutoring and governess positions whenever I could, but they were always near Fraser land. It is not easy for a woman with no protection to stray far from home. At least when I was within my clan, I knew I would be protected if there was a need for it.”

“What possessed ye to leave that protection, then?”

“A letter from the Marquis.” She would not explain why she was on her way to France. He did not need to know, just as he clearly did not think she should know why he behaved as he did.

It had puzzled her throughout the day, ever since their encounter with the brute in the clearing, in fact.

The man Quinn had killed was an entirely different type of man. He’d seemed to enjoy her fear, had found pleasure in it. It was a game for him.

Quinn had held her to him. He’d covered her mouth with his hand, had threatened her. He’d been cruel, in his way. But nothing he’d done had come close to what that man had done. He hadn’t run his hand over her body, for one. She could still feel that knowing, painful touch.

While she hadn’t felt safe with Quinn, she hadn’t felt as though he was going to kill her. After having his way with her. He had been quick to assure her he wouldn’t harm her that way.

There was something different about him.

“Why are you doing this?”

He looked up from the fire, where he had just placed a pair of rabbits he’d caught earlier in the day. “Roasting rabbit? Believe me, lass, I would rather it were almost anything else. I am sick of the sight and smell of it. But ‘tis better than starving.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m sure it is, but that isn’t what I meant. Why are you doing any of this? Taking me as you are? What is the reason for it?”

He stirred the kindling, making the flames dance. “The ransom. I’ve said it many times.”

“What is the ransom for?” she sighed. “There must be a good reason to go as far as you have. It is quite dangerous, after all, holding a woman captive as you are.”

“I have no fear of ye,” he snorted.

Somehow, she already knew him well enough to know he was taking pains to avoid being honest with her.

“I’m merely curious,” she whispered. “I know you do not wish to tell the truth, but you ought to know that I can see this is not what comes naturally to you. You are not the same breed of man who tried to take me from you last night.”

He stared into the fire. “Who is to say I’m not?”

“I know you aren’t. I can feel it.”

“There’s much ye don’t know. Feeling something doesn’t make it so.”

She leaned against a towering pine tree and sighed, closing her eyes. There was no speaking to him; she ought to have known better than to try. Why did it matter? Why did it even matter the sort of person he was? He hadn’t hurt her thus far and had already told her he had no wish to do so.

That would have to be enough.