CHAPTER NINE
Ewan had apologized for kissing Freya. Profusely, and to her great dismay.
Yet still, four days later, she'd found it impossible to stop the memory from cycling over and over in her mind. She stared out to the barren field which had once been fertile and full of ripe hay. The chill of the winter air swept over her and blew cold against her blazing cheeks. The kiss.
The gentle tipping of her face to his, the tenderness in those soft blue eyes. He'd looked at her mouth, and she knew he would kiss her. Her stomach went warm, and everything in her had seemed to float when grazed by the heat of his mouth over her lips.
Her breath caught.
It had been such a wonderful kiss, beautiful - sweet even. And unexpected. As unexpected as her continued thoughts drifting back to it.
Then after...nothing. He’d apologized. Again and again. And again. She rolled her eyes. Then they’d spent the last four nights lying stiffly by one another’s side once more.
She much preferred the kiss and all the heart-pounding intimacy.
“Out here again?”
Freya looked over her shoulder to find Marian buried in a heap of cloaks and waddling in her direction.
Freya ran over to her sister. “Ye shouldna be out here, Marian - it's too cold.” She caught her sister's arm - or what she thought might be her sister's arm - and tugged her toward the barn.
“I'm fine,” Marian protested, but Freya continued to pull her until they were inside the large building with its empty stalls and rusting equipment.
The bit of Marian's face Freya could see was a mix of porcelain white skin with cherry red cheeks and nose. “Aye, that is better,” Marian conceded and lowered herself to an old wooden bench. “I brought ye a letter ye just received.”
There was a shuffling of cloaks, and Marian's hand emerged from a heavy curtain of wool with a creamy parchment pinched between her slender fingers.
Freya took the proffered letter, the heavy paper still warm from where it'd been cradled against Marian's body. “Ye dinna have to bring it out to me.”
“I know how much ye've been waiting to hear about Molly's.”
Freya's heart squeezed with her sister's consideration. While their mother was loath to even acknowledge that Freya ran a brothel, Marian spoke of it without so much as a blush.
Tears stung Freya's eyes. “I'm so sorry, Marian.”
“Ye've already apologized.” Marian pulled off her hat and her blonde hair stuck up in frizzy strands.
She was right. Freya had apologized. Probably as much as Ewan had. But saying she was sorry did not ease the pain of knowing she'd so deeply hurt her sister. She smoothed Marian’s hair down and kissed the top of her head.
“I dinna deserve a sister as good as ye,” Freya said earnestly.
“Ye're every bit as good as I am. Now read yer letter, I'm curious too.”
The seal on the letter had already been cracked open - not by Marian, but by one of the men who were responsible for delivering the letter. With the war going on, they didn't even bother to cover their tracks - not for the likes of a lowborn Scottish noble. Damn redcoats.
Freya unfolded the letter and immediately recognized the long, slanting curls of Alli's exquisite penmanship.
“It's from Alli,” Freya said aloud. She quickly skimmed the missive - not only for the words written, but also for the hidden meanings within. It’d been a code established between them the first time Freya left for the country to visit her family.
“She's well,” Freya read aloud. “All the girls are well at Molly's - that means they’re safe. The bar is well stocked - that means Molly's is also safe and doing well.” Her heart dropped three notches lower in her chest. “She says it's slow and I might want to enjoy my stay in the country longer.”
Freya lowered the note.
“What does that mean?” Marian asked.
“It means it's not yet safe for me to come back.”
Marian reached from beneath her cloaks once more, this time to grab Freya's hand with the comforting heat of hers. “Then ye need to stay with us for a wee bit longer. And at least everyone at Molly's is safe, and it will be there for ye when ye get back.”
Marian always did have a golden perspective of the world. It was one of her many admirable traits.
“I dinna deserve a sister as good as ye,” Freya said again.
This time Marian rolled her eyes playfully. “Says the sister who has sacrificed everything for us, and worked hard to keep us in our home and well cared for. For what it's worth, I'm glad ye'll be staying,” Marian said. “I know I shouldna have such selfish thoughts, but I love ye.” She stopped suddenly and jerked upright, dropping Freya's hand.
Alarm jolted through Freya. Every muscle in her body went tight and on alert. “What is it?”
A smile bloomed on Marian's face. “The babe. I think he’s dancing in here.” She laughed softly, her eyes sparkling with genuine joy.
She loved the child within her.
Freya remembered then what Ewan had said. The child would be a product of Marian's goodness, a symbol of love regardless of how it was placed in her womb.
“May I...” Freya regarded the bulk of the cloaks where the belly jutted taut beneath. The belly she had come to hate with a baby she hoped to love. And this would be the first step. “May I feel?”
Marian lifted her face slowly, her eyes lighting up. “Ye want to? Truly?”
Freya nodded, though in truth, there was a hesitation - a fear. What if Ewan was wrong? What if she could never love this baby?
Marian stood and parted her cloaks to reveal the overlarge blue gown beneath where her stomach swelled outward.
“My hands are cold,” Freya said, half hoping Marian would tell her it was unnecessary to touch her stomach.
“I dinna mind, and neither will he.” Marian smiled. “Besides, my stomach is hot as an oven. Mind ye dinna burn yerself.”
“No wonder he's wriggling in there then.” Freya drew her hands forward, slowly, carefully, until she met the bulk of Marian's stomach. It was indeed hot, a nice reprieve from the biting cold, and surprisingly hard. But then, it was full of a babe, all curled up within the protection of Marian's womb.
Marian placed her hands over Freya's, pushing her palms deeper into the firm skin. Something within pushed back. Freya gasped and tried to draw back, but Marian held her in place. There was another shift, a form within swelling and then fading back away. Then something hard, possibly pointed?
“I think I just felt an elbow,” Freya said, disbelief in her voice.
Marian laughed. “Aye, ye probably did. He loves to jam those things around inside of me. But then he's a healthy lad, strong and fiery. Like ye.”
“Like me?” Freya pulled away slowly.
Marian drew the cloaks over herself once more and nodded with a smile. “Aye. I imagine him being like ye – able to take on anything.”
“I dinna deserve a sister as good as ye,” Freya said for the third time.
“Aye.” Marian put her hands on Freya's cheeks. “Ye do.” She glanced behind Freya's shoulder to the open door of the barn and grinned. “I need to get back to the house.”
Freya looked at her in confusion before glancing over her shoulder to find Ewan standing there. And damn it all if her heart didn't give a silly leap of excitement at the sight of her pretend husband.
***
Ewan couldn't help the smile on his face as he regarded Freya standing in the center of the barn. Her simple black cloak made the fairness of her skin as white as fresh snow and the rosy freckles he adored stand out even more.
He nodded at Marian as she passed with a secret smile playing on her lips. She put a hand to her belly in a gentle caress, and he knew she'd seen him watching.
He'd been there when Freya had touched Marian's stomach, and when her wonder-filled voice echoed through the large, open space. He knew how great a step Freya had made in loving the growing child, and he knew how much that meant to both women.
“Good afternoon, husband.” Freya emphasized the word husband and cocked a hand on her hip. “Should ye no' be in bed?”
“I canna take being there anymore.”
“Should ye no’ be with yer Ma?” she teased.
It was true, when he wasn’t lying abed, he’d been in his mother’s company. She had been reluctant to let him out of her sight, through fear, through love. And she knew he was keeping a secret.
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her about having left the Black Watch, even though he suspected she knew. She hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t told. Perhaps they both felt the ghost of his father’s crimes pressing upon them.
Ewan held his stomach. “If she makes me drink any more tea, it'll spill from my bullet wound.”
Freya gave a lovely, throaty laugh. “I dinna know that I can fix something like that.”
“Speaking of the wound, it's feeling much better. Whatever was in the poultice helped.” He eyed her. “How do ye know so much?”
She shrugged off the compliment. “Well, I wouldna say I know so much, but ye canna have an ill mother and run a brothel without learning a bit as ye go.”
“I heard ye got a letter.” He glanced at her empty hands.
She pulled it from the depths of a pocket and pushed it back in. “Everything is fine there.”
“But ye canna go back,” he surmised.
“Aye.” Freya shifted her gaze away, but not before he caught the flash of regret.
Regret at having lost Molly's for the time being? At being here instead? At having saved him?
He should apologize for the kiss again. He'd been so foolish to have kissed her at all, after what she'd done for him and his mother.
“Thank ye,” he said instead. “For what ye've given up to save us.”
Freya nodded. “Ye were right,” she said softly. “About the babe.”
“I saw ye touching Marian’s stomach.” Ewan stepped closer. “I’m proud of ye.”
Freya’s cheeks colored a soft pink. “Aye, well, it was a good idea. To try.” She looked up at him. “Thank ye for talking some sense into my head.”
“It made her verra happy.”
Freya smiled softly to herself. “Aye, I think it did.”
Ewan stared down at the woman he’d slept next to for the last four long nights without touching. But God, how he’d wanted to touch. To caress. To kiss.
Freya watched him carefully. “And ye were right about me.” She spoke in such a quiet tone, it didn’t echo in the large, empty building. “I'm holding on to the horror of it all, regretting my inability to help.”
He put a hand to her shoulder blades. “Come into the house and we'll talk. Captain Crosby is gone, if that's why ye're here.”
She looked around, her gaze drifting around the room. Ewan did the same, taking in the empty stalls cleared of any hay, the rusting tools lining the wall and leaning against one another in dilapidated resignation.
“That's no’ why I'm here,” she said. “Do ye ever...” She shook her head. “...feel like ye need purpose?”
Ewan crossed his arms and lifted his brow in her direction. “The only thing I have in my life right now is my mother and a fake name.”
Freya lowered her head and chuckled. “Aye, foolish of me.”
“Did ye have something in mind?” he queried.
He hoped to God she did. After a lifetime of rigorous training, of early morning drills and late night guard posts, this sedentary life was making his blood go thick in his veins and his mind whirl in too many different, aimless directions.
She strode over to a crooked row of tools. He noticed a plough of some sort, a scythe, and several other farming tools. “Do ye believe in second chances? Third chances even?”
“I believe in as many chances as it takes. I'm a soldier.” The phrase died on his tongue. Because he wasn't a soldier anymore. He was a deserter. A traitor.
He clenched his jaw.
Fortunately, Freya did not appear to notice the slip. She stroked a hand lovingly over the handle of a spade, the wood appeared to have long ago turned gray and split in several places. “We need all the chances we can get to make this work again.”
Ewan lifted the scythe and examined the dull, rusted blade. His side hardly hurt him despite the action, a good sign indeed. If he were careful, he could sharpen the blade to where it needed to be to slice the tender stalks of - of what?
“What will ye grow?” Ewan set the scythe aside.
“Hay.” Freya's tone was quiet with the weight of something he didn’t know. “I tried to do it once on my own before, and it was possible with several servants for only one season before the weather turned bad.”
“Ye dinna strike me as the farmer sort of lass,” Ewan said. He tried to keep from chuckling lest he get a sharp look from her.
“But I strike ye as the madam type of lass?” She put her hand on her hip.
He shrugged. “No' in that outfit.”
She lowered her head and her gaze went warm. “Do ye like it better when I'm naked?”
The hot memory flashed in his mind of her beautifully firm, shapely body. Aye, he did like it when she was naked. He hadn’t been able to get the image from his mind. Every time he saw her, every time he closed his eyes, every time they lay beside each other in the wide expanse of the bed, neither touching the other.
And he’d thought of the kiss. The way she’d tasted sweetly of jam and tea. How lush her bottom lip had been when he’d caught it in his mouth.
An angry wave of frustration washed over him. Where was his discipline? His fortitude? She’d sacrificed everything for him and he’d taken advantage of her in her fragile emotional state.
She watched him from lowered lashes, her cheeks an even deeper shade of pink, flushing down her throat and beneath the clasp of her cloak.
The silence between them was not uncomfortable. No, it was charged with the dance of intimacy, all the words they did not say.
Freya’s tongue flicked out between her lips, moistening them. His gaze lowered, inadvertently taking in her beautiful mouth, that full bottom lip.
He wanted to kiss her. Again.
He started, in an attempt to offer a reply of some sort, unsure of what to say.
Freya put a finger to his mouth. “If ye apologize for the kiss one more time, I'll no' ever kiss ye again.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she rose on her tiptoes and caressed his mouth with hers. Her face was cold from the chill in the air, but her lips were warm, her tongue hot.
God, her tongue. She stroked inside his mouth, brushing his tongue with her own and setting off an explosion of excitement. Anticipation. Want.
His body prickled with desire and he found his hands curling into her hair, pulling her closer against him. She pressed her body to his, her hips meeting the spot where arousal grew hard and insistent.
Lust pounded through him and echoed in his ears with a steady roar. If his behavior was feral, Freya did not seem to mind. Rather, she matched his excitement with a frenzy of her own.
Her hands moved in a restless, aimless path over his back, his arms, his chest. His abdomen.
A low groan escaped deep in his throat. His hands shifted under her cloak so his palms could glide over her narrow waist and up to her breasts.
His fingertips skirted over the line of her bodice. A swell of flesh met his blind touch, firm and round. Freya moaned and pushed her breasts toward him.
The chaste life he had been so proud of now worked against him, welling against the dam of his control like a raging river. He didn't know how much longer he could fight the torrent of lust, of need.
Or if he even wanted to.