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The notes of the song grew faint and she turned to look at her home one last time.
Behind her, she saw nothing but fog.
Bessie had thought to draw him out as they travelled, but the day was cold and the wind raw and they rode too far and fast for idle talk. She had ridden the length and breadth of Brunson land, but when day’s end came, early, she was surrounded by unfamiliar hills.
‘This is the edge of Brunson land,’ he said, as they dismounted to make the night’s camp. ‘Robson lands start with that next ridge.’
She squinted in the gathering dusk. The next ridge looked no different than the one they had just left. ‘Is that part of the March also under your rule?’
‘Rule? The Warden rules nothing.’
‘Yet you insisted you were responsible for this side of the border.’
‘Responsible, yes, but the King barely rules here, as the Brunsons have made clear. I only try to keep louts like your brothers from killing each other.’ His smile was unexpected. ‘And me.’
How could he smile? Life and death were no game. ‘To those of us who live here, it is no laughing matter.’
‘I did not laugh,’ he answered. ‘I only thought to break your silence and make you smile.’
And against her will, a smile broke out. Rob could be a lout, it was true. ‘If you had to stand between those two loggerheads all your life, you’d be silent, too.’
At home, she seldom had a need to speak. It had left her awkward and graceless and unable to trade words with Carwell, let alone the King.
Her smile dissolved. ‘How long before we reach Stirling?’
‘Five days if the weather holds.’
She nodded, understanding. It was November. The weather would not hold.
Behind them, his men had fanned out and set to work, arranging the watch, building a fire, setting up camp. Each seemed to know his task. For the first time in her life, she did not.
She looked around for work to do and saw one of the men heating the griddle to fry oat cakes. ‘I’ll cook,’ she said, starting towards him.
Before she could move, Carwell’s gloved fingers circled her wrist. ‘I told your brothers I would take care of you.’
What a strange man. Had he never seen a woman bake bread? ‘Since I feed my brothers at home, I don’t think they would see a hot griddle as a violation of your oath.’
She tugged against his hand and he let her go, slowly.
‘Nevertheless, that is the way it will be.’
She opened her mouth, but before she could protest, he walked away to supervise the set up of the camp, leaving her with her hands propped on her hip and her mouth open, arguing with the wind.
Her hands, unfamiliar with idleness, dropped to her side, useless. The damp wind teased her with the smell of griddle bannocks frying.
Carwell might think to protect her, but surely his men would welcome her help? She looked over her shoulder. His back was turned, so she walked over to the fire and knelt down, welcoming its warmth on her face.
The man holding the griddle nodded at her without speaking.
‘Here,’ she said, reaching for the handle. ‘I’ll do that.’
Not waiting for permission, she grabbed the hot iron.
It seared her fingers and she dropped it into the flames, popping her fingers in her mouth.
Frowning, Carwell’s man dug into the hot coals with a gloved hand and rescued the meal. Muttering an apology, Bessie stood and stepped back.
How could she have been so daft? Turning away, she squeezed her eyes against tears of pain. She would never have made that mistake at her own hearth where she knew every stone in the floor. But here, even the land looked unfamiliar and unforgiving and she was far from home and at the mercy of a man she neither trusted nor understood.
‘Here.’ Carwell’s voice, just behind her, sounded as close as if he had heard her thoughts. He held out a crisp bannock. ‘Have one.’
Had he seen her awkward mistake? She studied his eyes, blaming the fading light when she couldn’t decipher his expression. Whatever anger he had held when he left her before was gone. Or hidden.
At home, she could interpret her brothers’ emotions, even when they did not speak. There, she was the hub of the wheel around which the rest of them revolved. Here, she had no place, no role, and this man before her was as confusing as the steps of the silly dance he had tried to teach her.
He grasped her unburned hand and set the warm oat cake on her palm. ‘Hot and ready.’
Her tongue wanted to refuse, but her stomach did not, so she accepted and her lips curved into an unwelcome smile as she munched her first bite of welcome warmth.
Then, startled, she felt Carwell wrap a heavy cloak around her shoulders.
She looked up at him, bewildered. No man she knew studied a woman so carefully that he could hear her unspoken thoughts. The men she knew didn’t even hear the ones she said aloud.
She might be cold, yes, but she was not a woman who needed pampering. She pulled off the cloak, holding it out to him. ‘I don’t need this.’
He took it back and swept it around her again, proving he could ignore her words as thoroughly as any man. ‘I won’t have you falling ill on the road.’
His hands rested on her shoulders and the wind, at her back, blew the cloak around them, enfolding them like lovers in a blanket. What would it feel like, to have a man to hold her, to protect her? She swayed, tempted to lean into his chest …
No. This journey was not about what she wanted. It was about her duty to her family. So while she could not succumb to a desire for protection, neither could she allow stubborn pride to make her refuse good food and warm clothes.
‘I must thank you, then,’ she said, the words bitter as the bannock had been savoury.
He let her go. ‘Don’t force yourself.’
She bit her lip. Again, she had stumbled. He must expect please and thank you, curtsy and smile, and all the rounded corners of courtly style.
Well, she had thanked the man. That was high praise from a Brunson.
‘I’ve made you a place there—’ he pointed ‘—near the water.’
They had stretched a blanket between the ground and a tree to create a makeshift tent. Her eyes widened. No Borderer bothered with a shelter when they travelled the hills. They slept under open air, the better to see the enemy’s approach.
But at the sight, her shoulders sagged, suddenly acknowledging her weariness. He had given her a private space, a shelter near the water where it would be easy to drink and wash.
The rush of gratitude was genuine this time, but she would not grovel with thanks. Not after he had rejected her last effort.
‘Your women must be soft,’ she said. The words held an edge of envy she had not intended.
Pain seized his face.
‘I can see,’ he said, struggling to return his mask to its place, ‘that you are not.’
Then she remembered.
Not … now. He had no women in his house.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …’ Her thoughtless words fell gracelessly in the air. She was as awkward in speech as in the dance. Tripping over feet, bumping into people.
He did not wait for her to trip again before he turned to leave.
Chapter Four
Carwell was puzzling over her when he woke the next morning.
He did not like puzzles.
Problems, yes. Problems could be solved. Warring Brunsons could be persuaded to observe a temporary truce. The King could be convinced to return the warden’s post to its rightful owner.
The English could be induced to secret negotiations concerning the fate of the Earl of Angus.
These problems he could solve, though the solution might be imperfect. The trick was never to reveal your aim. To stay flexible and circumspect and let each side feel as if they had won.
But women could not be dealt with that way. Fragile, delicate and even irrational, a man could only accept them and protect them. At any cost.
For if he could not, the price would be much too high.
I’ll hold you responsible, Bessie had said. And he had failed. Betrayed by the betrayer, he had allowed an outlaw to escape.
A pale reminder of larger sins.
But Elizabeth Brunson? He did not know who she was or how to deal with her. She was silent more often than she spoke and when she looked at him with that damnable calm, he wanted to shake her.
He could deal with hot-blooded, quick-tempered Borderers. Was one, though he hid it well.
But he was accustomed to a woman who wanted to please, to bend, to mirror your wants in her smile. This woman took in your desires, ignored them and went on to do as she pleased.
Sure as the stars, they sang of the Brunsons. Immovable as a rock, they should have sung of her.
Well, such stubbornness might have been welcomed on the Borders, but at Stirling, it would serve neither of them well.
He was going to have to protect this woman, too, but in a very, very different way than most.
He rose to start the day. He must reach Stirling and convey the secret English offer to King James before official treaty negotiations reconvened. And as for Elizabeth Brunson, he would get her safely to Stirling and back.
What happened to the woman after that was not his affair.
For the first moments after she opened her eyes, Bessie thought she must still dream. Where were the walls that sheltered her? Where was the ceiling that had protected her from wind and rain for all of her eighteen years?
She had been away from home before, of course. Since her mother’s death, she had visited every scattered Brunson household. But she had never been so far away.
She had never been out of sight of the Cheviot Hills.
Now, she was on the edge of a strange landscape with a strange man, going to a place that might as well have been across the sea.
She sat up and shook her hair down her back. Well, here she was. She would do her duty. At least she had slept well.
She cast an eye towards the stream. This morning, shielded from the rest of the camp, she had easy privacy. When would she have water and seclusion again?
She grabbed her plaid and slipped out of her dress, leaving only the linen sark. Light touched the sky, but the sun still hid below the hills. Cold, cloudy, but without snow. The water would be freezing. Too bitter to bathe, but at least she could rinse off the dust of the journey before they headed into the hills again.
She crept down to the water and stilled as she heard something downstream.
And she turned her head to see Thomas Carwell, naked as the day he was born, wading into the freezing river up to his waist.
Her eyes widened to take in broad shoulders and a strong chest narrowing to—
She shut her eyes.
Hearing the splash that meant he waded in deeper, she dared to open them again. He had submerged himself in the water, then stood, throwing his head back, letting the water drip off his straight brown hair and run down his neck and shoulders on to his chest.
She shrank down, hoping he would not see her. Too late for pretence. If he saw her, he would know what she had seen.
Well, she had as much right to the river as he did.
Next time he ducked beneath the water, she would run around the bend, where he couldn’t see—
‘Do you spy on me, then?’
Too late. And a Brunson should never cower.
She opened her eyes and stood to her full height, fighting a shiver. How could the man stand so calmly, waist deep in frigid water? ‘You put my bed near the river. I assumed you wanted me to use it.’
For a moment, she could read his eyes clearly. They travelled from her hair to her bare toes, raising heat within to fight the air’s chill. The water safely disguised him below the waist, but the plain white linen covering her from shoulder to knee suddenly felt transparent.
Did her breasts press against the linen? Could he see the shape of her legs?
She wrapped the Brunson plaid around her shoulders, the ends covering her. ‘It seems you spy on me, Thomas Carwell.’
Yet she did the same, taking him in, no longer a warden, but just a man. Not as broad of shoulder as Rob, nor as tall as Johnnie, but she remembered how he stood close and draped the cloak over her shoulders, how his body seemed to fit against hers …
And then her eyes met his.
No ambiguity now. Just hunger he did not, or could not, hide.
He opened his mouth, but the words emerged slowly. With difficulty. ‘Perhaps we each only seek to bathe in the river.’
She nodded, her head a jerky thing, tongue-tied as if she had never seen a man’s chest before. She’d seen men aplenty. But never one that seemed …
