Becca St.John (7 page)

“Are there no other towns?”

“No, not as close as this one.”

From their vantage point, high on a rise, there were no towns to be seen, no keeps or castles or cottages.

“Sometimes, Seonaid, you have to go back on yourself. It can’t be helped,” he told her.

Again, Deian drew her attention.

“What will you call him? Who should he be?”

Grit crunched beneath Padraig’s boots as he rose. “You shouldna’ be doing this, lass.”

She refused to argue with him anymore. They’d argued all the night before and he didn’t even know what she truly meant to do. All he knew was that she would stay with the horses and Deian would pose as a lad Padraig had found. Weak, to be sure, but better than telling everyone who he was.

“It has to be somethin’ close to his own name, like Ian.”

“Too close to his real name.” Seonaid sighed, “If there’s anyone clever there, they’ll suss out that he’s really Deian. You can’t help but slip when they’re that close. How about Tavish?”

“Sounds like my horse.”

“Connor.”

“No,” Padraig shook his head, “he doesna’ look like a Connor.”

He was right. That was the problem. He looked like a Deian. Seonaid sank down on her haunches, defeated. Padraig joined her.

“You know, we are like a couple of parents searching for a name while waiting for a bairn to be born.”

“We’re nothing of the sort!”

He laughed, wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Oh, aye, we are. Best face it. And worse, he’s been born and grown into his name.”

“Well—” she turned away from him, “—we will have to find an even better one for him.”

Padraig snorted. She swatted him. “You’re no help.”

He shrugged. “My heart’s not in it.”

“Aye,” she sighed again, watching Deian, getting her fill. “He loves you, you know.”

He squeezed her arm. “And he loves you.”

It was her turn to snort. “He doesn’t laugh with me like he does with you.”

“You don’t laugh with you, either,” Padraig offered.

“Of course I do,” she argued.

“No,” he shook his head, “you don’t, not enough. You have to step fretting, lass, and start grabbing everything you can from life.”

Foolish man.

Seonaid rose, towered over him, her finger in his face. “Not grab life?” She pointed at herself. “I’ve survived more than you will ever know!” She pointed at Deian. “I gave my son life, I’ve supported him, all without a man.” She raised her arms to the skies. “All despite the clan whispering about me behind their hands.” She thumped her chest. “And I’m gettin’ my fill of life trying to give him a new one.”

Once more, she jabbed her finger at him. “How dare you accuse me of not grabbing every minute, every moment!”

“Now, lass,” Padraig rose, too. “Calm down. That’s not what I was meanin’.”

“Of course it was what you were meanin’. I’m not livin’ my life accordin’ to Padraig. That’s what bothers you.”

He tilted his head, then nodded. “Aye, part of that is true, ’cause if you were livin’ accordin’ to me, we’d be safe and sound at Glen Toric, not concoctin’ foolish plans.”

She brushed him off. “They aren’t foolish and if we have to backtrack before movin’ forward, let’s get going. I want to reach the Women in the Woods before winter.”

“Grumble, grumble.”

“What are you sayin’ now?”

“Nothin’,” Padraig lied, with such false innocence she startled them both by laughing.

“Well, look at you.” From innocence to abashed, he fueled her mirth. “Aye, I knew you could do it, lass.”

And it felt good. So good.

“With your foolishness, of course I can.” And her laughter, missing for so long, grew just for the sheer pleasure of it.

Padraig joined in until their humor took them over, tears slipping down their faces. They had to hold each other up, a hand to a shoulder, the other arm crossed at the belly for the pain of it. He pulled her into a hug so tight and full of strength, the laughter stopped. Emotions dipped and swirled and wove themselves into something else entirely.

“Oh, no,” she whispered, for she hadn’t the strength to speak aloud.

He eased the embrace, gentled it.

“Aye, Seonaid.” His hand stroked her back, as though searching for tension to ease. “I want to kiss you, lass.”

She knew he wanted more than that, felt the evidence pressed against her. And Lord help her, she wanted it, too. With Deian a few feet away and in a few days, never to be before her again, she had to stop this. Now. For now.

“When Deian sleeps,” she promised, knowing it was wrong, knowing she should never give in to such weakness.

Knowing that, soon, she would never see him again.

Padraig watched Seonaid settle Deian for the night.

“You know, even if you don’t see Padraig or me, we’re here for you. You know that?”

The lad nodded.

“All you have to do is shout out.”

“Where are you going?”

Padraig anticipated that one. The boy would probably stay up all night out of curiosity.

“Nowhere.” Seonaid settled the blanket over the lad. “But we’re often watching the land, to keep you safe.”

Padraig groaned. For a woman who dressed like a man, had the skills of a warrior, she certainly didn’t know how the male of the species thought. She’d just offered adventure.

Sure enough, Deian pushed off his cover, jumped up. “I can help with that.”

“No.” Padraig sounded firm, had to sound firm.

Seonaid’s glance could have ripped through his leather tunic, but he didn’t care, repeated himself. “No. It’s boring as hell. There’s never anything out there so you have to fight falling asleep, make yourself walk and look and listen for nothing. So go to sleep.”

“If it’s boring, I’ll help my ma stay awake. She can tell me the story of the faerie Seonaidh.”

“No, you won’t, because the faeries will blame your ma if you don’t sleep, and you don’t want that.” He offered his best, frightened look.

Deian wrapped his arms around Seonaid’s neck, where she still crouched by his bed. “I won’t let them hurt my ma!”

“Of course not.” She hugged him fiercely. “And I won’t let anything happen to you.”

That’s how he knew she was leaving them, him and Deian. All day she’d been playing with names for the lad and stories for him to use when people asked where the boy came from. She claimed she’d stay behind and keep the horses, in case the men who attacked had reached towns, would recognize their lost horses.

“I want to ride Snip,” Deian argued, only she didn’t call him Deian any more, she called him Eban.

“Snip?” she’d asked.

“Aye. The horse I ride because he’s got a snip of white on his muzzle,” he’d told her.

“It’s a good name.” She’d praised him, was always praising him and hugging him. And he’d caught her watching him, too, as if he might disappear, when he knew who it was who would be gone. She’d been working up to the moment they reached a village or town.

Padraig didn’t like playing games. Didn’t like pretending something that wasn’t true. But if Seonaid’s plan was to be played, the name Eban made sense in an odd sort of way.

Back at Glen Toric, Deian and Deidre’s little Eba had been inseparable. If a body called for Eba, they would be calling for Deian. Just as a mother would mix up her own kinders, when people would shout for Eba half the time they meant Deian, and the reverse. Or they’d start with one name and change it mid-shout and end up yelling Deba or Eban.

He’d argued the idea anyway, because the plan worried him.

“How will I explain traveling with a child?” he’d asked her.

“You found travelers who were sick and dying and you took their son, to save him.”

“They’ll think he carries the illness.”

“He’s your long-lost son.”

Padraig refused to respond to that one. Plenty of men risked leaving bastards across the highlands. He was not that kind of man.

“He’s the son of a lass you loved and lost to a horrible accident.”

He snorted. “The whole clan would know of that.”

“Then what would you suggest?”

“Nothing. I don’t have to answer to anyone.”

“They’ll ask.”

“No. Never.”

Seonaid insisted, leaning close enough to the truth to make it easy. Young Deian—or Eban, as he was to be called—was found wandering alone in the wild. He’d been traveling with his mother, who was trying to get to her sister, and he’d gotten lost.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like what Seonaid was thinking. Every night he fretted she’d not be there in the morning. He was that afraid she would take off and leave.

Now certain of it, in the way she clung to the lad, as if the last time she would ever see him, Padraig knew she planned this night to be their good-bye.

If she had her way. Only she wouldn’t have her way. He’d not let that happen.

Still, for tonight, he’d let her think whatever she wanted to. Let her believe she’d never see him again so he could prove she couldn’t do it.

It would be that good between them. He had no doubts.

Light of foot, he headed for the high ground, a large slab of rock that overlooked where young Deian lay. Seonaid would curl up with the lad, then come to him when it was her turn to take the watch.

He’d best get ready. It took careful planning for a man to win a woman.

CHAPTER 7  ~  SEDUCTION

“Yow!”

Seonaid sat up, bow in hand, only to see Padraig hopping about, nursing his finger.

“What did you do?” She scrambled to her knees.

“Burnt my finger!” His sour look at a steaming pot of water explained where the damage was done.

“Bring it here,” Seonaid ordered, but he jutted his chin toward Deian and she realized they risked waking the lad. Reluctantly, she rose, crossed to him, a stern mother, badgered into caring for an injured child.

Only something in his eyes, a glint, the lazy way his lids dropped halfway, as though to hide something, held her gaze to his. It didn’t even slip when she reached him and she couldn’t say if she took his hand in hers or he put it there, but both of them raised his hand to her mouth. So caught in his nearness, the soft touch of his finger to her lips startled her. She tried to step back, but he held her steady, his gruff words sluicing over her like a caress.

“Succor it well, will ya?”

Lord help her, she did; pulled it into her mouth and laved the heat from it, even as the heat rose in her.

“That’s my lass.” She was too confused to argue the point, for right now she
was
his lass.

“Come, follow me.” And he reached down for the steaming pot without a care for the heat.

“What are you doing with that?” she asked.

“Shhh, don’t want to wake up the lad,” he warned, so she put her hand to his back, as the night was dark, and followed him with all her trust and not a little bit of curiosity.

“Did you really injure yourself?”

“Aye, a wee bit.” But he didn’t seem to notice the water that splashed from the kettle to his leg.

“Where are we going with this?” But the land dipped suddenly and Padraig made a sharp turn to the right. “I know, you’re heading to the river.”

“Was,” he corrected. “We’re here now.”

“Are you planning on warming the frigid river with a kettle full of boiling water?”

Instead of answering, he put the kettle down and turned to her. “Every morning you wish for a hot bath instead of a cold stream.”

“One kettle…” He didn’t let her finish.

“Oh, lassie, do you think I’d be that daft, to offer you a piddlin’ kettle of hot water?”

The urge to run swept through her. Fear, that he’d really done it, done something so special for her that she wouldn’t be able to stand it. She swallowed back foolish apprehension.

Of course he hadn’t. There were no baths to be found in the highland and they only had one small kettle. “You’re teasing me for whinin’.”

“Never.” He cupped her jaw, ran his thumbs over her cheeks. “I’m giving you a dream.” Before she could run, before words spurred by fear could spoil the moment, his lips touched hers, soft but firm, a caressing touch. His tongue traced the seam of her mouth. “Now just wait.”

He pivoted, reached for the kettle and stepped away. She couldn’t see clearly, the moon was on its last edge, but she heard the splash of water along with the rumbling tones of the river.

She sighed. Of course he had no bath to offer. In fact, he wasted all the warmth when, at the least, she could have put some in a bowl and washed with a cloth.

But she’d not say anything. He tried to please her, and that was enough.

“Come.” He reached out, she took his hand. “Take your shoes off.”

She bent down, did as he said.

“You’ll have to trust me not to look, but you’ll want to take off your tunic and trews.”

She shot up, disappointed. “Now?” She’d made a promise to him, but thought he’d try, even a wee bit, to coerce her.

“Aye. And if you don’t mind not peeking, I’ll do the same.”

“For a cold dunkin’?” She couldn’t hold the sarcasm back. He’d led her out of her shell, but that armor was not so far away.

“Ah, my lassie, would I bring you down her for a cold bath?”

“Och, Padraig—” not so unfeeling, just foolish, “—you can’t warm a river with one kettle of water.”

“With dozens, lass. I’ve been at this all night.”

She put her hands on either side of his face, “You’re a sweet man, Padraig, but all that hot water does is run down the river.”

“Come here,” He tugged her over to the small pool, pleased as a young lad with a bouquet of weeds. “Feel.”

She wouldn’t be so cruel as to not play along, “Fine.”

She crouched down, her hand to the water. She swished her fingers about. “Oh!” Then she reached deeper. “It’s warm, you’ve warmed the river!” She pulled her hand back, as if it touched a lie.

“Will it suit?”

“Oh, aye,” She wanted to ask him how he did it, how he managed to give her a warm tub, but tears clogged her throat.

“Come on, lass, get yourself in, it won’t stay warm forever.”

She looked up to where he stood, a dark shadow in the gloom. “You said you wouldn’t look.”