“Aye,” she said, and stiffened her spine. Beneath her, Knight Star arched his neck and rumbled a warning as the other stallion sidled closer. “‘Tis. For I’ve not asked you to follow me.”
“It’s a nuisance I’ve been then, is it?”
“‘Tis not what I’ve said,” she gritted and placed a hand on the hilt of her sword.
“But ‘tis what you’ve been thinking.”
“As I’ve said I did not ask for your company, Mac-” “And as I’ve said, if I hadn’t come along, chasing me horse the whole distance, like a bloody hound on your trail, you would be worse off than dead, laddie.”
“Worse than dead! To a warrior there is no such thing.” “But to a woman there is,” he gritted. “What do you imagine might have happened had I not shown up?”
She said nothing. He crowded his steed closer still. “Might you think they would have wished you well and sent you merrily on your way?”
“I’ve seen trouble afore, Mac-”
“Nay!” he growled, and leaned from his stallion so that he all but rode hers. “They would have killed you. But not before they discovered the truth!”
Fury awoke in her like a sleeping lion. “And what truth is that, champion?” she snarled.
“What truth?” He looked as if she’d suddenly gone daft. “The truth that you are a maid and not a man at all. The truth that your skin is as soft as satin and your-” He curled one hand dramatically before him, but found no more words. “Sweet Mother Mary! What the devil were you thinking?”
She watched him from close proximity, her mind roiling, her body taut. “Perhaps I was thinking ‘tis a man’s world,” she said. “Perhaps I was thinking that women have few options in that world, and perhaps…” She paused, feeling anger boil quietly inside. “Perhaps I thought it best to survive as best I could rather than perishing quietly like other well-born maids would have done.”
He leaned back a mite. “What the devil are you blathering about?”
She stared at him. A thousand memories thundered like wild steeds through her head, trampling all in sight, but she’d tamed the beasties before and she did so again, easing them to a safe haven in her mind. “It matters not,” she said and drew a deep, even breath. “It only matters that you leave now.”
“Leave? Now?” He laughed. The sound was deep, incredulous, and entirely without mirth.
“Aye.”
“Here? In the borderlands where the bloody reivers be more numerous than lambkins?” He laughed again. “I tell you what, laddie. How about if I just kill you meself and see the task done.”
She drew out her sword in a flash and motioned toward him. “If you think yourself man enough, MacGowan, have at it.”
His own weapon stayed at his side. He swore quietly and with deep feeling. “You are the most stubborn maid that has ever walked the Lord’s green earth.”
“Perhaps that is because I-”
He laughed, interrupting her words. “Because you are not a maid? Huh!” He leaned toward her again, nearly pressing his mammoth chest against the tip of her sword. “You are deluded is what you are. Aye, you are a warrior, you are brave, and you are competent, but you are also a woman.”
“Shut your mouth, MacGowan,” she said, and shifted her gaze side to side. Now was not the place to have her secrets aired.
“Or what? You’ll shut it for me? You’ll kill me? You’ll cut me tongue from me head?”
“Aye,” she said, and pressed her sword against his chest, but in an instant he had knocked the blade aside and snatched her from her horse. As quick as death he dragged her atop his pommel and crushed her against his chest.
For one fleeting moment his gaze seared hers and then he was kissing her. His lips slanted across hers, burning on contact. She tried to push away, but there was no hope of that. In fact there was nothing she could do except kiss him back, but as suddenly as he began, he quit and swung her like a sack of meal onto her waiting mount.
She found herself in her saddle, slightly askew and feeling as stupid as a hop toad with her sword drooping from a limp wrist.
They stared at each other, though his expression was more of a glare. There was no telling what her face showed. For all she knew, her eyeballs may well have popped clean out of her head.
“I’ll be coming with you,” he growled. She continued to stare.
“Unless you kill me here and now.” She blinked once.
“And I’ll not be apologizing,” he warned, and turned his mount toward the south. “So don’t be holding your breath.”
They rode in silence for some time. Off to the west a curl of smoke darkened the twilight sky. Lachlan loosened his sword in its scabbard and tensed, ready for trouble. Where the devil were they headed, anyway?
He would ask, but he knew better than to waste his breath. She wouldn’t answer. In fact, he considered it damned fortunate that she hadn’t tried to kill him for several hours. And after the kiss… Well, he was lucky to remain unscathed, but for one crazy moment he’d almost thought she’d kissed him back, almost thought she’d softened in his arms. Almost…
But no. He was being daft. He’d never been particularly astute at reading a woman’s mind, and this woman was no different in that respect, apparently.
Favored men! Him! Didn’t she realize that her presence all but made him explode with frustration? Didn’t she know-
Something rustled in the bracken up ahead. He pushed his mind back to staying alive. There were few places, in Scotland or otherwise, that were more dangerr0us than the notorious border country, and if he hoped to remain alive, he’d best stay alert.
The sky was darkened and he had no idea where they were. That lack of knowledge made him nervous. After all, he wouldn’t want to guarantee that Hunter had his best interests at heart. The fact that she hadn’t spoken to him for the past three hours did little to make him feel more secure. Perhaps she knew there were reivers ahead. Perhaps she was leading him into an ambush of some sort. But would they not also ambush her? Unless she was one of them. After all, he knew next to naught about her. Perhaps she was not the only one of her kind. Perhaps there was an entire clan of women of her ilk like the Amazon women of yore. Bold, hearty maids who welcomed men into their midst only to test their metal and see if they could withstand their challenges.
His heart did a trick beat in his chest. Aye, perhaps he would be tested. But what if he passed the tests? What reward would he receive? Might he then win what he most desired? Might not the object of his desire come willing into his-
“I am asking you to leave.”
Her voice was low and quiet in the deepening darkness. His fantasies disappeared like smoke in the night.
“What’s that?” he asked, and squinted through the gloaming, trying to see her face behind the metal vent rails she now wore.
She stopped her stallion and turned toward him. Even in the daylight it was all but impossible to see her face past the metal links, but now he could only guess at her expression, hidden as it was by the lengthening shadows.
“I am asking you to turn back.”
He watched her, wishing he could read her thoughts, could at least guess what the hell she was up to. He knew nothing about her, except that she desperately wanted to be rid of him.
“I would like you to leave me.” Her voice was so soft it barely resembled her voice at all.
“Why?” he asked.
“I am asking…” She paused and drew a deep breath as if it were difficult to go on. “A favor.”
“A favor,” he repeated, and made no attempt to keep the surprise from his voice. After all, her asking a favor seemed tantamount to the sun falling from the sky and crushing them both like ants in an avalanche.
”Aye.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter…” Her voice was slightly louder now. She lowered it and continued on. “I have saved your life and you have saved mine. The debt is paid. There is no reason for us to share our paths any longer.”
No reason! Was she daft? Of course there was a reason. They traveled in the notorious borderlands, and she was a woman alone-with breasts and everything. He was merely doing his chivalrous duty accompanying her-and maybe hoping to get a glance at her… everything… again.
“Why part ways now?” he asked.
She said nothing for a moment. Her body looked stiff.
Her tone was impassive. “‘Tis as good a time as any.”
“Aye,” he agreed, “if you are hoping to get killed. Or hoping to get me killed,” he added as an afterthought, remembering the Amazon scenario. It was an intriguing one, but ‘twas said such women cut off one breast to improve their ability as archers, and she most definitely had two-
“So you’re scared, MacGowan, is that it?”
“What say you?” The image of her naked plagued his mind. She stood in the moonlight, her hair like spun gold, her breasts pearly white, and her sword held aloof.
“You’re afeared to ride alone,” she said.
He smiled at her, for though he knew anger was the safer course, his infamous temper was conspicuously lacking. “And here 1 thought you had met me brother Gilmour.”
She said nothing as she waited for an explanation.
“If you’re hoping to goad me into leaving, you’ll have to do better than such a paltry insult,” he said. “For me brother has used that ploy far too oft for it to remain effective.”
There was no need to see her expression now because he could feel her rising anger. “I’m asking you nicely, champion. Leave me be.”
“And I’m telling you nicely, I will not.”
“I have been patient with you.”
He canted his head in concession. “Aye. Not counting the times you have tried to kill me.”
“I have been patient,” she repeated. “But 1 will not be so charitable much longer. You will turn back now.” He expected her to draw her sword, or at least her dirk, but she did not.
”And why would I be doing that, laddie? I already know you are female,” he mused. “What else have you to hide?”
She was silent for some time. “What will it take to turn you aside?”
There was something in the way she asked the question that cranked up his interest. Almost a hint of suggestiveness. He swallowed, refrained from pouncing on her like a hound on a hare, and reminded himself where her interests lay. “What are you offering?”
“I did not say…” she began, then paused. The tension was as tight as a well-turned screw. “What would it take?”
He could not ignore the images that raced through his mind-the naked, provocative, breathtaking images. He’d spent the night with her, after all. None could blame him for being as randy as a lonely goat. On the other hand, most could expect him to at least be aroused by someone who would have some hope of returning his interest.
“I fear the price would be more than you are willing to pay,” he said, and smiled grimly into the darkness.
“Mayhap 1 should be the one to decide that.” Her voice was soft now, almost inaudible even to his fox like senses.
Somewhere below his waist, his second brain screamed its agreement, but in the end good sense prevailed, surprising him immensely. It seemed he was not quite so foolish as to admit his longing for her. Not quite so desperate as to beg sex from a woman who wished nothing from his entire damned gender.
“I’ll be accompanying you, laddie,” he said, and his nether regions ached with disappointment. “I fear there’s naught you can do to stop me.”
“Naught I can do?” she rasped and yanked her knife from its sheath.
They faced each other in the darkness, barely two feet apart.
“Turn back, MacGowan!”
He sat unmoving, his gaze on the blade. “Nay,” he said.
Something like a growl issued from her throat.
There was the hiss of a blade as it passed not a full inch from his ear. For a moment his heart stopped in his chest, but even before it had picked up its beat, he turned Mathan and pulled the quivering hilt from the tree behind him.
Kneeing his mount to the south, then, he preceded her down the road. interest, and certainly not one to excite a rogue like Lachlan.
The road beneath them became more tightly packed.
Knight’s iron shoes clipped against a rock, sparking on contact, regardless of the slanting rain.
From up ahead a voice called out. “Who goes there?” She neither explained nor hesitated, but rode on toward the gate that barred the road to the village. “I am Giles come to see me uncle at Nettlepath.”
There was a moment’s pause. “My lord, it has been some time.”
“Aye.” She said no more, for she’d rarely had the luxury of making friends, and here less likely than any other.
“You’ll be off to the old baron’s manor then?”
“Aye.”
“Who rides with you there?”
”This is me servant. He is deaf and mute.” For a moment she thought MacGowan would argue, but he did not.
“As you well know I am to let no one enter so late at night, but since ‘tis raining and all…” His words trailed off as the gate opened.
“Me thanks,” she said, and loosened Knight’s reins.
He needed no more encouragement, but canting his head away from the wind, entered the village and turned of his own accord onto a barely visible path. Long ago Lord Barnett’s estate had been swallowed up by Penham. It resided now within the village’s wooden palisade. The trail that wound between the shops of a cobbler and a wainwright was course and uneven.
“A deaf mute?” MacGowan’s voice rumbled from the darkness.
It was shortly before midnight when Hunter first saw the lights of Penham through the misty rain that slanted from the north. Tension coiled in her stomach, but she stared straight ahead as she spoke casually to her unwanted companion.
“You will follow me own lead.”
“What’s that?” His voice was low and not particularly agreeable. Good, she was spoiling for a fight.
“We will be entering a village soon. You’ll say nothing.” She sensed more than saw a shrug and scowled in disappointment. A rousing good battle might relieve her tension, but it looked as if she would have to wait, would have to bear his presence for a while longer, would have to endure her aching frustration for a bit more time. After all, he favored men. She knew it was true, regardless of the kiss. Regardless of the skill of the caress, it was obvious he’d only done it to disprove her theory. No man would ignore the chambermaid and show interest in her, for she was not truly a woman, not one to pique a man’s