Then his other words penetrated. “You know _nothing _ about the sort of life I’ve led.”
“No.” He nodded once, a hard shake of his dark head. “I don’t.” Dropping both hands on his saddle, he leaned forward. “But I imagine being born with a sense of entitlement, knowing only a life of pampered privilege, makes it especially hard when you fall.” His words hung in the air, part question, part statement, resonating inside her in a way that made her shift uneasily where she stood.
She gave a small nod. Swallowing, she stared starkly at the rippling water, thinking her biggest challenge had not been the loss of wealth. Not the dearth of pretty dresses or jewels. Not the lack of food whenever she desired…
None of that bothered her. Not as much as the loss of her self-respect. Which is precisely what she lost when she acted with the cold calculation her father had taught her.
“Where I come from,” he continued, “men are not born to prestige and wealth. A man must earn any success to be had in life.” He moved to her horse then, checking the cinch as well.
She watched him for some moments, wondering if her father had ever once left the walls of their home to inspect their property, to oversee the fields or inquire after his tenants. He always entrusted such matters to his steward. Griffin Shaw’s notions would have confounded him.
This man was a different breed. She wondered what duty was to him…and somehow doubted it had anything to do with propriety and societal expectations—everything she had been brought up to value.
“Ready?” he asked.
Her body protested at the idea of getting back atop her mount so soon. Rather than complain, she tightened her jaw and brushed her hands on her skirts.
“Ready,” she answered, her eyes meeting his.
His gaze followed her stiff movements. “If you need some more time—”
“That’s unnecessary,” she assured, gathering a fistful of her horse’s mane and bouncing on the balls of her feet, preparing to mount, determined that she not appear weak and frail, someone he must cater to over the next day. He had done enough already. She’d not have him think her totally helpless. A female in need of rescuing, totally dependent on a man to coddle her.
His voice scraped the air, sending unwelcome tingles along her spine as he helped her swing atop her mount. “As you say, Duchess.”
She suppressed a flash of annoyance at his mocking form of address, watching him swing himself up in one fluid motion, his muscles bunching and flexing beneath his clothing. Nothing in his movements hinted at any stiffness or soreness.
Both mounted, she followed him across the brook, frowning as she thought over their conversation. She couldn’t recall talking so freely with a man before. Especially a man she had known for such a short duration.
Drawing a thin breath through her nostrils, she let the cold air fill her with a familiar chill, ice in her veins, cold, numbing. Chasing away all feelings, freezing them dead.
Chapter 9
Griffin eyed the horizon, noting the fading twilight with grim acceptance. Hehad pushed her as far as he could. Although he had hoped to cover more distance, it became apparent that she was not accustomed to hard riding, despite her tight-lipped endurance. He did admire her mettle though. Who knew that a duchess would never complain?
Confident he’d found a suitable spot to break camp, he pulled up his mount and swung down.
Without a word, he gripped the lady by the waist. Her dark eyes flared wide as he swung her down, sliding her along the length of him, enjoying the feel of her slim figure against him, the mash of her br**sts against his chest surprisingly erotic.
When he released her, her hands grabbed his arms, her legs buckling.
“Easy,” he murmured, his hands flying back to her waist.
She watched him with the wariness he was coming to expect. At first it annoyed him that she should still distrust him. If it weren’t for him, she never would have made it out of Dubhlagan.
She’d be facing Scots’ justice…perhaps in the form of a noose.
And yet she was entitled to her distrust. From what he knew of her, it would take a great deal to thaw her reserve.
“My legs feel like jam,” she muttered, her soft clipped speech stoking some place deep inside him.
Sliding his hands from her waist, he grasped her arm and led her to a grassy spot. “I’ll tend to the horses. You just let the blood return to your legs, Duchess.”
Her chin went up, as he knew it would. That jutting chin had become her trademark, especially when she was annoyed.
A smile tugged his mouth. He wasn’t certain what bothered her more. The reference to her title or the fact that he addressed her with such irreverence. He wasn’t privy to the proper manner of address among the British peerage, but he was fairly certain calling her Duchess did not qualify as due respect.
Turning, he unsaddled their mounts. He slapped Waya on the rump to let him wander, knowing he wouldn’t stray far and would return at once with a whistle. Hobbling off the little mare, he returned with his saddlebag slung over his shoulder and bedding tucked under his arm.
Squatting beside her, he shook out a tarp and patted for her to sit. She obliged, watching him all the while with that steady, unflinching gaze. Dark, fathomless. Direct and frank, pulling him in.
He handed her his water flask and moved off to hunt down kindling for a fire, grateful for a moment alone, for distance from that mesmerizing gaze.
“It’s going to be a cold night,” he commented upon his return. He glanced up at her as he arranged the kindling, eyeing her navy gown, the wide skirts and tight bodice with buttons straight up to the throat. Dressed so modestly, it was a wonder she roused his interest. Standing, he brushed off his hands and searched through his leather saddlebag, pulling out a small bundle of oilcloth wrapped in twine.
“Here.” Unfolding the paper, he offered her the jerky.
She took the dried meat from him as if it might come alive and bite her. Turning it over in her hand, she asked in those proper accents that twisted his insides into knots, “What is it?”
“Jerky.” At her blank look, he added, “Dried venison.”
“Oh,” she murmured, lifting her gaze and watching him tear off a bite with his teeth. After a moment, she followed suit, her small perfect teeth gnawing daintily on the meat. Something curled in his gut at the simple sight. So basic, so elemental, that he immediately imagined that mouth on him, those pearl teeth grazing his flesh, nipping at his mouth, his neck, his chest.
Clearing his throat, he shoved the image away, fighting it back down his suddenly tight throat.
The woman had just lost her husband, and here he was imagining tossing her skirts over her head.
“It’s just for tonight,” he assured her. Tomorrow he would leave her in Edinburgh and he would continue on his way to Balfurin. Although he could not say for certain whether he would receive any hospitality when he reached his destination. He did not even know if the man he sought still lived.
“I’m tired,” she murmured on a sigh as she finished her jerky, the first comment she had volunteered in awhile.
“Get some rest,” he encouraged, doubting she had slept much last night.
Nodding, she snuggled down onto the tarp, pulling a blanket up to her shoulders. Several moments passed in which neither spoke. He looked away, deciding he needed time to get a grip on his attraction before he looked her way again.
He assumed she slept until he heard her voice, strong and clear. “I don’t believe I’ve thanked you, Mr. Shaw.”
His eyes met hers over the spitting fire. He broke a twig and tossed it into the writhing flames, noting the way the flames gilded her hair honey gold. “No, ma’am.”
Her dark eyes clung to his for a long moment, glowing in the firelight like polished jet. “Thank you.”
He gave a hard nod, unnerved by that dark mesmerizing gaze.
He breathed with relief when her eyes drifted closed, shuttering the dark, compelling pools. Soon she slept, her chest rising and falling in slow, deep breaths beneath the wool blanket. Her stern features softened, and he realized she was younger than he first thought, not as old as himself, perhaps only five and twenty. Too young for someone to be so grave, so sad.
He thought about the husband that had left her, the man that had wanted to marry another woman while still bound to her. An angry burn centered in his gut. He stirred the fire, watching as it chased shadows over her fair skin. She really was beautiful, mysterious and solemn…so haunted by propriety, constrained by the dictates of her proper British upbringing.
She shouldn’t remind him of a blood-soaked battlefield. Or the woman buried there.
She shouldn’t. And yet she did.
She made him remember. Remember everything. All he sought to forget. San Jacinto. The violence of their surprise attack. The blood. The needless killing. They had the enemy whipped, but still they fought, still they had killed, cutting down so many. He remembered that massacre…and the woman that had been caught amid it all. Perhaps she had been a laundress, a camp follower. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
He had shouted at her…at his fellow soldier charging her with a bayonet. Useless. She dropped, her dark-eyed gaze locking with his through the smoke-shrouded field.
He remembered her. Remembered the plea he had failed to answer in those dark eyes. Liquid dark eyes. Black as sin. So like Astrid’s.
And he remembered his father never looked at him the same way after the war. Aware of that day’s butchery, Donald Shaw never disguised his shame in him.
With his father’s death, Griffin finally felt free to put that behind him. Or at least try. He hoped to learn the truth, to solve his mother’s deathbed ramblings and perhaps find his place in the world…to obtain a measure of redemption for himself. To discover if he was perhaps more than the man his father had judged him to be. A better man than even he believed himself.
His prickly duchess rolled onto her side with a soft sigh. He studied the fine arch of her brows, several shades darker than her fair hair. Her lashes, dark smudges of coal, fanned her cheeks while she slept. His fingers itched to trace their inky lushness.
He gave himself a hard mental shake, reminding himself that he liked women with blue eyes.
Blue eyes full of mirth. Never dark eyes. Never.
He liked women with humor, who knew how to laugh and smile. Not somber females with ghosts shadowing their eyes and diffidence in the curve of their mouth. That would make her too much like him.
She was beneath the bed again. Blood crawled toward her on all sides. Bertram’s blood. Dark and thick as grease, it slid up her fingers, rolling over her hands and wrists, up her arms. She parted her lips to scream, but then the blood was in her mouth, choking her, drowning her… shaking her.
Hard hands gripped her, jarring her very teeth.
“Wake up. Duchess, wake up!”
Astrid blinked, a scream lodged deep in her chest as she focused on the face above her. The fire’s glow licked at the shadowed features staring down at her, concern etched in the hard lines.
“You’re safe now,” he murmured, brushing a lock of hair from her forehead. She flinched at the touch, and he hesitated, his hand hovering over her face, his palm wide, his fingers long and blunt-tipped, both elegant and masculine.
“You’re safe,” he repeated, lowering his hand back down with infinite slowness, as if she were a skittish animal he must reassure. The tips of his fingers brushed her forehead, tenderly, gently.
Her eyes locked with his, drowning in the pale blue of his stare. Tearing her gaze away, she looked around her, noticing for the first time that they shared the tarp and blanket. Some time during the night he had joined her. The air caught in her chest. A space no more than an inch separated their bodies. Her lungs tightened.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, tugging at the blanket that cocooned both of them, drawing it to her neck.