Highland Song (24 page)

Lainie's mouth thinned, but there was no point in answering Slade's question. He didn't believe anything she told him.

"Of course," she said. "I used my body so I could get at the secret coming and goings of his troops. And then I passed the information on to the highest bidder."

Slade's expression told Lainie that he had little sympathy to spare for her or her brothers. She had made her own choices and now she would have to live with the consequences.

She hesitated, and then spoke again, trying to make him understand that Hawke would have sacrificed his own life for hers, Ian too.

"I wanted revenge but I didn't want anyone else hurt to gain it," Lainie said slowly, "but I could think of only one way to bring Bertram to his knees. Bertram deserves to die. I did not want either of my brothers to die for something that happened to me. I could not have lived with their death on my conscience. He would have taken everything from my family. What I've done to Bertram is mild for what he put me through."

He was beginning to hate Bertram as much as she did. He had always known the man was cruel--a heartless bastard.

"There is a word for men like Bertram," he muttered beneath his breath unable to trust his emotions. The little fox was slowly and surely winning him over.

Slade lifted the reins and cantered on ahead before Lainie could say another word. He didn't trust himself to listen to her berating herself for something she could not have stopped. He wanted to know the truth--all of it.

Bertram kidnapped her.

Yet no matter how quickly Slade rode, he couldn't leave behind the sound of Lainie's voice. It echoed with the angry silence of his mind.

She had not wanted her brothers to defend her honor.

I could not have lived with their death on my conscience.

He would have taken everything from my family
.

The thought of Lainie taking the world upon her shoulders and leaving the safety of her home because she didn't want her brothers to defend her disturbed Slade in ways he couldn't name. He could only accept her crazy reasoning as he accepted other things he didn't understand, such as his desire to protect a spy who had been guarding a well-kept secret for months.

A girl who trusted him so much she had slept better in the past few days than she had in those same months
.

I was just thinking how nice it is to sleep through the night without worrying.

Slade knew the thought of giving the girl that kind of peace shouldn't touch his heart.

But it did.

~ * ~

"Look!" Lainie said

While she spoke, she reached across the small space between her horse and Slade's, grabbed his right arm, and pointed.

"Over there,"

Slade stared beyond Lainie's fingertip and saw only rolling green hills and the ever-present mist that accompanied them most days and nights.

"I don't see anything unusual," he said.

"There, on the top of that hill," she insisted. "Can't you see it? Those stones. Do you think those are ruins--a decaying castle maybe?"

After a moment, Slade understood.

"Those aren't ruins," he told her. "They're just boulders that have poked up from the constant wearing down of the land from the water and the wind."

Lainie started to argue,
then
thought better of it. When Slade had first told her they would be riding into rough rugged country that few people ever saw, she thought he'd been teasing her. She'd known all along they would stay off the main roads. Slade hadn't wanted to run into English soldiers anymore than he'd wanted to see her brothers. But her brothers were busy with their own lives, and they had no idea she might need their help.

He hadn't been teasing her though. There were hidden roads. She had seen them, ridden through them and acknowledged the loneliness of this country. Lord, but she didn't want anything to happen to Slade. She'd never find her way out of the hills.

For Lainie, the rugged landscape was a constant source of wonder. She had heard her brothers speak of the hills and the mountains with love and mystery, but she'd never thought to see them herself. And she had never truly understood the very beauty of the land that could steal your breath and rob your heart.

Yet even more than the wonder and the beauty, Lainie was astonished by the pillars and rocks that rose out of the land. Sometimes they resembled sleeping beasts. Sometimes like now, they resembled castles with buttresses of solid stone rising skyward. The sights gave her cause to think of home and the memories of a wonderful childhood she'd never forget no matter where she ended up.

Slade stood in the stirrups and looked over his shoulder. The hills rising into mountains were a dark blue blot against the horizon.

Since dawn, Slade had seen nothing move over the face of the land but a few forest animals and few of those.

"Looks like Jericho's horses finally gave up," Lainie said, staring over the back trail.

Slade made a sound that could have meant anything.

"Does that mean we can camp early?" Lainie asked hopefully.

He looked at her and smiled.

"Depends," he said.

"On what?"

"On whether we can find a secluded spot with water. If we can, we'll make camp a few miles away."

"A few miles?" Lainie asked, hoping she had heard wrong.

"Don't want to tempt fate. If Jericho and his men are nearby, they're going to be looking for the same things we are. Only a fool would settle down where an army of men might find them."

She thought about what Slade said and sighed. She had thought that with a little water she might be able to take a bath of sorts.

"I see," Lainie said unhappily. "Camping by water would be like camping in the center of a crossroads. With all this mist, fog and rain, I don't see why any one would need more water."

Slade laughed.

"How far do you think we have to go?"

"It’s not very far."

When Lainie fell silent, Slade glanced aside at her. Despite the hard miles on the trail, she looked good to him. The shine of her hair was undiminished, her color was high, and the quickness of her mind hadn't changed.

"You know where you’re going, don't you?" Lainie asked.

"You have something in mind?"

"A bath," she had not given up that one small hope.

The thought of getting Lainie naked in a pool of water had a rapid, pronounced effect on Slade's body. With a muffled curse, he forced his thoughts away from the memory of her nipples drawn taut and shiny from the searching caress of his mouth. Sweet jesu, but that seemed an eternity ago.

Slade tried very hard not to think about Lainie in that way at all. It was too damned distracting besides it was the torture of the damned. He was a man of unusual self-control, yet he had very nearly reached for her at dawn that morning, and to hell with worrying about the mercenaries on their trail.

There might be time to take a short bath," he said evenly.

The purring sound of pleasure Lainie made did nothing to decrease Slade's sensual awareness of her.

"Is it at the end of the valley?" Lainie asked.

"The water will be cold as ice. Hope you're ready for that." His vision of her with droplets of water gliding down her body and shimmering in the moonlight didn't help either.

She looked at Slade, then at their back trail.

"Cold water isn't going to stop me," she said. "I've wanted a bath for days now. I know how cold the mountain lochs can be."

He watched Lainie close her eyes, and wondered what she was thinking.

"You'll stand guard?"

Slade took off his hat, resettled it, and smiled at Lainie.

"No, I thought I would join you," he said with a grin.

"You thought wrong," she said.

He watched her with the hope she would ask him to join her. He knew she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t because he was sure she'd come to know him as well as he knew himself. He wouldn't risk frolicking in a cold lock if it meant Jericho catching them off guard.

"What something looks like or seems like depends on how you come at it," he told her.

"Even Bertram's plaything?" Lainie asked.

The instant the words were out of her mouth Lainie looked away. He didn’t think she had meant to bring anything up that would make his disdain of her more pronounced. But she was right. It was the only thing she could say that might keep him away from her.