The Perfect Stranger (28 page)

Mac dismounted and said something they did not catch. She whirled and said something in Spanish—something abusive by the sound of it. Mac responded in the same language.

She recoiled. “How you know my language, English?”

Mac started unbuckling saddle straps. “I’m no’ English. My name is McTavish. I was in Spain for some years, with the army, and picked up some of the lingo.”

“I
hate
soldiers!” She tossed her hair at him in a clear challenge.

Mac shrugged and lifted the saddle off his horse.

“I hate the English, too!”

He shrugged again. “I’m no’ English.”

She watched in frustration. “I know about soldiers. If you try to touch me, I kill you!”

Mac made no sign he had heard. He set about methodically rubbing down his horse. The girl stepped forward and poked him, hard, in the back. “You hear me, English? If you touch me, I kill you!”

Mac turned. “For the last time, I’m no’ English, ye daft wee besom!”

She frowned, and then glanced down at her front. “What mean wee—is small, yes?”

“Yes.”

“But my besom not small!” Mac didn’t reply, so she turned to the rest of the group, who were watching the exchange in fascination. She plucked at the low-cut blouse and said in an offended tone, “My besom not small, no?”

Faith was about to explain that besom was a word for witch, but Nick stopped her with a gesture and shook his head. He was trying not to laugh. “No, your besom not small.”

She nodded in satisfaction, turned back to Mac, and punched him on the arm. “You think my besom small, yes?” she said belligerently. “Then why you look so much—eh?”

Mac’s face was red. “Bite your tongue, girl! Shame on you to speak of bosoms to the cap’n like that!”

The girl bridled indignantly. “Shame on me? Who speak of my besoms in first place? Who say are too small? Is shame on you, you hairy great Englishman, for looking at them in first place! And for insult them. I am Estrellita, and I no accept insult from any man, English or not! I know English from war, and I no—”

“I. Am. Not. An. Englishman!”
Mac roared.

Beside Faith, Nicholas choked. Stevens mopped eyes that were streaming and watched the girl in fascination.

Estrellita gave Mac a scornful look. “Well, what are you then? You not Spanish or Portuguese, of course, and not French, not with that great red bush on your face. Frenchmen stinking pigs like all soldier, but they have elegant.”

“I am a Scot, woman!”

She frowned, puzzled. “Scot? What is Scot?” Then her face cleared, “Ah, I know, the ones who wear dress, no?” She gave him a dubious look. “You wear dress?”

“Not a dress, the kilt!”

She cocked her head, like a curious sparrow. “What is kilt?”

Mac groped for words. “It’s a tartan, er, traditional pattern, and it’s draped around a man. Fastened around the waist and sometimes wi’ the plaid coming up here. And it finishes here.” He gestured with his hands.

She pulled a face and shrugged, “Is dress. You wear dress but show hairy knees.”

“How do you know my knees are hairy?”

She gave him a slow look, silently pointing out that if the visible parts of him were this hairy, his knees would be, too. “So, you wear dress, but not shave off that thing.” She waved a disdainful hand in the direction of his beard. “Is very strange.”

Goaded, Mac growled, “I don’t wear the kilt anymore.”

She pouted. “Is pity. I think maybe you look pretty in dress, Tavish. Now…” She glanced at Stevens and Nicholas, who were still struggling with mirth. She regarded Nick a moment with an odd look on her face, as if a thought had occurred to her, then she turned to Faith. “I am Estrellita. You shoot gun for me back there in village, yes? For this I thank you. The women of my family, we pay debt.”

Faith hurried forward and put an arm around her. “Oh, I am so glad you have not lost your spirit,” she said. “What a horrid thing to have happened to you. Those women looked terrible. My name is Faith—that is, I am Mrs. Blacklock, but you may call me Faith, as I’m sure we shall be friends.”

Friends? Nick blinked as he wiped the laughter from his eyes. He knew his wife was friendly to a fault, but to offer her friendship to an unknown, grubby, gypsy-looking girl, one who’d been attacked by a wild mob of women who he presumed were otherwise normally respectable, was taking rashness a little far. He cleared his throat.

The girl threw a suspicious glance at him over her shoulder.

Faith continued, oblivious, “The tall man clearing his throat is my husband, and that is Stevens over there with the handkerchief, and of course you have met Mr. McTavish. And we will look after you. You are safe now, and nobody shall hurt you. My husband is a wonderfully gallant man and so is Stevens and”—she faltered, then said with a challenging glare at Mac—“and Mr. McTavish will protect you, too. As he already has.”

The girl sniffed and sent a darkling glance at Mac.

Faith, apparently blind to any undercurrents, was focused wholly on the girl’s needs. “I’ll see to those scratches at once. Stevens, have you any of that salve left? And some brandy to settle our nerves. It’s wonderfully fortifying after a bad fright,” she confided to the girl. “And how soon can we get hot water? This young lady needs to wash, and we could all use a nice hot drink. Nicholas, is there a fire lit?”

He responded to her question with a sardonic look. She knew very well there was no fire. She’d been in his arms the entire time. He wished she was, still.

“Well, go on then!” She flapped her hands at him in a shooing motion. “We need hot water at once!” She turned back to the girl while Nick went off to build a fire. He wondered whether he’d be expected to produce a bath as well. The girl certainly needed it.

“So,” Nick addressed the gypsy girl as the fire burned low after dinner. “Why did those women attack you?”

Estrellita stiffened as she was confronted with the question she’d expected from the beginning. Faith had refused to allow anyone to question the girl until all her hurts were tended to and she was washed, and they were all fed. But now she was clean, well-fed, and though she’d refused to borrow Faith’s pink dress, saying it was too new and nice, she’d conceded her clothes needed washing and had consented to wear one of Mac’s shirts, which hung down well past her knees, and his jacket over the top. She was sitting huddled into the jacket now.

She was not the sort of female who would ever look entirely respectable, especially not in those garments.

Faith had ordered the men out of sight while she tended the girl, but Nick had watched from a distance. He didn’t trust his wife alone with the sort of girl who’d stir up an entire village full of women. But as far as he could tell from his vantage point, she’d been quiet and docile, and she and his wife seemed to get on well.

But now, as he asked her why she’d been attacked, she stiffened, and all signs of docility vanished.

She gave a defiant, unconvincing shrug. “How should I know? You were there, too!”

Mac leaned forward. “Dinna speak to the cap’n like that. Now, answer, girl. We’ll no’ hurt ye, but ye must have done something to get that mob o’ women all riled up like that.”

Faith was surprised by Mac’s tone of voice. He’d all but snapped Faith’s head off when she’d arrived in camp, and yet with this girl, he was almost…gentle. She was about to comment, but Nick, who was sitting with his arm around her, squeezed her and shook his head in a silent message.

Estrellita bridled at Mac’s tone, tossed her mane of black curls back over her shoulder, and snarled, “What I do? I bewitch their men, poison their water, curdle their milk—and the milk of their cows—turn their wine to vinegar and cure—interfere with their babies, that is all!”

Mac raised an eyebrow and said in a mild tone, “Is that all? Ye didna put the evil eye on their unborn as well, did ye?”

She glared at him. “No, but I’ll put the evil eye on you, you big red bear!”

To everyone’s amazement, a fleeting grin appeared on Mac’s face. “So, what was the matter wi’ the bairns—the ones ye cured?”

She frowned, puzzled and suspicious. “Bairns?”

“Wee ones. Weanlings. Babes.”

She shrugged. “A fever.”

“And what did you do?”

She said savagely, “I fed them with live toads and then I roasted them and ate them and after that I danced naked with the Devil. What do you think I did?”

Apparently unperturbed by her outburst, he said, “So you brought down the fever. What with?”

“Catnip, hyssop, and thyme, with a little licorice root,” she muttered sulkily.

He nodded. “Verra good. So, why were the women angry?”

Her dark eyes flashed with anger. “Because I bewitched their men, of course, and lay naked with them in the village square.”

Mac frowned thoughtfully. “So the problem started with the men.” He eyed her speculatively. “What did they want you to do?”

She glared at him in silent fury.

Mac said calmly, “You’re a bonny-looking lass, but while they might desire you, they’d no’ be asking it of you in front of their women. So, did they take you somewhere?”

She said sulkily, “To the inn. I thought they were going to pay me for curing their babies, but they wanted—they wanted—” She spat belligerently into the fire. “They wanted me to do what I do for no man!”

“And the women found out.”

She shrugged.

“And they blamed you, didn’t they?” said Faith. “The same thing happened to me!”

The girl started at Faith in amazement. “You?”

Faith nodded vehemently. She leaned forward and patted Estrellita’s hand. “Oh yes, if you’re friendless and alone and…and pretty, men will want…things of you…but for some terrible reason, everyone blames the woman. It is so unfair.”

The girl glanced at her, looked down, and nodded. “
Sí,
señora, they always blame the woman.” Nick caught a sheen of tears in her eyes that surprised him. Perhaps she was not as tough as he’d thought. And, now he came to think of it, she was not as old as he’d thought she was before she’d washed.

“How old are you?” he asked.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, but could see no hidden threat in the question. “Nineteen summers.”

Faith beamed. “I am nineteen, too!”

“And where are you from?” Nick continued.

“Why do you want to know?” she demanded.

“No particular reason.”

“What my husband means is that we are traveling south—to Bilbao in fact,” Faith interjected. “And if your home is anywhere in that direction, we could escort you. It is not safe for a woman to travel alone.”

Nick looked at her in mild exasperation. That was not what he’d planned to offer at all. For a start, this girl was a gypsy, and if he knew anything about gypsies, it was that they stole.

Estrellita looked from Faith to Nick to Mac and then back to Nick. “As it happen,” she said slowly, looking at Nick as if her words should challenge him, “My great-grandmother is just beyond Bilbao, and I am traveling to meet her.”

Nick raised his brows. Something in the way she said it niggled him. As if there was some kind of silent challenge going on. He decided she wasn’t telling the truth. “Indeed? Where exactly does she live?”

“I not tell you! I never tell you!” Her eyes dared him to push it any further.

Nick tried to keep his tone even. “I have no interest in where your blasted granny lives.”

“Why are you visiting her?” Faith interjected.

“She very old. I been away for few months, but now she send for me to come home. And now I see him,” she gestured at Nick with a jut of her jaw, “I know why she need me to come.”

Nick ignored her incivility. She was a fractious female. He would have liked to ask how this supposed summons had arrived. He’d bet his last penny the girl could neither read nor write. But gypsies had their ways, he knew.

He glanced at Mac, who had hardly taken his eyes off the girl, and made his decision. Mac would undoubtedly watch her like a hawk, and if she tried to steal anything, he’d pounce. Other than that chip on her shoulder, she seemed harmless. And there was no denying her interactions with Mac were very entertaining. Besides, Faith was already fond of the girl, gypsy or not, thief or not. He didn’t have much choice.

“Can you ride?”

She snorted as if the answer was too obvious to give. Gypsies were famous for their horse skills.

“Stevens, would you mind if Estrellita rode—”

“I no ride with him. I ride with him.” She stabbed a finger in Mac’s direction.

“That’s for me tae decide.”

“There is the packhorse, Capt’n,” began Stevens.

“No packhorse. I ride with him!” She flung a challenging look at Mac as she said it.

Nick was inclined to agree. It didn’t make sense to let her have the packhorse, with the possibility she’d ride off with all their things. And she clearly needed a strong hand.

“Mac?”

Mac gave the girl a long look. “Aye, orright, but I have no doubt she’ll drive me mad.”

Instead of showing gratitude, the girl narrowed her eyes, as if her suspicions were confirmed.

“Lovely!” exclaimed Faith, apparently oblivious of the silent interplay. “Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but what I would love, Nicholas, is for you to play your guitar. Would you, please?”

He was not proof against the appeal in her eyes as she asked, so he fetched his guitar and played quietly for perhaps half an hour. He played mostly Spanish music that he’d learned while a soldier, the flamenco style that had so appealed to him in those days, and several times he noticed the gypsy girl’s head come up as he started a new song. He thought of asking her if she knew them, but the instant she noticed him looking at her, she hunched her shoulders and looked pointedly away. A petulant piece indeed.

But then he noticed his wife’s sleepy eyes, and he finished his song and put the instrument away.

“Time for bed,” he announced and held his hand out to Faith. She put her hand in his, and he drew her to her feet and led her to where their bedding had been spread out.

As on the first night Faith had joined them, they slept on the ground around the fire, the men taking it in turns to keep watch. Mac drew first watch. He glanced across at the gypsy girl, hovering uncertainly.