Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

and hypothesize about but would never see for themselves.  Life how it really was.  Castles could be preserved, but all of this was gone forever.

Determined to get a closer look, Scarlett lengthened her stride but a strong hand caught her around the upper arm and yanked her to a halt.  Scarlett cried out in surprise.  Turning, she found Laird glaring down at her, and as her sharp spike of fear faded, she glared right back at him and slapped his hand away.  “Sweet baby Jesus, Laird!  You almost gave me a heart attack.  You can’t just sneak up on people like that.”

“I dinnae sneak up on ye. Ye simply dinnae hear me.  What are ye aboot, lass?”

“I was just going to the village.”

He shook his head.  “There is a pox in the village,” he explained quickly, as if he knew she meant to argue.

“A pox?  Which pox?”

“Small,” he answered and Scarlett shuddered at the thought, looking back on the inhabitants of the village.  Though she couldn’t see it from a distance, it seemed many of them were sick and perhaps dying from a disease that had been eradicated in her time.  Scarlett looked up at Laird to find him still watching her inquisitively.

“Will they die?”

“No’ all of them.”

Not all of them.  As if were just a fact of life.  Lord, what kind of world was she living in?  Moments ago it had all seemed so innocent and untouched.  She hadn’t even noticed the scars though they were right on the surface.

Laird steered her away and Scarlett followed without a fight.  It would do no good to try to explain to him about inoculations and immunities and not a bit of good to walk where she could bring no aid.  However, she didn’t necessarily want to go back to the castle where there was nothing to do but think of him.  Or people who somehow managed to turn her attention back to him just when she managed to cleave him from her thoughts.

James could feel her grief as if it were his own when her usually bold voice withered to a child-like quiver of compassion.  She was more softhearted than he had given her credit for.

He had just returned to the lists when Scarlett hurried by.  The impending war itself couldn’t have stopped him from following her.  When he had realized where she was heading, he’d had to stop her.

To warn her, he reasoned.

To simply see her, he realized.

Just a day had passed since he’d last seen her, yet somehow he missed her.  A day passed since he held her in his arms, still he wanted nothing more than to hold her again.  He was in no mood to return her to the castle where she might easily avoid him again.  Instead, he turned and lead her toward the river that twisted around the castle. “Ye’ve been avoiding me, lass.”

“No, I haven’t.”  He lifted a brow.  “Okay, maybe I have.”

“Why?”

Questions like that weren’t going to make being outside the castle any better than the inside.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Would ye talk aboot it wi’ Rhys?”

Startled, Scarlett looked up.  There was a tautness to his expression, a flare in his eyes.  “What do you mean?”

“Ye talk wi’ him for hours at a time.”  She hadn’t seen him all day but he must have been around if he had noticed that.

“I like him.  He’s easy to talk to.”

“And I’m no’?”

An incredulous laugh gurgled low in her throat but Scarlett swallowed it back.  He wouldn’t like it if he thought she was laughing at him.  “No, you’re definitely not.  I can hardly think around you much less hold a normal conversation,” she admitted and realized it was true.  For the most part, his presence either flustered or irritated her.  Besides being a man of few words, Laird was too intense, too disturbing to allow for normal thought processes or casual dialogue.

Moreover, the little time she spent in his company wasn’t being passed verbally.

“Ye think too much.”

“I thought you said I talk too much.”

He didn’t smile but Scarlett could feel his mien lighten as they reached the shady bank of the Tyne River.  Laird dropped down on the grassy riverbank and pulled the long length of plaid from over his shoulder, spreading it out on the ground next to him.  Then he removed his sword and laid it down next to him as if it were a line of truce between them.  A symbol of peace.  Scarlett sank down on the woolen cloth, appreciative of his courtesy.

  “Why does Lady Ishbel seem to hate you so much?” she asked tentatively, testing the waters of conversation.

Lifting a brow, Laird only contributed a question of his own. “Ye overheard that, did ye?”

Tepid at best.  He certainly wasn’t helping!  Pulling conversation from her stony Scot was like trying to take pie away from Dean Winchester.

“Yes.  I’m sorry.  I was just walking by and happened to pass beneath the window,” she explained.  “Thank you for defending me as you did, by the way.  Even though she was right.  Not the harlot part, of course, but I am not a lady in the sense you intend it.”

“Aye, ye are, regardless of yer occupation,” Laird covered her hand with his and squeezed before drawing away.  “I hae been as guilty as she for no’ treating ye as such.”

Scarlett didn’t know quite what to say to that.  She supposed he was referring to their times together but couldn’t find it in herself to hold that against him.

Silence fell over them like a shadow.  Then he spoke quietly, “Lady Ishbel spews her hatred upon me because she cannae expel it on the one person she believes deserves her wrath the most.”

“Your father?”

Laird shook his head.  “Nay, my mother.”

Doubly a bastard.  Vaguely she recalled Rhys saying something more about it but couldn’t remember it all now.  “Who was she?”

Laird picked up a handful of pebbles, tossing one after another into the creek’s swiftly moving waters.  “’Tis no secret, really.