Page 47 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
“You always meant for me to accompany you to the lands controlled by your father,” she said, her voice sad and slow. She looked at him as if seeing him for the very first time, and the look of disappointment on her face was so acute that Edward could not help but look away. “You would have brought me here, one way or another. Only, you managed to entice me away by using the disdain I felt for my father in your favor.”
Edward nodded dumbly.
Charlotte closed her eyes. Tears sparkled along the lids. When she opened them, however, the gaze that she shot at Edward was fierce with anger.
“And now what?” she demanded. “Now, that you have come clean with who you are, will you tell me what you propose to do with me when we get to MacQuarrie lands?”
She swallowed, but lifted her chin higher. “Are you going to have me publicly executed in retaliation for the despicable thing my father did to your family?”
“Charlotte,” Edward said, his voice a little rougher than he should have perhaps made it, “if I wanted to get back at yer faither by killin’ ye, I would have murdered ye back in the beech wood, left yer body somewhere fer him to find it and saved Cogar lugging ye all this way.”
Charlotte paled at his words, but her eyes shone with a renewed defiance.
Edward raised his hands quickly, in what he hoped was a placating manner. “But it is nae me intention to kill ye, Sassenach. I am nae like that bastard that ye are cursed wi’ callin’ yer faither. It never was me intention to hurt one hair on yer head.”
Edward scratched awkwardly at his stubble and looked into the fire, unable to meet her gaze. “And now, after havin’ spent some time with ye, the only thing I want to do wi’ ye is protect ye to me last breath.”
* * *
Charlotte stood rooted to the spot, on the very edge of the firelight. Even now, poised for flight as she was, she knew that trying to run from Edward would be futile if he really wanted to capture her again. He knew these lands far better than she did. Chances were that, instead of escaping, she would only end up mired in a bog somewhere.
To say that Charlotte was surprised––that her seemingly simple question had kicked over a stone under which a revelation of this magnitude lurked––would have been quite the understatement. For a few moments, it seemed that her ears were ringing with Edward’s words. Her thoughts were scattered like leaves before a storm.
Really though, it made more sense than any other he might have chosen to give her. No Scotsman, innocently hunting, would have stayed where he was, not when he realized how close he was to an English army encampment.
“So––so, you don’t mean to do me harm?” she asked him, as she desperately tried to figure out her best course of action. “You don’t intend to force me to go back to your lands or your––your castle or wherever it is that your family dwells?”
The Scotsman shook his head. “Nay, I do not wish to harm ye at all, Sassenach,” he said. “I may nae have told ye everythin’ when we first met, but now that we are talkin’ o’ this I shan’t speak a word of a lie to ye.”
There was a flash of silver in the dark and a dull thud. Charlotte gasped and looked down. Between her feet, Edward’s dirk was buried to the hilt in the earth. The carved handle of the knife, made from antler and polished smooth by years of use, gleamed fitfully in the light of the fire.
“I swear,” Edward said, “on the blood of the MacQuarries that I’ll nae lay a hand on ye.” He held up his right hand and Charlotte saw that there was a shallow red cut across the palm.
“That knife was made on the day of me birth at me faither’s biddin’ and gifted to me before me first hunt. I have had it me whole life. Ye take it, Sassenach,” Edward said to her, his brown eyes honest and fervent in his pale face. “If ye decide to carry on ridin’ wi’ me on the morrow, and there’s a point where ye think I have led ye false, then ye can bury that knife in me back, take Cogar and go where ye will.”
Charlotte, still keeping her eyes on the Highlander on the floor, slowly crouched down and pulled the knife from the sod. She wondered how many men’s lives Edward might have taken with this very knife. He was, undoubtedly, dangerous–– he had moved so fast that Charlotte had barely realized what he was doing until it was done.
But I am not as scared of him as I am of my own father. What does that say about my life?
“You would let me go if I wished it?” Charlotte asked, taking a step back out of the shadows of the night. “And––and you would let me take Cogar?” she added sheepishly.
“Ye’ve a double backbone to ask a Highlander fer his horse like that, Sassenach,” Edward said with a wry smile. “I could nae do that, even if I had a mind to. Cogar would just turn around and follow me home, no matter if ye were in the saddle and tryin’ to get her to do otherwise.”
“So, I would have to walk?” Charlotte asked. The idea of turning about and going on foot was a daunting one.
“I’d give ye the rest of the food and anythin’ else I have that ye might need. But, really, if ye decided ye wanted to go back to ye faither, ye need only wait here for those three men o’ his to arrive.”
Silence fell between them at the mention of the three trackers who, even now, were probably riding closer and closer.
Charlotte had been as taut as a bowstring, but now, ever so slowly, she began to relax. It was becoming clear to her that she was at one of those crossroads in life that one heard so much about. In her case, it was a simple choice that she had to make: whether to stay, or to go.
It was no small decision. She weighed the secret feelings that she carried in her heart––and that were growing day by day––against the fact that she barely knew this Scotsman. Her fingers clenched the knife in her fist.
“I have made my choice,” Charlotte said, and took a step forward.
16
Edward allowed himself a secret smile as he felt Charlotte’s hands shift from his stomach to his chest, where she clung behind him on the saddle. Even over the top of his clothes, her fingers seemed to leave warm trails across his skin. Her weight was a gentle pressure on his back––he was acutely aware of the swell of her chest pressing into him––and every now and again a strand of her curly hair would tickle at his face or neck.
