Page 7 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
At least I shall be able to feed this lass before I send her on her way, and nae appear quite so rustic as all that.
Before he had even stopped to consider how such a thing might affect the young Englishwoman with him, he held the exhausted creature up by its hind legs and hit it a hard blow at the base of his skull with his hand, severing its spinal cord. The rabbit died instantly, going as floppy in his hand as if it had no bones at all.
Edward glanced quickly over at Charlotte but, to his surprise, the young woman looked as unperturbed by his actions as any farmer’s wife ever had.
Whatever this strange waif might be, a farmer’s wife is certainly not it.
The sun had almost set now, and the clouds above were suffused with a gorgeous pink tinge. They had walked far enough up the gentle hill to be above the mists that sat heavy in the river valley now. The light of the sun stained the cloud and mists in a myriad of warm colors: red, purple, and salmon orange.
“Me camp is nae much further, Miss––Charlotte,” he said. He attached the two conies to his belt and trudged on.
After a little while, they rounded the pair of alder trees that marked the gap in the blackthorn hedge, and Edward led the way down into a shallow dell. When Edward had found the place a few days previously, it had reminded him of the set of a giant badger––or the lair of a dragon.
“Mind yerself now,” he said to Charlotte. “It’s a wee bit slick under foot.”
Even as he said it, the tired Englishwoman slipped on the leaves and mud and started to slide inexorably down the shallow slope. Before either of them could do a thing, Charlotte had slid right into him and almost knocked him off his own feet. Edward’s arms flailed about as he sought to keep his balance, his feet slipping on the damp foliage.
“Oh my––” Charlotte began, before her foot almost went completely out from under her and she latched onto Edward like a cat clasping its owner around the leg.
Edward tried to keep the two of them upright but, what with the young woman holding on to him like grim death, he slowly overbalanced and the two of them went sprawling, slithering down the incline.
3
Abruptly, all was still. Edward looked down. Charlotte was clasping him tight around the middle with her good arm, her legs hooked behind his own legs to keep herself upright. The two of them were a tangle of cloaks, skirts and limbs, with a basket and a pair of dead rabbits thrown in for extra measure, sprawled in the leafy, damp earth.
“Uh,” he said.
Edward could feel the young woman’s curly hair tickling his stubbly chin, his head was full of the smell of her, herbs, honey, and the rich earth of these hills. He wasextremelyaware of her body against his, lying as she was on top of him and squeezing him tight. He could feel the swell of her breasts against his chest, the press of her pelvis against…
“Um,” he repeated.
He felt Charlotte’s death grip on his body relax somewhat. Then she pushed herself hurriedly away from him. She struggled to her feet, gasping as she put weight on her lacerated arm in her haste. She almost toppled over backwards again in her rush to extricate herself from him.
I do not ken if I blame her neither. Chances are I do not smell as fresh as she does.
In truth he had washed in a stream that morning, but he doubted whether that really counted.
“Are ye all right?” he ventured, as Charlotte backed away, patting down her skirts and trying to push her unruly hair out of her eyes.
God, but she does nae half look pretty when she’s all flustered like this.
“I’m––yes, I’m––quite––are we here, are we? We’re here?” The words tumbled out of Charlotte as her alabaster face was shining red in her embarrassment.
“Aye,” Edward said, getting a little more slowly to his feet. “Nae quite how I would have wished to welcome ye to me camp, but aye, this is it.”
He unfastened the rabbits from his belt and tossed them on the ground. Then he watched as Charlotte looked about her.
Nae too impressed, I’ll warrant.
Her eyes took in the cave entrance, at the ring of stones and the charred remains of the fire that Edward had lit the previous evening.
Whilst her eyes were taking in the meager and humble camp, Edward was surreptitiously scrutinizing Charlotte out of the corner of his eye. As he knelt down by the empty fire place, pulled a handful of dry kindling from the little store that he had gathered and began to arrange it, he watched her covertly.
An interestin’ enigma, this one. Speaks and moves like someone who is used to the finer things in life, yet I found her lost and bleedin’ inside a wood near the most hotly contested border in the land.
He started to strike at the pile of kindling with his flint and steel.
The more he looked at her, the more he realized just how beautiful she was. Though she was now caked in mud, blushing and had more than a few leaves tangled through the back of her hair, Edward still thought that she would have outshone most of the young women that he knew to shame.
