Page 24 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
“Charlotte,” he repeated, trying to bolster his voice with a confidence that he did not feel. “Charlotte, how would ye feel about comin’ wi’ me back over the border?”
Charlotte looked up at him then. Looked at him right in the eye as if seeing him for the first time.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Just what I say,” Edward replied brusquely.
“Over the border?”
“Aye.”
“ToScotland?”
“Aye.”
“Why would ye think that I would––I can’t…”
Edward was still holding her by the arms. Recent events had not imbued him with great patience, but he knew that he had to tread carefully here. The woman was, understandably, a good deal shaken up.
She has the look about her of a startled deer, ready to turn and run.
“O’ course ye can,” he said. “A person has the ability to change the course of their life every day that they’re lucky enough to wake.”
Edward let his hand slip down until it lightly held the forearm that he had bandaged the night before. He looked Charlotte dead in the eye.
“A lass like ye should nae have to walk through her life afeared of her own kin. Of what they might do to her. It is nae right.”
Charlotte held his fierce gaze, and it seemed to Edward that an understanding passed between them. Something unsaid, but understood.
I wonder if she can see that I will do everythin’ in me power to keep her from harm if she agrees to come with me.
With every second that he spent in her company, Edward became less and less certain that he would have the resolve necessary to carry her off by force. Something though, told him that the chances of her turning him down now, in this moment, were quite small.
Faither or nae, there is only so much abuse that a person can take afore they start fightin’ back––fightin’ in any way that they can.
“Yes,” Charlotte said, in a small voice, jogging Edward from his thoughts.
“Yes?” he parroted.
“Yes, I’ll come with you,” Charlotte said, and with every word her voice became stronger. She tilted her chin back so that the weak, early sunlight coming through the branches overhead dappled her bruised face.
“I think there was something more than chance that brought us together, Mr. MacAlpein,” she said. “Perhaps, there is more of a future out north of the border for me, than any I would be able to find living in the shadow of––of––”
Edward laid a strong, warm hand against her cheek. “Ye do not have to say his name, lass.”
The girl smiled at him. It was a smile made of equal parts dubiousness and excitement, tempered with an iron resolution. Edward dropped his hands and looked about the woodland. Suddenly, the neighborhood of Captain Bolton’s camp did not seem to be the cleverest place to be.
“Me horse is hobbled over there,” he said, nodding in the direction that his mare was waiting. “Ye seem like a brave lass. A lass who would roll dice wi’ Black Donald himself, but we should make haste while we can.”
“Yes,” Charlotte agreed. “I don’t doubt that once he realizes that I have gone, my father will set his men onto us like hounds.”
“Aye, I think ye’re right on that score,” Edward said. “Old Cogar will make light work of bearin’ us both.”
“Cogar?” Charlotte asked, as they started to walk through the wood to where Edward’s horse was tied.
“Aye, that’s me horse’s name. It’s Gaelic fer ‘whisper’ on account of her bein’ so timid and quiet when she was a wee foal.”
“How far is it to where you are thinking of taking me?” Charlotte asked.
