Page 32 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
Charlotte gulped. Here it came; the furious rebuke.
Will it be followed by a slap, a kick? Or it will be enough for him to throw something at me? I must try and show the other side of my face.
“I do not mean to go on about it, lass, but I have to tell ye, I’ve only eaten food more burned than this on one occasion,” he said.
Charlotte’s spirit cowered inside her. The Scottish man’s face was still hard to read, shrouded in shadow by the hood that he still wore.
“Aye, only once,” he said, his expression deadpan, as far as Charlotte could make it out. “That had been a particularly hard winter though, and the coal bucket was our last resort.”
Charlotte let out a breath that she had not realized she had been holding. A greatwhooshof relief, followed by a little chuckle.
He is jesting.
Edward smiled too. He pushed back his hood, allowing the firelight to play over his strong-featured face. Charlotte could not help but to be continually intrigued by the young man. He had such a tough, weathered, dangerous exterior, and yet there was some indefinable quality that made her think that inside the broad, muscled chest sat the heart of a good man.
“I should have kenned that the daughter of an English army Captain might nae have much experience when it came to cookin’ over campfires,” Edward said.
“Whatever do you mean by that?” Charlotte asked him, feigning ignorance at the mess she had made of their dinner.
The fact that this man was willing to put her mistake aside, eat a meal that she had ruined, and then laugh about it went a long way to gaining her trust. Trust was the least that Edward deserved, in repayment for his showing her the simple kindness of understanding and trying to spare her feelings.
“I cannae see any sign of spits,” Edward continued. “How did ye cook the wee things?”
“Spits?” Charlotte asked. “I just put them straight onto the embers.”
Edward snorted and shook his head in incredulous disbelief. “There’s somethin’ different between my people and yers,” he said. “Amongst our folk, someone is judged by what they can do and what they achieve, rather than what they were born into.”
“I might have been born into privilege, but I do try and improve myself, I’ll have you know,” Charlotte said, with just a touch of asperity. “When we met, I really was trying to learn something of the healing arts.”
The slightly amused look in Edward’s eyes morphed into something else entirely, as he studied her bruised countenance. “Aye, I can see why ye might want to,” he said.
Charlotte picked at her own charred meat and put a morsel into her mouth. It tasted quite awful, but she was so hungry she swallowed it and peeled off some more from the blackened bone.
“If we had a wee bit more time, and could linger a while, I could show ye how to make a compress for bruises out o’ comfrey and chamomile,” Edward said quietly.
“But we have to keep riding?” Charlotte asked.
“Aye, the hounds yer father has set on our trail will nae be messin’ about. Nae with him drivin’ them on, I’ll warrant.”
“Still, life in the saddle is nae all bad,” Edward continued. “We’ll be ridin’ through some damned fine and pretty country. Plus, once we’re back on the open fells, it might be that I’ll be able to bring down a doe, so ye can try yer hand at ruinin’ some venison at some point.”
He grinned again and crunched pointedly on another piece of charred meat.
Charlotte smiled back, her heart warming even more towards the young man opposite her.
“Excellent,” she said brightly. “I must say that, in my expert opinion, this is the worst rabbit I have ever tasted.”
Edward’s deep, dark eyes gleamed in the light of the fire. His teeth and the scar on his eyebrow shone white.
“I doubt that, Sassenach,” he said. “What ye’re eatin’ there is squirrel.”
11
Savage, Hirst, and Sheppard stared at the two dead vagrants––the late Cookman and Ewing––that hung, dangling by their wrists, from the low bough of the sweet chestnut tree.
“Correlated with what they told that soldier boy, don’t it?” Savage said, his voice more of a croak than anything else, thanks to the excessive amount of time he spent smoking his pipe. “Didn’t see any sign of a woman, but they got given quite the kicking by this big stranger.”
Hirst meticulously wiped blood from his fingers with a rag. He only had four on his left hand, so he saved a little time there. He had a pleasant face that was currently creased in a slight, thoughtful frown.
