Page 36 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
Cogar plodded along all that day at an easy pace that nonetheless seemed to eat up the ground. At times, Edward would dismount and walk next to the horse so as to give her a rest from the combined weight of both he and Charlotte. Charlotte always went to climb down too, when the Highlander did this, but Edward would simply grunt and say something along the lines of, “Nay, Sassenach, we’ll make better time if ye and yer skirts stay up there.”
The more time that Charlotte had to observe the Scotsman, and the more of his character he allowed her to get a glimpse of, the more that Charlotte realized how little she understood him.
Everything I have been told about these “Highland brutes” has been a lie. At least it would seem so in this man’s case.
She watched him from Cogar’s back as he strode alongside the horse for miles at a time. Often she would hear him talking softly to the animal in a tongue she did not understand, but assumed to be Gaelic.
“Dè do bheachd air a ‘ghuruagach seo, Cogar? Nach eil i brèagha? Cò shaoileadh gum faodadh boireannach Beurla a bhith cho math?”
Cogar did not answer, but she sometimes cast a knowing eye at her master.
Rugged and intimidating he might be, but there is goodness in there too. Much goodness.
“Those words,” Charlotte said, when the rain relented a little and she was able to hear them a little more clearly. “They are beautiful. What do they mean?”
“That,” Edward said, without turning around, “is between me and me nag, Miss Bolton.”
Whether he was serious or not Charlotte was unable to find out, for at that moment the heavens opened once more and the world turned back into one of rushing water and rumbling thunder.
The sky held off from its deluge long enough for them to stop in their march and take a bit of luncheon. It was not much, just a few strips of venison that Edward had dried over the fire the night before, some bread that was getting staler by the day and plenty of Scottish spring water from his water skin.
Strangely though, in spite of the fact that she was wet down almost to the bone, tired from the last couple of nights spent sleeping on the ground and sore from hours in the saddle, Charlotte thought that it might be one of the best lunches that she had ever enjoyed.
It’s because I am free. Not just free and out on my own in the world, but free from the shadow of my father’s abuse.
The rest of the afternoon passed in much the same way as the morning, except that, towards evening the rain slackened and then ceased altogether.
Although Charlotte had many questions that she wished to ask Edward––about where he was leading her and what the people were like where he was from––she found that she did not wish to disturb the tranquil understanding that they seemed to have formed.
The man may have looked every inch the Highland warrior, but he was never less than courteous and gentle with her. Sometimes, he spoke sharply to her, but Charlotte found the honesty in his reactions far more palatable than her father’s sneering rudeness or the fawning sycophantic talk of the English soldiers.
Though, as a Scot, he must have had a lot of questions of his own concerning her upbringing and way of life, not to mention what the English army planned on doing in those parts, he never pressed her. In return, Charlotte had decided to extend him the same courtesy.
For it is as plain as the nose on my face that he is not all that he appears. A hunter he might be, but that is not all.
It chafed her somewhat to have this barrier of unspoken truth between them. She thought that Edward was a naturally reticent man, but she also believed that what made him so guarded was perhaps something that he might share with those people he was close with.
And why would I be one of those people? I have only known him for a few days.
There was another, more pertinent, question that she had to address too––one that she was actually capable of answering––and that was;Why do I care whether he opens up to me or not?
It was a question that she pondered all that afternoon, until after they had their made their camp for the night and were sitting around the small fire wrapped in their cloaks. It was Edward giving her the only blanket that they had between them––his blanket––that kicked her brain into realizing the answer to the conundrum.
I want him to trust me because he is the closest thing that I have had to a friend since my mother died.
It was a confronting comprehension. Charlotte had never really asked herself whether or not she might be lonely. Whilst traveling with her father while he campaigned, she had been surrounded by people––men for the main part––for almost every hour of every day.
But just because I was not alone, does not mean that I was not lonely.
It was only now, having had a few days away from her abusive father, that she became aware that she had been bereft of friends for longer than she cared to remember. Back home, at her family seat of Brodenstone Manor, she had friends and acquaintances coming and going fairly constantly, but that life felt like it belonged to another time now, and to another person.
So, I traded my lady and gentlemen friends, in their silks and finery and plumed hats, for this hulking brute of Scot with a scar through his eyebrow and a sword at his side.
Charlotte eyed Edward across the small fire. He was sharpening his dirk on a whetstone, every now and again tearing off a bite of dried venison with his teeth and chewing on it slowly. She could hear him humming softly to himself. His eyes stared at the knife blade as it hissed back and forth across the whetstone, but she noticed that he did not blink, as if he was looking far away. Then it came to her ear that he was singing to himself.
Like yon water softly glidin’,
When the wind are laid to sleep
