“Pffff,” he huffed at himself. He didn’t have time for this. Let her dream for both of us, he thought as he went about securing the camp. He had to keep them alive.
Chapter 7
Morgan tethered the beautiful stallions to a low branch and brought back the meal for Nic. Her senses were on high alert as she took the bread, salted meat, and cheese to him. She found him sitting in a relaxed position.
Looks can be deceiving, she thought.
Morgan noticed what many might not. Time had honed her senses, too, from vastly different means than Nic’s, but to the same end result: to keep her alive.
His back was up against an oak so gnarled and ancient it must have seen King Arthur’s reign, with one long leg stretched out in front of him and the other drawn up, bent at the knee. His forearm rested comfortably on that knee, his sword was within easy reach. It would have surprised her more if his weapon had not been close at hand.
Cautiously, she made her way over to his side and extended the offering. Getting no closer than necessary made her feel better. Somewhere on the surface of her mind, she understood it would take more than an arm’s length to keep her safe should he decide he wanted to hurt her.
Nic looked up at her, noticing her wary posture, and wondered why she was so skittish. It went beyond shy.
“Thank you,” he said. As he reached for the food he covered her hand with his.
That contact was brief, but she involuntarily jerked back, dropping the small plate before he had a secure grip.
A deep sound arose in Nic’s throat, hot and intense at whoever had abused this delicate creature so much that she pulled away from human touch. Morgan moved back even farther, eyes wide with extreme caution at her misstep. She wasn’t necessarily afraid of him, she realized. He didn’t scare her to the point of being frozen in fear. That was good, she supposed. Actually, Morgan wasn’t really sure how she felt with him; she was just ready for anything.
Nic gritted his teeth. “My anger isn’t toward you, Morgan, but at the circumstances that would leave you so mistrusting.”
He saw her hesitation but also the relief and maybe confirmation of what he hoped she already knew. Then again, maybe it was his hope.
“I promised to take care of you, and I’ll do so. Now, eat.” Nic pointed to the food. Lucky for him it was on his blanket and not on the bare ground. The nourishment was too precious to waste. He had only packed provisions for one. And, even if in the past he had eaten some very questionable things out of necessity, it wasn’t his preference.
She shook her head. Never taking her eyes off him, she took another step back. Morgan stared at her new lord, not daring to blink. He didn’t frighten her as much as he distressed her. Simply put, he was intimidating. It was obvious to her what she saw in him was the potential for a dangerous man.
Intuitively, Morgan knew the danger in him went well beyond anything she had ever seen in her uncle. This was a man accustomed to command. He wore that aura visibly. Nic McKinnon was a man who was shrewd. He was, in a word, deadly to an enemy. Yet, somehow, she also knew that he would protect anything he felt worthy of his efforts. Did he now consider her worthy?
“Aye, Morgan, you will eat,” he commanded softly. “You promised to follow my instructions back at the old Roman wall. Did you not?”
Nic waited for her to acknowledge his question.
She nodded. She did agree at the time and felt certain it was still a smart move. After all, he did manage to get them safely away from the search party.
“I’m your overlord now, and you will submit to my judgment in any action which is to your greater good.” Nic waited for Morgan to take the food.
But she was rooted to the spot. Nic stood.
Oh my, she thought, understanding that she had crossed some imaginary line with him.
“Eat, Morgan.” His voice had dropped to a rough whisper.
He had succeeded in shaking her to depths far greater than her uncle, with his rafter-raising tirades, had ever done. He took a step forward. Morgan stood her ground, straightened her back, and held her head high before taking the food he offered. And after her meager display of bravado, she also made for a little safer distance from him.
As she ate, she took the opportunity to pilfer a look at Nic and found him distant and deep in thought. She wondered what a man like him gave his mental energies to?
Women? Maybe, but not in this instance.
Gambling? Probably not.
Hanging his enemies from the tallest tree? Now, that she would believe.
Morgan’s mind was racing. She didn’t know this man. What if he sought out the search party and turned her over to them? She was certain her uncle would pay dearly to have her returned. But she shook the thought away. He could have done that already.
What sort of man was he? she wondered.
Could her uncle bribe him? No, she felt not.
Still, he was worth watching. Every man was worth watching. Nic was no exception.
She took this opportunity to take a closer look at him physically. He was tall by modern standards and broad through the shoulders. Her father had been a tall man. However, her father’s coloring had been light blond to Nic’s dark good looks. Her mother had told her once that her father was a descendant of the Vikings. Those marauders of the island eventually settled, assimilating into the local culture. She would be very surprised if Nic didn’t have some Viking ancestry in his lineage. Men of his stature certainly didn’t come along every day.
Nic’s size didn’t intimidate her in the least. His height made her feel protected and safe, much as when her father was alive. It was a feeling that Morgan had long ago forgotten and realized she missed. Nonetheless, she would experience this feeling from a distance, but not up close.
From an artist’s perspective his proportions were perfect and beautifully pulled together. Nature got it right where this one was concerned, and she would love to do a charcoal rendering of him on his equally magnificent horse. Morgan doubted that she would get him to sit still long enough to accomplish much more than a rough sketch.
His arms and legs were long and well-muscled from the years of fighting and training. It stood to reason that his shoulders would be toned and chiseled. Upper body strength was necessary for any warrior. It was a given. Hauling sixty-five pounds of armor around on one’s body and being able to move in it like it was a second skin would require body development out of sheer necessity.
There was no extra fat on him.
His hands were large and tan. He had long fingers with clean nails that were free of the grime most fighting men sported. She knew Nic could kill her with one blow if he decided to. However, he didn’t strike her as a man who would use brute strength to subdue his opponent, unlike her uncle. He would use cunning, stealth, and strategy, which would brilliantly complement his strength. She wondered if that strength would come across in a drawing. It would prove challenging.
His leather boots and overclothes were well made and of good quality, even if quite dirty from his effort to pull her from the bog. He was obviously a man of means. If his clothes didn’t hint at that understated wealth, then his sword and mount certainly said as much. The saddle and tack for that magnificent animal were worth twenty times what the average farm tenant earned in his lifetime.
Her protector’s hair was clean but long overdue for a trim. Certainly his hairstyle—and she used that term style very loosely—was much longer than what currently was in fashion. Judging by her uncle’s hair, the nobility at court were wearing theirs just below the ear.
Yet the longer locks suited Nic, reminding Morgan of a story her mother told her as a child. The character named Samson was of Herculean strength. The secret to his strength was in his long hair. She knew this wasn’t the case with Nic. Yet it was still an amusing thought that took her back to a happier time when her mother would read to her and her twin sister in the hour before bedtime.
No, Nic’s strength surely came courtesy of year
s of fighting, and he was more likely a man who tossed fashion to the wind, not giving a care of what high society thought of him.
Morgan knew that beneath the calm surface lay a powerful man and it had nothing to do with his hair.
It surprised her that she had the urge to go to him and smooth back the lock falling over his forehead. She guessed if she had to have a benefactor, it was best to have one who could back his claims of protection. Morgan instinctively knew not to doubt this man’s ability to support such a claim. She found this revelation to be reassuring.
Little escaped Nic’s attention; he was aware of her taking stock of him. He knew, even if there was a more relaxed smile on her face, there was no blind trust in her. If she came to trust him, it was because he had earned her trust.
It will come in time, he told himself.
Nic pulled himself up from his resting place after finishing his evening meal where he had spent a good deal of time mulling over his problem of having a skittish runaway bride with a large search party in hard pursuit. Nic knew the day had gone downhill quickly. The only plus was she was eating. That certainly couldn’t hurt her, considering she was thin as a corn stalk.
“If you thought to bring a blanket, I suggest you go get it from your pack.” Nic looked up at the cloudless evening sky. “It’s going to be a cold night.”
Morgan couldn’t dispute that observation, having slept years in just such cold and dampness.
“We’ll have no fire to keep warm or to keep the forest animals at bay,” Nic said softly, coming to stand by her. “We should sleep close to share body warmth.”
This is something new, she thought. Morgan had never slept under the stars. However, she had dreamed of how it could be. Many times, she dreamed of this very freedom as she stared beyond her tower window far into the night, its darkness broken only by distant, twinkling stars.
She jumped up and quickly brought back her cloak from her bag as well as the baby-fine woolen blanket she had judiciously packed, both items found in a trunk in the room that was once her mother’s.
Nic had made their bed on a soft bed of leaves, gathered when she tended the horses. Morgan debated as he reclined there on his side, propped up on his elbow, his hand extended upward in invitation. “Come, Morgan. I don’t usually bite,” he teased. He saw her hesitation. “Soldiers often join their sleeping rolls together.” That wasn’t usually the case, but it was the best he could come up with. “It’s not a sign of weakness but done out of need.”
She still didn’t move.
“Be reasonable. We need to get as much rest as possible. First light will be here before we know it, and tomorrow we need to put as much distance between them and us as possible. Trust me. I’m not the enemy. Let me keep you warm.”
He watched her inch forward like a wild thing trying to make up its mind to bolt or to take the gift he offered. She cautiously lowered herself to the ground. Then in a gesture that surprised him, she offered part of her blanket.
“Nay, thank you. Wrap yourself in it. It’s going to be a cold one,” he said, glancing up again at the cloudless sky, broken only by the rising moon.
She settled down on the soft earth, turning her back to him and using her arm as a pillow. He did the same, allowing her to feel some privacy.
He waited to hear her breathing signal her surrender to sleep. He had asked her to trust him and she had. Only those who trust can sleep in the presence of danger. His very fiber spoke of her life being at risk. Yet, she had given in to sleep, the most vulnerable of positions. He rolled over to face her before taking his own blanket and spreading it over both of them.
As the moon came and went, the temperature dropped. It was a bone-chilling cold even for him, and he was certainly more prepared and acclimated to these conditions. Carefully gathering her in his arms, he brought her closer to his side. As he pulled her into the curve of his body, she settled in. It was like finding the right key to a lock and the two individual pieces effortlessly coming together.
Chapter 8
Sometime later, Nic stretched, looking up at the heavens, wondering why fate had placed this woman in his path. His friend Connor once told him years ago that if he thought fate was a crafty witch, then he was really going to love her sister destiny. Connor was right about fate. Nic had yet to meet her sister.
Morgan was just another burden as far as he was concerned. He really didn’t want a wife. All he wanted was to serve his king. Noble and corny as it sounded, it was the truth. Having a wife would require more than he was willing to give by dividing his loyalties between a wife and King Henry. He really didn’t want the distraction, either. All he had planned to do was to marry her and leave her at Seabridge. Now, that was unthinkable. Nevertheless, his own lands were in dire need of attention; he needed to go home. Morgan just complicated things.
My own lands. It was a foreign thought.
Brandon, his older brother, had taken responsibility for running the family lands after their father had become too frail to continue to be overlord. It was Brandon’s birthright. Yet, his father’s steward had dispatched an urgent summons, requesting that he return to his ancestral home of Heather Park, and it had taken nearly half a year for the message to catch up with him, moving as often as he did.
He hadn’t been back in ages.
How many years had it been? Nic wondered. Eight or was it nine years now? How many sieges past? How many battles won or lost? And how many nights just like this, sleeping under the heavens? Far more than Nic could remember. He had stopped counting years ago.
Now, his father still breathed when his brother was long cold and dead in his grave. Brandon had died the previous winter of a wasting disease, and his brother had left no children or wife, which apparently prompted King Henry’s decree that he marry the Duchess of Seabridge.
Nic remembered vividly his conversation with Henry.
“Nic, my good man, you now have need of a suitable wife. I have left you to your own devices all these years, and in truth, it suited my purposes. However, the time has come to leave your selfish wishes behind.”
“I’m still quite happy to be selfish, sire,” he had said in all honesty.
“Well, my queen is right. It’s time that you get married and settle down. It’s up to you to pass the lineage on for future generations of loyal subjects to the crown.”
“So, you want me to marry, settle, and have bairns? A tall order don’t you think?” Nic teased. Until that moment, he had never given children a thought. There was still his youngest brother to carry on the family name. Cullen was a favorite of the ladies and would make a suitable husband and father.
“I have just the lady in mind for you. A true prize if she looks anything like her mother,” the king had said good-naturedly with a wink and hearty slap on the back.
A prize? Hmm, maybe? Then again, maybe nay so much, Nic thought as his mind came back to the present.
He could barely make out Morgan’s profile in the darkness.
Either way it didn’t matter. Henry had spoken, so “that-is-that,” as Henry was known to say. Nic shrugged. He would just adjust and alter his strategy as any good soldier does when faced with the failure of the first plan.
Turning his mind to other things, Nic needed to be moving north not east. London wasn’t exactly where he thought he would end the month of April. Then again not much else was going according to plan. He wondered just how angry Henry was going to be. He certainly wasn’t going to be pleased, but there was no way around it.
At least he was bringing his bride back with him to London. That was something, at least. They could have a hasty exchange of vows with the king and Queen Elizabeth as witnesses. What girl wouldn’t want that?
Then he would leave her there in Henry’s care as a lady-in-waiting to the queen. By doing that, Nic could meet his duty to his king and his father. Morgan would be safe in London with the queen. Henry would see to it. Then he could make his way back home.
“Well, damn,??
? he mumbled. “So, much for my first plan,” he said, realizing it solved some of his dilemma, but not all.
There was still the huge piece of rock left to conquer. The claim of Seabridge would be left unaccomplished even if the duchess were in the king’s care. It would be paramount that he be there in person to do the claiming. He didn’t see Lester going quietly.
Morgan interrupted his thoughts as she began to shiver, and she turned into his body for the warmth he could give her. He knew she was unaware of her movements. As Nic gathered her close, he mused he would have to see to a bath for her if he was to continue being in close quarters with her. She deserved to be fresh and clean after the spill into the bog along the side of that road. Even if she wasn’t clean at the moment, she smelled feminine and her curves were a nice complement to her pretty smile.
It was a pleasant thought to drift off to sleep to.
~*****~
As the stars journeyed across the night sky, Morgan thrashed violently, jolting Nic from sleep. He felt her silent screams.
“It’s all right. Easy, Morgan, easy. It’s only a nightmare. Easy, lass.”
Morgan instinctively stilled at the sound of his soothing voice. In her small and sleep-filled voice, Nic heard her as she drifted back into sleep.
“Da, I have missed you.”
Nic found this startling. So, she could speak. More disturbing was her pathetic declaration of missing her father. It touched him deeply and unexpectedly.
He knew the story of the death of her entire family in one fatal blow. He would hold her if it gave her peace, even if it was only in her sleep.
As night gave way to the rose-colored fingers of first light, Nic eased Morgan out of his arms. She unconsciously protested the loss of his warmth. Nonetheless, they had overstayed, and this placed them in a vulnerable position. Nic sensed that Morgan waking up in his arms wouldn’t be to his best advantage, regardless of how good the warmth might feel to him. He had no delusions after last evening of what her feelings were for him, but today was a new day and he was just beginning to make forward progress with her.