The Hunter (23 page)

“If you haven’t noticed, my lady, the Marches are currently occupied by English troops. There is no such thing as too careful or too vigilant when it comes to war. The fact that you don’t understand that is exactly why you shouldn’t be out here.”

She stiffened and gave him a long, scathing stare that made him want to turn away. Without a word, she turned sharply and said to MacLean, “Thank you again. I will see you up by the horses.”

Both men watched her walk away, Ewen cursing his harshly spoken words.

MacLean gave a low whistle, shaking his head. “You were a little hard on the lass, don’t you think?”

Ewen tried not to sound as defensive as he felt. “It’s the truth, and anyone that’s been doing what she’s been doing needs to hear it. This isn’t some game.”

“And you believe that she thinks it is?”

“I think she has no idea of the danger she is in.” Ewen’s eyes narrowed. “Edward’s men will not go easy on her if they discover what she is doing. The fact that she is a woman will not make a difference.” He didn’t need to remind MacLean of what had happened at Lochmaben; he’d been there. “I can’t believe you are defending her. Would you allow your wife to do what she’s doing?”

A dark shadow crossed MacLean’s face. It wasn’t often that any of them brought up his wife. But perhaps it was time for him to remember that he had one.

MacLean’s mouth fell in a hard, angry line. “Aye, I just might. If it would mean I’d be rid of her sooner.” He paused, giving Ewen an appraising look. “Interesting comparison to make though.”

Ewen didn’t like the way his partner was looking at him, as if he
knew
something. “I only thought to remind you of your own, since you seem to have forgotten.”

He shrugged. “I like Lady Janet. She’s easy to talk to.”

Bloody hell, he knew that. Ewen clenched his fists. “She’s not for you.”

MacLean gave him a taunting smile. “I didn’t realize that you’d staked a claim.”

Ewen took a step toward him. They’d been partners for five years and been through hell together. He’d never thought that he would feel so close to striking him. “I haven’t. You know very well that the lass is meant for someone else.”

Ewen’s voice must have revealed more than he intended. MacLean immediately backed off, the taunting smile replaced by his usual dark expression. “Aye, but the lass doesn’t know that. She is doing this for you, you know. She’s trying to make you jealous.”

Ewen was stunned. Was it true? His eyes narrowed at the man he thought was his closest friend. “And you went along with it?”

MacLean shrugged unapologetically. “As I said, I like her—and she is easy to talk to—but I wanted to see if it worked.” He gave him a long pitying looking. “By the look on your face the past few hours, I’d say it did.”

Much to his disgust, Ewen realized MacLean was right. She’d gotten to him.

“What are you going to do?” MacLean asked somberly.

What
could
he do? “My duty.”

“Perhaps you should tell her and give the lass a choice?”

“Women of her station do not have a choice.” And neither did he.

“I had one.”

Ewen was stunned once again. From the way MacLean acted, Ewen would never have thought he’d wanted to marry his MacDowell wife. “You did?”

Something dark and angry and so full of hatred crossed MacLean’s face it almost made Ewen take a step back. “I made the wrong one because I thought …” He clenched his jaw. “Perhaps you are right. Deliver the lass to Bruce and don’t look back. You’ll save yourself a whole hell of a lot of trouble.”

His friend walked away, and Ewen wondered whether he was talking about Ewen or himself. Perhaps it didn’t matter, because either way MacLean was right: Janet of Mar was a whole hell of a lot of trouble. The kind of trouble that could cost him everything, if he wasn’t careful.

Why was Janet going to so much effort for a man who spoke to her as if she were five years old?

She had no idea.

The narrow-minded Highlander had made it perfectly clear that he didn’t think she had any part in the war. Fine. But she knew differently, and his opinion wasn’t going to change anything. She had every intention of finishing what she’d started. As long as the king needed her, as long as she could be of use, she would put herself in as much danger as she wanted. He had no right to tell her otherwise. He could glower and chastise until he was blue in that obnoxiously good-looking face of his, but she didn’t have to heed him. He wasn’t her father or her husband.

Thank God
.

Was it so difficult to understand that what she did was important to her? For the past few years she’d had a purpose. Something that she not only enjoyed and was good at, but that also made her feel as if she mattered. She didn’t have anyone looking over her shoulder telling her she couldn’t do something. She’d been able to turn what her father had thought of as a character flaw in a woman—the propensity to make a man see he was wrong—into a useful skill.

And the more she helped, the less she thought about the
past, and the thoughtless young woman who’d tried to be a hero but had only ended up causing so much trouble. She owed it to Mary, but most of all to Cailin. Though she’d never forgive herself for his death at least she could see to it that it meant something. But Ewen wanted to take that away from her.

She would never think to ask him to stop being a soldier. It was what he did. Presumably, and from what she’d seen, he was good at it.

Not that he would ever see the comparison. To him, women were pretty accessories. A wife was someone to birth his children, tend his castles, and never raise her voice in protest.

Well, that wasn’t her. And Janet had seen what happened when a woman who had her own opinions married a bull-headed, overprotective man who assumed he knew best. Janet had no interest in following Duncan and Christina’s example. Or her mother’s, for that matter. Strife or serfdom, neither was appealing.

None of which explained why her heart squeezed when Ewen left the cave not long after they finished eating their second meal of dried beef, ale, and oatcakes.

MacKay, who’d exchanged a few words with Ewen before he left, came over to where she was huddled at the back of the small, rocky cave. There would barely be room for all five of them to lie down, but without a fire, she suspected she would be glad of the warmth provided by their nearness.

“You should get some rest, lass. We have another long night of riding ahead of us, and the terrain won’t be as friendly as it was today.”

“Where did Ewen go?”

“To the loch. His leg was caked with blood, and I told him to wash it or Helen would have both our hides.”

She bristled at the mention of the younger-than-you-are, beautiful healer. “Helen?”

The strapping Highlander smiled. “Aye, my wife. She’s a healer. She told Lamont that if he opened that wound one more time, she wasn’t going to fix it again.” He laughed. “But she will. She can’t help it. It’s what she does.”

His wife? Janet was struck twofold. Not only because she’d been jealous over this man’s wife, but also because he was clearly proud of her. “Your wife is a healer?”

“Aye, a very good one.”

There was no mistaking the pride in his voice. Good God, a husband who was proud of a wife who worked? Miracles did happen. Too bad his friend didn’t feel the same way. But could he? Not likely. Still, the possibility intrigued her more than she wanted to admit. “Perhaps I should see if Ewen needs help. I’ve done some nursing.”

MacKay looked at her appraisingly, rubbing his hand over a week’s worth of stubble on his jaw. She thought he might refuse, but eventually he nodded. “Let me get you something first.”

Janet made her way down the rocky shoreline with the cloth and ointment Magnus had provided. Dawn was still a half-hour away, but the sun was already making its presence known, casting a soft glow over the misty sky. The promise of snow hung in the frosty air. Without wind, the weather was bearable—just.

Washing in the icy water of the river, however, was another matter. Her hands were still blue from her earlier efforts. So just about the last thing she expected was to see Ewen emerge half-naked from the river like some kind of ancient Norse sea god.

She stopped dead in her tracks, her mouth going dry. She should turn away. Really, she should. But she couldn’t. All right, in all honesty, she didn’t want to.

She’d seen men without shirts. She’d even seen muscular men without shirts. But never had she seen one who made her want to stand back and stare in admiration.

She was sure there was plenty of good uses for broad shoulders, arms that bulged with strength, and a stomach roped with band after band of muscle, but right now all she could think about was that he was beautiful. That it was a shame to cover such magnificence even with leather and studs of steel. That she would give just about anything to put her hands on him.

Other details shuffled through her frozen brain. The dark triangle of hair at his neck that narrowed to a thin trail beneath his linen braies—the
damp
linen braies that rode low on his waist and clung to thick, muscular thighs.

She shifted her gaze quickly from another big bulge that they clung to. She was bold, but not
that
bold.

She had only a minute before he noticed her, but she made every second count.

He shot her a glare and reached for a drying cloth, furiously scrubbing away all the lucky drops of water that clung to his chest.

For heaven’s sake, she was acting like a lovesick thirteen-year-old!

Belatedly, she averted her eyes.

“What do you want?” he growled a few moments later.

To her disappointment when she glanced back, he’d donned a linen shirt and pulled on some breeches.

Ironically, now that he was dressed, she blushed. “I didn’t realize …” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry to intrude, but Magnus gave me some ointment to tend to your leg.”

“I don’t need—”

“I know you don’t need it, but he said to remind you that Helen will blame him if you catch a fever and die, so you’d ‘bloody well better see that you don’t.’
Helen
,” she stressed the woman’s name, “Magnus’s wife.”

He gave her a puzzled look. “I know who Helen is.”

She should be grateful that he had no idea how jealous he’d made her, but for some reason his utter lack of understanding annoyed her.

He held out his hand. “Give it to me. I’ll take care of it.” Janet pursed her lips. “I know you think I’m incapable of rational thought, but I do know what I’m doing.”

He frowned. “I don’t think that.”

She made a sharp sound. “That’s why every other word out of your mouth is about how stupid and foolish I am—”

He reached out and took her by the arm. “I never said you were stupid or foolish. I said you didn’t understand the danger.”

“But I do. Just in the same way you do, and yet still choose to do what you do.”

His frown deepened. “It’s not the same.”

Suddenly, Janet felt tired. Too tired to try to make him understand. Too tired of banging her head against a stone wall—no matter how impressively built.

She stared down at him. He still had his hand on her arm, but he let it drop. “Are you going to let me help or not?”

He hesitated.

“What’s wrong?”

His gaze shifted uncomfortably. “It isn’t …” His cheeks darkened. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

Janet gaped at him. My God, he was blushing! “
You
are modest?”

A flash of annoyance cleared away the blush. “Of course not. I was merely thinking of you.”

She tried not to laugh, but she feared the smile showed behind her pursed lips. “I’ve been pretending to be a nurse for quite a while. I think I can manage not to faint with maidenly shock.”

She did. But just barely. It was one thing to tend old men and women, and another to stand inches away from a man who made your heart skip, even when he wasn’t sliding his breeches—and then his wet braies—down his hip.

He managed to keep himself covered except for the top of his outer thigh, but good gracious, she felt like she was
jumping out of her skin. How was she going to touch him so intimately and not think about …

Her gaze flew from the big bulge (where to her horror she’d been looking), and heat flamed her cheeks. Only the sight of the wound prevented her from thrusting the ointment into his hand, babbling some excuse, and racing back to the cave.

But the angry mass of torn flesh brought her back to reality. She gasped in half-horror and half-outrage. Though the dip in the freezing loch had washed most of the blood away, it was still a red, angry mess. The crusted black flesh where the original wound had been burned closed had been ripped open again—shredded, actually—and blood was seeping out. Instead of the small hole she’d hoped to see, the seared wound was nearly two inches long and jagged in shape, as if someone had just pulled the arrow out without thought or care.

Her eyes met his with accusation. “How could you let it get like this and say nothing?”

“It isn’t that bad,” he said defensively.

She gave him a glare, not bothering to deign that with a response, and went to work.

But even her anger couldn’t completely mask the effects of touching him, and her hands shook as she started to apply the ointment.

Thinking to keep her mind on her task, she asked, “Who pulled the arrow out? I assume it wasn’t Helen?”

He bit out a harsh laugh. “Hardly. She was furious that I didn’t wait for her.”

She should have known. “You should have. You made a mess of it.”

He shrugged unapologetically. “There wasn’t time. I was in the middle of a battle and it was getting in my way. It was deeper than I thought. It hit the bone and stopped.”

“You could have bled to death.”

One side of his mouth lifted. “It wasn’t that bad. It looks
much worse now since it’s been opened up a few more times.”

“Did you ever think to let it heal?” He shrugged and started to say something, but she stopped him. “Let me guess: there wasn’t time, and you were fighting.”

He grinned and stopped her heart with a wink. “Smart lass.”