“No, it will come back. I have to…”
“God!” He tore the stick away from her hand and threw it aside. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Listen to me. It won’t come back. It’s dead, Elspeth, you killed it.” Rain was running down his face, plastering his dark curls to his head. “Everything is all right now, Elspeth.”
“No, the snake…”
Dominic stepped back, releasing her. “I’ll get rid of the snake. Stay here, don’t move.”
He was bending and picking up something. He had that horror in his hands!
“Don’t do it! You’ll-”
“Hush, Elspeth.” His voice was soothing. “It won’t hurt me.” Then he was striding off into the darkness. He was back almost immediately. “There. It’s gone. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
The snake couldn’t hurt Dominic. A harsh sob broke from her throat. It hurt. She hurt. She fell to her knees on the muddy ground, hugging herself, barely conscious of the rain driving ceaselessly against her body.
“Elspeth, no…” Dominic was kneeling in front of her. He sounded as if he were hurting, too, she thought numbly. She wanted to help him, but she couldn’t seem to move. “Elspeth, love, don’t do this to me. God, don’t
She couldn’t seem to stop. The sobs kept coming, hurting.
Dominic’s hands were cradling her face and he was looking down into her eyes. “Why didn’t you just call me? You didn’t have to do it yourself.”
She shook her head. “I had to do it myself. Daddy said I mustn’t be afraid. I mustn’t be a coward.”
“You’re not a coward, you’re very brave.” Dominic’s voice was urgent. “You have to believe that.” His fingers gently brushed back a damp strand of hair from her cheek. “Why did your father say you were a coward?”
“The cobra. I didn’t drink my milk that night and a cobra crawled through the window of my room.” The words were tumbling out. “I woke up and it was on the table beside my bed, where I’d left the milk. Milk attracts snakes, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“I screamed and screamed. My father was working in another room and came in to see what was wrong. He sent one of the boys to kill it. He was very angry with me. He had warned me about leaving my milk, but I forgot. I forgot. I didn’t
“I know you didn’t.” Her cheek was suddenly against his breast. She could feel the warmth of his skin through the damp material of his shirt. His fingers tangled in her wet hair as he rocked her. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I didn’t want him to leave me. I was so afraid. He said I was a coward to be so frightened. He said-”
“I don’t want to hear what he said,” Dominic interrupted harshly. “It was all lies spoken by a cruel little bastard who deserved to be drawn and quartered.” His arms tightened around her. “Do you hear me? It doesn’t matter what he said. None of it was true. You would have been stupid not to have been afraid. You’re a very brave woman.”
“Not as brave as Silver.” Her words were muffled in his shirt.
“Yes.” His chin was nuzzling back and forth across the top of her head. “Just as brave. It takes a different kind of courage to face up to what we fear the most. You did that tonight. You went after that snake like a little tiger.”
“I’m not a coward?” she whispered.
“No.” His voice was choked. “God, no.”
Relief was sweeping over her. Dominic said she had no reason to be ashamed. She was not a coward. No matter how many times she had defended herself to her father, she knew now she had never really been sure he wasn’t right. She had desperately needed someone to say these words. The sobs lessened and then faded into tiny hiccoughs. “Thank you.”
“For telling the truth?”
“For making me believe it was the truth.”
He pushed her away from him to look down into her face. “Are you all right now?”
She nodded and then promptly gave another hiccough to belie the affirmation. She gave a husky laugh. “You’re wet. I’m sorry that I seem to have destroyed your splendid lean-to.”
“I’ve been wet before.” His hands cupped her cheeks caressingly. “And you’re not only wet, you’re muddy.”
“I rolled out of the lean-to into the mud.” She hoped he wouldn’t take his hands away, they felt so warm and loving. She wanted to turn her lips to touch his palm. “What do we do now?”
“We get you clean and dry. Lord knows how.” His hands dropped away from her cheeks. Emptiness. Loneliness.
She suddenly chuckled as she turned to see the destruction she had wrought. The lean-to was now only a large heap of sticks.
“You find our situation amusing?” Dominic asked.
“I’m sorry. I was just regretting that I was too busy killing that horrible reptile to see your expression when the lean-to fell around your ears. You must have looked like Samson after he had destroyed the temple.”
“The comparison isn’t quite accurate.” Dominic began to shift the ocotillo into some semblance of an orderly pile. “Though in both cases it was a woman who caused the destruction.”
“Should you be doing that? What if that snake had brothers or sisters?”
“After that crash and screaming, there won’t be a snake within five miles of here.”
“What can I do?”
“Find a way to get dry.” He had finally uncovered the saddlebags from beneath the rubble. “Do you have anything in your saddlebags that might help?”
“I don’t think so. You told me not to bring anything that wasn’t necessary and-” She stopped. “There’s my plaid.”
“Your plaid?”
“My family tartan.” She knelt beside her saddlebag and unfastened the thong. “The MacGregor plaid.”
“And you regarded this tartan as necessary?”
She didn’t look up as she rummaged in the saddlebag. “Surely you must see I couldn’t leave my plaid?”
Dominic watched her kneeling in the rain, muddied, soaked to the skin, her expression solemn. The tenderness he felt was almost unbearable. “Yes, I can see that.”
“Ah, here it is.” She drew out the folded red and black plaid and stood up. “I’ll go see if I can get rid of this mud.”
“And I’ll see if I can rebuild the lean-to. Will you need the lantern?”
She shivered as she had a vision of a multitude of writhing snakes waiting in the darkness. But Dominic had said there would be no snakes, and he needed the lantern more than she did. “No.” She turned away and walked down the incline toward the trees where she had tethered the animals.
The simplest way to remove the mud was to shed her clothes, take down her hair, and stand in the rain, letting the water cleanse her. It was a strangely sensual experience, standing naked in the forest as some primitive ancestress might have done.
She was almost sorry to have to step back under the tree. She brought her damp hair over her shoulder and wrung it out as best she could. She wrapped the large red and black plaid around her, draping it over her head and then folding it at her breasts. She drew on her brown leather boots and found the ensemble reasonably modest. The plaid was large enough to meet the tops of her knee-high boots and, as long as she kept a firm hold on the material at her breast, it was like being enveloped in a blanket. The thick wool was soft, cozy, and blessedly dry.
The rain had lessened to a fine mist by the time Elspeth walked back up the hill to where Dominic was reconstructing the lean-to. She was pleasantly surprised to find the task completed and Dominic building a small fire within the lean-to. “You’ve been very quick.”
“I had a goad. I don’t like being wet.” The kindling finally caught but the fire immediately went out. Dominic muttered a disgusted curse. “It’s no use. The wood is damp. Everything is damp. The blankets are dry because they were buried beneath the wood when the roof collapsed but…” He trailed off as he looked up and saw her. The red and black of the plaid tartan was a vivid patch of color in the lantern light, beautifully framing her face, lending color to her cheeks. Her eyes were a shimmering deep emerald and she looked as exotic as a brilliantly plumed parrot. “I like your family tartan.” He cleared his throat and lowered his eyes to begin working on the fire again. “Come under
