Frustration and amusement mingled on his face as he shoved the knife into his belt. “Here,” he said gruffly, shrugging out of his cloak and settling it over her shoulders.
“You’ll get wet,” she protested even as she snuggled into it. It felt heavy and blessedly warm from the heat of his body. But his brown surcoat was becoming peppered with the dark splotches of raindrops. “I’m already soaked. It will do me no good.”
“You’re shivering. It will cut the cold.” He removed his hat and plopped it on her head. “I won’t have you catching a chill.”
He’d tied his hair back with a ribbon, making a short, neat tail at the nape of his neck. She watched as it became soaked, too. “Now we’ll both be miserable,” she said. “But I thank you for your gallantry. Why you deserve thanks is beyond me, but Mam always said ‘guid manners suffer bad yins.’”
Thin rivulets of water ran down his blank face and dripped off the end of his nose. She saw a muscle twitch in his jaw while she waited for him to ask for a translation.
“Courtesy outshines poor manners,” she finally said.
His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing, only swung her back into his arms. Before she could protest, he marched to his horse and deposited her on the saddle with a bit more force than was necessary.
She let out a little yelp.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “Are you all right?”
“I reckon I’ll live.”
He looked up at her from below, a strange reversal of perspectives. “Why didn’t you pull your gun on that wretch?”
“It’s in my satchel, in—”
“—the coach.” He sighed. “I know. My fault. I’m sorry.” He reached down to draw a pistol from his boot. It was the smallest gun she’d ever seen, much fancier than Da’s, with a brass barrel and a mother-of-pearl grip inlaid with brass wire scrollwork. “Here, take this one,” he offered.
It looked very expensive. “Nay, I—”
“Take it. You should have something to protect yourself.” When she didn’t move to claim it, he reached beneath the cloak and tucked it into her belt.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly, clutching the cloak closed in front with two cold fists. “It may be that I’ll need it; there seem to be a high proportion of unscrupulous men about England.”
He fixed her with an assessing green gaze, then mounted behind her. His arms came around her waist, altogether more comforting than she expected, and they took off at a decent clip down the muddy road.
Caithren concentrated on holding her ankle as still as possible.
“You seem to paint all Englishmen with the same brush,” Mr. Chase—Jason—said presently. “Tell me, Emerald, are there not bad people in Scotland as well?”
“My name is Caithren,” she snapped. “And we save our aggression for the English.”
It wasn’t even close to the truth, but it sounded good.
TWENTY-TWO
SEATED BEHIND Emerald in the saddle, Jason watched her head bob as she drifted in and out of sleep. He found himself leaning close, hoping for a whiff of the flowery scent he’d already come to think of as hers. Whatever it had been—bath oil, perfume, or the like; he was certainly no expert on women’s toiletries—the rain had washed away every trace.
But plain Emerald smelled nearly as good.
He glanced at the sky, happy that the rain had let up. The road in this area was clay, normally stiff and easy to travel, but the miserable wet had made it into a path of mud. On both sides of the slushy mess, barley fields glistened green in the dwindling drizzle.
When he stood in the stirrups to relieve his stiffness, Emerald came awake with a start. He grabbed her to keep her from falling. She yawned into a dainty hand.
It certainly wasn’t a hand that looked accustomed to holding a pistol, but he supposed that was to her advantage. The less she looked like a threat, the more likely outlaws wouldn’t notice her coming after them.
“Tired, are you?” he drawled, resettling both her and himself and adjusting again to Chiron’s rhythmic sway.
“I didn’t sleep, if you’ll remember.”
“Ah. You must be sure to have a nap next time you resolve to sneak off and get yourself killed.”
“Humph. What’s it to you if I get myself killed, as long as you get to Gothard first?”
Jason heaved a sigh. “Emerald—”
“How many times must I tell you I’m not Emerald MacCallum?” She twisted around to see him. “Why won’t you believe me?”
“You tell a pretty story, but it doesn’t wash. For one thing, it hinges on you or your brother inheriting some land. Besides the fact that I cannot imagine you as a landowner”—that earned him a glare before she turned away, her chin tilting up—“you’re from Scotland. Land there isn’t owned by individuals,” he said smugly. “It’s owned by the clans.”
“A fat lot you know.” Her voice was unmistakably scornful. “I’m from the east, not the northern Highlands. Can you not tell from my accent?”
That lilting accent was muddling his brain. “You sound like a Scot to me.” He guided Chiron back to the center of the road, away from the dangerous bogs that plagued the edges. “Scots are Scots.”
Before him, her back went stiff. “Curious,” she said softly. “You don’t strike an initial impression of an uneducated fellow, yet you seem to be unaccountably lacking in knowledge.”
“And I suppose you’ve been to university?” The fact that he hadn’t rankled him. Following the Civil War, he’d spent his adolescence in exile with the king. Of all the Chase brothers, only the youngest brother, Ford, would ever have the benefit of a formal education.
“Close enough,” she said. “I read all of Adam’s books
