“Just give me peace till I tell you I’m ready,” she called impatiently. She shook out the shift, wishing she had an iron. It was more wrinkled than old Widow MacKenzie’s haggard face.
Well, there was nothing for it. She pulled it on, shivering at the clammy dampness. Though she usually wore it open at the neck, she tightened and tied the ribbon so the collar was snug around her throat. After donning the dress, she lifted the matching stomacher and stared at it stupidly.
With a huff, she limped to open the door. “I cannot figure how to attach this.”
Jason stood on the threshold with his mouth open.
“I know the dress is too big,” she added, although she knew he hadn’t noticed the loose waist. He was too busy gawking up higher, where her rumpled shift filled in the gown’s low neckline. “Don’t you dare laugh.”
“I wouldn’t think of it,” he fairly choked out, reaching for the stomacher. He came into the room and shut the door without a single snort, which she imagined was some feat.
“Hold it here,” he instructed, plastering the stomacher against her front. “And then you attach the tabs, like this—”
“I cannot breathe.” The stiff stomacher flattened her belly and pushed up her bust, which made her even happier for the cover of her shift. Experimentally she leaned forward, grunting when the pointed bottom dug into her lower abdomen. “What’s in this thing?” she asked. “Wood?”
“Yes. Or bone.”
Though she’d been half-fooling, Jason sounded serious.
“I don’t suppose you brought me dry stockings?”
“Stockings. Oh, hang it, I—”
“No matter,” she said quickly, preferring not to discuss intimate clothing. “Mine are almost dry.”
While he made their damp garments into a bundle he could hang from his portmanteau, she pulled on the stockings and her garters, lifting her skirt as little as possible. It was no easy task since the stomacher prevented bending over. “How is one supposed to sit a horse while wearing this contraption?”
“Ladies generally ride sidesaddle—”
“Balanced precariously for miles and miles?” Finished, she stood straight and arched her back, her body already protesting the anticipated hours on horseback. “Not a chance. I’ll manage.”
Closing the portmanteau, he slanted her an assessing glance. “Achy, are you?”
“Nay, only practical.” She stepped into her still-wet shoes.
He nodded thoughtfully. “Emerald MacCallum would be practical.”
“Caithren Leslie is practical.” She dug beneath the pillow and slipped his pistol and Adam’s portrait into the gown’s pockets. “Shall we go?”
TWENTY-FOUR
THREE TEDIOUS hours later, Emerald tugged up on the stomacher for the dozenth time. “All England is not flat fields,” she admitted wonderingly. “We’re actually riding through a forest.”
The shadows of leaves overhead made pleasing patterns of light and dark on the road. “Sherwood Forest,” Jason told her.
“Oh!” Her cry of discovery delighted him. “Robin Hood rode here, did he not? I’d like to stop and have a wee look around Robin’s forest.”
He sighed. “Your nap this morning cost us hours. We haven’t even made it to Tuxford. There’s no time for wee looks.”
“By all the saints! First you keep me off my coach, leaving me with no money or belongings so I’m stuck with the likes of you.” She twisted to shoot him a glare. “Now you reckon you can make all the decisions?”
Confound it, she made him sound—and feel—like a tyrant. He pushed on her shoulder to face her forward again. “We cannot afford to let Gothard get too far ahead.”
“I wish to go into the woods.” With a huff, she leaned back against him as she had for much of the ride. She claimed it eased the discomfort of the foreign stomacher. “I hope to find plants I may be needing. My box of herbs was left in my satchel—”
“On the coach. I know,” he said irritably. Her closeness was unsettling. “Is that why you plucked leaves off a plant by the church yesterday?”
“Aye. Featherfew, for the headache. I believe I feel one coming on.” She made a great show of rubbing her forehead, and the movement ran through him like a tremor. “Ten minutes. If I haven’t found what I need by then, we’ll be on our way. I wish to find something to relieve the swelling of my ankle. And something to heal wounds.”
He scooted back in the saddle, but it didn’t help. “Wounds?”
“Like the one I have,” she pointed out, “thanks to your sword.”
“Very well, then,” he muttered, annoyed. She was entirely too talented at triggering his guilt. “Ten minutes.”
He guided Chiron off the road and dismounted, tethering him to a tree. Then he reached to help her down.
She pushed his hands away. “I can do it.” But after a few clumsy attempts, she folded her arms over her well-covered chest, looking even more annoyed than he was. “Nay, I cannot. How am I supposed to move with this board strapped to my middle?”
Hiding a smile, he reached for her again, catching a whiff of her rain-washed scent. As soon as her feet hit the ground he released her, grateful to break the contact.
She flexed her knees, stroking Chiron’s silvery mane. “What do you call him?”
“Who?” he asked, distracted.
“Your horse.” She slanted him a look, took a few tentative, limping steps, then headed off into the woods.
“Chiron,” he said, following her. “I call him Chiron.”
A giggle floated back through the trees. “Think yourself a hero, do you?”
“A hero?” His answering laugh was humorless. “Not a chance.”
“Jason, the Greek hero.” She knelt to inspect some small plants by the base of a tree, allowing him to catch up to her. “One-blade,” she murmured, sounding pleased. “Jason’s guardian was the centaur Chiron, aye?”
“Aye. I mean, yes. My sister loves the legends; it was she who named my horse.” Leaning against the tree, he frowned at the top of her head as he watched her pick a few blue-green leaves. She seemed surprisingly knowledgeable about plants. Knowledgeable about lots of things. “How is it you know that tale? A Greek myth. And the English tales of
