“He also said the woman’s over six feet tall. Imagine that.”
Imagine that, Jason echoed in his head, stifling a laugh. Here she came now, meandering down the stairs, all five-feet-four-inches of her.
Unless, as she kept claiming, she wasn’t Emerald.
His breath caught.
But that was impossible. He’d found her, a Scottish female dressed in men’s clothing, holding a pistol on a wanted outlaw.
As she came closer, the sight of her emerald amulet reassured him. Emerald was fast becoming legend, he decided, and folk always exaggerated legend. Look what they said about William Wallace…seven feet tall, indeed! As absurd as Emerald’s being six feet, and likely off by a similar measure.
“Me cousin said she was kind,” the ruddy fellow added. “He was sufferin’ from the sore throat, and she gave him some strange Scottish herbs and told him to boil them in wine and drink the lot down.”
Now, that sounded like the Emerald Jason knew. As she slid into the chair across from him, he resumed breathing.
TWENTY-NINE
“HUNGRY?” JASON ASKED, sliding a tankard in front of Caithren. “I can send it back if you’d like, but I reckoned you’d fancy chocolate over coffee.”
She breathed deep of the sweet steam. “You reckoned well.”
“How is your ankle this morning?”
“Much better.” Cupping the warm drink in both hands, she sipped. “I borrowed your comb. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” He raised his own tankard. “I paid Mrs. Twentyman for the night rail. Did you pack it like I told you to?”
“Aye. Thank you for that. And for having my clothes laundered and pressed.” She smoothed her hunter green skirt and grinned. “Even if they were tossed over that chair rather haphazardly.”
“My pleasure.” His eyes danced with good humor. My, but he was agreeable this morn. “It was the least I could do since I couldn’t find you new ones.” Sobering, he took a sip of Mrs. Twentyman’s strong brew. “We can reach London in four days if we hurry. I’ve a mind to make it to Stamford by nightfall, but it won’t be easy.” He measured her thoughtfully for a moment. “I want to thank you.”
“For what?” Caithren couldn’t imagine. So far as she could remember, she’d done little but complain.
His lazy smile made her stomach do a flip-flop. “Last night, when I—well…I didn’t mean to wake you with my nightmare, but it was nice to have you there.”
She couldn’t think of anything to say to that. It wasn’t as though she’d had a choice. And it had been nice for her as well, also though nice didn’t quite describe the experience.
In truth, she was hard-pressed to summon a word that could.
Her tankard made a swishing noise when she twisted it back and forth. “Who’s Mary?”
“Mary?” He busied himself swallowing his coffee and folding the news sheet.
“You spoke of a Mary in the night.”
“Ah.” An enigmatic glint came into his eyes. “A girl I love.”
“Oh.” She studied her chocolate.
“A young girl, all of five years.”
“Oh!” The rush of relief took her by surprise. “What happened to her in your dream?”
“It’s what happened to her in real life that signifies. Geoffrey Gothard attacked her mother, and Mary got in the way. She still breathed when I left, but she hadn’t awakened. The surgeon said she wouldn’t last the week.”
“By all the saints.”
“Mary was an orphan, abandoned in London’s Great Fire. My brother rescued her, and I found her a home in my village. With the childless Widow Bradford—her husband had died in a mill accident. No fault of mine, but I felt responsible.”
“Why?”
“It was my mill,” he said lightly.
His mill? Jason was a miller? She wouldn’t have thought so, but then she hadn’t thought at all of how he might earn a living. She’d been too busy being furious with him.
Or, since the wee hours of last night, wondering if he’d kiss her again.
To hide her suddenly burning face, she sipped.
“Mary was bright-eyed and intelligent,” Jason continued. “She loved to laugh. She used to follow me around the village, and sometimes I’d stop by the Bradford house and play with her—”
Cait’s tankard clunked to the table. “Play?” She tried to picture serious-minded Jason on his knees with a small child.
“Yes, play. Backgammon and the like. She’s remarkably good with numbers.”
“You play backgammon?”
“Why does that surprise you?”
She shrugged. “I cannot picture you playing anything.”
“My family plays lots of games. The fellow you’ve seen…he’s not me as I usually am.” He rubbed his smooth upper lip. “When Gothard came into my life—hurt people I cared for…”
“What of the mother?” She ran a fingertip around the rim of her tankard. “Do you love her, as well?”
He drank leisurely, delaying his answer. “No, but I feel responsible for her.” He lowered the tankard, then steepled his fingers and studied her across them. “Why do you care?”
“I’m stuck with you, Jase. I’m trying to puzzle you out.”
A slow smile dawned on his face, and he hadn’t winced at the nickname.
She decided to push her luck a little. “Who do you love? Besides Mary?”
“What I’d love right now is breakfast,” he said evasively. “And here it comes.”
And that was that for now, Cait supposed as Mrs. Twentyman set a plate before each of them. But he wouldn’t keep her in the dark now that she’d put her mind to figuring him out. He might think he understood lasses, but he’d never met the likes of her.
Hiding a smile, she watched him begin to eat.
He did love to eat.
Now she just had to figure out the rest.
THIRTY
“TELL ME another,” Jason said later, after they’d been on the road for hours—miles and miles of flat road that snaked through rich but unchanging farmland. It made a monotonous view that begged for a diversion. Lucky for him, Emerald had proved quite diverting indeed, regaling him with
