“Do you want to have supper at an inn tonight?” she asked him from her saddle a few feet away.
Not particularly. No. He didn’t want to sit in a tavern with people. He couldn’t be who he was, and be that hired killer effectively if he made friends everywhere he went. Staying cold, unknown, and detached was the secret to success.
“What is wrong with the food I bought?” he asked her with a scowl.
She ignored it and continued on, and looking damned fine doing it. “Nothing at all. But I want to sit at a table and feel human. They likely have water so you could wash your hands a dozen more times,” she said, trying to sweeten the deal. “Why do you wash them so often?”
“I was told it keeps plagues away.” Hell, he didn’t like staying at inns. Why pay for a bed when he could fall asleep to the music of the breeze through the leaves and the twinkling stars above?
He tried one more tactic than outright refuse her the way his head told him to do. “It might not be safe. There are more people in the next town.”
“Tristan.”
Why had he given her his name? Every time she spoke it set his blood to burning and turned his bones to butter. The delicate sound of her seeped deep inside him. He wasn’t sure what to do about it. He was already thinking of missing it.
“Now you sound like my father,” she sulked.
He stared at her as they kept their horses to a slow trot beneath the trees. Though he understood now why her father had secluded her, he still couldn’t accept the idea of it. She was a treasure, indeed, though at times annoying to distraction. The more hours he spent with her, the more he felt overcome by her dark beauty and rare innocence. But she was free, not to be kept in a cage, lest she cease.
“Ye master me yet again, Woman,” he surrendered to her and cursed Uncle Torin and his blasted tales of poetic savages.
“We can eat at an inn?” Excitement lit her dark sable eyes and her wide smile made him glad he gave in.
“Aye, if that is what ye want.”
She put her hand to her mouth and nodded happily. “You see now? If you had not supplied me with my own horse, I would be hugging you.”
He wanted to laugh with her but what the hell was he doing? He was only supposed to keep her with him until she died. But she lived, and she was invading his soul, saturating him like a plague of her own. He was going down fast. He slid her a slanted glance. “Ye will owe me.” He held up his index finger and she laughed.
She laughed too easily. She was too pleasing on his eyes when she tilted her head back just a little, sweeping her loose, glossy locks over her shoulders.
“I do not care what others say of you, Tristan, I think you are very sweet.”
“Ugh,” he groaned. He was doomed. His reputation could never survive her.
She laughed a little more, making his belly feel odd. “I promise not to tell anyone else.” She leaned in closer to him from her saddle. Her laughter faded into a tender smile. “’Twill be our secret.”
She felt too comfortable already, like a glove he’d worn for a long time. There was no place in his life for a lass. He traveled often. Why in damnation was he thinking like this? Like she could come to mean something to him. He’d never allowed it before. Not after he fought King David’s wars and couldn’t stop killing when he returned home. He’d trained himself to be unemotional and unsympathetic as he rode through villages, towns, and cities. He always found his targets, no matter what it took, no matter who he had to use to do it.
He was too hard, too old and derisive for her. Inevitably, he would hurt her delicate heart. And he didn’t want to do that. Not to her.
“Mayhap…” was this what he truly wanted?
“Aye?” she asked—or perhaps it was a bird in the trees.
“Mayhap I can find ye a carriage goin’ to Dumfries. Ye would be more comf—”
“You will do anything to be away from me!” she accused him, bringing her hand to her mouth.
“Nae. Now Rose, I willna have ye angry with me fer tryin’ to save us both the heartbreak of comin’ to care fer each other. I am no good fer ye. No good at all.”
“Are you quite done?” she asked, moving her horse to stand in front of his, stopping his advance. “Do you know what awaits me when I go home? Walls. A few people who care for me, and some who resent me for the way they must live. So, if I want to entertain myself with you, I will.”
“Entertain yerself?”
She nodded. “My cousin, Emma, said that is what young, virile men are for. If they are handsome, I should consider myself fortunate. Well, I consider myself very fortunate, so cease being so serious.”
He supposed Emma was correct. Young men didn’t usually want to marry.
“I will be twenty-nine soon.”
“Good for you.” She blinked. “Are you telling me this for a reason?”
“What kind of reason?’
She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. “Why did you tell me your age?”
“I wanted ye to know I’m not too young.”
“Not too young for what?”
He dipped his chin and stared at her from beneath his raven brows. If she wanted to be bold, he would be bold right back. “Fer ye.”
Her huge eyes grew bigger, rounder. “Me?”
“Aye. If I were to allow myself such feelin’s, which I willna.”
“Why not?”
He shook his head. “Enough questions. Keep movin’ before we are too late and the inn is closed.”
Worry passed across her eyes and he felt guilty for bringing it up, but many inns closed at sunset, which
