As she suspected, he was angry with her for showing up in the middle of everything. She could have been killed or gotten him killed. She shivered at the thought.
He’d barely spoken a word to her and when he looked at her, he furrowed his brows. Rose doubted he knew he was doing it.
She longed to speak with him, to be closer to him and soften his hardest resolve. She knew she could. He liked her. She’d teased him about it, but it was true. Perhaps he didn’t like many, but he liked her. She could see it in the way his beautiful, green eyes shone from deep within when she said something that made him smile, which started out as a rare occurrence and was happening more often.
For a man who showed no mercy, it was the very first thing he’d given her. She would never forget it. She would forgive him anything because of it.
Chapter Seven
They left the tavern before the sun went down and parted ways with MacDonnell and Eleanor.
The instant they were alone, Tristan turned to Rose with an angry scowl that rivaled anything he’d given her yet. “Ye could have been killed. You could have gotten Eleanor killed. What did ye think ye were goin’ to do to help me, Rose?” He didn’t want to let it sink in that she was coming to mean too much to him. He’d nearly lost his mind when he heard her warning shout. When he left the governor’s house with Eleanor and saw her at the gate with the guard, he doubted his skill to save her. His knife would come close to her. If she moved…for an instant, he’d lost sight of everything but her. Killing the governor, rescuing Eleanor, getting out alive, nothing mattered but Rose.
“I do not know,” she told him honestly. “I just know that I could not wait without so much as a dropped bowl echoing from a window. I thought for certain they had killed you.” Were those tears misting her eyes over him?
His brows knit over his eyes. No. He couldn’t show her pity. What she did was reckless and dangerous. He would never allow it with his men on the field, and she wasn’t even a man! “Not only is yer lack of confidence in me insultin’, but if I was dead, d’ye know what those men would likely have done to ye, findin’ ye at the gate fer the takin’?” He didn’t give her time to answer. His eyes grew cold and dark on her. “Never disobey me again or I’ll leave you where you stand. Is that clear?”
“Aye, ’tis clear. Forgive me for upsetting you, Tristan.” And just as easily as that, she asked, and he granted.
They thought it best not to stay in any inns since the plague seemed to be moving so swiftly. They rode through a thick stand of oak trees and stopped at a small clearing where shafts of moonlight broke through the canopy and glimmered off the intricate web of a golden orb weaver spider.
Tristan built a fire and they shared some bread and dried meat. He brewed his tea and they took turns sipping it and talking softly over the flames.
“When did you begin doing what you do for a living?” she asked him, picking off a piece of bread.
He dipped his gaze to the fire. He didn’t really wish to speak of it. “When I left the army.”
“Do you think you might ever stop fighting?”
He looked at her and saw love and affection staring back at him. She understood why he continued to kill. And she wanted him to stop.
Was she the reward for going home and settling into a life of fathering sons and daughters, as many as his body could stand making with her?
“I canna stop, Rose,” he told her, watching her affection turn to anger. “I have one more man to bring to justice.”
“There will always be one more, Tristan, because people can be quite evil. God’s punishment will be far worse than anything you could do to them.”
“Father Timothy would love ye,” he said, gazing into the flames again.
“Who is Father Timothy?”
“My father’s closest friend,” he told her, remembering the priest’s dark, lambent eyes and gentle smile. “And mine as well. He speaks of God often. He has a sayin’. I remember him sayin’ it all the time, any chance he could.”
“What is it?” she asked, finishing her tea.
“God is good.”
“Aye,” she nodded. Her affection for Tristan shone in her eyes once again. “He is.” She stretched and yawned, and Tristan rose to spread out their blankets in the grass.
They cleared up the site and lay down together by the fire.
“Tristan?”
When had his own name become a weapon against him?
“Aye, lass?”
“Will you tell me more about Father Timothy?”
He told her that Father Timothy baptized every MacPherson baby since Tristan’s birth. He married every couple since Tristan’s parents had wed and saw to every death in the MacPherson stronghold. He cared for everyone’s troubles, but he stayed close to Tristan’s father. Caring for his soul first and foremost.
Soon, Rose’s breath become steady and shallow, indicating she was asleep.
Tristan stared up at the stars and thought about what would happen when they reached Dumfries. Would he just let her go? Bid her farewell and then forget that she existed?
While he was pondering these things, she drew closer to him, so close, in fact, that the warmth of her body seeped into his bones. She woke up again to fling a measure of her blanket over him and let her arm remain where it landed on his belly.
“Good dreams, Tristan.”
He put his arm around her, holding her close, and closed his eyes. “Good dreams, lass.”
The sun had just risen over the horizon when Tristan was awakened by someone in the camp—more than one. He reached for his blade, but something hit him in the back of the head and turned the
