“Oh! Forgive me, sir.” Rose repented. “I—”
“What did you rob from me?” he demanded.
“I took nothing. See?” She held out her hand to show him nothing in them.
“You were alone and you stole nothing?”
“I came inside hoping to find you.”
“Mhmm.” He looked her over with his chin in his hand. “You need medicine for someone.”
“Aye.” Rose told him what it was and gave him the cloth from the innkeeper and, thankfully, he nodded, knowing of the remedy. In fact, he stepped away from her and asked her to follow him to the other side of the house, which was a few feet away. On a table in a shady corner, sat eleven brass canisters. The apothecary picked one up and handed it to her, along with a small parchment with directions on what to do with it.
She didn’t wait around but hurried out and quickly gained her horse. She liked how she was able to do things alone. How—
“Lady Rose?”
She turned at the sound of a male’s voice. A familiar voice.
“Captain Harper!” Rose was glad to see him and then her smile faded as she remembered Tristan—and her father’s men who had escorted her and had died from the pestilence. “What are you doing here?”
He looked a bit pale. Was he ill?
“Looking for you, Lady.
What? How? “Did my uncle pen a missive to my father?”
“Aye,” the captain nodded. “He wrote that you were dead—you and the men.” He looked around her. “I hoped that they were with you.”
She shook her head and looked down at the ground. “No, I’m deeply saddened to say that they all succumbed to the pestilence.”
He looked so grieved and she was sorry she told him.
“But you,” he said with a slight smile of relief, “you lived. Your father will be so thrilled. He wept when he received your uncle’s missive.”
“My uncle had me dead before my first cough,” she muttered and then looked down at the vessel in her hands. “I must go. Someone awaits me.”
“My lady, I cannot let you go. Your father grieves for you. I must bring you home.”
No! Not yet! Oh, but he grieved for her. “Captain, I vow to you that I will return home in just a few days.”
He shook his head. “I cannot.”
“Tell him that you saw me. That I am alive and safe. I will explain everything to him when I return. Please, I must go.”
“I’m afraid I cannot.”
“Why not?” she demanded, irritated now. Tristan needed her. “Captain, I—” She stopped speaking and narrowed her eyes on him. “How did you know I was here to be found? My uncle said I was dead. Why are you here searching for me?”
“Because I already knew you were alive.”
She held her palm to her head and closed her eyes for a moment with impatience. “What are you talking about, Captain?”
“We received two missives, Lady. One from your uncle and one from the Baron of Ayr informing your father that a very dangerous killer has been paid to murder him.”
Rose felt the air leaving her body. She thought she might faint. She hoped she would. For then she wouldn’t have to hear Tristan’s name come from the captain’s mouth. She wouldn’t have to explain why she was traveling with him.
“He is called Tristan MacPherson,” the captain said, stilling Rose’s heart. She felt faint. She went to her horse and leaned against it.
“I know that you travel with him.”
Her knees almost buckled beneath her. She may as well have been speaking to her father, for whatever she told the captain, he would tell the earl. “I did not know he was coming to kill my father until recently. He also did not know who I was, for I never told him. He was escorting me home because he wanted me safe.” She looked him in the eyes, hoping he could sense that she was no longer going to wait. “He saved my life, and more than once. He saved me from being set on fire after I was thrown atop a pile of the dead.”
His expression had collapsed, and his light blue eyes filled with tears as she told him what had happened to her and his ten comrades.
“I should have gone,” he lamented.
“Then you, too, would be dead,” she told him. He was her friend, one of the only friends she had ever had. She’d taught him how to read and he taught her how to shoot an arrow. He was the husband of a woman whom Rose loved and admired. He was loyal to the death to her father—which could be a very big problem for her now.
“I must get this medicine to him or he could die.”
Something terrible seemed to dawn on him and his eyes widened with…regret?
“I will escort you to him and then I must take you home to your father.”
“Do you think I am a fool, Captain? The moment you see him, you will kill him. You think he is a threat to my father.”
“He is not?”
She shook her head then stopped. “I will explain it all when I return to you. Please, give me—”
“Lady, I’m not leaving you again,” he told her. “Let us proceed to wherever ’tis you are going. The sooner we get there, the sooner—”
“Just a moment,” she cut him off and held up her palm. “How do you know I travel with him?” She stared at him for a moment and then brought her hand to her head. “’Twas you who shot him!”
When he didn’t deny her charge, she clenched her jaw. “’Tis your fault he is sick right now.”
If he didn’t move out of her way, she would stab him.
“Does that please you, Captain?”
He shook his head. “No, it does not, but I’m still coming with you.”
She mounted her horse and rode away. He followed her. She couldn’t get rid of him. When they finally reached the village…the inn, she stopped and dismounted.
When he did the same, she held her hand up in front of
