He kept his eyes on the road ahead and not on her as they traveled. Most of the time. He was glad she slept for much of the day. She weighed little. He wondered who she’d lost to the Black Death already. A husband? She didn’t look poor with her soft woolen mantle and wooden shoes. He thought about their quick conversation earlier. How had she never heard a Highlander speak? Highlanders traveled through the Lowlands all the time.
A strong gust of wind blew his plaid and her skirts up over her knees, over her hose. He saw her burned, wrinkled flesh creeping up her thigh. How much of her did it cover? Hell! She’d already been in a fire. He was happy he stopped her from going through it again, but he had to find a place for her. He couldn’t keep her with him. He had men to kill.
He stopped to eat and sleep four miles north of the next town. He didn’t enter the town to look for an inn. He wouldn’t infect everyone—that is, if they weren’t already infected. Having one dying person around him while he tried to enjoy his supper was going to be bad enough. An entire town would be too unpleasant.
He looked down at the lass again while he carried her off his horse and set her gently in the grass beneath a tree. She woke up while he was setting her down, still wrapped in his plaid. Was she dying? She didn’t appear any worse—or any better.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He didn’t know what to say so he remained quiet beneath his mask. He’d never saved a life before. Had he saved her life? “How do you feel?”
“Not good, I’m afraid.”
He nodded. She would likely be gone by morning. He would bury her and then continue on his way.
“Still…’tis better than the fire.”
“How did ye get burned on yer legs?” he asked, sitting down next to her beneath the tree. He pulled down his mask and took some wrapped up dried, salted meat, bread, and an apple from his bag and began to eat.
“How do you know of my scars?” Her voice was a low, shallow whisper. From it, Tristan discerned that she was a Scot, bred well, and very weak.
“The wind blew yer skirts up.”
She scowled at him as if she didn’t believe him.
He took insult and scowled even harder. “I dinna grope dy—sickly lasses.”
“Forgive me,” she said and let her gaze drift to his apple. “Far be it from me to insult the man who saved me from the fire.”
He popped a piece of bread into his mouth then narrowed his eyes on her. Was he supposed to feed her? “Hungry?”
“No. But the apple would be refreshing on my tongue.”
He pulled out a knife from his belt and cut the apple in half. Juice flowed down the sides. She watched it. He held a half to her.
She turned a little green. “I would not waste it.”
He sliced a parchment-thin slice and held it to her on the tip of the knife.
“Ye dinna have to chew it. Just suck on it.”
She looked down at her arms tucked tightly in his plaid.
His gaze fell to her long lashes shadowing her cheeks. “Right. Sorry.” He scowled at himself when he realized she couldn’t feed herself. He pulled the thin slice off the knife and held it to her mouth.
“Are you not afraid of the sickness?” she asked him before she opened her mouth to him.
He shook his head and moved a little closer to her. “This sickness knows better than to come against me.”
When he didn’t smile, she did, though it was slight. “You say that as if you believe it.”
“I do.”
“Are you mad?”
He pushed the slice against her lips and waited while she opened them to receive the apple. “Are we not all a wee bit mad?”
She held the slice between clean teeth and closed her bloodshot eyes in delight for a moment. “Aye,” she told him. “We all are.”
He ate his dried meat and washed it down with water. He gave her another thin slice of apple after she was able to chew the first and keep it down. She soon fell back to sleep. Twice, she dreamed of things that made her jump and cry out in her sleep. He didn’t try to comfort her. He wasn’t exactly sure how he could without touching her.
He didn’t leave her through the night but remained quiet when she sounded like she was struggling to breathe. He waited with her in case the angel of death came. She did not want to be alone.
When morning came, she seemed a bit worse. He said a quick prayer for her soul and then left the area to relieve himself and clean up.
He was surprised at how she clung to life. He admired it in her, but she was slowing him down.
He couldn’t stay much longer.
He returned and fed the fire then the horses, and then checked on her. She was still breathing. In fact, she began to cough. Was that a good sign, or bad?
She slept through breakfast, giving him plenty of time to talk himself into leaving.
He made it about a mile before he began imaging her waking up alone, far from any shelter or food. Damn it!
He turned back and grumbled intermittently at his weak fortitude.
When he reached her, he was happy to find her still asleep but breathing. He put more wood on the fire and talked quietly to himself about what the hell was happening to him.
When she finally woke up several hours later, she wasn’t hungry.
“The sick are treated like monsters,” she told him while he poked a stick into the fire. “Not by you. You are very kind.”
He groaned. “Never let that get aboot, lass.”
“Why?” she asked in all innocence.
“Because I’m not a kind man. I’m not a good man.” He thought about telling her. He had
