The Knight's Broken Promise. Nicole Locke

to—’

      She couldn’t finish as she met his gaze.

      Gaze was too tame a word. She felt pinned by brown eyes moving over her face as though she were a feast laid out before a starving man. She felt him taking in each and every one of her considerable freckles, her too-wide mouth and her unfeminine chin.

      She was consciously aware of her raw-boned frame, her small breasts, the gangly length of her legs. The tingling in her fingers was spreading to the rest of her body. Rapidly. And back again.

      His arms, arms she had been admiring only moments before, wrapped more tightly around her, cradled her, began to lift her.

      She soaked up the thickness of his eyelashes as they shadowed the hard planes of his cheekbones, the cluster of tiny scars disappearing into his beard along the right of his jaw, the fullness of his lower lip.

      He was going to kiss her; she knew it. She parted her lips to take in air.

      Then he put her down and took a huge step away.

      Humiliation swept through her. She stared at the pebbles around her feet. Braving the year-long seconds between them, she finally thought of something to say.

      ‘You’re done?’ she asked.

      ‘Almost.’ He picked up the spade and started to flatten some of graves.

      She glanced at him. He wasn’t looking at her. Which was good. She was feeling too raw from his rejection.

      ‘What do you do with those branches?’ he asked.

      The greenery from birch branches, twigs and fern leaves lay as scattered as her thoughts.

      Frowning, she concentrated hard before she remembered. ‘They’re to honour the graves. I wanted to give them more than just dirt.’ He didn’t help her as she picked up the scattered branches. ‘Let them know they were—’

      She couldn’t finish the thought. It hurt too much to think of her sister. Pained too much to remember how the children had lost their parents. She tiptoed over the graves and placed the branches and greenery over them. She was glad she could hide her face while she arranged the branches. But it didn’t take long. She didn’t have much.

      Now she only had the living to worry about. And that included herself. At least until her body stopped feeling this longing for a stranger and her heart stopped feeling this foolish hurt.

      She brushed the back of her hands across her cheeks. She didn’t know what to say to him.

      ‘I prepared the food,’ she said when she could bear the silence no more.

      He didn’t answer and she looked up. He was looking at her decorated graves, his brow furrowed, his cheeks hollowed out. He stuck the spade into the ground with unnecessary force, his eyes not meeting hers.

      She hesitated before walking back to the camp. He followed her, but when she stumbled at the top of the hill, he did not help her.

      * * *

      Grief, anger and lust coursed through Robert’s body as he followed Gaira to the camp. The decorated graves were a painful reminder of his past. His grief crashed into his lust. The feelings could not be more different. Hot, cold, pain, pleasure. His anger at feeling anything at all underlined everything.

      Worse, his years of abstinence mocked him as he followed Gaira up the hill. He tried to look at the countryside around him, but the slope of the green hills were weak substitutes for the fire of Gaira’s multiple-plaited hair.

      He watched as each plait’s swing pointed to every female detail of her: the tapering of her waist, the flare of her hips, the curvature of her buttocks, the lean strength of her long, long legs.

      His desire for the woman was too complicated and the situation was difficult enough. He had let Hugh know where he was going, but he was late to return to camp. It was good her dead were buried because so were his obligations to her.

      ‘It is getting late,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll keep camp again tonight.’

      She didn’t break her stride. ‘Aye.’

      ‘I’ll try not to wake the children when I leave in the morning.’

      She stopped so suddenly, he almost walked into her back. When she whirled, her plaits slashed like tiny ropes against his arms and hands.

      ‘What do you mean when you leave in the morning?’ she asked, one eyebrow raised.

      ‘I told my men I would be gone for no more than one day. I have been gone for almost two. If I do not return soon, they will come to check on me.’

      A crease began in the middle of her brow. ‘Tomorrow I was taking the children and returning to my brothers on Colquhoun land. It is north up the Firth of Clyde.’

      He did not see how this pertained to him leaving in the morning, but he knew well where the Firth of Clyde was.

      ‘That is miles north and across cold water,’ he pointed out. ‘You and the children couldn’t possibly make it that far.’

      She did not question why an Englishman would have such accurate knowledge of Scottish territory. ‘That is the plan.’

      He turned more fully towards her, waiting for her to finish, to comment their next of kin would be here soon and it would be best if he left as soon as possible.

      But all she did was look pointedly at him, as though she was waiting for him to say something. He did want to say something. A blind man could see the danger in her plan.

      ‘You’ll never make it with one horse,’ he said. ‘Flora is so slender and slight in body and spirit, you can practically see through her. Alec and Maisie are too young for such a trek on horseback.’ He took a step closer to her. ‘What if you run out of oatcakes for Maisie—what will she eat? Creighton will not speak—what if he spies danger, but will not warn?’

      She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. She looked as though she had no idea how to reply to him. He started to walk past her.

      She did not move. ‘You are so good at telling me what cannot and should not be done. You have nae say here. Alec may be small, but his determination is strong.’ Her fists clenched at her sides. ‘Maisie’s teeth may still be coming in, but she has some and if we run out of oatcakes, we can grind the meat we have and mix it with water. I’ll make sure she doesn’t starve.’

      She took a couple of steps away as if to distance herself from him and released her fists. ‘As for Flora and Creighton, I suspect they were nae always mute and weak. I believe your soldiers had something to do with that, but they survived; they were smart and quick enough to protect Alec, too.’

      The sun was setting behind her, making her hair look licked with fire. The whisky colour of her eyes was shaded a golden tawny. She was all flared anger and determination and she was magnificent. He could not keep from wondering what her hair would look like unbound, what shade her eyes would go when she was feeling emotions other than anger. He could not help feeling a fool for noticing.

      ‘They’ll make it,’ she confirmed. ‘They’ve grown up despite my trying to protect them.’

      She took another step closer to him and he could smell the fragrance of her hair, a mixture of greenery and something sweet, like some berry he’d never tasted.

      He tried to focus his thoughts on the children. ‘You’ve come to care for them,’ he said.

      ‘Aye!’

      ‘Surely they have kin who would come for them.’

      ‘Do you think I haven’t thought of that?’ She waved her arms at him. ‘Flora says she has some, but she doesn’t know where. Alec’s too young to know otherwise.’

      ‘And Maisie?’

      ‘I know whose kin she belongs to,’ she said. ‘This conversation doesn’t matter.