He gave her a quick, direct glance, and she felt an odd little jolt of realization. He’d thought about it, all right. And while she had no doubt that his offer then had been made from the purest of motives . . . he was a young man. She hadn’t until this moment realized that he would of course have contemplated every detail of what that offer entailed.
His eyes held hers in wry acknowledgment of the fact that he had indeed imagined the physical details of sharing her bed—and had not found the prospect in any way objectionable. She resisted the impulse to blush and look away; that would discredit them both.
She was suddenly—and for the first time—aware of him as a man, rather than as an endearing young cousin. And aware of the heat of his body that had lingered in the soft buckskin when she pulled it on.
“It wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world,” she said, striving to match his matter-of-fact tone. He laughed, and the stippled lines of his tattoos lost their grimness.
“No,” he said. “Maybe not the best—that would be Roger Mac, aye? But I’m glad to hear I wouldna have been the worst, either. Better than Ronnie Sinclair, d’ye think? Or worse than Forbes the lawyer?”
“Ha, bloody ha.” She refused to be discomposed by his teasing. “You would have been at least third on the list.”
“Third?” That got his attention. “What? Who was second?” He actually seemed miffed at the notion that someone might precede him, and she laughed.
“Lord John Grey.”
“Oh? Oh, well. Aye, I suppose he’d do,” Ian admitted grudgingly. “Though of course, he—” He stopped abruptly, and darted a cautious look in her direction.
She felt an answering stab of caution. Did Ian know about John Grey’s private tastes? She thought he must, from the odd expression on his face—but if not, it was no place of hers to be revealing Lord John’s secrets.
“Have you met him?” she asked curiously. Ian had gone with her parents to rescue Roger from the Iroquois, before Lord John had appeared at her aunt’s plantation, where she had met the nobleman herself.
“Oh, aye.” He was still looking wary, though he had relaxed a little. “Some years ago. Him and his . . . son. Stepson, I mean. They came to the Ridge, traveling through to Virginia, and stopped a bit. I gave him the measle.” He grinned, quite suddenly. “Or at least he had the measle. Auntie Claire nursed him through it. Ye’ve met the man yourself, though?”
“Yes, at River Run. Ian, the fish is on fire.”
It was, and he snatched the stick from the flames with a small Gaelic exclamation, waving scorched fingers to cool them. Extinguished in the grass, the fish proved to be quite edible, if a little crispy round the edges, and a tolerably good supper, with the addition of bread and beer.
“Did ye meet Lord John’s son, then, at River Run?” he asked, resuming their conversation. “Willie, his name is. A nice wee lad. He fell into the privy,” he added thoughtfully.
“Fell in the privy?” she said, laughing. “He sounds like an idiot. Or was he just quite small?”
“No, a decent size for his age. And sensible enough, for an Englishman. See, it wasna quite his fault, ken. We were looking at a snake, and it came up the branch toward us, and . . . well, it was an accident,” he concluded, handing Rollo another piece of fish. “Ye’ve not seen the lad yourself, though?”
“No, and I think you are deliberately changing the subject.”
“Aye, I am. D’ye want a bit more beer?”
She raised an eyebrow at him—he needn’t think he was going to escape that easily—but nodded, accepting the jug.
They were quiet for a bit, drinking beer and watching the last of the light fade into darkness as the stars came out. The scent of the pine trees strengthened, their sap warmed from the day, and in the distance she heard the occasional gunshot warning slap of a beaver’s tail on the pond—evidently the beavers had posted sentries, in case she or Rollo should sneak back after dark, she thought wryly.
Ian had wrapped his own blanket round his shoulders against the growing chill, and was lying flat in the grass, staring upward into the vault of heaven overhead.
She didn’t make any pretense of not watching him, and was quite sure he was aware of it. His face was quiet for the moment, minus its usual animation—but not guarded. He was thinking, and she was content to let him take his time; it was autumn now and night would be long enough for many things.
She wished she had thought to ask her mother more about the girl Ian called Emily—the Mohawk name was something multisyllabic and unpronounceable. Small, her mother had said. Pretty, in a neat, small-boned sort of way, and very clever.
Was she dead, Emily the small and clever? She thought not. She’d been in this time long enough to have seen many men deal with the death of wives. They showed loss and grief—but they didn’t do what Ian had been doing.
Could he be taking her to meet Emily? That was a staggering thought, but one she rejected almost immediately. It would be a month’s journey, at least, to reach the Mohawks’ territory—probably more. But then . . .
“I wondered, ken?” he said suddenly, still looking up at the sky. “D’ye feel sometimes . . . wrong?” He glanced at her helplessly, not sure whether he’d said what he meant—but she understood him perfectly.
“Yes, all the time.” She felt a sense of instant, unexpected relief at the admission. He saw the slump of her shoulders, and smiled a little, crookedly.
“Well . . . maybe not all the time,” she amended. “When I’m out in the woods, alone, it’s fine. Or with Roger, by ourselves. Though even then . . .” She saw Ian’s eyebrow lift, and hurried to explain. “Not that. Not being with him. It’s just that we . . . we talk about what was.”
He gave her a look in which sympathy was mingled with interest. Plainly, he would like to know about “what was,” but put that aside for the moment.
“The woods, aye?” he said. “I see that. When I’m awake, at least. Sleeping, though . . .” He turned his face back toward the empty sky and the brightening stars.
“Are you afraid—when the dark comes on?” She’d felt that now and then; a moment of deep fear at twilight—a sense of abandonment and elemental loneliness as night rose from the earth. A feeling that sometimes remained, even when she had gone inside the cabin, the bolted door secure behind her.
“No,” he said, frowning a little at her. “You are?”
“Just a little,” she said, waving it away. “Not all the time. Not now. But what is it about sleeping in the woods?”
He sat up, and rocked back a little, big hands linked around one knee, thinking.
“Aye, well . . .” he said slowly. “Sometimes I think of the auld tales— from Scotland, aye? And ones I’ve heard now and then, living wi’ the Kahnyen’kehaka. About . . . things that may come upon a man while he sleeps. To lure away his soul.”
“Things?” Despite the beauty of the stars and the peace of the evening, she felt something small and cold slide down her back. “What things?”
He took a deep breath and blew it out, brows puckered.
“Ye call them sidhe in the Gaelic. The Cherokee call them the Nunnahee. And the Mohawk have names for them, too—more than one. But when I heard Eats Turtles tell of them, I kent at once what they were. It’s the same—the Old Folk.”
“Fairies?” she said, and her incredulity must have been clear in her voice, for he glanced up sharply at her, a glint of irritation in his eyes.
“No, I ken what you mean by that—Roger Mac showed me the wee picture ye drew for Jem, all tiny things like dragonflies, prinking in the flowers. . . .” He made an uncouth noise in the back of his throat. “Nay. These things are . . .” He made a helpless gesture with one big hand, frowning at the grass.
“Vitamins,” he said suddenly, looking up.
“Vitamins,” she said, and rubbed a hand between her brows. It had been a long day; they had likely walked fifteen or twenty miles and fatigue had settled like water in her legs and back. The bruises from her battle with the beavers were beginning to throb.
“I see. Ian . . . are you sure that your head isn’t still a bit cracked?” She said it lightly, but her real anxiety lest it be true must have shown in her voice, for he gave a low, rueful chuckle.
“No. Or at least—I dinna think so. I was only—well, d’ye see, it’s like that. Ye canna see the vitamins, but you and Auntie Claire ken weel that they’re there, and Uncle Jamie and I must take it on faith that ye’re right about it. I ken as much about the—the Old Ones. Can ye no believe me about that?”
“Well, I—” She had begun to agree, for the sake of peace between them—but a feeling swept over her, sudden and cold as a cloud-shadow, that she wished to say nothing to acknowledge the notion. Not out loud. And not here.
“Oh,” he said, catching sight of her face. “So ye do know.”
“I don’t know, no,” she said. “But I don’t know it’s not, either. And I don’t think it’s a good idea to talk about things like that, in a wood at night, a million miles away from civilization. All right?”
He smiled a little at that, and nodded in acceptance.
“Aye. And it’s no what I meant to say, really. It’s more . . .” His feathery brows knitted in concentration. “When I was a bairn, I’d wake in my bed, and I’d ken at once where I was, aye? There was the window”—he flung out a hand—“and there was the basin and ewer on the table, wi’ a blue band round the top, and there”—he pointed toward a laurel bush—“was the big bed where Janet and Michael were sleepin’, and Jocky the dog at the bed fit, farting like a beetle, and the smell of peat smoke from the fire and . . . well, even if I should wake at midnight and the house all still around me, I should ken at once where I was.”
She nodded, the memory of her own old room in the house on Furey Street rising around her, vivid as a vision in the smoke. The striped wool blanket, itchy under her chin, and the mattress with the indentation of her body in the middle, cupping her like a huge, warm hand. Angus, the stuffed Scottie with the ragged tam-o-shanter who shared her bed, and the comforting hum of her parents’ conversation from the living room below, punctuated by the baritone sax of the theme music from Perry Mason.
Most of all, the sense of absolute security.
She had to close her eyes, and swallow twice before answering.
“Yes. I know what you mean.”
“Aye. Well. For some time after I left home, I might find myself sleeping rough, wi’ Uncle Jamie in the heather, or here and there in inns and pothouses. I’d wake wi’ no notion where I was—and still, I’d ken I was in Scotland. It was all right.” He paused, lower lip caught between his teeth as he struggled to find the right words.
“Then . . . things happened. I wasna in Scotland any longer, and home was . . . gone.” His voice was soft, but she could hear the echo of loss in it.