In the end, Dougall went home with Eleanor. The others agreed with him that the more protection the lady had, the better everyone would feel about her being in Stirling. Faced with his companions’ dissent, not to mention the Kildrummond guardsman’s deadly blade, Will had no choice but to back down.
Roisin was already under the covers when they arrived—and she was mightily surprised to see him.
“Och, ’tis been a long time since I’ve slept the night wi’ a man,” she teased. “And never have I spent the night wi’ one so handsome as ye, Sir Dougall.”
Dougall was all Highland charm. He kissed her hand and bestowed upon her such a dazzling grin that, even with his mottled, swollen face, the world-wise Roisin giggled like a fresh, daft lass.
“If I could but give ye my undivided attention, I would do so wi’out hesitation,” he told her in his rich, sultry voice. “Unfortunately, I’ve been charged wi’ minding a wildcat, so I expect my attentions will be otherwise occupied. But thank ye, lovely Roisin, for giving me something pleasant to dream about this night.”
Eleanor glared at both of them.
“Ye shall have to sleep on the floor I fear, Sir Dougall,” she said crisply. “Roisin and I share the bed, and there is no other piece of furniture to speak of.”
Dougall took in his surroundings, which were a sight better than his chamber at the inn. A reinforced open hearth took up a portion of the rough-grain wood-plank floor toward the rear wall. Roisin had gotten a peat fire going earlier, and it smoldered and hissed quietly. Behind the hearth, a small window, just large enough to provide adequate venting of smoke, looked out onto a pen of sheep and chickens. The wooden walls were weathered and unadorned, but they were solid. And the stone outer wall was crudely mucked, but was free of chinks and gaps.
“How did ye manage a place like this? I would have thought it were beyond yer means.”
“I dinna ken, in truth. For that, ye’ll have to ask Roisin. ’Tis her doing.”
“Have ye never troubled to ask Roisin how she fixed it?”
Eleanor settled a meaningful gaze upon him with her tawny eyes. “I have learned that ’tis wise to never ask Roisin how she fixes things.”
When Dougall glanced to the wench, Roisin wiggled her brows devilishly.
“The floor is fine,” he agreed, satisfied with not knowing the particulars.
He unrolled his pallet, which he’d collected after leaving the tavern, onto the floor by the ring of hearthstones. The back of his neck tingled as he went about his business; he was aware that Eleanor was watching him. She’d hoped he would find the floor inconvenient, a notion Dougall found thoroughly amusing.
The lass forgot—he was captain of the guard. Nights spent on a cold floor in the great hall, or worse, beneath the stars in all kinds of weather, were a regular feature of his life.
“This is gae fine. After searching the whole of Scotland for ye, sleeping in the rain, in mud, in the cold, a warm fire and a dry floor is just what I need. ’Tis kind of ye.”
She glowered; he laughed.
“Come now, My Lady, ’twere only jest. Ye look as though ye’ve swallowed a mouthful of sour wine.”
Roisin cackled from under the bed covers.
“About that,” Eleanor said, “seeing as how ye’ve decided to take a position as my shadow for the next while, I’d appreciate if ye’d no’ call me ‘My Lady’ or anything like it. Since ye’re no’ planning on betraying us to the king, ’tis best ye start calling me Nolie like everyone else.”
“I’m nay so sure I could get used to that. I’ll try.”
“I wouldna mind a lad like ye calling me ‘My Lady’ once in a while,” Roisin put in.
“Please,” she implored, ignoring Roisin.
Something in her expression made Dougall pause. She battled him with the grit and determination he’d come to expect in the short while he’d known her. Beneath it, though, he detected vulnerability, encountered a lost little girl who was fighting to swim through the tide that had swept away everything she held dear. He’d seen it tonight, in the kitchen building at the tavern. A part of him had softened then, just as it softened now.
It occurred to him to wonder what was it about this lass that made it difficult to deny her anything. And it was difficult. So difficult, in fact, that even when he knew he should be saying, “No,” he heard himself saying, “All right. Nolie it is.”
Ye’re in for a time of it wi’ this one, lad, he thought ruefully.
“I’d…em, I’d best get to bed,” she said, shy of a sudden. “Would ye turn yer back so I can dress?”
“Oh—aye, of course.” Dougall went back to arranging his pallet. He could hear the rustle of her rough-spun overtunic as she pulled it over her head, and tried not to entertain the uninvited thought of what she might look like if he turned around just then.
Yes, he certainly was in for a time of it.
When the old crooked frame of the bed creaked, Dougall climbed beneath the heavy wool blanket he’d traveled with. In her presence, he was uncomfortably aware that it was in desperate need of a wash. His shirt, too. It was damp from the walk home. Before he lay down, Dougall stripped the garment off and laid it on the hearthstones to dry overnight.
When he rolled over, he found two pairs of eyes watching him. Eleanor shut hers tight when she realized she’d been caught. Roisin, on the other hand, propped herself on her elbow and gawped at him with obvious delight.
“My, my, Sir Dougall. Ye are fine! Finer than any man I’ve seen before. Dinna suppose yer kilt needs drying too—oof!” Roisin glared at Eleanor. “Chrissakes, Nolie, ’twere only jest. Yer elbows are sharper than Muirne’s tongue!”
“Good night, Lady Roisin,” Dougall chuckled.
Roisin giggled and flipped over to sleep.
Once they were still, Dougall lay his head down on the crook of his arm. He was sure he would not sleep this night, with all that had taken place. His mind was in far too much turmoil.
But his body must have needed the rest more than he realized, for within seconds he was sound asleep.
***
Eleanor awoke with the foggy impression that something significant had happened. In the haze of sleep that clouded her brain, she couldn’t quite recall what it might have been. Whatever it was, she’d had a better night’s sleep than she’d had in a long time. She hadn’t slept this well since the night her world had fallen apart, the night her home was attacked by Lord Agnew of the Red Douglases.
Before that, even. Since the day Lachlan Ramsay, then the newly made Earl of Kildrummond, came to tell them that her eldest brother Edward had been killed, her second-eldest brother Brandon had fled, and her father was to be executed for treason.
Now, somehow, she felt…better about things. More at peace. More positive. Like the skies might not be so dark after all.
Roisin was sleeping soundly beside her. One emaciated arm was flung over Eleanor’s midsection, and a bony knee was lodged firmly in the small of her back. Roisin’s tossing and turning often resulted in the two of them becoming tangled in the night, but Eleanor didn’t mind. She remained still and let her friend sleep as she did most mornings.
Her friend. Roisin was one of the best friends she’d ever known. A tavern lass and occasional whore. A year ago, Eleanor would never have imagined it.
She smiled sleepily and opened her eyes to a rare burst of sunshine streaming through the rear window. Almost immediately, her gaze landed on Dougall MacFadyen, and the events of the previous night came back to her. They did not hit her of a sudden. There was no shock of memory like there had been so many mornings after she left Glen Craggan. Rather, it was a slow spreading of awareness.
Dougall MacFadyen of Kildrummond had somehow tracked her down, despite her altered name and altered hair. He’d done all this out of a sense of duty to his master. And when she had refused to leave, he insisted on remaining with her.
Lord Albermarle had had a number of loyal kinsmen and knights and guardsmen at Glen Craggan, but never had Eleanor seen such an ingrained sense of duty.
The anger she’d felt the night before, when he’d announced he would not be leaving her side, drained away. In its place she felt an unwilling respect for the man.
Watching him sleep, she thought he looked uncommonly peaceful—if she looked past the battered nose and bruised eyes. His brow was smooth, his features relaxed in the innocence of slumber. Many nights on the way to Stirling she’d watched her male companions sleep. Manus and Gabhan, Thomas and Will, their troubles stayed with them. Etched themselves into their faces so deeply that not even slumber could ease the tension.
Was it the loyalty which Dougall possessed that allowed him to feel no troubles, no doubt, no regret? A sense of accepting that his life was entirely in the hands of another, to live or die as Lord Kildrummond saw fit?
She envied the simplicity of such an existence.
Dougall had gotten up at some point, probably within the last hour, and added more peat to the embers. The firelight wavered over his bare torso. One chiseled arm was tucked beneath his head, and the other rested along his side to his hip. His chestnut hair, tangled and stringy from his journey, was fanned out behind him, leaving his face clear for Eleanor to view.
She remembered that Dougall MacFadyen was a handsome man. It was not often that she’d traveled to Kildrummond with her mother and father to visit old Lord John and Lady Glinis Douglas, but she did remember him. Then, of course, she’d been a girl. As a woman grown, she knew that the whispers and gossip about his handsomeness were well founded. She wondered how many ladies had the pleasure of his intimate acquaintance.
She did not think such things with any malice or animosity, though. Not that at all. What she felt for this man, sleeping peacefully on her floor, by her side, was far too tender to be jealousy.
He was here, first and foremost, to keep her safe. For that, Eleanor resolved to be a little kinder to him.
Sensing he was being watched, Dougall opened his eyes. She didn’t look away, didn’t close her eyes and pretend to be sleeping. She simply said, “Good morning.”
Bleary eyed, Dougall propped himself up on his elbow. The look of confusion on his face subsided.
“I couldna remember where I was,” he admitted.
“Hazard of yer trade?”
“Indeed.”
“Yer face looks terrible.”
He sat up, stretching his arms in front of himself. “Well, I beg yer pardon, but ye dinna look so fresh-faced yerself first thing in the morning.”
“I meant yer nose.” Eleanor laughed. “Does it hurt much?”
Dougall prodded his tender nose and winced. “Only when I touch it.” He prodded again, and winced.
“Stop touching it then. Yer poor face, ’tis black beneath both yer eyes.”
“Aye, but what’s a warrior wi’out a few bruises and scars?”
“At least the swelling has gone down.”
They were silent for a short while, Eleanor lying on her side with Roisin draped over her, and Dougall with his bare torso and mussed hair.
“She always sleep like that?” he asked.
“Sometimes she’s worse.”
“Worse?”
“She kicks.”
“Did ye no’ ever consider finding a room ye could let on yer own?”
“I dinna mind so much. Roisin’s the dearest friend I’ve ever had. I like living wi’ her. And besides, around here there’s safety in numbers.”
“I’ll give ye that one.”
“So, Dougall, I take it ye’ll be my shadow again today?”
“Aye. Well, actually, I mean to see ye safely deposited at the tavern, under the watchful eye of Angus Beag—eye as in one, mind. That other eye of his frightens me something fierce.”
“I wouldna have thought ye’d be afraid of anything,” she jested.
“I were afraid ye were dead,” he said frankly. The way he looked at her when he said it, honest and unapologetic, set her belly aflutter.
“Yes… Well, I’m alive and in good health as ye can see. So after ye deposit me at the Thistle and Thorn, what do ye plan to do?”
“I was hoping to wash, to be honest. I’ve been traveling so long, I havena seen a cake of soap in longer than I can remember.”
“There’s a bathhouse near here,” Eleanor suggested. When Dougall made a face, she added, “There are a few suitable braes outside of the city. They’re more private the farther ye go.”
“I dinna want to go too far.”
“There’s one a short walk from here. ’Tis no’ as secluded as others, but it should do.”
“Whereabouts is it?”
“If ye go past—”
“I can take ye,” came Roisin’s sleepy voice.
Eleanor turned her chin. “Ye’re awake then?”
“Nay, no’ yet,” she mumbled. “Dougall, ye walk Nolie to the Thistle and Thorn, let me sleep a wee while longer. When ye’re back, I’ll show ye the brae.”