Chapter Four

Tansy released the last threads of the spell she’d woven and struggled to haul breath into her lungs. Away—she’d gotten away from that horror, and her body still trembled in reaction. But whatever happened, she didn’t want the knight with whom she now rode to guess she’d compelled him to release her, with magic.

The knight—oh, he’d appeared over the rise in the road like the answer to prayer, and deep abiding prayer at that. As soon as Tansy saw him she knew him for her way out.

He might even be more than that. From the tiny shards of excitement pricking her within, he might come to mean something significant. A way for her to leave Slurt, with its boredom and hatred.

And Ossian Bain?

A small ache of longing blossomed in her heart. There’d been a time when she felt sure she never wanted to leave the bonny Ossian. But he’d stood there like a great lump while their neighbors accused her. He would have seen her turned over to the Royal Commission for questioning.

A shudder quivered through her body, and her rescuer shifted a large hand—lodged protectively at her stomach—in response. He slowed his mount and looked down at her from a distance small enough to seem intimate.

“Are you all right, lass?”

For once in her life, Tansy didn’t feel too certain. Profoundly shaken, she still found it difficult to breathe, and her wrist…

She brought it up from where it nestled in her skirt, only to see a bright smear of red. Blood. It invariably made Tansy dizzy—not because she was a delicate miss but because it sang a bold song she found hard to chase from her head.

She said, “I think…”

The knight swore. His hand—twice the size of hers and none too clean—came up and gently captured her wrist. His forbidding face frowned.

Forbidding face. So it was—one of the strongest and most intimidating Tansy had ever seen. Also one of the most handsome, in its way—not like Ossian, no, nothing like. Ossian seemed all brightness with his fair curls, blue eyes, and ruddy cheeks.

This man wore darkness. She saw it in his hair—a fall of straight black locks loose upon his shoulders—and in the eyes that met hers briefly before he focused on her bloody hand.

She’d sensed that darkness in him when he rode down on the crossroads, a thing of spirit as much as appearance. Some great trouble or sorrow rode within him. For all that, she sensed no cruelty. And och, aye, he carried beauty also.

Had she ever seen such a countenance? Narrow and elegantly sculpted as that of a raptor, his face tapered from sharp cheekbones to a strong jaw now well covered by black beard.

Above those eyes—black as the gaze of a raven—slanted two eyebrows like wings, fleet and mobile. Even as she watched they drew together over his bulwark of a nose, and black lashes swept down.

“Forgive me. I must have cut you when I slashed those ties. Let me see—how sore is it?”

He smoothed away the blood with strong, graceful fingers—touched her blood, her being—and Tansy quivered again. For an instant she felt so dizzy she feared she might tumble from the great horse’s back, but the knight’s arm anchored her.

She found her voice. “A small price to pay, Sir Knight. Would you no’ say?”

That returned his eyes to hers. They gazed at one another so intimately, so deeply, Tansy felt a connection take hold between them.

Was that just the last remnant of the spell she’d woven, vibrating? She could not tell.

His expression turned grim. “I would. Let us ride on to that wood up ahead, and we will pause to tend your wrist. I think there is some bandaging in my pack.”

“Aye.”

He urged the horse on, gently using his knees, clearly not thinking about the action. Ah, well, such men spent half their lives in the saddle, a life far beyond her ken.

She wondered who he served, where he might be bound, what miracle had brought him down that road when she needed him.

And just what he might mean to her life.

****

Malcolm could smell the lass who rode on the saddle in front of him, as good as in his arms. Indeed, she smelled of herbs, the remnants of her fear, and woman. Him, he’d become accustomed to the reek of fear in his opponents, in his comrades—in himself most recently.

He almost dismissed it now in favor of something else about this woman, something that screamed aloud, but that he didn’t yet understand.

He seemed all too aware of her—each time she drew a breath or fluttered an eyelash, he noticed. And when she looked at him with her uncanny eyes, he felt it right down to his bones.

Fey, those eyes—clear and almost colorless, like water, they flashed silver and made a stark contrast with the lashes between which they were set, black as ink. He could almost believe her a witch as accused, given those eyes.

But, he reminded himself, eye color—like hair color, height, or indeed beauty—was an accident of birth which men tended to equate with the spirit within.

A fatal mistake.

He drew his horse up under the cover of the trees and dismounted. Before he could turn back to the lass, she slid down from his horse’s back. Her legs gave way beneath her.

Terror, and its aftereffects, could do that to a body, as he might have told her. He helped her up gently, and they gazed at one another once more.

A tiny thing, she barely topped his shoulder and could not weigh eight stone. Yet she had a force about her, for all that. The black hair hugged her shoulders like a ragged shawl; her feet were bare.

She held her injured wrist tight to her breast; already the wound had begun to clot, blood ceasing to flow.

He spewed a relieved breath; at least he had not harmed her too sorely.

He turned to the pack lashed to his saddle and yanked it open, giving her a look from the corner of his eyes.

“What was that all about, back there?”

She seemed to ponder her answer carefully before she said, “Jealousy.”

“Eh?” That lifted his brows.

“Two women,” she said with surprising acerbity, “after the love of one man. Need you ask me more, Sir Knight?”

“It seems I must. What has that to do with an accusation of witchcraft?”

“My rival wanted rid of me, the vicious chattan.”

“Ah. The question is how did this rival o’ yours persuade the rest of the clachan to go along wi’ it? That was your whole village, eh?” He jerked his head back toward Slurt.

“So it was.” She pondered that also, and a new emotion appeared in her eyes. Hesitance? Grief? “Such things spread like sickness.”

Aye, and there was a truth.

He drew a cloth from his pack and turned back to her. “Let me see that wound.”

She lifted her hand trustingly. Her wrist, slender as that of a child, bore a deep gouge where the point of his sword had caught the flesh. Christ, he might well have slain her in his bold attempt at rescue. But he’d felt such a compulsion to save her and get her away from that place, he’d acted without thought.

“I am that sorry,” he told her. “In my haste I slashed more than your bonds.”

She tossed her head. “No’ your fault. They were very tight, and needs must. I heal quickly and shall soon be made right. Bruises, scrapes, wounds of all sorts melt from me.”

“A singularly fortunate gift.” And one that might have served her ill in the hands of the Royal Commission during questioning. Quick-healing marks would surely prompt the infliction of more, and would arouse the worst suspicions.

Using water from his flask, he gently sponged away the blood and wrapped the cut tightly. She stood still throughout, stoical as any warrior receiving rough care on the field of battle.

“There. Let your miraculous healing take hold.” He withdrew his fingers from her flesh and put away the bandaging carefully. “Have you a name?”

“Indeed, does not everyone?” She drew a breath. “I am Tansy Bellrose Gant.”

That made his brows twitch. “An unusual appellation.”

“Perhaps, but ’tis the only one I have.”

That made him smile, almost against his will. Could he recall the last time he’d smiled? Aye, too well…

“And you, Sir Knight? Will you likewise share your name?”

“I am Malcolm Montgomery.”

She inclined her head like a princess receiving a courtier. “Sir Malcolm.”

“Is there somewhere I can escort you, Mistress Gant? The nearest town, perhaps? To the home of a kinsman?”

She shook her head and gazed away from him, out from the trees and back the way they’d come. A faint frisson of alarm passed through him. He had no time—or indeed patience—for being saddled with a woman, no matter how intriguing.

“Perhaps,” he suggested, “once passions back there die down, you can return home.”

“You suppose so? I do not. I have seen the last of wondrous Slurt.”

“Mistress Gant, I cannot take you on with me, at least not far. I am charged with a matter of great importance and cannot allow myself to be delayed.”

“May I ask whence you are bound?”

“I ride first to the north of Aberdeen, where I must deliver grave tidings.”

Her eyes widened. “So far? Please, Sir Malcolm, take me with you. I will ask no more.”

Might there be a place at Crag Corvan for another servant? Would his father care if he attached this woman to the household? He did not suppose he could abandon her here along the road or see her driven back into danger.

He gave her a hard stare. “I ha’ but one question for you, mistress: are you a witch? The truth of it now, for I’ve no time to become mired in further trouble.”

She widened her eyes in a braw show of innocence. “Why, Sir Malcolm, do I look like a witch?”