Heart of Stone by Rebecca Ruger
Chapter Five
They never broke campthat day, and though some did wander off here and there, mostly they all remained inside that clearing, keeping watch over Peadar. At one point, Artur went around, handing out chunks of days’ old bread from a jute sack.
“That’s it then,” he said, “unless we get to hunting today, but we’ll be fine until Uddingston.”
“No hunting today,” Calum said. “We need to stay close together.”
He stopped before Julianna and held out his hand, the hard-as-rock piece of bread lowered to eye-level as she sat again near Peadar. She lifted her gaze and was not so proud that she didn’t accept this, the first sustenance offered to her since Finn had dared to share his ale with her that first night. As her hand closed around the bread, she moved her gaze around Artur to where Calum reclined against the closest tree. He was watching her but made no argument and neither did he rise to send this flying out of Artur’s hand as he had so furiously done to Finn’s flask.
She gave Artur a wan smile of appreciation before he moved off to give the next chunk to Tomag.
Thankfully, Peadar did improve as the day went on. Somehow, it was mostly Julianna and Tomag who cared for him, taking turns bathing his forehead and refilling Tomag’s flask repeatedly from the nearby stream. Finn did assist, taking charge of the ground up potion Yana had left, using the lone pot this party had thought to bring on their journey to boil and steep the medicine.
When Julianna stared at the rounded but shallow pan cast of iron, the likes of which she’d never seen, Finn said to her with some awkwardness, “We’d have planned for better cooking, but we dinna ken we’d be on the road so much.”
“I’m sorry,” Julianna said, reminded again of their circumstance, caused by her stepfather.
Finn scowled darkly at her. “Might be I’m the only one who kens it, but dinna be apologizing to me, lass. None of this is your fault.”
At some point, Booth sat close to where Julianna and Tomag sat near Peadar. He leaned his back against the nearest pine and asked, without a preface, “You have sisters, lass?” Booth was not as tall as any of the MacKinnons and his face yet showed much roundness that Julianna already had thought he might be the youngest of these soldiers. But he was pleasant in appearance, with soft brown eyes and matching hair, which curled madly most days.
“I do,” she said, hiding her surprise. It was a rare occurrence that anyone made direct conversation with her. “Three actually. I am the third daughter of four.”
Booth’s thin brows rose. “So, a younger sister then? What’s she doing?”
“Doing?” Julianna repeated with a certain lack of cleverness. “She isn’t doing anything, that I know of.”
Tomag chuckled, which was surprisingly deep, as his orange hair and paleness might have suggested a higher-pitched voice. With a familiarity that he could not claim, he tapped at Julianna’s arm. “He’s asking if she’s available. He’s hoping we might be forced to turn ’round, save another Elliot sister from an evil stepfather.”’
Still not quite comprehending, Julianna reminded them of the truth. “But you did not rescue me from my stepfather. You kidnapped me from my home.”
Unperturbed, Tomag said, “Um, I’m fairly certain we rescued ye, lass.”
Julianna’s brows crinkled. She glanced at Booth, who only seemed to be waiting, his brows lifted with some expectation.
“Oh, um, Margaret is the youngest. She was wed just this past spring.”
Booth’s expectation turned quickly to chagrin. “And the older ones?”
“Both married?” She said, letting it be a question, not sure what he was looking for.
Tomag summed it up for her with his next statement to Booth. “Weel, there ye have it, lad. All the Elliots sisters spoken for. Move on to more fertile ground.”
Booth picked up a pine cone and tossed it aside, his face wracked by his disgruntlement.
Peadar opened his eyes then, but they only rolled around in his head while he spat, quite clearly, “Devil take it, Finn. Exchange the gold, then, afore we’re all run through.”
“Oh, my,” Julianna said.
But she gasped then, as Peadar’s mad spewing reminded her of something.
But do not forget, sir, that gold exchanged hands as well. Leven’s awful words to Angus sounded in her brain.
Tomag distracted her then. “His eyes are so...foggy.”
Shaking herself, Julianna returned her attention to Peadar. “Part of the fever, I should think. But he is healing, Tomag. I can see it. I can feel it.”
The sick soldier went through phases of shivering and sweating throughout the day, which meant that his clothing and his plaid were regularly adjusted accordingly, pulled off or set upon. And then, to everyone’s relief, he started to come around late in the afternoon.
Julianna’s was the first face he saw, as she’d watched his waking and hovered close.
She touched her hand to his cheek, pleased to find a very agreeable temperature.
“He’s waking up,” she called over her shoulder.
For someone who had suffered as she’d witnessed over the entire day, in fits of restlessness and fever and what she thought must be dreams or hallucinations at one point, which required Tomag to actually hold him down on the ground, Peadar seemed to quite easily understand what had happened.
“Was I out long?” He asked Julianna, even as so many others hung about, glancing over her shoulder and surrounding them.
“Most the day, and we were quite fretful,” she told him. She touched his forehead again. “This is much better,” she said with a smile. She lifted her gaze, found Tomag’s. “Clear eyes now.”
“Aye, looks good, lass.”
He only continued to improve all the rest of the day, though Calum had decided they would still make no moves until morning at the least, and only if Peadar was stronger.
Eventually, with Peadar sitting up, sipping of the medicinal Finn continued to prepare, Julianna stood and stretched her legs, ducking off into the trees to relieve herself. She knew that Calum’s eyes followed her but paid him no heed. When she returned to the camp, the sun had been set for more than an hour. Calum was gone now so she took a seat between Finn and Tomag, thinking they would shortly be making their beds. Finn shared the remainder of his warm ale with her. She made a face as she drank, which made Finn grin and advise, “We’ll get some fresh on the morrow, lass.”
With darkness come, the fire was once again allowed to dwindle. Artur had told her a fire kept throughout the night was sometimes a beacon for either ne’er-do-wells or beasts to come sniffing around. Still, the coals glowed just enough that she could pass her regard over all these men. They weren’t awful, not at all. Save for Calum, of course. But these ones here, they were friendly and kind-hearted and didn’t treat her as if she were their enemy. She appreciated that very much.
To her vexation, Tomag stood after a few moments, disappearing into the trees at exactly the same time Calum returned, which saw him step into the spot Tomag had vacated.
Oh, bother.
She meant to ignore him then, until a folded plaid landed on the hard ground between her legs and his boots. Julianna glanced up, noting that another plaid was draped over his shoulder, as it had been every day since that unfortunate day that she’d met him.
From his saddlebags came this spare, she had to suppose.
“You’ve had this all this time, yet you chose to let me freeze last night and the one before that.”
“I tried to share mine with you,” he reminded her, his own exasperation evident. Apparently, he’d expected a fine thank you for his magnanimous boon.
“After I was already numb with cold,” she accused.
“If you dinna want it...” he said, lifting his brow.
She frowned but otherwise disregarded him, pivoting on her rump so that the plaid was out of his reach, gathered securely in her lap.
She met Finn’s gaze on her right. Childishly, she made a face at him, scrunching up her nose to show her displeasure. He responded by grinning at her, one bushy brow lifting with some conjecture.
***
SHE CERTAINLY SLEPTbetter than she had in either of the last two nights. When she sat up the next morning, she had only to work the kinks out of her shoulders from being so still for so many hours. Finn was already up and gone, to where, she could not know. She was jerked to a halt, her feline stretch cut short as her hand was pulled back toward the ground.
Why that miserable....
He’d attached the rope again to her wrist, the other end to his own. Turning, she gave him a scathing look, complete with a lip curl so like his own. Sadly, her offered opinion of him was lost to his slumber, his eyes yet closed.
Whipping her head around, though, had shown that her hair was in a state, possibly beyond dreadful by now. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see many tresses, fallen around her face, escaped from the dozens of pins Effie had employed and which Julianna hadn’t bothered or truly wasn’t able to keep neat. Three broken pins were scattered on the ground very close to her. Julianna picked up the nearest one, twirling the blunted bone stem in her fingers. The hairpin was actually crafted as a needle, complete with a large eye through which the thin silver ribbon had been threaded. The shaft of this one had broken, the ribbon let loose that the pin was released from her hair. It was hard to believe it was only three days ago that she’d sat before Effie to have her hair arranged, so nervous for the coming of her bridegroom.
A lifetime ago, it seemed.
While everyone save Finn slept still, Julianna crossed her legs in front of her and began the arduous task of unraveling the pins and ribbon from her hair. She was careful not to pull on the rope that still connected her to the monster at her side. Her hair was impossibly thick, sometimes annoyingly so, but she’d never known such frustration as she did at this moment. It would take her hours to unravel all the ribbon from all the pins, the task made more difficult by the fact that her fingers were cold and stiff, and she couldn’t see what she was doing.
She was only about the chore for a few minutes, and with little success, when Calum MacKinnon stirred. He did not sit up immediately, she noted with a covert side-view, but lifted his arms first in a languorous stretch.
Rather unconsciously, Julianna’s mouth tightened. She kept her gaze forward, on the long-dead fire as he sat up next to her, allowing him no kind thoughts, since he’d tied a tether to her hand while she’d slept.
“Ahh!” He growled, which did turn Julianna’s attention toward him. He lifted his hand, which revealed that a fractured pin had impaled itself into his palm. He sent no accusatory glance toward Julianna, for which she was thankful, but plucked the pin from his hand and tossed it into the fire.
Only then did he turn and meet Julianna’s gaze, which she quickly averted. Her hands stilled, fingers tucked into her hair, until she composed herself and resumed her task. Each pin she plucked was likewise discarded into the ashy remains of last night’s fire.
While he remained seated, Calum began to gather up the voluminous folds of his own plaid. He stretched forward to yank at a section that was wound around his boot.
Julianna frowned, noticing another of her hairpins, sticking out of his tunic near his lower back. Possibly it hadn’t pierced his skin, but then it might yet if left unchecked. She tried to reach forward and pluck it away before he might notice but he’d managed to unwind the plaid from his boot and sat back again. He’d caught sight of her hand moving toward him, and quickly covered the long knife that was sheathed in his belt and sent a heavy scowl to her.
Guiltily, she shook her head and met his dark green eyes. “No, I wasn’t reaching....” She pointed now at his back, biting her lip before saying, “There is another pin on your tunic.”
He turned, trying to see, but could not.
Julianna reached forward again but pulled her hand back nervously. She met his gaze, waiting for some sign that it would be all right for her to remove it. Calum arched his back toward her, his regard watchful but agreeable.
“Sorry,” she said when she’d retrieved the offending piece. She showed it to him, lest he think she’d been lying, before it followed the path of the others, into the dead fire.
He then untied the rope that bound them together. While Julianna registered this surprise, he stood and reached a hand down to her. “Take care of morning business afore they all wake.”
She didn’t dare protest, wasn’t up to fight with him just now, but saw to her needs inside the thicker brush where she’d found relief yesterday. He waited for her, his hands on his hips, where the brush thinned close to the camp. With a nervous glance at him, and while other MacKinnons began to rouse, Julianna wondered, “Might I be allowed a few minutes to remove all these...this mess from my hair?”
“Aye,” he said, rather politely. “I think I was skewered by more than one of those pins last night.”
Deservedly so, she thought immediately. At the same time, she recognized that his voice, when he was not barking at her, was deep and gave off hints of a delicious heat, like the crackling of a slow peat fire.
They remained at the edge of camp, and while Julianna resumed the monstrous task of cleaning out her hair of all the decorations, Calum MacKinnon stood very close to her, busy with the folding and donning of his plaid. He was very precise with each pleat, and to his benefit, tall enough that the chore was likely easier for him than some, as the plaid was longer than even his great height. It was a task in which he took great pride, she thought, something he did everyday but had yet to grow tired of. He was meticulous, re-pleating one part several times until it was to his liking, before draping it over one shoulder and crossing it over his massive chest. He unbuckled the bronze and worn leather belt and refastened it around the plaid, that the fabric was secured neatly to his person, falling to just above his knees in the front and slightly higher in the back.
When he was done, he gave his regard again to Julianna. Truth be told, she had been a wee bit distracted from her task while watching him, her fingers moving only minimally inside her hair, managing to free only three pins from the ribbon in all that time.
Her cheeks pinkened as he seemed to notice that she’d made no headway. Defensively, she murmured, “I cannot see the back of my head to remove them. The...the kitchen maid helped me attach them.”
“No ladies’ maid here. Those days are done for you, lass.”
Stricken at first, Julianna’s unease was replaced soon enough with indignation. “I did not grow up attended constantly by maids, I’ll have you know.” His hands returned to his hips while he gave her a look that said he did not believe her. Purposefully, and with great effect, she said, “But on that day, when my hair was dressed, my betrothed was due to arrive, and for some inexplicable reason, I wanted to look my best.” She’d barked out each word succinctly and with singular rancor and finished with a hiss, “What a spectacular waste of time.”
She wouldn’t have thought that her little tirade would have brought her anything but further distress from this man, but even as a muscle ticked in his jaw, he said, “Turn around.” And when she did, morosely and with some confusion, he began to fetch the beaded pins from her hair that she’d been unable to recover.
Julianna stood very still. Quite honestly, she felt poorly. He’d started the morn with some politeness—as much as he was capable of, she believed—and it had been she who had begun to rail at him.
“My apologies,” she said, her voice low and directed at her chest. After a moment, and while he’d made no response, she thought to clarify, “For my outburst.” She was sure she shouldn’t be expected to beg forgiveness for any other behavior.
Some sound reached her. A growl? A grunt of acceptance? She could not say. With a heavy sigh, Julianna closed her eyes and allowed him to finish.
“Jesu. They’re all attached to this ribbon. All the way through?”
“Yes.”
“How many of these things are in here?”
“Effie said she used more than fifty. I cannot imagine I’ve lost more than a dozen or so since, and I only managed to remove another ten this morning. So, I’m not sure. Plenty is the answer, I suppose.”
“Fine.” He gathered up the entire mass of her long hair and tipped it all upward. “Hold it up here,” he instructed.
When Julianna opened her eyes and lifted her hand to the pile of hair, he took hold of her fingers and guided them to the spot where he twisted it on her crown. “There.”
Julianna gasped without sound. His hand was deliciously warm and...gentle. No, that couldn’t be right. She’d known only gruffness from him thus far. All his actions, any manhandling of her—and there had been plenty—was done with stiff motions and so much animosity.
His warm and possibly gentle hands were quickly forgotten when the skin of his knuckles grazed over the nape of her neck. Julianna’s eyes widened. She held perfectly still. Had he meant to do that?
“I’ll pull down sections at a time and comb through them individually to remove all the pins,” he announced as his plan. Then he grumbled again, “Christ, what a structure. How long did this take to have it set originally?”
Julianna shrugged, preoccupied. “Two, maybe three hours.”
He said something else. Julianna wasn’t listening, couldn’t hear anything. He’d lowered a thick portion of her hair from the mass she still held aloft and as promised, he was running his fingers through the strands, the tips meeting with her nape and gliding down her back. The skin beneath his fingers tingled and lifted with gooseflesh. Unprepared for this, Julianna held her breath and tried to understand what was happening to her.
He spoke again.
She blinked. Her lips parted. “Pardon me?”
“Do you want to save them? The pins? Or can I snap them to sever them from the ribbon?”
Save them? Focusing, she finally heard his words. “You can break them.” I will have no need of them once you have me put to death.
Oh! Good heavens!
Julianna jerked away from him, stepping forward and releasing the bulk of her hair, which fell down around her shoulders in a tangled, golden heap. She pivoted and shot him a look of accusation, both embarrassed and confused by his actions and her unruly response.
He showed a scowl laced with some impatience. “What?”
Shaking her head, unable to put into words her sudden objection, she murmured, “I can....figure it out.”
Now his brows shot up into his forehead, as if he waited further explanation for her swift change of heart.
“I do not need your help,” she said, employing a severe tone. It would be so much better to have him believe her a shrew than to have him know that she’d not been unaffected by his touch. Saints alive. Not at all.
***
SHE WAS STILL WORKINGon her hair while they rode. He hadn’t again attached the rope to her wrists and so, while she sat before him, she pulled clumps of her hair to her front and continued to pull at the ribbon and the pins, dropping the pieces as they moved along. She was pleasantly aware of how warm she was, greedily and without shame consuming all the heat that emanated from him. It was the warmest she’d been since she’d ridden with him two days prior.
Peadar was holding his own, pale and lethargic, but otherwise on the mend. The party in general, all the MacKinnon men, seemed livelier, much more vocal today than either of the last three days. Julianna enjoyed their banter, supposing these men had made many journeys together over many years, so comfortable and familiar was their chatter. She might have enjoyed it more if it had included her or if she were not painfully aware that the end of this journey would not signify her time to die.
“Is that it, then?” Calum MacKinnon asked when Julianna had pulled the entire length of ribbon free of her hair after almost an hour on the road.
Julianna ran her fingers through the length of her tresses several times, admittedly amazed herself. “I think it is.” She exhaled deeply and wound the ribbon into a ball, which was stuffed into her pocket with the blue comb. “Freedom,” she said before she’d thought it through. She’d referred to her hair, of course, but realized that she was not free, not at all. A sigh followed, for her sad predicament.
Turning in the saddle so that her profile faced his chest, she tried again to convince him that she’d had no part in the attack. “I did not lie when I said I hadn’t any idea about my stepfather’s plans, until literally moments before.”
Strands of her hair were tossed by the wind against his chin. He brushed them away but kept his gaze upon the trail before them. Julianna gathered the length of her hair into a huge tail and held it near her chest.
He offered no response.
“Is it that you don’t want to believe me, or that it doesn’t matter, that someone must pay for what was done to you?” A shudder engulfed her. “To Rory?”
His chin lowered that Julianna tilted her face upward to see him, receiving the hard glare he sent down to her. The day was overcast and gray, turning the green of his eyes very dark, brutally so.
She was reminded of what she recalled yesterday and shared it with him, though she needn’t have, since he listened to nothing she said about the matter. “When I confronted my stepfather about what was happening, he spouted some unjustified excuses—reasons he seemed to believe were sound—but his bailiff, a repulsive man name Leven, gave the most damning evidence against Angus. He said, But do not forget, sir, that gold exchanged hands as well.”
He went absolutely rigid behind her. She felt the tension engulf him in one smooth wave, rolling down like ice from his chest to his thighs. But still, he said nothing. Trembling, sure she would never change his mind, Julianna turned and faced the road ahead, her shoulders slumping with yet another defeat.
It was only a few minutes later Julianna was surprised as the path beneath them became more pronounced, rutted with wheel marks and indented repeatedly with hoofprints. Julianna perked up as a busy burgh came into view.
“Where are we?” She asked of Calum, sitting straighter before him, her head turning this way and that.
“We’re only stopping to eat and resupply,” was all the answer she was given.
She ignored the ruthless calm of his voice and wondered if she might be presented a better opportunity to escape inside a bustling town.
They stopped in front of a long, low-ceiling building, giving charge of their steeds to a pair of hovering youths. Calum whisked Julianna down from the saddle, startling her with a fresh scowl. His attention was drawn to her hair for a brief moment and his mouth opened, but Julianna would be damned if she would show any care for how wretched her hair surely looked. Not to him.
What now?She wondered when his frown returned.
He shook his head, as if to divest himself of whatever had wrought the scowl and said, “If you misbehave—make any attempt to flee or try to enlist aid to your cause—I will take my sword to three random people for your rebellion. Do you understand me?”
Unable to help herself, Julianna let out a chagrined huff, weary of his constant threats. And she was yet angry with his refusal to listen—to believe!—her side of the story about her stepfather’s plans for the MacKinnons.
She almost wished he’d just kill her and get it over with. Suffering his enigmatic company seemed a far greater punishment for her supposed crime. The look he gave in return seemed to contain some hint of derision, that she lifted her chin and announced, “You are a monster. Do you understand me?” With great scorn, she imitated his heavy northern accent, “Aye, we dinna kill innocents.” My arse!
A snicker sounded somewhere behind her. He heard it as well, pulling his glowering green eyes away from her to glance over her shoulder, where his men waited.
“Bluidy simpletons,” he grumbled at his men.
“The whole lot of you,” she added in her own mumble, attempting to step around him though she hadn’t any idea where she might go.
He caught her arm and whirled her around, his countenance fierce as he asked, “Do you want a bluidy meal or no’?”
This staggered and stymied Julianna. “A-a meal?” Her mouth watered at the very thought. Pretending to be unaffected by her hunger and thirst was a different circumstance than actually having to live through it. Her throat was nearly raw from being so dry; her stomach roiled and cried every minute for food. She met his eyes, which had lost some of their intensity, were actually regarding her with what she might have described as perplexed. “Something other than the crusty bread?” She couldn’t help it, couldn’t keep the hope from her voice.
His response—she’d not have believed it if she hadn’t witnessed it firsthand and so closely as he stood very near—seemed to suggest a bit of discomfort, as if he’d been plagued by a wee bit of guilt. He recovered quickly enough, however, and said levelly, “Aye, if you can behave yourself.”
Julianna was done with pride and foolishness. She was starving and nodded quickly before he changed his mind. “I can.” Might as well die with a full belly.
His hand was still on her arm, but his grip loosened as he directed her to turn again and led her toward the crude building, which must be their destination.
“Cal,” Finn called from behind, drawing both Calum and Julianna’s attention. “She’s got to do something with her hair,” he said, showing some disgruntlement, even as his brows lifted and he pointed to Julianna’s head.
Offended, Julianna’s jaw dropped. She touched the long tresses hanging over her shoulder protectively.
“Hmm. Aye,” agreed Calum, considering this.
“What? It cannot be that awful,” Julianna fussed. She tried to comb out more of the curls draped over her chest. “I did the best I—”
Calum cut her off. “Do you still have the ribbon?”
“Yes.”
“Tie it up, lass,” Finn called. “I’m wanting to get some grub, not into a fight over that halo.”
Still confused, Julianna absently pulled the ribbon from the pocket of her kirtle.
“It’ll draw less attention,” Calum advised. At her still-blank look, he expounded, “Outsiders make the locals wary. Soldiers make them more so. All eyes will be on us. If anyone be emboldened by too much wine or ale, they’ll want to challenge us for you.”
Her jaw gaped again, the second time in less than a minute. She’d never heard of anything so barbaric.
Good grief.
Rolling her eyes, Julianna held the length of the entirely-too-long ribbon tautly between her hands and lifted it toward Calum. “Can you shorten this?”
Without hesitation, he produced his long dagger from his belt and easily sliced the ribbon in two. Julianna returned one piece to her pocket and made quick work of braiding her hair down to her nape before tying it off with the silk piece, leaving the tail of it draped down her back.
“Satisfied?” She asked of Finn. When he nodded, a hint of a grin creasing his weathered face, she inquired of Calum, “Can we eat now?”
“Aye.” Once again, he took her arm and they followed Artur and Tomag into the alehouse, with the others following.