The Rock (25 page)

“I don’t want you to hate me, Thom,” she said in a small voice. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know—and I don’t.” It would be infinitely easier if he did.

She brightened, and the pure radiance of her smile was like a beam of sunlight streaming through his chest.

The ice that had been encased around his heart for three years began to melt, and God help him, he didn’t know how to make it stop.

I
T DIDN
’
T TAKE
E
LIZABETH
long to realize what Joanna was up to—her sister-in-law would never be characterized as subtle.

The slighted walls of the once great Roxburgh Castle were still visible on the horizon behind them when Joanna caught sight of Thom riding by with a few of Bruce’s secret warriors and called him over under the pretext of introducing him to Izzie. The exchange would have been brief had Joanna not proceeded to regale her cousin with a seemingly endless stream of tales from their youth. “Oh, Thom, you must tell her about . . .” and “Elizabeth, don’t you remember when . . . ?” were uttered so many times she lost count.

She might have been grateful—the time forced riding together eased a great deal of the lingering awkwardness between her and Thom—were it not for her kinswoman’s reaction. Her pretty cousin, who was as clear-eyed, hard to impress, and seemingly impervious to charm as any young woman of her acquaintance, was utterly and completely dazzled.

Thom was barely out of earshot (after he was called away by Tor MacLeod and Joanna finally had to let him go—apparently even Joanna hesitated to defy the intimidating Island chief), when Izzie turned to her accusingly. “Good, gracious!
That
is your smithy’s son?”

Elizabeth glared at her. “He is not my—”

“You neglected to mention that he is jaw-droppingly gorgeous.”

Elizabeth pressed her lips together, not quite sure why she was so annoyed by the observation. Was it because it had taken her so long to realize the same thing? “I hadn’t noticed,” she grumbled.

Izzie looked at her as if she must be blind—something that Elizabeth was beginning to wonder herself. But her eyes had been opened. They were
wide
open, blast it.

Fortunately, her cousin shifted her attention to Joanna. “My God, those eyes—those unbelievably
blue
eyes—contrasted against that black, wavy hair.” She sighed dreamily.

“It isn’t black,” Elizabeth said unthinkingly. Both sets of eyes turned to her, and she could feel the heat staining her cheeks. “It’s almost black, but when the sun is shining on it, you can see that it’s more a dark sable brown . . .”

Izzie’s brows shot up in perfect tandem; Joanna’s smile was so wide she’d best have care not to swallow a bug.

Feeling their scrutiny, she blurted, “Randolph is dark haired as well.
And
exceedingly handsome.”

“Is that so?” Izzie said thoughtfully.

Elizabeth nodded. It was definitely dark—although she’d be hard-pressed to say the shade.

“And his eyes?” Izzie asked curiously. “Are they dark or light?”

Elizabeth tried to picture him, but the image wasn’t very sharp. Realizing Izzie was trying to make some kind of point, she scowled at her. “Light.”

“Blue like your smithy’s son’s?”

Elizabeth gritted her teeth, refusing to be baited. He wasn’t hers, blast it. And what did it matter what color eyes Randolph had? Or that she’d never noticed. “Yes,” she said, hoping she was right.

“Hmm.”

Apparently her cousin was taking “hmm” lessons from her sister-in-law.

Ignoring them both, Elizabeth rode in miffed silence for the remainder of the morning, mostly talking to Helen MacKay, who was having difficulty with her fidgety young son and fortunately hadn’t heard the earlier conversation. Elizabeth didn’t know why she was so annoyed, only that she was. By the time they stopped to water the horses, however, her good humor had returned. She was laughing with Izzie about Uilleam’s latest antics—apparently, he’d decided that food tasted better
after
it was dropped on the floor—when she heard Joanna exclaim, “Oh no. I thought something was wrong. Look at that”—she pointed to his left rear hoof—“my horse is losing a shoe.”

Joanna could see the faintest edge of metal sliding out from under the horse’s hoof.

She turned to Elizabeth. “Be a darling and see if you can find Thommy. He may have a hammer.”

“Have you ever seen Thommy shoe a horse?” It wasn’t a pretty sight. “I’m sure one of Jamie’s men—”

Joanna waved her off—
seemingly
uncaringly. “Izzie can go if you are too tired.”

“I’d be happy to . . .” Izzie started.

“I’ll do it,” Elizabeth said over her. The sly fox.

So she went to ask Thom if he could help. Knowing how much he despised shoeing, he agreed with a surprising lack of hesitation. Of course, it
was
for Jo.

After he’d fixed the shoe—with Elizabeth unconsciously taking her position as horse distracter as she’d done when they were young so he wouldn’t get kicked—Joanna insisted he share some of the sugared biscuits the cook had given her, which were accompanied by more reminiscing, until Jamie came upon the cheerful scene and promptly sent Thom away to scout ahead of them.

The first time might have been by chance, the second by coincidence, but when they finally made camp for the night, and Joanna insisted over Jamie’s objection that Thom dine with them “after all his help,” her brother wasn’t the only one who realized what was going on. But Joanna was impervious to his dark glares and Elizabeth’s chastising frowns.

As she’d noted, subtlety wasn’t one of her sister-in-law’s strengths.

But Elizabeth couldn’t pretend that she minded Joanna’s efforts to throw them together. It was nice to be around Thom again—even if it wasn’t quite as easy and uncomplicated as it used to be. At least for her. She was far too aware of what had happened between them. Every time she looked at him, she remembered how his mouth had felt on hers, how he’d tasted, the heat of his tongue sliding in her mouth, the feel of his hands on her body—and then the more wicked memories hit her. The feel of his hardness between her legs, the weight of his body pressed against hers, the intimate stroking, the burgeoning pleasure, and the shattering euphoria that had followed. How did one act normally with a man when they had shared something like that?

She didn’t know.

But when the time to fetch him came, Joanna didn’t need to ask her, Elizabeth volunteered.

She found him down by the riverbank fishing and took a seat on a rock beside him as if it were yesterday rather than eight years ago that she’d done the same. “Catch anything?”

He shot her a sidelong look. Of course he’d caught something. He was one of the best fishermen in the village. Goodness, how it used to drive Jamie crazy.

“How many?”

He shrugged and nodded to the bucket a few feet away that she hadn’t seen before. “A half-dozen or so.” He paused. “Is it time?”

“Soon. We’ll just have time to drop those fish off with the cook before Jamie sees them.”

His mouth quirked, which she supposed was a promising start.

He pulled the line in, stood, and held his hand down to her. As if it was the most natural thing in the world—and in so many ways it was—she slipped fingers into his. She’d forgotten the strength of his grip, the hardness of the calluses on his palms . . . and the warmth. It flooded her senses as she came to her feet before him.

They stared at one another for a long heartbeat, the intensity of his gaze making her wobble.

He had to grab her arms to catch her when her unsteady legs nearly made her slip. “Bloody hell, Elizabeth, be careful. I assure you, that river is every bit as cold as it looks.”

She didn’t tell him that it wasn’t clumsiness, it was
him
. “Th-thank you,” she stammered. Good gracious, what was wrong with her? Why was she so nervous? Why was she so . . .
fluttery
? Why was she so aware of the closeness of his body, the hard lines of his face, the brilliance of his eyes, the softness of the lips that were a short tiptoe-rising distance away from her? Why did she feel so warm—like she was standing too close to the forge and might get burned?

Apparently she wasn’t the only one affected. He stared down at her. Her eyes. Her mouth. “Elizabeth . . .” he started, half in warning and half in anger.

He was going to kiss her. She felt the muscles in his arms tighten as he drew her incrementally closer. Felt the heat of his breath as his mouth lowered. Felt the slam of her heart against her ribs in anticipation. And then she felt . . .

Nothing.

He drew back, set her carefully away from the slippery edge of the muddy bank, and let her go.

“We should go,” he said calmly, as if he hadn’t been moments away from putting his mouth on hers.

As if she hadn’t been moments away from letting him.

A flush heated her cheeks, but she, too, acted as if nothing had happened—or nearly happened. It was much harder pretending that she wasn’t disappointed it hadn’t. “Yes, Joanna will wonder where we are.”

He gave her a dry look that was so wonderfully
Thommy
her chest swelled with happiness. “I doubt she’ll wonder anything, as I suspect that was rather the point.”

Apparently he’d caught on to Joanna’s little game as well. She gave him a small smile of shared understanding, and they walked back together through camp. They didn’t talk, but their pace was slower than it might have been.

Thom glanced up as the shadow fell over him. But he’d been aware of her the moment she came into view on the bridge. She was like a damned beacon for his senses. Or maybe it was the other way around—his senses lit up like a damned beacon whenever she was near.

The men had made camp across the bridge from Newbattle Abbey in a small clearing along the banks of the River Esk. But Douglas had arranged for his handful of women traveling with them to stay in the abbey. Although the traveling party had thus far managed to avoid rain—and therefore the soggy, muddy roads that could have severely delayed their journey—the temperature had dropped to near freezing over the last few hours, and the women would be much more comfortable with the Cistercian monks.

In other words, Douglas wasn’t taking any chances.

Joanna’s efforts the past two days to bring Thom and Elizabeth together had not gone unnoticed by her husband—or anyone else for that matter. But Douglas didn’t have anything to worry about. As much as Thom had enjoyed spending time with his old friends—and he had enjoyed himself, perhaps more than he wanted to—no matter how many errands, dinners, and loose horseshoes Joanna arranged, it wouldn’t make a difference. It was too late for him and Elizabeth. They’d both moved on.

Elizabeth might want him physically, but Thom did not delude himself that she wanted more from him than pleasure. Not when she could marry one of the most important men in the realm. A man like Randolph could give her something Thom never could: position, wealth, and security. And he maybe better than anyone knew how much those things meant to her.

Although it would have saved him a whole hell of a lot of heartbreak had he recognized it earlier.

Elizabeth was too practical, with too much of her brother’s ambition in her to risk a marriage to someone in Thom’s position. She and Jamie had both been scarred by their father’s death. Maybe if those difficult years had never happened, it would be different. But when her father had died in prison after being declared a traitor, his lands and wealth stripped by King Edward, his widow and children had been left with nothing. They’d been “little better than beggars,” Elizabeth had once said.

Edward’s hatred of Sir William “the Hardy” Douglas had been extreme—even by the king’s notorious Angevin standards. With Edward’s mercurial temper, no one had wanted to chance taking in the “traitor’s” widow and children and risk having his vitriol turned toward them. Finally, half-starved, with little more than the “rags on their shoulders” and “one step away from an almshouse,” Isabel’s family had taken them in. The situation had been both “humbling and humiliating.”