The man started to shake his head, and Brogan opened his mouth to try to convince him to agree, when Fiona did the same thing as she’d done when she first met him, which was flip a coin through the air. The man in the center caught it and tossed it back without even looking to see what she’d given him.
“We’ve got no place for ye here, but ye’ll no’ be bothered if ye make camp outside the village.”
In other words, they didn’t want any trouble. They thought Fiona and the soldiers to be rubbish, did not want to even consider who they might be. Or worse, they thought them traitors or dangerous. Perhaps they were only giving them shelter outside the village with promise of no trouble and then they’d send dragoons to gather them up in the middle of the night.
“Our thanks,” Fiona said, her tone slightly tighter than when she’d first spoken to them, but perhaps only noticeable by Brogan.
Had anyone else ever tossed the coin back at her without a second glance?
Fiona, Brogan, and his men crossed through the town, the hair on the back of Brogan’s neck prickling as the villagers followed their retreat. Once on the opposite edge of town, Brogan subtly increased his mount’s pace, the others following suit. Just outside the makeshift wooden walls, they found they were not the only ones to have been tossed from the village center.
Several small campfires crackled. Figures huddled close together, trying to gain warmth in the quickly chilling evening.
There was safety in numbers, but not with Cumberland’s army on the loose. And not with the men in the village so suspicious. The dragoons would see any gathering of men outside a village as a sign of rebellion. Brogan and his men needed to get the hell out of there. His gut tightened, instinct bidding them run.
Fiona dismounted before he could tell her to stop and approached the first campfire. She pushed her hands toward the flames and then whispered to the people there, who shook their heads.
She went to the next one, doing the same, until she’d visited all three fires. When she returned to him, she said, “We should move on a little longer, though ’tis dark. I’ve warned them of what we heard, what we witnessed, and they understand the danger. There is nothing more we can do but leave.”
One group was already putting out their fire and disbanding.
“Without walls or the cover of trees, they are sitting ducks,” Brogan agreed.
“Aye. I told them as much.” In the flickering firelight from the remaining campfires, he could see the worry lines creasing her brow.
Fiona urged her horse forward, taking them farther from the village and toward the forest.
They found a spot within the trees and dismounted. Brogan followed Fiona’s stare up at the sky, through the trees now a hazy purplish-gray dotted with stars. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. He felt that inhalation all the way to his toes. Concerned in the same sort of way. There was an ever-present tension in his shoulders, hell, his whole body. Even in the middle of the forest with no apparent danger in sight, they could be set upon at any moment.
“We should be safe here for now.” Brogan wiped his hand down his horse’s mane.
“Aye,” Sorley added.
“We’ll take shifts,” Brogan said. “I’ll go first.”
The men divided up who would take watch, and when she wasn’t chosen, Fiona said, “I’ll also take first watch.”
“Ye need no’, lass.” Brogan thought of the deep-purple smudges beneath her eyes, the fact that she seemed to be perpetually awake. The lass needed rest.
Instead of agreeing—and why would he have ever thought she would—she rounded on him, her voice crisp with irritation. “Because ’tis a man’s place?”
“Nay, because I know how exhausted ye are.”
“I’m no more exhausted than anyone else.”
“And I’m too tired to argue.” He shrugged. “Stay up if ye like.”
They rubbed down their horses, saw that they had plenty to graze upon. None of them dared build a fire, though they all could have used the warmth. Instead, they ate their rations in silence, and half of them wrapped up in their plaids to sleep while the other half listened.
All the while Brogan watched Fiona, trying to decipher just what he was going to do with her.
Sorley plopped down next to him, picking his teeth with the end of a thin stick. “What do ye make of her?”
“She’s a stubborn chit.”
Sorley chuckled. “Aye.”
And the more time Brogan spent with her, the more he absurdly liked her.
* * *
Fiona woke to the sound of rustling, scurrying. Eyes wide, she searched in the dark, certain they were about to be set upon either by dragoons or, equally disturbing, a horde of rats.
One and the same really.
“There’s a hound that’s followed us.” Brogan’s voice broke through the darkness as though he’d read her mind.
“Followed us?” Fiona frowned, her heart aching for the loss of her own beloved hound the year before.
“Aye.”
“For how long?”
“Since we crossed the Bridge of Carr.”
A mile or so. Fiona sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and stretching out the kinks from her bones. She made a clucking sound with her tongue and riffled in her satchel for a piece of jerky.
“Dinna feed it,” Brogan said. “It’ll only keep following us.”
“I’m no’ going to let the poor thing starve.” Though she ought not waste their resources either. Och, what could one tiny piece of meat harm?
“He doesna look starved.” Was that sarcasm she detected in his tone?
Fiona lifted her chin, though he could hardly see it. “A treat then for no’ tearing out our throats.”
“He doesna look vicious either.” Definitely sarcasm.
“That’s because I’ve given him an olive branch.” She raised a brow toward Brogan and tossed a piece his way, chuckling at his surprise.
Brogan grunted. “I’m no’ vicious.”
Fiona laughed softly and held out her hand. A cold, wet nose snuffled at her palm, gently taking the dried meat before the scuffling sound of paws hurried away. She’d not even had a chance to pet the poor thing.
Brogan tsked. “He’s stolen your treat and willna give ye anything in return.”
“No’ all gifts require anything in return,” she retorted.
Again, he grunted.
Fiona rolled her eyes and stood. The man was either full of opinions or grunted his judgments. There didn’t seem to be an in-between.