Kinsey wound the linen around him, holding one end gently with her fingertips. “Would ye have?” Once done, she cut the bandage with her blade and secured one end of it by tucking it against the firmly coiled linen.
“Aye.” He bent one leg up and rested his forearm on his knee. “’Twas a rare and tempting opportunity for the castle to have so few guards. The fault doesna lie with ye.”
As kind as it was of him to say, Kinsey couldn’t believe her decision to keep Drake’s information had nothing to do with so much death. She gazed down at the remainder of the rolled linen in her palm.
William lifted her face, so she looked at him once more. “It wasna yer fault.”
She searched his eyes, a rich, velvety brown, fringed with dark, thick lashes. He hadn’t shaved in several days, and a fresh shadow of whiskers covered his sharp jaw. His lips were full, soft compared to the hard lines of his handsome face, and she found herself wondering what they would feel like against her own.
His hand moved over her cheek, caressing it with his rough fingertips. He looked like a nobleman with his costly clothes and ornate sword. But right now, in a dreary cave on the English side of the border, as both mourned the loss of their fellow warriors, each shouldering the blame, he was more attractive to her than ever before.
His thumb trailed down to her chin, and his lashes lowered as he watched his finger. Gentle as a whisper, he swept his touch over her lower lip, sending a small flutter through her pulse.
She liked his touch. She didn’t want to admit it, but the tender brush of his skin to hers made her crave more. Her eyes closed as she gave way to the sensation. She wanted to tilt her face toward him but thought that might be too much of an invitation and resisted the urge.
“Beautiful Kinsey.” His voice was intimate and low, sending goose bumps dancing over her skin.
Her lips were suddenly dry. She flicked her tongue between them, and he caressed her with his fingertip once more. It made her want to draw his finger into her mouth, to suckle the tip delicately.
He was overwhelming.
His undeniable attractiveness, the innate goodness in him that tried to assume the guilt, the pleasing stroke of his skin over hers, it was too much. And yet not enough.
Part of her wanted to lose herself in him, to replace the grief with something far more enjoyable.
As soon as she had the thought, it was replaced with the way the tavern wenches had swarmed around him. He was too charismatic to have discouraged them for long. She’d seen his type in the village far too many times before. Handsome. Charming. Sought after.
She would be another woman in a long line of those showing interest. Hadn’t she brought enough shame to her house by leaving without warning? She would not also become a slattern.
Her eyes flew open, and she leaned away from his touch.
His brows flinched with confusion and then hurt before it was shoved behind a confident half-smile. “Reid?”
“I beg yer pardon?”
“Because ye are drawn to Reid.”
Confusion addled her for a moment as she tried to figure out what he was referring to. Suddenly she remembered how she had initially discouraged his affection is by claiming to have an attraction to Reid.
“Aye,” she replied. “Of course.”
The little smile on his lips widened. “Ye lied to me about him, dinna ye?”
Heat touched her cheeks, and suddenly she felt like Clara again with her blushes. The thought of her sister immediately made her picture home and her Mum. A flash of regret pierced her heart.
Were they worried about her? Would they try to find her? What would Drake tell them?
No doubt, her mother would be heartbroken.
“Ye’re right,” she said at last. “I’m not interested in anyone. I’m a warrior, and I’m here to fight for Scotland.” She pushed angrily up to her feet. “Not to become some man’s leman.”
Before he could protest, before she could be lured by the temptation to stay and indulge her curiosity, she left the cave and didn’t bother to look back.
7
William kept his distance from Kinsey as the camp disbanded, and they set off for Edinburgh. They would arrive early despite the four days journey to get there. It was time he’d initially planned on using to take Mabrick Castle.
He would not be attempting a second attack. Not with the guards now on high alert. And especially not when the first attack had come at so great a cost.
The tension around his chest was more than he could bear and made the dull ache of the arrow wound at his side pale in comparison. If he’d been forewarned about that damned weapon, he could have altered the way they broached the castle. They could have avoided so many deaths.
And Kinsey had known.
He glanced to where she rode on her own, her back straight and proud beneath a cloak against the onslaught of rain. She claimed not to be interested in him, but her reaction in the cave had suggested otherwise.
The way she’d closed her eyes when he’d touched her, how she’d licked her lips as though preparing for a kiss, the quickening of her breath when he grazed her bow-shaped mouth with his fingertips. Aye, he understood women well from years of thoroughly pleasuring them. He was aware when a woman was interested and when she was not.
Kinsey was most certainly interested.
William guided his horse next to hers. She stiffened.
Ah, then she was still upset.
“It was presumptuous of ye,” he said.
She shifted her focus from the endless path cut through the forest ahead of them and slowly regarded him. The auburn curls framing her face were wet with the rain, dark and clinging to her fair skin. “What was?”
“Ye thinking I took ye into my army so I could have ye as my leman.”
Her mouth parted in indignation. “I didn’t...”
He raised a brow at her feeble protest. They both knew she’d said as much in the cave.
She narrowed her eyes at him, ever as feisty as she’d always been.
William angled his horse to pull a large branch hanging overhead in their path. A twinge at his side reminded him to have a care for his injury. “I took ye on because ye’re a good archer. No’ because I wanted ye.”
He released the branch, and beads of water cascaded down from the leaves, joining the rain and spilling over him.
A flush colored her cheeks, all the more appealing by the knowledge she didn’t often blush. Not like the other women with whom he’d flirted.
“I see.” She swiped at the wet curls on her brow, pushing them back. A small white scar, the size of his thumbnail, was suddenly visible at her hairline. How had he not noticed that before?
“Ye’re right,” she said in the span of silence. “I was presumptuous. I assumed ye wanted to kiss me.”
“Oh, I did.” He was free with his admission, knowing none of the others on the trail around them could hear. Their words would be drowned out by the falling rain, and the thick cloaks pulled over everyone’s heads.
Kinsey turned her wide blue eyes on him in surprise, and he chuckled. “Ye’re a bonny lass. Of course, I wanted to kiss ye.” He winked. “Mayhap more than that.”
She pulled in a breath. Now her cheeks were nearly as red as her hair.
He grinned at the accomplishment. “But that doesna mean I want ye as my leman. Ye’ve far more value to me as an archer.”