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He angled toward them. Catching a glimpse of his chiseled chest, Elspeth cut her eyes away with a gasp. Her eyes went to her flock, and she spotted a few sheep toddling off. She scolded herself as she ran to herd them back into place. She dug her hands into her skirts to tempt the sheep with handfuls of grain. “Please come, girls. I’d sooner eat my bonnet than whistle like a fishwife in front of our pirate hero. So please just follow me, like the docile wee lambs I know you are. ”
She shooed them along, adding, “And we must all of us stop spying. ”
But she felt Aidan’s presence. He was like a grand ship on the horizon, inevitably drawing her gaze once more. He was settling a particularly large stone into place. As he braced it against his thighs, the rock snagged the wool of his breacan feile, hiking it up to reveal a glimpse of carved thigh.
“Oh!” She glanced away, then back, then away again, her cheeks burning with awareness. But she spotted more of her beasts making a break for it, and her exclamations grew more heated. “Oh, pish!”
She jogged to catch them, circling them back into place. “Stay put, you,” she said, digging in her pockets, and was surrounded at once by dull eyes and butting heads. “Crud.
I’m afraid that’s it for the oats. We must all stay where we belong. ” She sighed, knowing her place. It was alone, with only a flock of dull-eyed sheep for company. “All of us. ”
Reaching the base of the hill, Elspeth did a quick head count and frowned. She was off by one. And so she counted again. “Nineteen. Fool chit of a fool lovesick girl,” she grumbled to herself. “Who’s missing?”
As the sheep began to graze, she scanned them. A runty, wee thing with a jet-black face and white patch at the forehead was notably absent. “Wee Athena has given us the slip. ”
Her eyes went from the sheep, all busily eating, to Aidan, hard at work in the middle of the valley. “What say you, girls? Do you think our mysterious hero has seen her?” Standing tall, she beat the dust from her skirts. “No time like the present to ask. And none of you budge,” she ordered, though amid ankle-high grass, she knew none would.
She walked toward him, imagining confidence, practicing in her head what she might say, but she frowned at the results. Do you know where my sheep is? Has a sheep wandered by? It all sounded ridiculous.
“Have you seen my sheep?”
He threw the heavy rock from his hands as though it weighed nothing. “Forget the sheep. ”
Stepping close, he wrapped his hand about her neck for a deep kiss. He smelled of earth and sweat.
Breathless, she parted from him. “What sheep?”
Elspeth clenched her fists, forcing herself not to clap a hand to her mouth. She saw Aidan clearly now, as well as the thick scars that crisscrossed his back, gruesome testament to whippings past.
She hovered behind him, waiting in silence, but he didn’t look up from his work. No longer able to bear the sight of his back, she finally blurted, “Have you a sheep?”
He turned to face her, his expression flat. “No, luvvie. But haven’t you twenty already?”
She cringed. “I mean … have you seen my sheep?”
“Aye, and I’ve smelled them too. ” He bent, returning to his work.
“No … that is to say … one went missing. Have you seen her?”
He gave a brusque shake to his head, this time not even sparing her a glance.
Elspeth’s gaze lingered on him a moment more. Shirtless and gleaming with sweat, the man truly did look a pirate from the seven seas. Or a boxer. Or a gladiator. She imagined him conquering a bloodthirsty lion with naught but a splintered pike, the wind ruffling his hair. Of course such a man wouldn’t spare a glance for a woman like her. “Oh, then,” she said to that scarred back, “well … thank you. ”
She was a fool and a ninny.
She smoothed her skirts, wishing it were as easy to smooth her pride. Looking down, she noticed a bit of sheep muck smeared along her hip. She frowned. What a plain homely-dowdy she was, in last year’s frock of threadbare tan linen, speckled with the ghosts of stains too stubborn to wash out.
She trudged back to the flock, deep in her despairing thou
ghts. If only Aidan could see the true Elspeth. If only he could see into her heart, he’d realize what a passionate and deeply feeling soul she was.
Driving the dull-witted beasts back into the paddock gave her too much time to think. If only she could have more in life. Not more money—though she could certainly do with some of that—but more of things like love, or adventure. It was why her books called to her. They transported her to a life greater than her own.
But when she put her books down, she was always reminded of her real and dreadfully boring life. Sometimes she wished she were as dim-witted as her livestock, and maybe then her days might be easier to tolerate.
She thought of Aidan’s world, so mysterious and dangerous and tragic. How he’d managed to escape indentured servitude was surely something worthy of epic poetry.
If only he could see that she too would never shy from adventure. Never would she turn from his pain. She’d trace her fingers along his scars, and ease his haunted memories.
