Page 47 of Blood of the Thistle

She shifted, trying to sense his expression since she couldn’t see it. “Is that... because of the man who betrayed you to the English?”

“Nae. I simply dinna take anything at face value—I’ve kent too many people whose agendas dinna align with their words or deeds.”

She paused and considered that before wondering, “Do you think I’m—”

“Nae, lass.” His chest moved sparingly against her and she pictured him shaking his head. “I ken you’re lost, afraid, mayhap confounded by whatever’s happened to ye, but I dinna sense deception.”

A breeze rustled the leaves above. Anna parted her lips for a follow-up question, but Bram spoke before she could. “But nae, that dinna mean I believe any more now than I did yesterday about the year ye claim to come from. And ye, lass, ye are too trusting, I imagine.”

She drew in a breath. “I probably am. I... well, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt—never assume ill of them till they give me reason.”

“I have nae such luxury in this life,” he said quietly, nudging the horse forward as they climbed a gentle rise.

“No, I guess not,” she admitted, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Honestly, it felt awful at the time when I learned I’d trusted people I shouldn’t have. But compared to what goes on in this century, none of it seems so important anymore.”

As they crested the rise, the trees thinned enough to reveal the country beyond, green hills rolling away beneath a pale morning sky, their distant slopes softened by lingering mist. Anna twisted slightly in the saddle, trying to see more of it, and remembered suddenly the little instant camera tucked inside her bag.

“Can you give me my purse?”

“Yer what?”

“My bag. It’s behind you.”

Bram made some quiet sound that might have been impatience, but reached behind himself to where he’d secured the strap beneath the ties of the saddle. A moment later he passed the crossbody bag around her, and Anna settled it awkwardly across her lap.

“What do ye need?”

“My camera.”

“Yer wee picture box?”

She smiled. “Yes, my wee picture box.”

She dug it out, checked the little window that told her how many exposures remained, and lifted it toward the landscape ahead. She knew before she pressed the button that the instant camera wouldn't begin to do the view justice. The hills were too distant, the morning light too subdued, and the little camera had never been intended for sweeping landscapes. Still, she wanted it. The horse’s ears rose prominently into the bottom of the frame, and Anna smiled and left them there, pressing the button. The camera whirred, and the photograph emerged into her hand.

“I don’t know how long I’m going to be here,” she said thoughtfully, watching the image slowly come to life. “I want to remember some of it.”

Anna tucked the developing photograph carefully into the little box she kept for them, but instead of returning the camera to her bag, she looked down.

Bram’s right arm circled her waist, holding her securely against him while the horse picked its way down the uneven track. His other hand rested upon the reins before her, broad and brown against the leather, the newly freed wrist marked by those angry bands of damaged flesh, same as the other one. Compared to her own hand, his looked enormous.

Before she could think too hard about why she wanted the picture, Anna tipped the camera downward. She angled the camera from somewhere beneath her chin, catching the fall of her skirt, the pommel, and the horse’s dark mane beyond it, and Bram’s hand upon the reins and the other spanning her waist.

She pressed the button.

“Another?” he asked as the second photograph slid free.

“Yes. Of your hands.”

“My hands?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Anna looked down at the blank square slowly beginning to cloud with color.

“I don’t know.”