Page 31 of The Madam’s Highlander

“Should ye no’ be with yer Ma?” she teased.

It was true, when he wasn’t lying abed, he’d been in his mother’s company. She had been reluctant to let him out of her sight, through fear, through love. And she knew he was keeping a secret.

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her about having left the Black Watch, even though he suspected she knew. She hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t told. Perhaps they both felt the ghost of his father’s crimes pressing upon them.

Ewan held his stomach. “If she makes me drink any more tea, it'll spill from my bullet wound.”

Freya gave a lovely, throaty laugh. “I dinna know that I can fix something like that.”

“Speaking of the wound, it's feeling much better. Whatever was in the poultice helped.” He eyed her. “How do ye know so much?”

She shrugged off the compliment. “Well, I wouldna say I know so much, but ye canna have an ill mother and run a brothel without learning a bit as ye go.”

“I heard ye got a letter.” He glanced at her empty hands.

She pulled it from the depths of a pocket and pushed it back in. “Everything is fine there.”

“But ye canna go back,” he surmised.

“Aye.” Freya shifted her gaze away, but not before he caught the flash of regret.

Regret at having lost Molly's for the time being? At being here instead? At having saved him?

He should apologize for the kiss again. He'd been so foolish to have kissed her at all, after what she'd done for him and his mother.

“Thank ye,” he said instead. “For what ye've given up to save us.”

Freya nodded. “Ye were right,” she said softly. “About the babe.”

“I saw ye touching Marian’s stomach.” Ewan stepped closer. “I’m proud of ye.”

Freya’s cheeks colored a soft pink. “Aye, well, it was a good idea. To try.” She looked up at him. “Thank ye for talking some sense into my head.”

“It made her verra happy.”

Freya smiled softly to herself. “Aye, I think it did.”

Ewan stared down at the woman he’d slept next to for the last four long nights without touching. But God, how he’d wanted to touch. To caress. To kiss.

Freya watched him carefully. “And ye were right about me.” She spoke in such a quiet tone, it didn’t echo in the large, empty building. “I'm holding on to the horror of it all, regretting my inability to help.”

He put a hand to her shoulder blades. “Come into the house and we'll talk. Captain Crosby is gone, if that's why ye're here.”

She looked around, her gaze drifting around the room. Ewan did the same, taking in the empty stalls cleared of any hay, the rusting tools lining the wall and leaning against one another in dilapidated resignation.

“That's no’ why I'm here,” she said. “Do ye ever...” She shook her head. “...feel like ye need purpose?”

Ewan crossed his arms and lifted his brow in her direction. “The only thing I have in my life right now is my mother and a fake name.”

Freya lowered her head and chuckled. “Aye, foolish of me.”

“Did ye have something in mind?” he queried.

He hoped to God she did. After a lifetime of rigorous training, of early morning drills and late night guard posts, this sedentary life was making his blood go thick in his veins and his mind whirl in too many different, aimless directions.

She strode over to a crooked row of tools. He noticed a plough of some sort, a scythe, and several other farming tools. “Do ye believe in second chances? Third chances even?”

“I believe in as many chances as it takes. I'm a soldier.” The phrase died on his tongue. Because he wasn't a soldier anymore. He was a deserter. A traitor.