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Jamie rubbed a hand over his face, praying for patience.
“The trader saw ye with our goods, and he saw Ewan helping with the horse. If Robertson questions him, we’ve given the man another road to Dunarraidh. Robertson already knew ye helped us at the harbor, and now he’s seen ye carrying our goods after I told ye to leave them. He’ll take that to mean ye’re one of us, and he willna be wrong.”
Olivia looked back toward the town. He could see her working through the consequences, and it angered him all over again that she’d thought she could decide the risk for everyone.
“I thought I could do it,” she said.
“I know ye did. Ye’re good at this, Olivia, and ye’re brave. But there’s a difference between risking your own neck over a game of cards and risking the men who trusted me to bring them home.”
She flinched. Jamie hated that he’d put the hurt in her face, but he couldn’t take back what was true.
“I never meant to put Ewan in danger.”
“I ken that.”
“You don’t have to tell me I’m too reckless to come with you again.”
“I hadna intended to.”
“Then why are you looking at me as if I’ve committed a terrible crime?”
“Because ye could’ve been taken!” He heard his own voice rise and lowered it with an effort as he clenched his jaw so hard he thought his teeth would crack.
“I was standing there imagining ye in a cell, with Robertson asking questions ye couldna answer, and no way for me to reach ye without leading him to every man in the glen.”
“I’ve looked after myself for years.”
“Aye, and I admire ye for it. But this is my home. Those men have wives and bairns, and when something goes wrong they look to me.”
Olivia stepped away from the wall. “I understand that now. I didn’t think far enough ahead.”
She folded the bloodied cloth and tucked it into her pocket, plainly struggling to keep her voice steady.
“But you keep looking after me as though you have some special claim on me, yet you haven’t told me you want one.”
Jamie stared at her.
“You know I’m not a widow. You know I can’t simply take a ship back to Boston. I like being here, and I care for you. I thought perhaps you cared for me too.”
“Ye know I do.”
“You care about Ewan and Finlay and half of Scotland. That’s not what I’m asking.”
He wanted to say it. The words were ready enough, and he’d imagined telling her how he felt more often than a sensible man ought. But he’d seen the grief in her face when she spoke of her grandmother, and now he knew that the woman waiting for Olivia in Boston was separated from her by more than an ocean. He had no idea whether the passage would open again or if a goddess would send her home, and if it did, how could he ask Olivia to choose a ruined castle and a wanted smuggler when she’d already lost so much?
“Olivia, I willna ask ye to give up the life ye had.”
“You aren’t asking me anything.”
She went to her horse and tightened the girth with hands that weren’t quite steady. Jamie walked toward her, then stopped. Anything he said now would sound like another order, and for once he couldn’t find a jest capable of making the distance between them smaller.
They rode home together beneath a sky flushed pink above the hills, speaking only when the road grew difficult. When Ewan met them at the castle gate with word that the trader had told the officers nothing useful, Olivia’s relief was as plain as Jamie’s, and she apologized to him without prompting. Ewan listened, accepted it, and promised to be less easily distracted by a frightened horse in the future.
The assurance was thinner than it sounded. Ewan hadn’t heard what Robertson had asked before releasing the man, and none of them could know whether the officer had followed their route with his eyes. Jamie sent word to move the last accessible casks away from the castle before dawn. Olivia offered to help, then stopped herself and asked Ewan what he thought safest. Ewan gave her a tired but appreciative smile, and Jamie loved her a little more for the effort even while he remained too foolish to say so.
After supper he found Olivia helping Ailsa wind the last of the ghost cords. He offered to carry the heavy basket upstairs, but she told him she could manage, so he watched her lift it and disappear along the passage, and understood that while there were a hundred things he could offer a woman like Olivia Bennett, he had yet to offer the only one she wanted.
Chapter 24
