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“Men are fools,” he said in a low voice. “Ye’re to remember that, above all other things.”
She was quiet for a moment; then, to his surprise, she laughed. And such a laugh it was. Quiet. Pretty. Natural.
“Truth, Irishman, I suspected as much,” she said, a smile dipping into her words like an oar, pushing them along. “But ’tis good to have it confirmed by one of their kind.”
Ah, this one was a keeper. For someone.
“I suppose I can spare a few days,” she allowed in a regal tone, as if it were up to her whether they came or went from Dublin. “But I can’t spend too much time with you, traipsing about these hills. My reputation, you understand.”
“Before the next full moon, I’ll have you bundled on a ship, Senna. My reputation cannot stand the strain of it either. Being seen with an English wool merchant?” He gave a little shudder.
She laughed, but his gaze lingered on her dirty face and limbs, her hair, long free of its confining braid, and her bright, intelligent eyes. A cord of worry unraveled in his heart. This woman had more wits, more bravery, more ingenuity than most battle commanders he knew, yet there appeared to be no one to seek her out, worry about her.
Just someone who, in all likelihood, wanted to kill her right now. And the man who’d abandoned her to him.
And Finian was to sail her away to England? To what end? Her father’s home couldn’t be an option any longer, not after this escapade. Neither was wandering the Ulster hills for twenty years. Travel, then? To where? With what money?
With no resources, no family to hand, and no connections, she was in a more precarious situation than if she’d stayed in the squalor of Rardove. She belonged nowhere.
Still, he decided as he reached for the leather straps of the bag she’d shoved on his back before leaving the prison, to say she was without resources was to be more foolish than the swiving bastard who had beaten her beautiful and burning body.
“Now, tell me, lass,” he said, hoping to entertain her, whatever was required to keep her smiling, because it was a travesty what someone had allowed to be done to her, so that she could ice over with such chilling efficiency. “What have ye put in these bags ye’ve made us carry all these miles?”
She moved through the springy turf, her footsteps soft and muted. She stopped in front of him. He looked up, trailing his gaze over her filly-long legs, hugged tight by the hose, over her curved hips, and up the length of untamed curls.
“Rocks?” he asked. “All yer pretty baubles?”
One chestnut eyebrow arched up. Indomitable. He grinned.
“I don’t believe in baubles.”
“One doesn’t believe in them,” he said, amused. “They simply are.”
Her other brow arched up, as doubtful and pretty as the first. “I wouldn’t know.”
He snorted. “I’ll show ye, one day. Now, what’s this?” He reached in and extracted a lump of putty soap. “Soap?”
She crossed her arms over her chest with one eyebrow hitched a little higher, silently inviting him to continue his survey.
Next out was a pair of breeches and a tunic, and he barked in laughter. “Ye’ve had us lug around clothes?” He was indescribably touched. “’Tis the epitome of a womanly thing to do,” was all he said.
“A womanly thing?” Her voice was deep with suppressed laughter.
She stood with her hands on her shapely hips, her hair tumbling down around her, and he was shocked at the jolt of commingled desire and tenderness that coursed through him.
She was smiling, her teeth bright white against the dirtiness of her face. But her lips were still rosy and aching to be kissed, her breasts still full, her legs still strong and primed to be wrapped around his hips, he thought helplessly, running his hand through his hair as he bent back to the bag.
“What else might a man have brought?” she pressed.
“Och, mayhap weapons—”
“But I did. Did I not find you your very own sword, master? And a knife for us both, and a belt full of arrows?”
“That ye did.”
“Tell me, then: what else would a proper-thinking man have provisioned for?”
“Foodstuffs,” he suggested, a dark eyebrow arched in vague warning.
