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There was no answer except for an agonized groan. From that moment on, Robbie did not dare speak to Evanna again.
* * *
Fuming, Evanna stomped upstairs, intending to go to her chamber to cool down before realizing that there was yet another man in there. Having nowhere else to go, however, she searched for the key to her room inside the pocket of her skirt but could not find it. Puzzled, she looked at the door, but it was not there either. With a sick sense of foreboding, she pushed it, then gasped as it swung open. Evanna’s heart skipped a beat as she realized that she must have forgotten to lock it.
Cautiously, she stepped inside her chamber and looked around, realizing suddenly that there was no one there. She bent down and looked under the bed before telling herself off for being so foolish. How could a man the size of Fraser possibly hide underneath a bed the size of hers?
She looked in her wardrobe, which was also too small, but she was becoming desperate now. She tried the window, but they were one floor off the ground, and if he had jumped from it, he was unlikely to have hit the ground without injuring or killing himself.
Evanna looked over at the stables. If Fraser had wanted to escape, which of course he did, he would surely have gone to fetch Daisy, their horse, but that begged the question: How did he have the strength to even walk to the stables? No, there must be another explanation.
“Where in God’s name are ye, ye stupid man?” she asked out loud, as though he was going to appear out of thin air. At that moment, Evanna was so furious that she felt as though she would like to line up every man in the world (except her father) and put an arrow in him.
She looked around one last time to see if, by some miracle, Fraser had reappeared, but he had not.
“He cannot just have disappeared into thin air,” she growled, before she opened the door and left, closing it cautiously behind her.
10
Fraser was crouching in a corner just off the middle of the stairway, listening to the voices of the men downstairs who were laughing, swearing, telling jokes, and slapping each other on the back. They were acting in the time-honored way that men behaved when out of sight of their womenfolk, doing exactly the kind of thing he himself had been doing until only a few days before.
Evanna noticed him as she was about to walk past, and she stood and glared down at him for a few seconds before he saw her and looked up.“There ye are!” she hissed. Her voice was absolutely throbbing with fury, but he ignored her, giving all his attention to the men in the bar.
Fraser had lain for a long time resting after his discussion with Evanna, thinking and trying to remember as much as he could about what had happened during his encounter with Rowan.
He remembered Rowan’s face glaring down at him, his triumphant smile, and the split second before the blade hit him. Although it had happened so quickly, in his mind, he remembered everything as if time had slowed down.
One moment the sword in Rowan’s hand had been raised above his head, then it came slowly swinging down in an arc before striking his flesh. Even then he did not feel the pain right away. When the blade struck him, although he cried out instinctively, it took a few moments for it to filter through to his brain, and when he finally began to weep with agony, Rowan was long gone and had left him, desolate, to his fate.
Listening to the sounds filtering from downstairs, he realized that a crowd of men had come in. He was almost sure by now that the building he was in was a tavern, and every noise he heard strengthened that suspicion. If it was a tavern, then perhaps it was frequented by Rowan and his men. It was close enough to be convenient, after all. He rose from bed painfully and then walked to the door, not knowing quite what to do since he expected it to be locked.
To his utter amazement, the knob had turned and the door had swung open easily. He stood looking at it for a moment, dumbfounded, then crept outside. His side had still been sore, but it felt a little better, so he had tiptoed downstairs and tucked himself into the shadow where the stairway made a turn toward the main room in the tavern, then listened.
They were all there. Every single one of the men who had been in the company the day Rowan had attacked him was sitting mere feet away from him. He knew every one of them, even though none of them was dressed in his uniform. Fraser could almost feel his blood boiling as he listened to their voices. He was seething with rage, so much so that he was grinding his teeth, and his hands were clenched into fists.
Rowan was even telling the others lies about him as he listened.
“I will admit the lassies a’ liked him,” Rowan conceded as he swallowed a great draft of ale, “but one o’ the lassies he lay wi’—remember Carrie Ferguson?”
He looked around at his men, and they all nodded and said yes.
“She said he was…well, he could no’, ye know…” He trailed off as if embarrassed, then let out a mocking laugh. It was a complete lie. Fraser had never had any difficulty making love to a woman in his life.
The young woman in question had, in fact, propositioned him, and he had let her down as gently as he could. No doubt she had told Rowan this story to embarrass Fraser for refusing her while making herself look good in the process. There was no doubt that she had been furiously angry at being rejected.
The entire group laughed uproariously and so did every other man within earshot. In no time at all, the story was all over the tavern, and Fraser had no doubt at all that by nightfall, or sooner, it would have traveled to the village of Braeburn and beyond.
“Just goes tae show ye,” Archie, who had been listening, said, laughing. “They say he is a handsome fellow, but looks are no’ everythin’.” He winked.
There was another chorus of laughter at this before Flora and Donna set their plates on the table and settled down to eat.
By this time, Fraser was seething. He knew that if he had his strength and a sword, nothing would stop him from mowing all his former friends down and smiling while he did it. He was particularly consumed with hatred for Rowan, who was the source of all his pain and anguish.
However, as he looked up into Evanna’s eyes, he knew that there was one thing for which he had to thank his enemy. Without Rowan, he would never have met this wonderful woman.
Wait! What am I thinking?
Suddenly he was feeling a jumble of emotions he had never felt before, and they were all because of Evanna. He stood up. His attention had been jerked away from his former friends and was now firmly fixed on the woman in front of him. He was not falling in love. He could not be! He was merely vulnerable, and Evanna had been in the right place at the right time. That was all it was.
