Chapter Seven

He'd caught hints of it earlier, sometime in the last thirty-six hours—Fiona Rose smelled vaguely of roses. Several things struck him as odd about this. First and foremost, how did she manage to smell so good after what they'd been through and where they'd been imprisoned? This alone was baffling, but then he frowned, another curiosity crossing his mind—he didn't recall seeing soap in her hand when she'd emerged from her bath.

But the most puzzling aspect, upon which he dwelt the longest, was the fact that she used any scented soap at all. Wasn't she too busy proving herself as a capable leader and proficient warrior? Wasn't her time consumed with being fierce and commanding, with always having something to prove? Why, he wondered, did she bother with the very pleasing and decidedly feminine soap? Austin's mind wandered over the incongruity of it. Fiona, who fought with the intensity of a hardened soldier, who possibly commanded respect through sheer force of will, also chose to surround herself with a fragrance as delicate as roses. It didn't fit the image he'd constructed of her—unyielding, a wee bit uptight, focused solely on her part in the war. This small detail, this unexpected softness, hinted at layers of complexity that, not completely surprising, only intrigued him more.

She came grudgingly into his arms to sleep, making no effort to conceal her reluctance. Austin was many things, but an idiot was not one of them; he knew she sought warmth and comfort, not his embrace. The cold iron shackles and the chill of the night air made it a necessity rather than a choice.

For Austin, the situation held a different allure. He managed the cold and discomfort better than she did, yet the prospect of holding her close stirred something deeper within him. His initial attraction to Fiona had been purely physical, ignited the moment he laid eyes on her. But now, as he felt her shiver against him, he realized it was more than that.

Much to his own astonishment, he felt an unexpected urge to protect her. He couldn't pinpoint when this protective instinct had taken root, but it was there, undeniable and strong. It was almost alarming, given that Fiona might still consider him a greater threat than the English soldiers who surrounded them.

They lay sideways at the end of the wagon bed, the awkwardness of their wrists being shackled together forcing them to face each other, their bodies relatively close under his large plaid.

Lying on his side, Austin wrapped his free arm around her, over the curve of her hip, dropping his hand against her back outside the wool fabric, having vowed that he would not let her fall. He waited for the outrage to come, but it did not. He imagined that his broad chest proved a sturdy barrier against the night's chill.

Equally constrained by the small amount of space available to them, Fiona had no choice but to nestle close, in the voids left by his large body, which put them in contact in several other places.

Again, no maidenly modesty, not even a whisper of indignation, which caused Austin to raise a brow, wondering if he needed to alter at least one part of his impression of her. Evidently, her practicality surpassed her pride, and perhaps her disdain for him as well.

Or, mayhap not. He grinned a bit at the first words she spoke since coming into his arms.

"This is borne of necessity and nae anything else," she pertly advised him.

"Naturally," he allowed, fairly certain he'd kept his amusement out of his tone.

Neither moved nor spoke for some time. But the arm and wrist draped over Fiona's body advised that she hadn't fallen asleep yet. Her posture was rigid, telling that the long-help feud between the Merricks and the Roses would not be given up at this moment, not even under these circumstances, their shared predicament.

Or, he thought, and more likely, she simply despised him, as she'd made pretty clear. More than once.

"Ye seem..." she began after several minutes had passed but paused before starting again. "All day, ye exuded great nonchalance, as if our dilemma troubles ye nae at all."

He was, he knew, neither too quickly made afraid nor too easily unruffled. Additionally, part of his own complexity, he imagined, was that he didn't often show what he actually felt. While he'd maintained an air of weariness and ennui all day long in the back of the wagon, his brain had never rested, searching, seeking, constantly, for any avenue of escape. Or for things they might do to prepare for it. A great portion of that revolved around how to get hold of a key to their shackles or how to remove the bracket presently under her head and the hand she used as a pillow.

Admittedly, with Fiona's soft curves wrapped in his arms, it was difficult to focus on their plight or how to break away from it. He tightened his grip slightly, feeling the need to reassure her despite his own concealed worries.

"Looks can be deceivin', lass," he replied, a faint smile playing on his lips. "But I assure ye, I'm as keen to change our predicament as ye are."

As had happened more often than not while in her company, a long stretch of silence engulfed them.

"Do ye blame me for being here now?" He asked while she was still rigid in his arms. "If I hadn't claimed ye as a Merrick—sin among sins, I ken, to a Rose—ye'd nae have been singled out to hang in York."

"Nae," she confessed. "I imagine they'd have taken any clan leaders. Though mine is small and essentially homeless, they like to make examples of us. I would have been here in this wagon all the same."

"Aye, it carries much less weight," he remarked, "executing some nameless son of a tanner. Nae glory in that."

Her hip tensed under his arm. "Do ye jest? Make light of the death of a tanner's son?"

"Nae at all. I only subscribe to yer opinion: the bigger the name, the greater the impact of the hanging. When they executed Wallace, morale among the patriots plummeted."

"Morale plummeted because the greatest leader—and Longshanks' greatest threat—was gone," she argued.

"Aye, we all wept when he was betrayed, imprisoned, and slain so grotesquely. Beyond the grief, however, the will to fight was hugely diminished, ye canna deny that."

"I...I wasn't fighting then," she said. "I wish I'd had the chance to meet him. I dinna though."

"He was everything his legend portrayed," Austin pronounced, proud and humbled to have known William Wallace, to have fought by his side. "Tough as iron nails, as stalwart as any old tree, remarkable—nearly indescribable—what he could do inside a fight. He was nae hampered by his size, was only more powerful, more invincible."

"Until he was nae," Fiona mused.

"Hm," was his response. He was weary and wanting slumber and not of mind to dredge up the rage and bitterness of the betrayal that had seen Wallace captured. "How did ye come to fight?" He asked instead. "Ye have brothers, do ye nae? Three or four? Nae all of them were slain, were they?"

"Three brothers, all gone," she answered, her nighttime voice sweet and low, "two gone with my father when a siege was laid to Dunraig. My oldest brother fell last year. ?Twas most improbable, as it was naught but an ambush on a supply train—get in and get out. We'd committed the same act several times before, but it...things simply went awry."

"As it happens—as was proved by our misguided siege upon Wick." He paused and then revealed, "I lost my brothers as well. Alexander fell years ago, at the outbreak of war, at Dunbar. My brother Andrew survived Falkirk, Stirling Bridge, and so many others only to lose his life at Happrew."

While he mulled this over, that no battle was too small to lose lives, she asked, "Did ye ever expect to lead the Merrick army?"

A quiet chuckle briefly shook him. "Nae. I was neither trained for it, nor particularly interested in it. My father had always groomed Alexander and even Andrew for that role. I was meant to manage our lands, nae the battlefield."

"And yet here ye are," she murmured, a hint of irony in her voice.

"Aye, here I am," he replied softly. "What about ye? What made ye pick up a sword?"

Fiona was silent for a moment, as if weighing her words. "For as long as I can remember, I was drawn to the training, with sword, dagger, or bow and arrow. Little did I ever expect to have the opportunity to command. I..."

"Ye what?" He prompted when she shook her head, leaving her next thought unspoken.

The falling darkness barely highlighted the fact that she bit her lower lip briefly, possibly considering what or how much to reveal to him.

"I wished for it, though, to lead the Rose army," she whispered, seemingly tormented, "and now—"

"I'll stop ye right there," he said, repeating words she'd used on him only twenty-four hours ago, "if ye imagine yer wishing caused the demise of yer brothers and father."

"I canna help but feel that my steadfast desire to command the Rose army paved the way for their deaths. As if my ambition somehow brought this upon us."

Austin listened, the weight of her words sinking in, even as he was frustrated by her, practical and fierce Fiona allowing erroneous fantasies to live and breathe inside her. "Fiona, ye cannae blame yourself for their deaths. War takes from us all, and it's nae driven by the wishes of a single person." He realized it was the first time he'd used her given name. She realized it, too, her face lifting to his, her green eyes glittering in the darkness.

"I understand that," she admitted, "but it dinna make it easier to cleave those thoughts from within."

"Proof has his arm draped across ye, lass," he furthered. "I dinna wish it, to control the Merrick army, honestly gave it nae a moment's thought. And yet my brothers are dead. Death dinna discriminate and it dinna adhere to secret longings. There. Settled. All guid."

Once again, she lifted her gaze from his chest, meeting his eyes with a surprising intensity.

And in the next instant, she completely shocked him by allowing a small and abbreviated gurgle of laughter to erupt.

He felt his breath catch in his throat, surprised by the sound of her laughter, the very fact that she laughed at all and with genuine amusement. It was so unexpected, yet so charming—and more entrancing still for the way she buried her head against him when she feared it might be too loud or would draw the attention of their guards.

For a moment, Austin was transported from their dire situation, mesmerized by the sweet song of her laughter. Beyond the quiet and satisfying conversation they had shared, he felt another connection with her, fleeting yet profound. It left him yearning for more. Instinctively, he tightened his hold slightly—not to alarm her or arouse suspicion, but to solidify the bond he sensed existed between them, one that she likely abhorred.

GOOD LORD, BUT SHE was going batty, she feared, and so soon after her capture.

Finding humor in this situation—with his man!—merely proved it.

She reined herself in, not sure why his attempt at pacification had struck her as so amusing in the first place.

There. Settled. All guid.

As if that had, indeed, cleaved all tormenting thoughts from her mind.

His strong arm tightened around her, she assumed either in an attempt to warn her to soften her enthusiasm or with his own effort to muffle the sound of it.

"Sorry," she murmured, lifting the hand nestled between them to scratch her nose, inadvertently lifting his as well, as by necessity their shackled arms were bent between them. Some part of his hand grazed over her chest with her movement. Reflexively and rigidly, she thrust her hand downward, effectively pushing his away from the unintentional but intimate touch.

"Settle, lass," Austin Merrick suggested calmly. "Sleep now, for we've another tedium-filled day ahead of us."

"Unless..." she urged quietly, thinking of their want to escape.

"Aye, unless we do. Get some sleep, lass."

Having become attuned to the cadence of Austin's voice, Fiona was rather sorry when he stopped speaking. To some degree she'd been lulled into ease by his conversation, his voice deep and resonant despite the fact that he kept it very low. Admittedly, and likely wrought by what they shared together as fellow captives, there was a certain comfort in the way his words wrapped around her.

As the night lengthened, Fiona did eventually sleep, her body instinctively seeking the warmth and security of Austin's embrace so that when she woke in the morning she found herself entangled rather shamefully with him. Both her hands were clasped between them, one of them splayed against the red tabard covering his hard chest. She'd somehow moved or been moved closer to him so that when she glanced up at him, she saw little more than the underside of his jaw, causing her to wonder if he'd rested his chin atop her head while they'd slept. One of her bent legs was encased between his large thighs.

Funny, she thought, how last night the darkness had blurred the lines between enemies, allowing her to briefly find solace from her vulnerabilities. But with the gray light of dawn filtering through the trees, casting harsh shadows on their entwined forms, the reality of their situation came crashing back with unwelcome clarity. Fiona stirred uncomfortably, stiffening as she was so immediately horrified, holding her breath as she tried to extract herself without waking him.

With a slow and subtle shift, she disentangled herself from him, the warmth of their collective body heat quickly dissipating in the cool morning air.

Once a meager separation had been made, Fiona blinked away the remnants of sleep and stole a glance at Austin's sleeping face. His auburn hair was tousled, his unshaven cheeks and jaw lined with several days' stubble. While his eyes remained closed, she tried to understand how and why she was teased with some fascination over his looks. He was as any man, with two eyes and brows, a nose, and mouth—what made his countenance so secretly appealing to her?

Even as the answer came to her—it was the way he used them so effectively, his eyes and mouth certainly—Fiona was disgusted with herself for so foolishly wasting time on so negligible a subject matter. Character was what made a man, she reminded herself, not how effortlessly or brilliantly handsome he was. And wasn't it true? That beautiful people were oft made unsightly by ugly and offensive behavior?

Ignoring the fact that his behavior last evening had been neither of those things, Fiona quickly averted her gaze, focusing on the sounds around her. She was not the first to stir, she realized, recognizing sounds inside the camp that suggested some had already abandoned their beds and tents. More than one Englishman woke with a want or need to clear his throat. Not too far away, someone yawned with exaggerated gusto.

Another attempted to rouse one of his comrades, and not kindly. "Wake up, you sot. All night snoring and thrice I was compelled to kick you in yer stinkin' teeth," he hissed. "You owe me rations because I did not."

Austin stirred at this vindictive scolding, flexing his arms and legs before his eyes opened.

"Charming morning people," he quipped, still speaking their own language as they had yesterday. He sat up slowly and with a wee bit of maneuvering, he and Fiona seated themselves at the end of the bed. As they were yet cuffed to the wagon itself, they were at the mercy of their English captors for even the simplest of morning needs.

An Englishman strutted close with a swagger that announced his intent to give them grief, a disdainful sneer etched on his face as he regarded Fiona and Austin.

"A pair of Scottish rebels," he drawled, his tone dripping with mockery, "canna even take a piss without a say so." He directed a taunting look at Austin. "Might better lose that look, Scot. Beneath my heel and contempt, you are now, soon to swing from the gallows."

Fiona bristled at his words, her jaw clenched in silent defiance. Beside her, and though Austin remained outwardly composed, the man's words might have aroused a simmering anger, or his natural arrogance, or defiance—or, more likely, a combination of all three—beneath his calm facade.

"Mind yer tongue, Englishman," Fiona commanded, her voice laced with steel, ignoring the yank to her wrist, which was Austin's attempt to silence her. "At least we will die with dignity, having fought for a just cause, while ye are naught but a brainless tool in Longshanks' arsenal."

The guard's lips twisted into a cruel smirk, unfazed by her defiance. "Dignity won't save you from the noose, lass," he sneered. "You and your brain best make your peace with God while you still have the chance."

With that, he turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Fiona to stew in the bitter taste of his words.

"Dinna engage, lass," Austin suggested at her side. "And dinna allow yourself to be vexed by them. Ye said it yerself, what ye already ken, that he and these others for the most part are naught but cheap, throwaway puppets for a greedy king. Ye owe them nothing."

Actually, she knew that, and was now almost immediately rueful of her outburst.

"He irked me," she defended, her shoulders slumping a bit for having risen to the bait. "I responded before I thought better of it."

Austin glanced sideways at her, one of his infuriating grins creasing his lips. "That happens often, I might presume."

Though she'd been unable to resist putting the Englishman in his place, she did manage to refrain from sticking her tongue out at Austin Merrick, as was her instant want. She was, however, pleased to be reminded that he, too, was an enemy of sorts, and that he could be insufferable and offensive and owned not one admirable characteristic, which put her in a better frame of mind. A faint sense of satisfaction washed over her as she reflected on the contrast between her perception of him while he'd been sleeping and the present reality of his unattractive character, his judgment of her, nullifying her earlier fleeting and wholly misplaced admiration.

Within a quarter hour, they were led out from the wagon and into the trees by three guards and then back again, where de Montague happened upon them as he passed by on his horse. His brown eyes rested momentarily on Austin's hand on Fiona's forearm, a courtesy she'd allowed as in truth, she did feel marginally safer for it.

Having surmised Austin's protective stance, de Montague moved his gaze between Austin and Fiona and remarked, "The shackles are a nuisance, I confess, but you likely recognize," he continued, lifting a brow at Fiona, "that you are safer shackled to your brother and so they will remain."

"Aye, sir," she agreed, matching the politeness in his tone.

At a nod to the guards, they were ushered back to the wagon and de Montague continued on his way.

Returned to the bed of the wagon, Fiona grumbled, "I'll be picking splinters out of my breeches and flesh for a week, I'm sure, when this is done."

"A small matter, all things considered," Austin observed.

Within the hour, they were instructed to once more don the uncomfortable helms before the English army and their disguised prisoners began another day's march.

Fiona spent a fair amount of time in the morning engaged in worry over the fate of her clansmen, those abandoned in the dungeons and those outside the wall. She imagined that Fraser was wild with fear over her fate and closed her eyes, trying to will to him via her fervent thoughts to know that she lived.

Reflecting on the rest of the Roses, she remembered Will Moray's lifeless body. Imagining there were others like him, she felt a surge of anger at the pointlessness of their deaths, blaming Urry for his carelessness in gathering proper intelligence before the siege.

After that, and with less ardor, she internally mourned the loss of her sword, which had been fashioned specifically for her, to fit her hand and ride comfortably at her hip. Though she liked to think that she might pick up any sword and fight, should the occasion arise, she knew that was not entirely true. Fraser's sword, for example, was several inches longer than her arm and twice as heavy as her own sword. She could wield it, but not with the same proficiency as her own custom made steel.

"Ye go into yerself."

Having been deep into her thoughts for some time, having exchanged but a few words with Austin all morning, Fiona was startled by his voice at her side. His imposing presence directly beside her was not something that could be altogether escaped, but she had been able to dismiss him for quite a while.

"Pardon me?"

"Ye sit so still," he commented, "barely move at all. What clutches at yer mind that keeps ye so still?"

Swallowing, Fiona shrugged, admitting only the less private concern. "I was bemoaning the loss of my sword."

Beneath the helm, she saw his eyes change shape. She imagined his brows lifted.

"Yer sword?" He repeated. "A family heirloom? Or had yer sire had it created just for ye?"

She shook her head. It was neither of those things. It had simply been with her since she began to fight with the Roses. It had given her a sense of power and strength, a tangible reminder that she was not always or entirely vulnerable.

"Ah, ye feel undressed without it," Austin guessed.

She assumed a fair amount of perception had predicated his response and she wondered if all soldiers felt the same when they were bereft of their arms. She looked at him, curiosity piqued.

"Aye," Austin said, seeing her unspoken question. "It's my understanding that sense of something missing dinna ever go away."

Fiona nodded as the wagon jostled along, reluctant to accept but difficult to ignore the realization of more common ground between them. While she didn't like having things in common with the enemy—and he was, she was determined to keep in mind—she grasped that some experiences were simply not subject to individuality.