Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

B y the time Abigail started talking once more, Hugo had been convinced that she would never tell him what it was that had frightened her. Even as she began to recount the story, she hardly took her eyes off the flames that burned before her, her gaze turning distant and glassy, as though she was once again a child.

“There was a fire when I was a bairn,” she said. “It is the only thing I remember from that age, but I remember it as though it happened yesterday an’ I dinnae think I will ever forget it. Such things never fade from memory.”

Hugo listened quietly to Abigail, resting his chin on his hand. Once again, she paused and her throat bobbed as she swallowed, as though something obstructed it.

The memory itself , he thought.

“Keira saved me,” Abigail said. “Had she nae been there, I would have perished. She saved me life but she was left with scars all over her body. That is why she wears those gloves an’ refuses tae take them off. I’ve tried tae tell her time an’ time again that she is so bonnie, her scars only show how brave she is, but she will never listen. I can hardly bear it sometimes, what I did tae her.”

Hugo was stunned into silence for a few moments, not because the story was so shocking, although he had always wondered about Keira’s gloves, but rather because he didn’t know what to say to make Abigail feel better. He doubted there were even words he could share that would help at all, words that someone hadn’t already offered, but it was so rare that he had nothing to say that it gave him pause. In the end, he made to reach for her, maybe place a comforting hand on her shoulder, but he stopped himself before he could.

They didn’t know each other so well. In the past few hours, they had talked more than they had in weeks and Hugo didn’t want to startle her even more by being too forward.

For a while, they sat there, the silence stretching between them like a gaping maw. Hugo glanced at Abigail from the corner of his eye, but she was only staring straight ahead once more, lost in the flames.

“My parents,” Hugo said, but then he stopped himself immediately. The words choked him up, dying in his throat before they reached his lips. What was even the point of sharing their story, he wondered? He had never told anyone about this. Why would he tell Abigail? He hardly knew her at all.

“What about them?” Abigail asked.

Hugo shook his head. “Nothing. Forget it.”

It was evidently the wrong thing to say. Abigail finally turned to look at him, but now she had a curious little frown on her face, the kind of frown that Hugo was certain always gave her all the answers she wanted.

“Ye began tae tell me,” she said. “So it must mean that ye wish tae tell someone. Ye can tell me.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Hugo said, shaking his head.

“Surely, ye dae,” Abigail insisted. “If ye didnae, then ye wouldnae have brought it up.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!”

Hugo’s loud response echoed around them in the small clearing, scaring off some birds and a few critters that had come close to them upon smelling Abigail’s food. A moment stretched between them, Abigail staring at him, wide-eyed, her mouth hanging open in shock, before her lips snapped closed once more and she glared at him, her anger flaring.

“Ye dinnae have tae yell at me about it,” she said. “I only wished tae help ye because ye seemed like ye wished tae speak about it.”

“I told you that I didn’t,” Hugo pointed out, shifting so that he could look at her straight on, his own face contouring into a mask of anger. It simmered just below the surface of his skin, making his blood run hot.

“It seems tae me like ye always keep everythin’ inside.”

Hugo couldn’t help but let out a humorless laugh at that. “How would you know? We have hardly spoken to each other. You know nothing about me.”

“I ken enough,” said Abigail, standing up a little straighter, as though her anger were propelling her forward. “I have seen enough o’ ye tae ken that yer hidin’. I thought perhaps ye were tired o’ hidin’ now an’ wished tae unburden yerself, but I was clearly wrong. Ye dinnae have tae yell at me, though. Ye could have simply told me.”

“I tried,” Hugo said, leaning a little closer himself. “And you didn’t listen. Do you ever listen? Of course not, you said it yourself. You always get what you want.”

That seemed to strike a sore spot. Abigail let out an indignant huff, throwing her bag to the side as she tightened her cloak around her shoulders and lay down on the ground, facing away from Hugo.

“I am goin’ tae sleep now,” she said. “Dinnae disturb me any further.”

With that, she stopped talking to him entirely. There was nothing but the soft sound of her breathing and the crackling of the fire to keep Hugo company in the clearing and after a few seconds of glaring at her back, he too lay down next to her, turning around so that they were back to back.

This way, he was staring at the flames, their orange hue burning itself in his eyes. Abigail must have been a little cold so far away from the fire, he thought, but then again, he doubted she wanted to get any closer, considering what she had told him.

For a while, Hugo tossed and turned, unable to get comfortable, not so much because he was on the ground—he was quite used to that when travelling—but rather because he had somehow managed to make Abigail dislike him even more. How were they going to coexist while travelling together? He could hardly keep an eye on her if she despised him and wanted to be away from him.

Abigail had managed to escape Castle Robertson without anyone taking notice. If she wanted to, Hugo was certain she could slip right out of his sight.

He didn’t even know why her insistence had angered him so. He never liked to talk about his parents and he avoided it whenever possible, but he hadn’t thought he would get so angry at Abigail for asking about them. Perhaps he had overreacted, he thought. Perhaps it had been foolish of him, yelling at her like that.

With a sigh, he turned around and tentatively reached for Abigail’s hand. Her breathing had evened out by then and Hugo thought she must have been asleep as he took her hand in his.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, for whatever it was worth now that she couldn’t even hear him.

Without saying a word, Abigail squeezed his hand once and then stilled again. For a moment, Hugo froze, but then he couldn’t help but smile a little to himself.

It was just as good as an acceptance.

The first thing Hugo felt upon opening his eyes was a searing pain on his cheek, as though the flames from the previous night’s fire had consumed one half of his face. Then he heard was Abigail, shouting hysterically.

“Ye pervert!” she said, her tone dripping with disgust. She was standing a few feet away from him, clutching her cloak tightly like a shield, while she pointed at him accusingly with her other hand. “What dae ye think ye’re doin’?”

Hugo had no idea what he had done, if he had done anything at all. He was still half asleep, his gaze blurry with the remnants of a dream he had already forgotten, his lids and his limbs still heavy. His mind tried to come up with a possible explanation for the sudden and rather rude awakening, but it soon came to a grinding halt, the pain on his cheek and the lingering sleep making it difficult to think.

Did she slap me?

He touched his jaw with tender fingers, poking and prodding at the flesh there. Abigail had definitely slapped him. Pain radiated up the right side of his face and he cradled it gingerly, working his jaw open in an effort to relieve some of it.

“What did I do?” he asked, his words coming out whinier than he had intended. He could hardly be blamed for it, though, he thought; no one liked to be woken up like this.

Instead of answering him, Abigail jutted out her chin, pointing to his lap. Hugo looked down and saw his manhood straining against his trousers, and it was then that he felt the full force of his arousal, which had not ebbed even slightly from the pain of the slap or the shock of waking up like this.

“Ah,” he said, rather dumbly.

“Is that all ye have tae say?” Abigail shrieked. “Ah? That… that thing was pressed against me!”

Hugo had to choke back a laugh at the way Abigail phrased it. There was a novelty to waking up to a woman next to him who was so angry at being desired, though Hugo couldn’t claim he preferred it over the activities that such a circumstance usually brought about.

“Forgive me,” he said, placing his hands gingerly on his lap to hide his erection. Though he tried very hard to fight it, he could feel the heat rising to his cheeks, his embarrassment obvious in the light of the day. “Trust me, I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

Quite the opposite, in fact. Just the previous day, he had tried so hard to prevent that exact thing from happening while they were riding. He hadn’t expected that he would end up sleeping so close to Abigail, though, making such a situation occur.

“Well… it happened,” Abigail said rather unhelpfully.

“So it did. Let us never speak of it again. It will be as though it never happened at all.”

At first, it seemed to Hugo that Abigail would refuse and that she would continue to argue with him until they had another fight, but then she simply relented, letting out a heavy sigh. Her shoulders deflated, falling down from her ears, and she leaned against a tree, nodding slowly.

Hugo was glad for it. People thought he was shameless—and quite right—but even he had his limits.

They spent some time in silence, Hugo waiting at first to calm down before he began preparing the horse for the trip ahead of them. Once he was done, Abigail passed him some cheese and meat, and he took it like he would take an olive branch.

“So,” he said around a mouthful, “what is your plan, exactly? Surely, you don’t think you can hide forever.”

“O’ course nae,” Abigail said. “I’ve been thinkin’ about it an’ I think we shouldnae write tae anyone. It will be best if everyone thinks we’ve both been taken.”

“Do you think they’ll believe it?” Hugo asked. “I mean, I’m not exactly easy to take.”

Abigail gave a small shrug. “They have seen the chambers by now. What would ye think if ye saw that? They’ll see we are both gone an’ they will come tae the conclusion, nae matter how unlikely. Perhaps they’ll think there were several attackers or that they managed tae stun ye an’ take ye along with me.”

Hugo supposed that would have been the explanation he would have reached, too, had he been observing the situation from the castle. A struggle, clearly bloody and destructive, one that could have been caused by someone who knew how to fight. Perhaps they would think the attacker had bested him or that he had been caught by surprise and that had given the enemy the advantage.

“And then?” Hugo asked.

“An’ then we go tae Castle Chattan.”

That was the very last thing he had expected to hear. He could hardly believe his own ears, and he looked at Abigail in disbelief, but she only shrugged a shoulder.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “What will we do there?”

“We infiltrate it,” Abigail said. “An’ we find evidence o’ the plan. Anythin’ that can help us convince the king that we’re nae lyin’. Surely, there must be somethin’ there. Wouldnae Niall keep documents in his study? Some o’ them might be o’ use.”

Hugo gaped at Abigail, staring at her in silence. He must have heard her wrong, he thought. She must have said something else. There was no way she was actually suggesting this.

“Why are ye lookin’ at me like this?” she asked. “What other choice dae we have?”

“I don’t know!” It was Hugo’s turn to shout hysterically as he began to pace back and forth around the clearing. “Anything but that. It is madness, Abigail. We are going to be killed.”

“Ye dinnae ken that,” Abigail said, which was absolutely false. Hugo knew it very well. She seemed to be the only one who didn’t. “We’ll be careful.”

“I don’t think that will make much of a difference,” he pointed out. “Do you not understand what you’re saying? How are we even going to get inside?”

“We’ll find a way,” Abigail said with such confidence that it was difficult to keep his wits about him and not believe her.

“That is it?” Hugo asked. “ We’ll find a way ?”

“That is it.”

Hugo could say nothing else. He only stared at Abigail in disbelief, trying to search for any hint that she wasn’t serious, but there was none. She absolutely meant every word that she said, and he didn’t know what to do to change her mind. Pointing out that they could die hadn’t been enough to sway her, even though she hadn’t outright rejected the possibility, so he didn’t think anything else would work.

He had to admit, though, that if nothing else, her plan was bold. She was not the little girl he had once thought she was.

Still, the plan was mad. Hugo could not, with good conscience, allow her to do such a thing.

“No,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. You might end up dead.”

“Better dead than allowing me whole clan tae suffer,” Abigail said, and Hugo was once again stunned speechless.