LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER FIVE

      MAURA WOKE WITH a start, a swell of panic filling her throat as she frantically tried to sort out where she was or what was happening to her. A moment or two of blinking and sputtering against leaves stuck to her lips brought it all back to her—she was asleep on a forest floor. Her bones ached from cold and one arm tingled with a loss of feeling.

      How long had she been asleep?

      She recalled the surge of annoyance at this unexpected turn of events, then dropping onto the pallet Mr. Bain had made for her, and then...and then her eyes had felt scratchy, her lids heavy and her body so grateful to be off that horse.

      She smelled smoke. Maura rolled onto her back, her gaze landing first on the small ring of fire, and then on Mr. Bain sitting beside her, his back against the trunk of a tree. He had one leg bent at the knee, the other stretched before him. He was holding a book.

      Maura blinked. The man was reading by the light of the fire, as if this was a lazy summer evening.

      Without looking at her, he held out a linen handkerchief.

      She looked at the offering.

      “You’ve half a forest pressed to your face,” he said matter-of-factly.

      Maura took it, then groped about for his arm to pull herself up. She gave him a good once-over, astonished that he could look so relaxed in the same forest with cold settling in. She wiped the dirt from her mouth. “How it pleases me to find the journey has posed no hardship for you, Mr. Bain, and that you are verra much at your leisure.”

      “I assure you, I am no’ at my leisure, but merely attempting to pass the time.” He deliberately turned a page.

      Maura’s stomach suddenly growled.

      “Awake and hungry, then, are you?”

      “Aye, famished,” she said, and tossed the handkerchief onto his leg, annoyed that he should look so comfortable when she was freezing.

      She looked around their little campsite. It must be quite late—the lad was asleep on the other side of the fire, his body turned toward the warmth of the flames. She could see the horses near the banks of the creek, blankets draped across their backs. “How will you keep the horses from wandering away, then?” she asked curiously.

      “They’re hobbled.”

      Maura peered at the horses, and could just make out the belt around their front legs.

      Mr. Bain put aside his book and dragged a saddlebag onto his lap and began to rummage inside it. Maura glanced at the book, now lying between them. “‘An Enquiry Concerning the Principle of Morals,’” she read aloud. “How interesting. Perhaps your book will hold the answer as to the principle of morals in this particular situation, eh, Mr. Bain?”

      He smiled wryly, and handed her a bundle wrapped in cheesecloth. “I’ve some dried beef and hard biscuits,” he said.

      Maura gasped with delight—she’d not expected food. She eagerly took the bundle from him and put it in her lap, brushed the tresses of hair from her eyes that had come undone with all her rolling about on the ground and which were apparently hosting a fair amount of leaves. But she paid no heed to her hair—she untied the cheesecloth and surveyed the food. As she had not eaten properly in days, this was a feast. Her stomach growled again.

      She picked up a hunk of bread and bit into it, eating heartily, without regard to manners or attempting to conceal the sounds of pleasure she was making.

      As she gnawed at a strip of beef, Mr. Bain nudged her and held up a skin. Whatever was in it, she hardly cared—she took it from him with a small grunt of thanks and drank.

      Mr. Bain gave a small chuckle.

      Ale. Strong ale at that, but she managed to keep from coughing it up and sighed when the warmth of it slid through her veins. When she had drunk what she could, she gave him the skin and resumed her meal.

      Mr. Bain watched her with equal parts awe and amusement. “Am I so amusing?” she asked as she licked her fingers. “You’d be famished, too, that you would, had you been in the company of Mr. David Rumpkin. I’ve been desperately hungry—I dared eat scarcely a thing in that house.”

      “I donna blame you,” he agreed. “I’ve no’ seen a more despicable home.”

      She swallowed a mouthful of bread, thinking about the nightmare of the last fortnight. It would ruin her meal to describe the filth of that house, but she said, “I donna exaggerate when I say it was wretched, Mr. Bain.” She glanced up, her gaze following a spark that flew up into the night sky. “It’s much better here, really,” she said brightly, having just decided it. She felt more optimistic with a bit of food in her belly. “Aye, quite cold, that it is. But better.” She stuffed the rest of the beef in her mouth, gestured to the empty cheesecloth, and said, “Thank you for the food.”

      “You are verra welcome, Miss Darby. I have no’ seen anyone enjoy hardtack and dried beef quite so much.”

      All right, then, she’d eaten like a sow, but she didn’t care. She pondered her savior. Or was he her captor? A wee bit of both, she supposed. Either way, he was quite handsome. His hair was the color of autumn leaves, a mix of brown, dark red and gold. His eyes were pale green and when he looked at her, there was a certain sparkle in them.

      Aye, he was a handsome man.

      Yet she had the sense that there was something curiously distant about this handsome man. Perhaps it was because he knew everything about her, and she knew nothing but his name and that he liked to read books about philosophy, apparently. “Who are you?” she asked curiously.

      He arched a brow. “I’ve told you.”

      “Aye, you’ve said your name, but who are you really, Mr. Bain?”

      He gave her a slight, enigmatic smile. “Does it matter?”

      Ooh, a secret then. Maura twisted about so that she was facing him. “Aye, it matters who, exactly, is spiriting me away to marry a man I’ve never laid eyes on. You could be a thief or a marauder for all I know.”

      “A marauder?”

      “A highwayman?”

      “That is no’ an improvement.”

      “Well? What is your secret?”

      “I’ve no secret.”

      “But you are a friend of Mr. Calum Garbett, and yet, I’ve never heard your name.”

      “Because I’ve only recently made Mr. Garbett’s acquaintance.”

      “Really?” she asked skeptically.

      He leaned forward, looked her directly in the eye and said, “Really.”

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