Page 23 of Ensnaring the Dove

Colombia moved up behind Aedan. “What are they saying?”

“Best you don’t know,” he murmured. His voice was soft, yet flat. He then glanced over his shoulder at her, his gaze gleaming in the semi-darkness. “Stay back … and get ready to run.”

Their gazes fused for an instant, and she nodded.

Nonetheless, Colombia’s heart started to kick hard against her breastbone. A sickly sensation washed over her.

Aedan had warned her that her people weren’t universally loved, but there had been a part of her that refused to believe it. Yes, there were pockets of outlaws, of rebels, but most of the Britons lived peacefully under their Roman overlords.

She saw now that wasn’t the case.

Aedan then turned away and answered the villagers.

His voice, hard-edged now, carried across the crowd, quietening the heckling. Once again, Colombia had no idea what had been said, yet since the expressions of the villagers hadn’t warmed—she guessed he wasn’t trying to placate them.

Indeed, she saw some of them tighten their grip on their tools, and a big man wielding a huge scythe stepped forward. The farmer growled something before spitting on the ground.

Enid muttered an answer, only to get snarled at, and when Aedan replied, Colombia caught the warning in his voice.

He was vastly outnumbered here, yet he’d also been so when he’d saved her from those outlaws. She’d seen him fight too and knew he could hold his own. Nonetheless, these villagers were riled. Danger shivered through the still night air.

Colombia’s belly twisted.

Some of the men weren’t glaring at Aedan now, but at her—resentment glinting in their eyes. It didn’t matter that she’d done none of them any wrong; she symbolized the people they saw as their oppressors. And they despised Aedan too for helping a Roman woman.

Just like Enid, they believed she and Aedan were lovers.

The scythe-wielding villager lunged then. He was a huge man with great, muscular arms, yet he was slow, and Aedan dodged him easily.

Snarling curses, the farmer came at him again, swinging that scythe in a deadly arc.

Aedan ducked under his guard and stabbed him in the lower arm.

With a howl, the farmer dropped his scythe, clutching at his forearm, where blood now flowed.

Aedan backed up a few steps, his gaze sweeping the crowd. He then shouted something. It sounded like a taunt, and Colombia’s already racing heart started to thunder in her ears.

Jupiter, he wasn’t goading them, was he?

Enid spoke to Aedan then, her voice sharp. Unlike earlier, her gaze wasn’t full of cunning and curiosity, but alarm. Like Colombia, she knew what would happen if this confrontation continued.

The injured farmer started to berate him again, his harsh voice echoing through the night.

Backing up farther, Aedan took Colombia by the arm with his left hand, while he kept his knife raised in his right. “Time to depart,” he murmured.

“But what about Enid?” she gasped.

“She’s going to threaten to curse the lot of them,” he replied. “That should give us time to get away.”

He guided her back, into the shadows that flanked Enid’s tiny roundhouse.

Colombia swallowed hard. There was no time to thank Enid, or to worry about what might happen to the woman who’d sheltered them.

They melted into the darkness, skirting the edge of the circular garden that surrounded the dwelling, before pushing through the wattle fence.

Rough male voices followed them, interspersed by Enid’s higher-pitched, vexed voice. Silence followed her words, and Colombia’s throat constricted.

The woman owed them nothing; her gesture was a brave one.