Page 10

On the following morning Gilmour visited the stables.

A nicker greeted him as he opened the door, but he realized in an instant that the warm welcome was not for him.

Francois was pushing his powerful neck over his gate toward a scrawny lass in a washed-out gown that hung askew from her bony shoulders.

She stood well out of reach and stretched one hand timidly toward the steed.

Frustrated by the smell of the turnip in the girl's cupped palm, Francois pressed forward and flapped his lips across the lassie's fingers.

Startled, she dropped the treat and lurched away, looking for all the world as if the steed might very well eat her alive. Gilmour could not help but laugh.

The girl jerked toward him, somber eyes wide in her too narrow face, lips pursed.

"Here then," said Gilmour, striding close to pick up the abandoned offering.

The girl backed away, thin fingers spread across her ear.

He recognized her then, for between her fingers he could see the discoloration that stained her lobe and jaw.

It was both the color and the size of a well-ripened plum.

He straightened, watching her. "You're the lass from the Lion's kitchen, are you not? " he asked.

There was a slight delay before her jerky nod. Her hair, mousy brown and stringy, fell over her fingers, and she drew her hand slowly away.

Mour turned the piece of turnip in his hand. "Does your mistress know you ferret away treats for the steeds?"

Her eyes widened even more and Gilmour laughed again. "You needn't worry. I'll not tell her, though Francois hardly deserves your attentions. Truth to tell he's a greedy beggar."

"He is wounded."

The words were spoken softly and solemnly, as if that was all that needed be said. The beast was wounded and so she had come to ease his pain. And though there were few creatures on earth that needed less easing than this one, Mour could not help but appreciate her kindness.

"Here," he said, lifting the turnip toward her.

She shook her head and backed away an additional step, and he saw now that she limped a bit on her right leg.

"Humph," he said and frowned. "I would not have thought it of a lass like you."

She stared at him a moment longer then spoke. "Thought what?"

"That you would tease a poor wounded beastie with a tasty morsel only to let him go hungry."

Her pink mouth fell open slightly, but she reached timidly for the turnip and he grinned.

"But beware," he added, as she lifted the treat back toward the stallion who lipped it happily from her palm, "Francois has his pride. He does not accept charity. You're now committed to ride him."

It took some time for Mour to convince the girl to mount the steed, but finally she did and sat hunched on his back, clinging to his heavy mane as Mour led him out of the stable and up the rutted street toward the Lion.

It was not a simple task to get her to tell him she was on her way to the inn, and it was downright impossible to convince her to share her given name.

"Plums," he said and scowled as he walked along. "A pleasant enough fruit, but said to be unwholesome when eaten fresh. They be best served in jellies and pastries." He glanced up. "You're not to be baked into a pie, are you, lass?"

She shook her head, and with that motion she gave him the slightest of smiles. Her teeth were crooked and she was missing a tiny premolar, but in that instant it seemed as if the sun shone on her face alone.

"Nay. No one with such a bonny smile should be called by the name of a pitted fruit," Mour said and spent the rest of the journey trying to guess her given name.

When he moved to lift her down near the Lion's door, she stiffened, but allowed his touch. Still, as she backed nervously away, her cheeks were as bright as her eyes, which she shifted toward a noise behind him.

"I shall have to call you something," Mour said, "for I fear I need your help. Francois will become as fat as a swine if he is not ridden, and with his wound, I fear I am a bit heavy for him. Mayhap you would agree to exercise him again on the morrow."

Her gaze flitted back to him. Her crooked smile lifted for a fraction of a moment, and then, like a wounded sparrow, she scampered into the inn.

Gilmour turned away. Isobel stood beside the wattle and daub building, watching him.

For a moment their gazes held, but he had made a vow to leave her be and he was not fool enough to break it.

Nodding curtly, he returned Francois to the stable, but despite his words to the wee lassie, the horse was not grievously wounded and required little attention.

Therefore, there was naught for him to do but return to the Red Lion and while away his hours at one of the inn's well-scrubbed tables.

It should have been a pleasant time. Indeed, there were few things he enjoyed more than sipping spirits in a cozy inn with an appreciative crowd to listen to his tales and a bonny maid to give him a come-along glance now and again.

In fact, he very much considered coming along a time or two, but something always distracted him.

It wasn't Isobel. Nay, her entrances into the common room disturbed him not at all.

Oddly, it was the other patrons who irked him.

The fellow in the leather jerkin, for instance.

Seated at a table near the door every evening, he watched Isobel with dark, brooding eyes whenever she was in view.

Dressed as a warrior, he wore a knotted strip of leather about his neck.

It hung down inside his dark tunic, not showing whatever charm it might hold on its end.

He was no giant of a man, average in height and girth really, but dour of expression.

In an attempt to draw him out, Gilmour had ordered him an ale and engaged him in conversation. But the smooth shaven fellow had given him little more than his name, and that in a grunted soliloquy.

"Hunter," he had called himself. Hunter, and nothing else.

'Twas a strange name for a strange fellow.

But what it was that irritated him about the man, Gilmour could not quite say.

True, he watched Isobel with unwavering attention, but she was a bonny lass, and therefore drew the eye—until one got to know her. Still, the man's actions peeved him.

And what of the fellow called Redmont? He was as fat as a toad and undeniably irksome.

Surely no lass could be interested in him.

Still, Gilmour's finger began to twitch with unfailing regularity when the man joked with Isobel.

But it was probably naught but the sight of his sister by law that made Gilmour irritable.

There were always others present, but perhaps it was Laird Grier who annoyed Mour most of all, and it had nothing to do with his endless flirtations.

Gilmour barely noticed the attention he showered on Isobel.

Like the Munro, he too had spent some time courting Anora, but that was well before Isobel's time there.

Still, the two of them had become acquainted somehow and now seemed to share a camaraderie that never failed to raise the hair on the back of Gilmour's neck.

Bugger it, Mour thought, and steadfastly kept his gaze from falling in that man's direction.

He had a tale to tell, and his audience, an eclectic group of labors and landowners, was enthralled.

It made little difference that Isobel had decided against gracing them with her company, for he had no interest in her.

Indeed, he had promised to leave her be, and he was always a man of his word. Well, he was usually a man of his word.

Sometimes he was a man of his word.

Actually, absolute honesty had always seemed somewhat overrated to Mour, and he wondered if he should accompany her home. She had not yet left the inn and already it was dusk. That meant she would be journeying home in the dark, which made his stomach curl into a hard ball in his gut.

"You say the lad was no lad atall?" The question drew Gilmour back to his story.

Happy to leave his present thoughts, he wound expertly through his yarn as time marched on. But still Isobel remained on his mind until the story's wild finale.

His listeners gasped or groaned, depending on their dispositions, and Gilmour rose leisurely to his feet.

Stretching expansively, he gazed down at his audience and spared only the briefest of glances toward the kitchen.

It was still bright and noisy. "Well," he said, "the hour grows late.

I think I shall step outdoors for a bit before I find me bed. "

Fleta straightened as she wiped her hands upon her apron. "Will you be wanting any company?"

"Outside or in his bed?" someone murmured. Sniggers followed the question.

"That remains to be seen," said Fleta huskily and Gilmour smiled as the crowd hooted.

Taking her hand in his, he kissed her reddened knuckles. "I prefer to walk alone. But the other..." He raised his brows at her and let the sentence fall into silence.

"We'll see then," Fleta cooed. She flitted a cool glare at the faces that surrounded them. "When we do not have a pack of ogling oafs round about."

"Mayhap later then," Mour said, and giving her a quick bow, left the inn.

Behind him, laughter wafted and voices rose and fell, but Gilmour's mind was roiling, for the truth was bedeviling; he had no desire for Fleta's company.

And that very knowledge baffled him, for she was buxom, comely, and willing.

Three of his favorite attributes, so why was his interest atypically downcast?