acknowledge them, was what spurred her on in her nightly quest to gather more support for him.
Dirk had told her two days previously that Toran was well enough to begin watch again, so Jenny had put him on night watch on the wall rather than have him join them on their nightly recruitments. She was hoping to avoid him at all costs. Watching him suffer, knowing what he’d done for her, had changed her irrevocably, had touched her very soul. She feared meeting him again, what she would say and how she’d say it. How to tell him how grateful she was, how to tell him she was so sorry and to beg his forgiveness for having been the reason he was subject to such a punishment.
Was she a fool for having told him they couldn’t be together until the war was over? Who knew if either of them would make it that far at the rate they were going? They’d spent the span of the month she’d known him in constant peril. Now that the prince had declared himself for the throne in his father’s name, their situation was only bound to get worse.
The pessimism she was feeling was unlike her, and she knew it had entirely to do with Toran—and with the need to face her own fears and feelings for him. So what better way to avoid them than by avoiding him altogether?
Aye, she knew it was foolish, and right now, she was willing to be a fool. At least when it came to her heart. Because she couldn’t give up on her duty, either, and she saw no way to meld the two. Love and duty? She shook her head. How could she possibly?
Only now, at the end of the secret passage, stood the shadow of a man blocking the exit.
It wasn’t just any man but the tall, muscular frame of the very man who occupied her thoughts most parts of the day and night. The one she’d only just finished convincing herself once more that she needed to avoid. Jenny paused, her heart thumping at the sight of him. How had he gotten in here? The men behind her didn’t seem alarmed, as though they’d been expecting this intrusion.
“Toran,” she said. He must have been waiting there for them, anticipating her nightly routine.
“I’m going with ye.” His voice was steady, and she wanted to sink against him.
But she had to stand her ground, remain strong. “Nay.” There was no way in bloody hell she was going to let him get hurt again because of her. Which meant he had to stay behind.
Toran stalked forward, stopping a few paces away from her. “Ye can go and I’ll follow, or ye can let me walk beside ye.”
“Or I can order ye back to the wall where ye should be.”
The men behind her backed up a few paces in the pretense of giving them some privacy.
Toran stalked closer, and she stood her ground, thrusting her chin up. She passed her torch behind her, and someone took it from her hand so she could cross her arms defiantly in front of her.
“Dinna try to intimidate me,” she warned.
“Och, lass, ye have the wrong of it. I’m trying to do no such thing.” He stopped about a foot away from her, no discernable limp or slowness or stiffness in his gait to show that he’d been in bed for nearly a fortnight with severe injuries. His back had to still be covered in scabs and would certainly scar heavily.
“Then what exactly is your aim, Fraser?” She could smell him, that strong woodsy, spicy scent that belonged only to him.
“Ye’re my aim, Jenny. My Mistress J,” he said.
She didn’t want to think about the implication in those heated words. The intimacy of them. “I am everyone’s Mistress J,” she corrected him.
“Aye,” he murmured, “everyone’s leader, but not everyone’s woman.”
She gasped at so public a declaration. “I am no one’s woman, Toran Fraser, and especially not yours. I’ll not be claimed.”
He chuckled.
“’Tis not funny. I am serious.”
“I know.”
“Then why do ye laugh?”
“Because ye’re not a verra good liar.” He stepped back then, taking all the air from the tunnel with him. “Shall we?” He swept his arm out as if they were simply going into the great hall for dinner and not to recruit for their rebel army.
Jenny was about to argue some more, but he’d already walked ahead, and the men behind her were getting restless.