grinned at her, the grin of a man very satisfied to have gotten his way.
She expected him to try to corner her once they were on their way, to kiss her, and she’d already decided she would let him. Her lips tingled with the anticipation of it. But not once that night did he try. He didn’t even ride beside her. In fact, he gave her more space than she’d ever had from him before, save for the way he was completely crowding her mind.
Was this his game? To toy with her head instead of her body? Oh, she just wanted him to kiss her already.
She spoke passionately at each place they stopped, rousing the crowd with stories of the dragoons’ cruelty.
When they returned home that night, he volunteered to take the horses back to the stables, avoiding her again and only making her want him all the more.
He was right—she was a bad liar.
* * *
Part of Toran’s plan for the following two weeks, now that he was on his feet again, was to get Jenny to admit she wanted him and to show that he was interested in her—hell, more than interested. But she was not the type of woman who wanted a man to stake his claim on her. Nay, she wanted to come to him, and he understood that. He’d play it her way.
And not just because he wanted to bed her. Mo chreach, but he wanted to walk beside her in this life, in this battle, in all things.
For the first time in his life, Toran wanted a wife, and not just any wife. He wanted Jenny.
When they’d been confronted by the dragoons on the road, he’d known in that moment that he would die before letting those men touch her and that he loved her, that he would do anything for her.
He was fairly certain Jenny could live without him if she chose, but he was doing everything in his power now to show her she wouldn’t want to live without him.
He had started by leaving a flower on her chair at the evening meal so she might find it when she sat down to eat. He fed her hound treats at every meal, and as a result, Dom followed him around the castle grounds like a loyal servant. Whenever Toran was invited to dine with the clan, he challenged her to a game of chess afterward, and she always agreed. While they played, he tried his damnedest to beat her, but each time she won. The lass was good, but he was starting to understand the way she played. One of these days, he was going to win.
In the mornings he greeted her at the bottom of the stairs with a full report, a task he’d convinced Dirk to allow him to do.
He had Dirk’s full support, and the servants were now providing him with flowers to choose from. He’d begun leaving them not only when she dined at night but also at her door in the morning, tucked into Dom’s collar, pressed to her pillow, threaded through the stirrup of her saddle. Anywhere he could possibly find, he planted one.
And he was fairly certain that his efforts were working. Or at least he hoped. Her smile for him grew brighter every time he saw her, and the one morning when she’d come downstairs and he’d been late, she had looked disappointedly around until he’d appeared.
Their nighttime recruitments had been fruitful as well, and updates on the prince were giving them all hope. Soon he’d be seated in Edinburgh and London, on the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain, uniting England and Scotland. Already the prince’s army had taken Edinburgh and defeated the government’s army at Prestonpans. The prince was now planning to head southward with a large retinue, taking towns as he went, all the way to London.
As the leaves of autumn turned and the weather went from pleasant to cold, they worked steadily toward their goals.
Simon was still in the cell below the castle, though he was being fed well to keep him alive. Toran needed the man alive and planned to keep him to exchange for any rebel prisoners, just deserts for his cousin’s plan to do the same with him.
On two occasions now, Mac had accompanied him to the outskirts of Fraser lands where, dressed in disguises, their hair darkened with soot and a beard full grown upon his face, they’d subtly asked about his uncle’s doings. And