and ready to wear once a sennight. The clothes he’d been wearing would be laundered in Thornhill and ready to wear again in the next sennight.
He snapped a short tunic of dyed indigo in the air then fit it over his head. Next he stepped into a fresh pair of braies and woolen tights. He missed his younger days of wearing just his plaid on the glens of Invergarry while he tended sheep with his cousins. They’d been children, he, the oldest. Why was he thinking of those days now? It had been nice seeing Elias last year. He’d like to see everyone else. Mayhap when he was done with Callanach, he would go home for a little while.
He shook the dust out of his waist-long doublet and carried it, Rose’s new dress, and her dirty mantle back to the river.
She was still bathing, scrubbing her hair with her soap. He thought he heard her humming. Her eyes were closed. She was smiling.
Sitting on the rocks to pull on his boots, he wondered what she was thinking. She looked happy. Happy to be outside and not imprisoned behind castle walls most likely. He was glad she was enjoying herself. She’d been through much.
He left the rocks and bent to pick up his dirty clothes and watched her lean backward to rinse the soap from her hair. Straightening, he stared at her sunlit face gloriously presented, without the added beauty of her dark, cascading waves and thought she was the bonniest lass he’d ever seen.
She straightened and opened her eyes. Her gaze settled on him right away. Her smile widened and she waved. He waved back, trying desperately not to grow faint of heart over her. He’d never loved a lass. In battle, he had no weakness. But lately, he found himself thinking about settling down like Elias had with Lily. Like his sister had with her husband. So many of them. Was he next? Was Rose the lass who would change him and bring him back from the roiling, tempest seas that had claimed him? Was he just sick for home? What if he brought her home with him?
“Would you mind turning around while I get out?” she called to him.
He didn’t want to, but he did. He gathered his weapons and walked back to the horses. He waited—thinking about what she was doing. How she looked doing it, bare of any clothes—
“Tristan?”
He turned at the sound of her voice.
“It fits.” She beamed and twirled around in her place.
“Perfectly,” he told her, unable to keep from smiling, from staring at her, arrested by the sight of her. He shouldn’t let this be happening. It put her at risk to love someone like him. But he was selfish and allowed himself this time to admire her.
Her gaze dipped to the rest of him and a rosy flush swept across her cheeks. “Your garments fit perfectly, as well.”
Shockingly—alarmingly, he let out a throaty chuckle! Was it too late to turn back?
“You have been so kind to me, Tristan, even staying at an inn for me. I know you did not want to.”
Sometimes he didn’t know what to say to her. She was too generous with her compliments and kind words to him. He didn’t want them. They weakened his resolve, as did everything else about her.
“’Twas a simple request ye made, lass,” he told her in a low voice. “’Twas easy to see it fulfilled.”
“I’m sure ’twas more than that,” she said playfully, dipping her dripping head and slanting her gaze and her smile at him.
“Oh?” Hell, but she smelled good, slightly floral and fresh.
“Aye. Admit it.”
With her full locks wet and slicked back, she intoxicated him. He shouldn’t play these games with her. He would lose. He wanted to kiss her. He could almost taste her teasing mouth. But what would it mean to her? To him? He couldn’t. He murdered men in their beds, inside their well-guarded fortresses, sometimes in front of their families. He wasn’t all the things she thought. He was far from them.
“I admit that ye can be hard to resist. That is all, Rose.”
Now it was her turn to laugh as she turned and went to her horse. “Very well, Tristan. But I know you like me.”
He drew in a long breath then smiled. She was tearing through his defenses like a battering ram. He wasn’t sure he wanted her to stop.
They set out toward Thornhill, riding slowly alongside each other on the way. He didn’t