Tempest Heart - Paula Quinn Page 0,72
her. Poor Alana and Steven, the others who had returned home when she had. She wanted to weep over them.
He held her close to him. She felt his heart beating hard against her ear.
“’Tis good news aboot Mary, but there is even more, my love.” His velvety voice resonated through her.
His love?
“Yer father is also with us.”
She sat up and stared at him, forgetting for a moment what he had just called her. “You met my father?”
Tristan nodded, offering her a reassuring smile.
“And he is well?”
“He is well.”
She couldn’t stop smiling. “You will tell me everything, but first…” she snuggled even deeper against him. When she spoke, her voice sounded like the purr of a satisfied cat. “I want you to know that I have been thinking of ways to thank you for all you have done for me.”
“Ye dinna need to thank me, lass.”
“I think I have come up with something.”
“Oh?” A simple word spoken on a husky whisper. “What have ye come up with?”
Her smile deepened. She doubted he could see it.
“I cannot tell you, as you are not my husband.”
She was certain she heard him growl.
“Do you not wish to wed?” she asked, afraid of his answer.
“Rose.”
“Aye?”
“I want to be wed but only if ye are to be my wife. If we find a priest, we could be married by tomorrow.”
She felt a wave of excitement at the idea of it and nodded her approval. She frowned though a moment later.
“You said you have met my father. What if—”
“I have already told yer father that I intend to wed ye. He has accepted it.”
Rose’s eyes opened wider. “You told him, and he accepted it?”
He nodded. She wouldn’t believe it until she heard her father say it with his own mouth.
“What could you have told him that would change his mind?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “Mayhap he changed his mind because of Mary, or because I didna use ye to get to him.”
“What does Mary have to do with anything?
“I saved her.”
“What do you mean you saved her, Tristan?”
He began to tell her how he’d climbed the trees outside the castle, but they met Mr. Jones on the road. Neill was still unresponsive, and it was nice for Rose to see him in the same position she was in earlier.
They continued on with Tristan and Mr. Jones occasionally telling her everything that had happened at the castle.
Tristan reluctantly admitted to being at Callanach, hiding in the trees and watching her.
Rose wished she had known he was there. She found that she liked the idea of him watching her—but only because she loved him. She wanted to tell him. It would have to wait.
“I awoke to everythin’ burnin’. I heard Mary in her cottage. The door had been barred on the outside.”
“I’m so thankful you saved Mary. The captain loves her very much.”
“The captain was grateful,” he let her know. “He and I spoke briefly. But we will speak again.”
“He admires you,” Rose shared. “He knows many things about you from studying you for so long.”
He scowled. “I didna know he studied me.”
“Are you not flattered?”
“Flattered that the captain of an earl’s guard knows more aboot me than I do? ’Tis odd.”
“Why?” she asked. “You are well known. He agrees with what you do.”
“Is that why he didna kill me?”
Rose nodded and then was silent when they reached the camp where she’d been a prisoner not so long ago.
Bodies were strewn everywhere. No one had been left alive. She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer for the souls of the dead.
A few minutes later, they passed another camp. It was the camp that the captain had been taken to. All the men there were dead, too.
“Tristan,” she said on a quavering breath. “Did you do all this?”
His silence blended with the eerie stillness of the night.
“Nae, I am not that skilled. Jones and Captain Harper were with me.”
“Aye, you are that skilled,” she countered.
“You are,” Jones added in agreement.
“I’m wounded.” He continued to try to dissuade any compliments. “Mayhap when my shoulder isna throbbin’, I could fight more, but I am thankful fer the help I had tonight.”
“And he wants no praise.”
“Only God is deservin’ of praise, Jones.”
“He was raised with a priest,” Rose explained to Jones when he stared after Tristan with a perplexed look on his face.
“A man who kills for a living was raised with a priest.” Jones shook his head at it all.
“He wouldna approve if he knew what I was doin’,” Tristan