Aidan’s voice was gentle, and it gave her the courage to look back, dragging her eyes from the strong hands at her waist, along a chiseled arm, to the man standing below her. He stood on a thick branch jutting off the base of the trunk.

She was fooling herself to think she heard something in his voice. Why would a man like him be affected by her meager bottom? A dashing rogue like Aidan would desire someone more exotic. And more curvaceous, surely.

She’d heard the stories from Cormac’s wife, Marjorie. How wealthy plantation wives engaged in scandalous liaisons with their fieldworkers. One look at Aidan’s rippling muscles and Elspeth knew: he’d have been irresistible to each and every one of them. He’d be accustomed to grand ladies, flamboyant and worldly, who’d be the pinnacle of fashion.

Her eyes went to her ugly old skirts, and she grimaced.

“Are you afraid I’ll muss you?” he asked, his voice gone steely.

Was he angry? “What? No, of course not. I …”

His fingers curled more tightly into her waist. “Or perhaps it’s that the dirty farmhand isn’t good enough even to help.”

“Oh, no.” She shook her head frantically. “You misunderstand.”

“Do I? It appears you’d rather fall and break your neck than let me—”

Elspeth let go.

Chapter 10

She dropped, and he caught her hard about the waist, steadying himself at once, his legs braced wide on the thick branch beneath him. They were in an awkward position, both facing forward. He gave her a quick toss and a spin, and Elspeth found herself cradled in his arms.

She gazed up into his blue eyes, and they were hard on her, wary and suspicious.

“You misunderstood,” she repeated, more quietly this time. Feeling like an unwieldy bundle in his arms, she tentatively wrapped her arms around his neck.

To her shock, he let her.

His naked skin was hot, even through the fabric of her dress. She longed to stroke a finger down what she knew was a glistening expanse of chest, but she dared not even look down, much less touch him. She waited for him to drop her, or shove her aside, but he merely held her, their eyes locked in this strange and wonderful moment.

Branches creaked and leaves rustled, but those were the only sounds. Feeling emboldened, she shifted and turned into him, twining her fingers snugly together. She hoped he’d mistake it as her holding on for dear life, but really Elspeth just wanted to be as close as possible. She tightened her grip even more.

“Easy, luvvie. Suddenly now you’re afraid of heights?” He chuckled, but rather than pull her loose, he hugged her closer, cradling her with one arm while he used the other to ease them back to the ground. Ducking, he wended his way between branches and out from under the tree.

She didn’t let go at first, and neither did he. They simply remained silent, until a quizzical expression wrinkled his brow. “You’re a peculiar wee thing, aren’t you?” Her face fell, and he added quickly, “Not peculiar bad, mind. Simply… peculiar.”

Time had suspended for her. He stared, and it felt as though he were searching for something, plumbing her depths for some sign, or signal, or meaning.

She didn’t know what a man like Aidan might seek. All she knew was that despite his dreadful past, in spite of his enigmatic ways and suspicious motives, she trusted him. He could look in her eyes and see what he would, and she’d let him.

He spoke again, his voice a tentative rasp. “I’ve not met your like before.”

“Nor I yours,” she managed.

Aidan eased his grip, and she slowly straightened, sliding down his body, savoring the feel of his hard muscle against her soft flesh, of his heat against her quivering limbs, until her feet touched the ground.

Rather than pull away, she roved purposeful hands down his arms. Though she sensed knots of scarred flesh at her fingertips, she didn’t dare look. Instead, she closed her eyes, slowing her touch, trying to picture those scars in her mind. Such pain had been carved onto his body, a crude and vivid map of his suffering.

“I’m to go away for a time,” she heard him say, and she opened her eyes, realizing she’d stopped moving. He was looking down at her, that intense gaze appearing more intrigued than skeptical now.

She swallowed. “Away?”

He smiled, stating simply, “Yes. But I’ll be back.”

She wanted to ask him where he was going, when he’d be back, but she knew such crass, overeager phrases would never cross the lips of a great heroine. A truly bold heroine would ask her man for a kiss, but Elspeth could barely manage to ask him about sheep, much less attempt saucy banter. Instead, what popped from her mouth was “When?”

Aidan’s eyes glinted, watching her.

Oh Lord. That lone word had sounded desperate—she couldn’t imagine what he must think.

“I mean… when shall we schedule our next lesson?” The question tumbled nervously from her mouth.

Shrugging, he began to pull away. She wanted to cling to him, to say don’t go. But then he leaned down, and though his voice was playful, the timbre was a low rasp. “You’re looking forward to teaching me?”

Heat flamed from her toes to her cheeks. Had she imagined his tone? Had she instilled her own innuendo into a perfectly innocent question? And had he really been looking at her mouth as he asked it? “I … oh … yes, of course.”

He was staring at her mouth. He looked intense, some unspoken battle waging in his expression.

Oh God, would he kiss her? She wanted to wrap her fingers around his arms, to lean into him and say something coy or sultry, but all she could do was stand stiff and frozen, wishing, hoping, wanting above all things that he’d kiss her.

The silence was unbearable, and Elspeth turned, needing to look anywhere but at him. “The sheep. I must go fetch the sheep.”

Hiking her skirts, she bolted down the hill. If she were a heroine from a novel, she’d have parted her lips. She’d have made him want to kiss her. He wouldn’t be able to think on anything but kissing her.

But she wasn’t a heroine from a novel. She knew naught of kisses and seduction. She was a poor sheep farmer’s daughter, running from her hero, wishing for all the world that he’d tutor her.

Aidan strode to the docks, trying not to dwell on how good Elspeth felt in his arms. He’d mistaken her for a wisp of a thing, but she was substantial, her limbs strong and sure from toiling on the land.

He’d wanted to leave her farm earlier, but damned if she hadn’t gotten herself caught in a tree. Even after he’d helped her down, he’d found himself staying, all thoughts of slavers and subterfuge fallen away. Working with Elspeth was far more satisfying than his intrigues, and he’d wanted to remain as long as he could in her company.

He’d never felt tied to the land, to Scottish soil—he’d been too young when he was taken, and such thoughts didn’t enter the minds of lads—yet he was finding it oddly invigorating to be working that land, the master of his own day’s labor. To be consulted, to share the work as an equal. And to be sharing it with a woman.

She’d looked so forlorn at the mention of his departure, her guileless expression so unlike anything any other woman had ever shown him. It’d flooded him with sensations—yearning, comfort, desire, belonging—each feeling so novel, but familiar too, as though he bore the heart of a regular man, as susceptible as any other, his sentiments merely rusted from disuse.

For a moment, he’d forgotten his pain and his anger. For a moment, all he’d wanted was to kiss her.

Shaking the thoughts from his head, he boarded his ship, climbing straight up the rigging. It wasn’t good to be back in Aberdeen—the place held too many memories— but it was good to be back aboard the Journeyman.

A few months had passed since he’d commandeered the boat and made his escape, yet he still found it hard to view himself as a free man. But back on the water like this, with one shoulder to the endless horizon, he didn’t feel so hemmed in. The rocking waves promised freedom. Feeling the sea’s lurch and roll, Aidan could actually believe he was his own man, unchained and unfettered.

He’d fallen in love with the boat the moment he’d laid eyes on her. Aidan was no cheat, but he’d felt no qualms about liberating her from Nash, his fool of a master. Caribbean sailors favored one-mast Jamaican sloops, and this craft was no different. Constructed of cedar not oak, Jamaican sloops rode famously faster and lighter in the water.

When he’d taken her over, the tub had sailed under the name Providential, and as there’d been naught about his life thus far that he considered particularly blessed, he’d changed it at once. Besides, he couldn’t risk being recognized. Even though Nash had run a tin-pot enterprise, new Caribbean money tended to have deep familial roots in unexpected places, and Aidan couldn’t risk questions upon docking back in Scotland.

He swung his legs over the edge of the crow’s nest, grateful that he’d worn simple breeches in lieu of the Scots breacan feile that still felt foreign on his body. Opening his coat, he fingered the coin pouch tied at his belt. He hoped it’d be enough for his ruse, for it marked all he owned in the world. A sack of gold jealously saved through the years thanks to the largesse of grateful plantation wives.

Largesse. He scowled and buttoned back up. Its only cost had been his soul.

He leaned his head back and thought of Elspeth. Hers was a soul miraculously untouched by the world’s vanity and greed.

What a strange creature his tutor was, but refreshing too. Sincere and artless, like no other woman he’d ever met. Her gentleness was an unexpected balm to his befouled spirit.

And though she wasn’t what the world would call beautiful, he couldn’t erase the memory of her eyes. He found he woke thinking about that pale blue gaze, flecked with a yellow to match her long, pin-straight hair. The uncommon combination made her resemble one of the fey, somehow both wary and all-knowing.

She’d felt so lean in his arms, but with a tensile strength too, like the last of some dying breed of bird, fluttering alone through the world. He wondered if her spirit was as fragile as her body looked—he suspected not.