Page 62 of Beloved Enemy
Chapter Seventeen
Reid ducked beneath the low beam of Una’s doorway, the thick smell of herbs and burning peat filling his nostrils as he stepped inside. The cramped cottage felt even smaller with two wide-eyed children staring up at him from their little corners.
He cleared his throat, straightening, and gave them a stiff nod, which only made them huddle closer to each other, clutching their ragged blankets as if they were shields. The lad, Thomas, seemed much less wary than the blonde-haired lass, the latter who slowly moved to position herself behind her mother, bent over the kettle in the fire pit, where Una had returned after opening the door and admitting Reid.
“Och, ye’ve got them behaving already,” Una quipped, her tone infused with a knowing edge, her gaze on her bairns and not on Reid. “What brings the laird of the Nicholsons into my humble home today?”
He spied Una’s youngest bairn on the raised bed, swaddled in worn but warm cloths, awake but seemingly content.
Reid shifted, feeling like a giant in the tiny space. "Nae anything urgent, but there is something I’ve been meaning and needing to ask ye.”
Una arched an eyebrow as she set aside her ladle, before standing and crossing her arms. “The subject matter being my houseguest, I presume,” she guessed, “since ye’ve nae ever visited before and have done so now when the lass is conveniently absent.”
Reid scowled at the hint of sarcasm, but could not deny the truth, since he’d essentially lain in wait, watching for Charlotte to leave the house. He knew enough of her daily routine that he was aware that each morning it was Charlotte who filled the buckets with water from the burn. From the side of Nelliethe brewer’s croft, he’d discreetly watched as she’d exited Una’s cottage this morn.
He’d been—admittedly, if reluctantly—charmed by what he’d seen. Charlotte had slipped out the door, her expression marred by not one line or crease of concern, her bonny face radiant in the morning light. Not long did her untroubled countenance remain, however. She’d collected the empty buckets from the back of the house, but had suddenly jolted with a high-pitched squeak. Reid’s brows had lifted as she jumped, and as she’d waved her arms wildly, the buckets clattering to the ground. Even as he’d instinctively reached for the pommel of his sword, he’d assumed a spider had provoked her frantic yip and graceless dance. Some other small beastie, perhaps? He could only guess. Whatever it was, it had startled her enough that she fumbled, her foot catching in her skirts as she skidded backward, her cheeks flushed in both fear and frustration.
A half-smile had tugged at the corner of Reid’s mouth before he quickly suppressed it. He was supposed to be assessing her—discerning if she was hiding anything. But how could he think her capable of any real threat when she looked like that? A grown woman who fled from a spider, arms flailing, like a frightened bairn.
Still, he’d watched as she warily approached the buckets she'd dropped, her movements exaggerated in caution, as if expecting the spider—or whatever had startled her—to reemerge at any moment. She’d crouched low, tilting her head to peer into one of the buckets, her lips moving as she muttered something under her breath. Though he couldn't hear her words, her exasperation had been obvious.
She’d straightened, brushing her skirts and glancing around, likely wanting to know if anyone had witnessed her small fiasco. Reid had leaned back into the shadows, grateful she hadn’t noticed him standing like a fool, grinning at her antics.
He knew he shouldn’t have been so amused. He was supposed to be suspicious, vigilant. But watching her moments ago, with her head briefly tilted toward the sky in frustration and her hands planted on her hips, Reid found himself less focused on the questions that had driven him to Una’s cottage and more drawn to the woman fumbling through life in a time and place not her own.
Perhaps it was that very struggle that fascinated him the most.
“Ye ken she’s dangerous?” Una asked when Reid’s brief recollection had delayed him from stating his business.
“Nae. Nae dangerous,” he clarified swiftly, looking away from the accusing stares of the children. “I’d nae have asked ye to host Charlotte, Una, if I kent she were dangerous. I dinna ken she’s here to hurt anyone. I’d nae let that happen, especially nae to ye or the bairns.”
Una didn’t respond, just gave a small nod, her face unreadable as she waited for him to continue.
“Although...aye, I have some questions about the lass,” Reid began awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. “Does she ever leave the house at odd hours? Slip away without guid cause?” At Una’s hardened expression, Reid explained as much as he was willing to. “I dinna want to believe she’s up to anything, but I canna shake the feeling that she might be. I’m trying to protect my clan. I need to ken if there’s anything I’m missing—”
“This have anything to do with Angus’s yarn?” Una asked, possibly less concerned by what that suggested than by Reid’s vocalized distrust of Charlotte. “That business about persons creeping round late at night? Speaking English, the auld goat claims?”
“It might,” Reid acknowledged.
Una’s gaze did not soften even as she studied him and seemed to weigh his words carefully. “And what? Ye expect me to spy on her?”
Reid met her eyes without blinking, his annoyance growing, despite how much he appreciated Una’s defense of Charlotte and the small hint of outrage on her behalf that he sensed. “I’m asking ye if she disappears without cause or goes places she has nae guid reason to be.”
“I dinna ken the lass, but from what she’s shown me in a fortnight,” Una answered curtly. “And nae any of it raised my hackles, laird. Aye, she’s gone out on her own—I’m nae her keeper. Am I meant to be? Strange, is it nae, the most dubious she acts is after any encounter with ye.” She lifted her thick brows and stared down her laird. “Should I be questioning what goes on between ye and her, that she is left flustered, and with boiling emotions, or is sometimes as giddy as a hog at feeding?”
“There is nae cause for ye to question me,” Reid ground out, really frustrated for having the tables turned on him.
“Aye but ye go on, then, with yer suspicions of the lass. Lost soul, she is, and suffering some deep trauma and yer questionable intent toward her dinna help her at all. But aye, ye keep supposing she’s out to get ye. Dinna look at anyone else. If that auld goat actually saw what he saw, there’s about ten different ones I’d suspect of collusion ere I judged the lass. And ye’re nae simpleton, so what’s this about? Are ye worried about her, for her sake? Are ye wondering if she’ll do ye wrong, same as that other one did? Och, dinna look so aggrieved—there isnae a person who dinna ken that sorry tale, or for that matter, ken better than ye, that ye dodged an arrow there.”
Unable to prevent it, Reid widened his eyes and lifted his brows at Una’s unexpected tirade, at her bold mention of Elspeth.
“Only time she’d caused me to wonder,” Una continued, her tone still curt, “had her off about a nuisance, sending yer barber-surgeon over here on a pointless mission. Aye, but guid intentions had she, only she dinna ken who’s who and what’s what. Then she was lost, but ye found her—did ye catch her in the act? Meeting with unsavories? Traitors? Nae, ye dinna. Ye found an innocent lass, witless with fright for being lost so far from the keep, nae believing anyone would care enough to even search for her. And when she was nae recounting the trauma of being lost for all those hours, she’s wearing that ridiculous face of hers, that preoccupied expression—bluidy hell, that lass is daft—telling me how ye found her—ye, the laird—how ye saved her, she says.” Una snorted her contempt. “Laird or nae, get out,” she surprised him by commanding, waving her hand toward the door. “Get out of my house with yer barmy suspicions. I’ll hear nae more of it. Charlotte dinna leave at odd hours. She dinna slink off into the night, if that’s what ye’re asking. She keeps the same hours we all do. Stays put when she’s supposed to, and she’s guid with the bairns.”
Reid clenched his jaw, his discomfort growing, but tried to salvage what he could of this encounter. “Ye understand I canna take anything lightly, I canna overlook even what might seem small, harmless happenings. I’ve an entire clan to protect. I canna be careless—”
“Aye, aye,” Una said impatiently, dismissing him with another wave of her hand. “Save that rubbish for ears that’ll believe it. Dinna fear, I’ll say naught to the lass 'bout this. I willna tell her that while she’s mooning hopelessly over ye—worthlessly, it turns out—ye’re a pigheaded bull suspecting her of treachery.Jesu, how have ye nae learned to read people by now? At the verra least, have ye nae realized? With the lass, what ye see is what ye get. Ye might better turn yer suspicions towardyer own keep, laird, if yer wanting to discover those sneaking about, up to nae guid.”
Reid stiffened, her reprimand striking a nerve, her scanty indictment of something afoot inside Kingswood rousing his anger. He straightened his shoulders, offering a brief nod before turning to leave, the weight of her personal observation stinging him. Reid reached for the door, feeling as if he’d just been subjected to a tongue-lashing from his own mother, who had nothing on Una’s command of haughty reprimand.
