Page 26 of Love with a Scottish Outlaw
“And I don’t want to be yet another person you have to take care of,” she added bitterly. “You believe I’m telling the truth about my memory now. Maybe it will help if you let me go outside occasionally.”
“’Tis dangerous.”
“So it’s dangerous for all these people you care for, but too dangerous for me?”
His frown deepened. “They know what they’re doing and how to protect themselves.”
She felt a touch of fear. She didn’t know anything at all about herself. But . . . maybe it was more than what he was saying. After all, most women had to be protected.
“Your camp is well guarded, I assume, so it can’t be just that,” she mused, then met his gaze decisively. “You don’t want me to know where we are. You’re in hiding, and you can’t trust a stranger in your midst with your secrets.”
He said nothing, but he didn’t need to. It was too obvious.
“I want to be angry with you, but I can’t,” she said tiredly. “I’m an unknown risk. I could have family worried about me, searching for me, risking your encampment. Or maybe I don’t,” she added with frustration.
“I am certain you have people who care about your welfare,” he said. “You were finely dressed.”
“That means nothing. I could be wealthy and be totally alone in the world.”
She paused, and another uncomfortable silence settled between them, full of possibilities and danger and yearning. She saw him glance at his paper and discarded quill, knew he wanted to finish whatever he’d been doing—that he wanted to be rid of her and this . . . feeling between them that could not be.
Then she saw the shirt on his bed, and suddenly fitting it to him seemed far too intimate and uncomfortable a task. But how could she return to the women with it unfinished, especially after all this time had passed with him alone? She might not remember much, but she remembered how a woman’s reputation could be so important.
She picked up the shirt. “If you give me your back, I’ll hold this up and do a rough measurement.”
He eyed the shirt dubiously.
“It is a fine piece of workmanship,” she said, letting her fingers brush the embroidery at the cuffs. “A woman who cared about you sewed this.”
“A long time ago.”
“Which is probably why it no longer fits.”
He turned around, presenting her with his wide shoulders beneath his coat and the excess plaid. She held the shirt up, attempting to match the seams where she guessed his shirt was.
With a muffled sound of impatience, he let down his excess plaid, leaving it to hang from his belt, as he removed his coat. She felt another thrill of both anxiety and eagerness. But he left his shirt on, and she should be relieved, she told herself.
Beneath the shirt, his flesh was warm, the muscles hard. She tried to concentrate on how much she needed to let out the seams, but she kept imagining him removing the shirt, touching him, tasting him—
Tasting him! Where had such a shocking thing come from? She was so glad he wasn’t looking at her scarlet face.
Clearing her throat, she tried to speak normally. “Did your mother make this shirt for you? Or perhaps a sister?”
“My mother died many years ago, and my sisters are older and married with their own households.”
“Aunts? Grandmothers?”
“None I saw frequently.”
“Brothers?”
“Just me.” He looked over his shoulder at her. “Is that a problem?”
“No! Not at all, it just sounds lonely.”
“Perhaps ye know from experience.”
She sighed. “Maybe I do, but it’s just a feeling, not an actual memory.”
