Every Time with a Highlander by Gwyn Cready Page A

picks up what one can.”
    There was something about the way the corner of his mouth curved when he spoke that made everything he said feel like the start of an improper joke. She found herself wanting to smile even in the silences, which was very unlike her.
    â€œBut you studied under a rector or bishop, did you not?”
    â€œOh, that.” He waved a hand. “Yes, of course.”
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œIn, er, Basingstoke.”
    â€œBasingstoke? The miller here is from Basingstoke. Perhaps the two of you—”
    â€œThough I was only there for a short while,” he added hurriedly. “Bit of a kerfuffle with the chief patroness. Had to move on.”
    She gave him an interested smile. “Does kerfuffle mean what I think it does?”
    â€œBite your tongue,” he said, horrified, and she laughed. “If you knew the patroness, you would apologize at once. She’s eighty if she’s a day—though in reality, I think she’s been dipped in amber. She’s been haunting young clerics for the last several centuries at least.”
    And the wit of a courtier.
    â€œPlease accept my apology.” She bent in a makeshift curtsy.
    The farmer slowed enough to make it over a squat stone in the path without tipping his passengers onto the ground, though she slid rather indelicately into Kent’s side.
    â€œHow long do we have until your fiancé raises the alarm over your absence?” he asked, helping her regain her former position.
    â€œI can only guess.” The warmth of Kent’s hand lingered on her arm. “He wouldn’t want to be seen as a man whose lover had fled, that is certain. He’d take matters into his own hands rather than enlist help.”
    â€œAnd are you his lover?”
    The curve of his mouth was gone, replaced by curiosity and something closer to concern. “I can’t stand the man.”
    â€œIt’s none of my business, of course, but that’s not quite what I asked.”
    â€œNo,” she said. “I’m not.”
    Did she imagine his shoulders relaxing?
    â€œYet you accepted his proposal of marriage?” he said.
    The farmer, peeved by a flock of passing sheep, stopped his whistling and began to wave his stick. A necessary silence fell over the cart’s occupants. Undine adjusted her skirts, feeling Kent’s probing gaze. After a beat or two, the cart started up again, and so did “Tam Lin.”
    â€œIt has nothing to do with desire,” she said under her breath.
    â€œMoney then? Or position? You’d be Lady Bridgewater, after all.”
    He said it without judgment, just interest.
    â€œBelieve when I tell you that receiving the wifely honorific of an English title— that English title in particular—would offer me no pleasure.”
    â€œSo not for love, lust, wealth, or title. What then?”
    What could Kent know of the struggles for peace? Of men who wish that the bows and pistols in their hands would never rest? Of sons cut down at twenty or sixteen or twelve? Of the noblemen on both sides of the border who treated the centuries-old struggle like a game of cards, a pastime only for those who could afford the stakes? Nothing.
    Or could he?
    She saw compassion in those eyes as well as a desire to help, and she found herself tempted to tell him the truth.
    In a farmer’s cart? To a man you hardly know? Fool.
    â€œFor satisfaction,” she said. “Mine.”
    He turned, full face, to appraise her. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything, and Undine wondered if she’d offended him.
    â€œRevenge can be a powerful motivator,” he said at last, adding more wistfully, “I doubt you’ll find it very satisfying, though.”
    She nearly laughed. Kent thought Bridgewater was a former lover who’d slighted her. She wished to tell him it wasn’t true, that Bridgewater would be the last man in the universe she’d ever choose