I hesitated, but as a breeze whipped through the trees, I trembled and rolled over to face him. He removed a pin from his kilt and held a large portion of it over me like a cape. Thank God the kilt had enough fabric to keep him covered for I knew I wouldn’t be able to refrain from taking a looksee if it hadn’t.
I scooted until I was up against him and he could envelope me under part of his kilt. I glanced up at the dark sky to clear my head. The idea that I basically lay inside his clothes with him filled my head with impure thoughts.
Eventually, I let out a breath. With it, I realized how tense I really was. Why? I was in no danger here with him. In fact, I felt more protected than I had in ages. I pulled my eyes down from the sky to look at him. “Why did you do that?”
He reached up with his hand to brush a lock of hair from my face. “Do what, lass?”
“Suggest that he camp here with us.”
“Ye doona think that I did it so that the poor lad wouldna have to find a place to set camp after dark?”
“No.”
“I think ’twas only that I wanted to be near ye. Do ye mind lass? He’s asleep now. If ye wish to sleep on yer own, ye can.”
I opened my hands that were balled against his chest to lay them flat against him so he wouldn’t move. “No, I don’t mind.”
He leaned forward and kissed me on the forehead. “Good. Now,” he scooted away just a tad so that he could look at me more clearly. “’Tis past time that ye tell me what happened back at the castle to upset ye so and caused ye to leave before I returned for ye.”
I grimaced at the thought of it. There’d been enough activity today to distract me from thinking of the unfortunate incident. “Fine, but you have to promise that you’ll take me to Conall Castle. No matter what I tell you, you can’t decide to turn around and head back home.”
He continued to stroke my hair. “Was it really that bad? Please tell me that he dinna hurt ye. He only said something to upset ye, aye?”
I shook my head but spoke quickly to clarify. “No, he didn’t hurt me. I’m fine. I did however, hurt him quite badly.”
His eyes widened in surprise, but he said nothing so that I would continue. “Promise first. Promise that you’ll take me to Conall Castle.”
He nodded but worry filled his face. “Aye, fine lass, I promise, but spit it out.”
I didn’t want to re-hash the whole incident so I spoke quickly, just giving him the highlights. I knew he would need nothing more to get spitfire angry. “He got into the room and tried to buy me. He threw a bag of change down on the table. Although I told him I wasn’t what he thought, he planned to receive what he believed he’d purchased.”
Baodan’s hand stopped on my hair. Even in the moonlight, I could see his face grow pale.
“He didn’t touch me. I tried to take advantage of the situation and convinced him to take his clothes off first. He did and, once he was on top of me, well, I…” I found it difficult to finish. I knew he would rear back in disgust. Although I believed it had been necessary, I could hardly believe I’d done it myself.
“What did ye do, lass? Did ye kill him?”
I sat up, taken aback by his assumption. “What? No! Of course I didn’t kill him.”
He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief but pulled me close to him again and reached up to soothe me once more. “Well, if ye had, there was just cause for ye to do so. If ye dinna kill him, what did ye do?”
“I yanked on his junk so hard he passed out.”
He pulled away and sat up on his elbow so that he could look down on me. “His ‘junk’?”
I tried to gesture with my hands, but it just looked ridiculous. “You know…his balls and his…I don’t know what you call it here, his baby maker.”
A brief moment of silence followed, but he could no longer contain himself, and he erupted into the most ridiculous and inappropriate fit of laughter I ever heard.
I moved from beneath his kilt and sat with my legs crossed in front of him, staring down disapprovingly. “How is that even the littlest bit funny? If it hadn’t worked, he probably would have killed me!”
He reached out to try and grab me in between hoots of laughter but I jerked away, suddenly angry. Eventually, he pulled himself together and sat up in front of me looking guilty.
“I’m sorry, lass, truly.”
“Why were you laughing at that? It’s not funny. It was downright terrifying, and I probably did some serious damage to him.”
“’Tis no funny at all what he tried to do to ye and, believe me, Eoghanan shall no be welcome inside McMillan Castle after I return, brother or no. I only laugh because I havena ever in me life heard of a man’s dobber and bawz referred to as ye did.”
I laughed at his reference to the male anatomy. It sounded no less odd than my own to me, but I tensed suddenly as I registered the name he’d just uttered. “Wait! Did you just say E-o, I mean Eoghanan?”
“Aye, lass. I willna have him in the castle after what he did to ye.”
“But it wasn’t Eoghanan. It was Niall.”
He shifted, uncomfortably. “What did ye just say?