“Like me?” Freya pulled away slowly.
Marian drew the cloaks over herself once more and nodded with a smile. “Aye. I imagine him being like ye – able to take on anything.”
“I dinna deserve a sister as good as ye,” Freya said for the third time.
“Aye.” Marian put her hands on Freya's cheeks. “Ye do.” She glanced behind Freya's shoulder to the open door of the barn and grinned. “I need to get back to the house.”
Freya looked at her in confusion before glancing over her shoulder to find Ewan standing there. And damn it all if her heart didn't give a silly leap of excitement at the sight of her pretend husband.
***
Ewan couldn't help the smile on his face as he regarded Freya standing in the center of the barn. Her simple black cloak made the fairness of her skin as white as fresh snow and the rosy freckles he adored stand out even more.
He nodded at Marian as she passed with a secret smile playing on her lips. She put a hand to her belly in a gentle caress, and he knew she'd seen him watching.
He'd been there when Freya had touched Marian's stomach, and when her wonder-filled voice echoed through the large, open space. He knew how great a step Freya had made in loving the growing child, and he knew how much that meant to both women.
“Good afternoon, husband.” Freya emphasized the word husband and cocked a hand on her hip. “Should ye no' be in bed?”
“I canna take being there anymore.”
“Should ye no’ be with yer Ma?” she teased.
It was true, when he wasn’t lying abed, he’d been in his mother’s company. She had been reluctant to let him out of her sight, through fear, through love. And she knew he was keeping a secret.
He couldn’t bring himself to tell her about having left the Black Watch, even though he suspected she knew. She hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t told. Perhaps they both felt the ghost of his father’s crimes pressing upon them.
Ewan held his stomach. “If she makes me drink any more tea, it'll spill from my bullet wound.”
Freya gave a lovely, throaty laugh. “I dinna know that I can fix something like that.”
“Speaking of the wound, it's feeling much better. Whatever was in the poultice helped.” He eyed her. “How do ye know so much?”
She shrugged off the compliment. “Well, I wouldna say I know so much, but ye canna have an ill mother and run a brothel without learning a bit as ye go.”
“I heard ye got a letter.” He glanced at her empty hands.
She pulled it from the depths of a pocket and pushed it back in. “Everything is fine there.”
“But ye canna go back,” he surmised.
“Aye.” Freya shifted her gaze away, but not before he caught the flash of regret.
Regret at having lost Molly's for the time being? At being here instead? At having saved him?
He should apologize for the kiss again. He'd been so foolish to have kissed her at all, after what she'd done for him and his mother.
“Thank ye,” he said instead. “For what ye've given up to save us.”
Freya nodded. “Ye were right,” she said softly. “About the babe.”
“I saw ye touching Marian’s stomach.” Ewan stepped closer. “I’m proud of ye.”
Freya’s cheeks colored a soft pink. “Aye, well, it was a good idea. To try.” She looked up at him. “Thank ye for talking some sense into my head.”
“It made her verra happy.”
Freya smiled softly to herself. “Aye, I think it did.”
Ewan stared down at the woman he’d slept next to for the last four long nights without touching. But God, how he’d wanted to touch. To caress. To kiss.
Freya watched him carefully. “And ye were right about me.” She spoke in such a quiet tone, it didn’t echo in the large, empty building. “I'm holding on to the horror of it all, regretting my inability to help.”
He put a hand to her shoulder blades. “Come into the house and we'll talk. Captain Crosby is gone, if that's why ye're here.”
She looked around, her gaze drifting around the room. Ewan did the same, taking in the empty stalls cleared of any hay, the rusting tools lining the wall and leaning against one another in dilapidated resignation.
“That's no’ why I'm here,” she said. “Do ye ever...” She shook her head. “...feel like ye need purpose?”
Ewan crossed his arms and lifted his brow in her direction. “The only thing I have in my life right now is my mother and a fake name.”
Freya lowered her head and chuckled. “Aye, foolish of me.”
“Did ye have something in mind?” he queried.
He hoped to God she did. After a lifetime of rigorous training, of early morning drills and late night guard posts, this sedentary life was making his blood go thick in his veins and his mind whirl in too many different, aimless directions.
She strode over to a crooked row of tools. He noticed a plough of some sort, a scythe, and several other farming tools. “Do ye believe in second chances? Third chances even?”
“I believe in as many chances as it takes. I'm a soldier.” The phrase died on his tongue. Because he wasn't a soldier anymore. He was a deserter. A traitor.
He clenched his jaw.
Fortunately, Freya did not appear to notice the slip. She stroked a hand lovingly over the handle of a spade, the wood appeared to have long ago turned gray and split in several places. “We need all the chances we can get to make this work again.”
Ewan lifted the scythe and examined the dull, rusted blade. His side hardly hurt him despite the action, a good sign indeed. If he were careful, he could sharpen the blade to where it needed to be to slice the tender stalks of - of what?
“What will ye grow?” Ewan set the scythe aside.
“Hay.” Freya's tone was quiet with the weight of something he didn’t know. “I tried to do it once on my own before, and it was possible with several servants for only one season before the weather turned bad.”
“Ye dinna strike me as the farmer sort of lass,” Ewan said. He tried to keep from chuckling lest he get a sharp look from her.
“But I strike ye as the madam type of lass?” She put her hand on her hip.
He shrugged. “No' in that outfit.”
She lowered her head and her gaze went warm. “Do ye like it better when I'm naked?”
The hot memory flashed in his mind of her beautifully firm, shapely body. Aye, he did like it when she was naked. He hadn’t been able to get the image from his mind. Every time he saw her, every time he closed his eyes, every time they lay beside each other in the wide expanse of the bed, neither touching the other.
And he’d thought of the kiss. The way she’d tasted sweetly of jam and tea. How lush her bottom lip had been when he’d caught it in his mouth.
An angry wave of frustration washed over him. Where was his discipline? His fortitude? She’d sacrificed everything for him and he’d taken advantage of her in her fragile emotional state.
She watched him from lowered lashes, her cheeks an even deeper shade of pink, flushing down her throat and beneath the clasp of her cloak.