Dread filled the men’s faces as they nodded and hurried away.
Mistress Amaranth rushed around him and directed him to a downed tree with a good-sized trunk. “Sit here and hold her until they get the fire going. Your body heat will help her.”
He eyed the spot and debated her request.
“Please!” The woman tugged on him, trying to steer him that way. “You’ve done this much to help us. All I’m asking is that you keep her warm until the fire is going. Please.” She hurried over to the trunk and cushioned where she wished him to sit with a folded blanket. Her pleading look twisted his insides. It was more than obvious that the woman feared that he didn’t have a heart and might yet abandon them.
He would prove her wrong. Settling down on the log, he gently repositioned the lass against his chest and pulled the blankets closer around her. Her shivering had stopped, but she still shifted with every breath. A good sign that the lovely but troublesome Englishwoman still lived. And he was glad. He still didn’t fully trust her, but he didn’t want her to die. He wanted her to heal so he could get to know her better. Get to know her well enough to call her Jovianna.
Chapter Three
Jovianna didn’t know which nauseated her more: her pounding head or the realization that they had somehow landed in the eighteenth century—1760, to be exact. So, she kept her eyes shut and curled tighter against the warmth of the man who couldn’t decide if he trusted them because they were English. But he had helped her. Still helped her, in fact. He patiently held her close to keep her warm until the others got the fire going.
She understood his leeriness and why he despised the English. The last fourteen years of his time would have been some of the worst in Scotland’s history. Unfortunately, more was to come. The Highland Clearances. Potato famine. She tried to remember the rest, but another wave of nausea throttled her, making her swallow hard to keep from vomiting on him a second time.
Tobias Risk fit the Gaelic moniker Diabhal Dubh-Chridhe, the Black-Hearted Devil, the name he had given them at first. Well, he sort of fit it. She hadn’t decided if his heart was black or not. Time would tell. But he did have a seductively devilish look about him. Hair darker than the blackest coal. Pale blue eyes that flashed with a fiery iciness and an unyielding gaze that burned right through you. She had no doubt he could spot a lie in an instant. Thank goodness Amaranth was a gifted storyteller able to convince any audience that up was really down.
His heart beat strong and steady beneath her cheek and hadn’t even increased in rate when he carried her out of the gorge. Taller than her five foot eleven by a good head and shoulders, the man towered over her. An unusual situation she rarely encountered. And those shoulders—broad and well muscled, with a brawniness that highlighted his tapered waist and made his swaggering gait even more impressive. She felt sure he also possessed what Amaranth would describe as delightfully climbable abs.
Every time she shuddered, he adjusted his hold as though trying to find a way to ease her misery. That made her smile. No. Tobias Risk was not a black-hearted devil. He was a wounded bear of a man trying to survive. Survive. How the bloody hell were she and Amaranth going to survive in 1760? The thought made her groan.
“Just a wee bit longer, lass. I ken ye’re cold and miserable. But with the rain starting, the fire will take some coaxing.”
“Thank you for helping us,” she whispered, fighting a sudden rising panic and the threat of tears. “I know you didn’t want to.”
“It’s not that I didna wish to help ye,” he said, then went quiet for so long that she thought the conversation over. “Scotland’s war has never ended, as some would suppose. But the difference now is we fight for our lives and our homes instead of which king sits upon the throne.”
She understood that at an academic level but knew it wasn’t the same. She also knew it wasn’t only the English to blame for the clearances. Many of the chieftains who had not had their lands seized had turned on their own people, sold them out and replaced them with sheep to cover higher taxes and maintain the lavish lifestyles to which they were accustomed. But she was only aware of this because she had read it in a book. Tobias and his kin had lived it. Were living it.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I understand that Amaranth and I are an annoyance you don’t need.”
“Ye call yer mother Amaranth?”
“That’s her name.” She tucked in closer, thankful that the man emitted the heat of a well-stoked furnace. The cool, misting rain coming down soaked everything to the bone, making the June day unseasonably chilly.
“Aye, I ken that’s her name,” he continued, apparently unwilling to let it go. “But she is yer mother.”
A heavy sigh escaped her. “When I was a young, obnoxious brat who thought I knew everything, I started calling my mother and father by their first names because I wanted to hurt their feelings. Make them think I had outgrown them and didn’t even think of them as parents. Rather than rant and rave as I had hoped they would, they both ignored it. Went on as though nothing had changed and thoroughly deflated my attempt at tormenting them. So, I went back to calling them Mother and Father. Father didn’t care what I called him as long as we continued our talks about books or history. Mother insisted I continue calling her by her first name because it not only made her feel younger but also made it easier for her to pretend I wasn’t her daughter whenever I behaved badly.”
His rumbling chuckle vibrated through her head, making it hurt worse. She clutched it with both hands, silently damning whatever rock had hit her hard enough to send her back through time and leave her so incapacitated.
“Sorry, lass. I didna mean to shake ye.” He shifted positions again and tucked the damp blankets closer around her. “Yer parents shouldha reddened yer arse for ye for being so disrespectful.”
“I suppose so. But then Amaranth wouldn’t have a way to feel younger, now would she?” She barely opened her eyes and tried to look around without moving her throbbing head. Vision still blurry, all she could make out was Tobias’s linen shirt and the scar emerging from the folds of his neckcloth. She pulled in a deep breath and was mildly surprised at his scent. She had always assumed the past reeked, for lack of a better word. But he didn’t stink. He smelled of the wide-open land. Rain. Wood smoke. And the salty, not unpleasant musk of an active man. He startled her when he rose and started walking.
“The lads built ye a bit of cover next to the fire to keep the rain off ye.” He dropped to one knee and eased her down onto a pallet inside a makeshift shelter of leafy branches woven together. As he shifted aside, the heat of the fire greeted her, but it was nothing compared to his warmth.
“Thank you. This is very nice.” She offered him a smile. “Not as warm as you, but I’m sure your arms were about to go numb from holding me.”
“My arms are fine, lass. Dinna fash yerself.” He didn’t return her smile, but his gaze didn’t seem as flinty as before. With a polite nod and touch of his hat, he rose and walked away.
Amaranth scooted into the roomy lean-to and joined her on the pallet. “How are you?” She held up two fingers. “Your vision—clear or blurry?”