Highlander Unchained(57)

Her stomach gurgled and she realized that she had not eaten all day. She could go to the kitchen and get food as Cree had instructed. But it did not seem right for her to simply enter the kitchen and take what food she wanted.

She could however see if she could get Flanna’s attention and request a few items so that she could cook her own meal. Her stomach gurgled again and she smiled. She had no voice but her stomach certainly did and was protesting loudly its hunger.

With a quick deposit of her shawl to the chair and grabbing the wool cloak off the peg, she hurried out the door. She sniffed the air as she hurried to the kitchen... rain... you could smell its crisp scent and it was not far off.

Dawn smiled seeing Flanna outside the cookhouse and hurried over to her.

“Good lord, are you all right?” Flanna asked cringing at the sight of Dawn’s bruises.

A nod and a smile assured Flanna that she was fine.

“Stop your gossiping and hurry with those onions, woman,” came a rough shout from inside the kitchen.

Flanna shook her head and grabbed a basket from the stack outside the kitchen door. “Come with me so that we can talk.”

Dawn frowned and pointed to the basket as they walked to the wild onion patch in a field beyond the kitchen.

Flanna shook her head. “I am nothing more than a helper now and Turbett is not an easy task master. He works everyone until bone-tired, though I must admit that his food is quite tasty. And he is generous in feeding his helpers. But what of you?” she asked reaching out to take hold of Dawn’s hand. “Tongues are wagging about your attack and how Cree has punished Dorrie and how now you serve the—” Flanna bit her tongue.

Dawn slipped her arm free and brought her hands to her head and stuck two fingers up on either side.

Flanna nodded. “The devil.” And then whispered. “Do you serve the devil?”

Did she serve the devil? She wasn’t sure and so she shrugged and taking Flanna’s basket from her, plopped down in the field to gather wild onions, wishing to talk of anything other than Cree right now.

Flanna joined her and wisely spoke no more of Cree, but rather of Turbett and his dictatorial ways, which had Dawn smiling since he sounded not much different than Flanna when she had been in charge of the kitchen. And though her stomach continued to gurgle with hunger, she didn’t want this time with Flanna to end too soon. It reminded her of life before Cree had descended on the village and changed everything.

So she sat continuing to pick onions and smiling.

~~~

“It is done and yet you continue to fret and scowl,” Sloan said, pouring him and Cree more ale as they relaxed at the dais. “Dawn is now well protected. The villagers think that her chore is to service you.”

“A chore you say?”

Sloan laughed. “Fear is a better choice since that scowl would send any woman running in fright.”

“It didn’t send Dawn running; she bravely stood her ground fearful or not,” Cree informed him adamantly sounding as if he defended her. Not realizing it, though Sloan did.

“So then she is your woman now?”

“Yes,” Cree snapped.

Sloan leaned closer so that the nearby servants would not hear and said, “You’re a bloody liar.”

Cree’s dark eyes narrowed, his scowl vanished replaced by an ominous expression that had Sloan offering an apology of sorts.

“My tongue runs before I think.”

Cree simply nodded, more annoyed that Sloan had seen through to the truth, but he would not admit that he had yet to actually couple with Dawn, not even to Sloan. And he and Sloan had certainly shared many tales about the women they have bedded.

Dawn, however, was different and he would not discuss the intimacies of what he shared with her and sully her character any more than it was already being tarnished.

Has there been any news on the search for Seth or Goddard?” Cree asked letting Sloan know that they would talk no more of Dawn.

“Not yet, though I cannot understand why Goddard would take the chance of returning to simply attack Dawn.”

“He didn’t,” Cree said and Sloan stared at him waiting for an explanation. “Goddard and Colum are not men who would waste time on Dawn unless she had something they wanted.

Sloan nodded. “Information.”

“No doubt they thought she knew more than she had told them when I was held captive, a ruse that worked well for us, and Colum would not want to return to the Earl of Carrick without a stitch of useful information that would help the earl to regain his land.”

Sloan grinned and raised his tankard. “And little does Colum know that there is a new Earl of Carrick.”

Cree raised his tankard as well. “To us all, living and dead who helped to achieve land of our own where we will now know some peace.”