Forever Her Champion by Suzan Tisdale

however he hadn’t truly realized until now just how cold and distant a woman she had been.
    “I still have it,” Rianna informed him. Her tone bordered on reverence.
    “Ye do?” he asked with a measure of surprise, thereby breaking his oath of silence.
    Giving a rapid nod, she turned her head ever so slightly in order to look at him. “I kept it along with the doll. ’Tis all dried out now, but I keep it wrapped carefully in a bit of linen. I carry it with me always.” He could not have known until then that the little crown of flowers was amongst her only prized and loved possessions.
    His chest squeezed once again as guilt began to creep into his bones. Had she not stolen him from the goal? A place where he surely would have died once he woke from his drunken stupor and realized he was in chains once again? Had she not taken him from Inverness? Had she not tended to his bloodied and battered face? Had she not made camp, covered him with blankets?
    And how had he shown his gratitude? He rewarded her with insults and silence.
    Suddenly, it dawned upon him that Rianna Coultier was just as lonely a soul as he. Why else would anyone keep a worn and tattered doll or a dried and crumbling crown from their youth? What else did she have? No one and nothing.
    Wanting very much to right a wrong, he decided to set his anger at himself aside and quit taking it out on the innocent lass before him. The least he could do was be polite until he dropped her on her father’s doorstep.
    “Do ye remember how I taught ye to swim?” he asked.
    At first, the sound of his voice startled her. Turning away, she giggled slightly before answering. “Aye, ye had me strip out of my clothes right before ye tossed me into the loch.” She had been as terrified as she was furious that day long ago.
    “But ye did learn to swim,” he reminded her.
    “Aye, but at the cost of my hide,” she told him.
    “What do ye mean?” he asked curiously.
    Rianna let out a heavy sigh. “When I got home, I was soaked to the bone. My mother asked why. I told her most honestly exactly what had happened. I was so proud of the fact that I could swim, I didn’t think how angry she would be.”
    Aiden could feel her tense at the memory. “I had welts on my legs and buttocks for days after.”
    Confused and repulsed at once, he asked, “She beat ye for learning to swim?”
    “Nay,” she said with a slow shake. “For bein’ naked with a lad.” It mattered not that Aiden was more a brother to her than anything. As far as Ronna was concerned, Rianna would end up whoring on the streets of Edinburgh before she reached the age of twelve if she agreed to take her clothes off in front of anyone of the opposite sex.
    “I didnae ken that, lass,” he said sorrowfully.
    “Because I didnae tell ye.”
    “Why nae?” he asked, his guilt growing by leaps and bounds.
    Turning once again in the saddle in order to face him, she answered bluntly. “Because I knew that beatin’ was nothin’ compared to what ye received at the hands of yer father.”

    * * *
    J ust when he thought he could not feel more troubled for her or that his chest could not constrict more tightly, she proved him wrong. “I fear I dunnae understand,” he whispered as he looked into bright green eyes filled to the brim with regret and pity toward him.
    “Ye had enough to worry about,” she said. “I refused to add to yer burden. Ye were my friend. Ye were quite proud that ye taught me to swim. I did nae want ye to feel any remorse for it.”
    Uncertain of what to make of her confession, he felt his heart soften toward her even more. “I am terribly sorry ye had to suffer so, simply because I behaved like an ass.”
    Those sweet lips of hers curved into a fond smile. “I did nae realize ye were bein’ an ass. I believed ye were bein’ kind in wantin’ to teach me to swim.”
    “I have a confession to make,” he said. “Teachin’ ye to swim was nae my purpose that day.”
    “What