Forever Her Champion by Suzan Tisdale Page A

was?” she asked, arching a pretty brow.
    He was forced to clear his throat of the guilt before answering. “Ye had been annoyin’ me fer days. I ken now ye meant no harm, but it seemed as though every time I turned around, there ye were. Right under my feet.”
    Arching her other brow, she silently bade him continue.
    “I had been tryin’ to get Maire MacPherson to kiss me. Ye happened by when I had convinced her of goin’ behind the baker’s hut with me. I was mightily angry with ye.”
    Regret and embarrassment filled her eyes. “I ne’er knew!”
    Aiden gave her a shrug as he led the horse off the road. “It matters nae now, lass.”
    A sudden thought occurred to her then, one she did not want to give any credence. Still, the question was out before she could stop it. “Were ye tryin’ to drown me?”
    Aghast at the notion, Aiden pulled their mount to a halt. “Of course nae!” he replied. “I would ne’er have harmed ye!”
    “Then why did ye do it? Offer to teach me to swim?” she asked, bemused.
    He felt his face grow red with shame. “I thought if I convinced ye to jump into the loch bare arsed naked, ye might be so appalled or frightened that ye’d go away and leave me be for a spell.”
    Rianna thought back to that day. Never once had she ever been frightened when she was with him. On the contrary, she had felt nothing other than safe and cared for. “But it did nae work. I stripped out of me dress before ye could think what to do.”
    Smiling deviously, he said, “Aye. And ye scared the bloody hell out of me. I thought for certain should anyone happen along and catch me with a naked little girl, I’d have my hide carved from my flesh.”
    Rianna laughed and turned away, happy that he had finally broken his vow of silence. “I have ne’er, nae once, been afraid in yer presence. Back then, I would have believed anything ye told me, so in love with you was I.”
    In love with me? Astonished, he could think of no intelligent or thoughtful response. Nay, he told himself. She was not in love with him now. She was simply explaining how she felt about him when they were children. ’Twas the only plausible explanation.

    * * *
    G ood Lord , had she truly said what she thought she had? Embarrassed, she felt her face burn as red and as bright as a summer sunset. Mayhap he hadn’t heard her, but his strained silence said he had.
    “Why have we left the road?” she asked by way of changing the subject.
    “We need to make camp,” he replied.
    She took note of the deep timbre of his voice. Had she gone mad or did his voice sound as divine and warm as soaking in a hot, steamy bath? For the first time in her life, she was afraid of him. Not necessarily of him bringing her any true, physical harm. But what he could do to her heart if he were to continue speaking with that decadent, magnificent tone. Or mayhap she was afraid of herself.
    Deep into a dense thicket, they made camp in a small clearing. That night, they dined quietly on the grouse he had caught, and the sweet blaeberries and wild lettuce she had managed to find whilst foraging. ’Twas not a supper fit for a king, but for two hungry young people, ’twas a feast.
    They spoke very little to one another that night, each lost in their own thoughts and worries.
    Aiden worried over how his heart was beginning to soften toward the beautiful woman sleeping peacefully on the other side of the fire. Was he a fool to allow his heart and mind to wonder to images of a wee cottage somewhere remote and peaceful? Was he a fool to wish for a wife and bairns of his own? A simple life, an ordinary existence?
    Nay, those things, that life, was not for him, no matter how he hungered for them. Too many people had died at his hands. He’d committed far too many unforgivable sins. Things he doubted any of the gods would ever forgive him for. Why would they reward him for such sins, such crimes?
    Rianna feigned sleep as she worried over her father and Aiden. Was