Page 45 of Highlander’s Captive

Chapter 15

Later that evening, Craig savored the hot, meaty stew, which brought him a feeling of home. His stepmother often had a stew made, and he enjoyed the hearty, filling comfort of it. The great hall droned with the voices of satisfied men, who’d eaten their first decent meal in weeks. The atmosphere was almost festive, as though there was something to celebrate.

In a way, there was. Stew. Cleanliness. A working kitchen for the first time since they’d claimed the castle.

Craig couldn’t stop staring at his beautiful wife, who sat by his side at the chief’s table. He sensed her, as though there were a warm, invisible field around her that touched him even though her body did not.

“Well. ’Tis nae poison. ’Tis the best meal I had since I left home,” Craig said.

Amy turned to him and raised her eyebrows with a half smile.

“Really?” she said. “I’m not that great of a cook. It must be your men who did that. I only organized who did what.”

“As long as ye put a meal like that on my table every day, I dinna mind who cooked it.”

“Just a little salt and some herbs, whatever I could find—”

“Salt?” Craig interrupted her. “How much salt did ye put here?”

“As much as I needed—I don’t know, a couple of spoons…”

“How could ye be so wasteful?”

“Wasteful? Why, is salt so precious—”

She stopped herself, her eyes widening as though in realization.

“Aye, mayhap ye MacDougalls swim in salt, but ’tis very costly for the rest of us.”

Craig looked for a sign of arrogance, for her to say that she didn’t care about the goods wasted, that he couldn’t forbid her to use whatever she liked no matter how dear.

“Sorry,” she said, blushing, as though she was embarrassed. “I didn’t know. I thought you’d just get more.”

Aye, the MacDougalls were a wealthier and mightier clan than the Cambels, but she must have seen there wasn’t much salt left. It was as though she had no idea this was too wasteful. As though everyone in the world could afford as much salt as they wanted. He was sure that a rich MacDougall maiden, even one raised abroad, would have known that.

“Get more where?” he asked.

She swallowed hard, panic flickering in her eyes. “I don’t know, Craig! Let’s just forget it. I won’t use salt again, all right? Anything else precious you don’t want me to use?”

“I thought ye’d be the one to tell me to be more careful with things like soap, medicinal herbs, bed linens, and clothes.”

Her face fell. “Yes. Of course. All those things.”

Something was so odd about her, as though she didn’t understand the most basic things. She didn’t seem insane to him. She’d cooked a delicious stew and helped with that girl’s arm. It was as though she just didn’t know certain things. Her manner of speech was so peculiar, Craig had never heard anyone speak like that in his life. The way she’d been dressed when he’d met her, the strange, metal object in her hand…

“Why are ye so different from anyone I ken?” he asked.

She exhaled a shaky breath. “Am I? How so?”

“I dinna mean it in a bad way. But ye dinna ken things that everyone kens. Ye speak strangely. When I met ye, ye were dressed like no one I have ever met before.”

She looked at her hands, which were flat on the table and shrugged one shoulder. “You’re not exactly the kind of man I meet every day, either.”

“And what is so different about me?”

She sighed, then met his gaze, her eyes like two dark pools of water. “Pretty much everything.”

He held her big, beautiful eyes for a moment with his, his throat going dry. Did she sound as though she liked what she saw in him? Or was he only imagining it? His mind cloudy, refusing to think, his blood hot and pumping violently, he leaned towards her.