“Because I’m yer cousin and me da makes ye,” Payton said with a laugh as he stepped to the edge of the lake of mud and extended his hand out to the Wolf.
Claray stared at the men with silent surprise. She’d heard the other men call the fair-haired man Payton. It was the only reason she’d known his first name. But now she’d been given his clan name and was a bit shocked by it. Payton MacKay.
Laird MacKay was a dear friend to her father and frequent visitor to MacFarlane. But while his wife and youngest daughter, Kenna, occasionally accompanied him on his visits, his older children, a son and married daughter, Annella, didn’t. However, now that the name MacKay had been mentioned, she recalled that the son’s name was Payton and knew he must be Laird Ross MacKay’s son and heir. And the Wolf was apparently a cousin to him. Was he a MacKay, then, too? she wondered. The songs about him claimed he kept his clan name secret, and most assumed it was out of shame. But there was no shame to being a MacKay. They were a fine clan.
“Lass?”
Claray blinked her thoughts away and glanced to the Wolf. He was out of the muck and on his feet now. He was also standing where Payton had been a moment before, bent at the waist and his hand held out toward her.
“Can ye reach me hand?” he asked, leaning a little more forward.
Still on her right side in the mud, Claray extended her left hand toward him. The moment their fingers met, Squeak raced up her arm and across their hands to his arm, then charged up to his shoulder to watch what followed.
Claray grimaced at the stoat’s defection and then almost groaned aloud as the Wolf began to pull. At first, her still-stuck foot prevented any movement and she briefly felt like she was on the rack. She was sure he would pull her arm right out of its socket. But then her foot popped free of her shoe and she was dragged forward through the mud. When the sloppy muck built up in front of her right shoulder as she went, she turned her head away to avoid it covering her face, but a moment later she was free and being lifted to her feet to stand barefoot in the grass in the middle of the four men.
“Well,” Roderick said after a moment of silence had passed. “I’m thinking ye’ll both want a bath ere traveling any further.”
The Wolf frowned at the suggestion, and said, “We can bathe when we reach MacFarlane. The mud’ll dry and fall off on the way.”
“Aye,” Payton agreed with a grimace. “But will the stench fall away with it? We still have another day and part o’ a night at least ere we reach MacFarlane. I do no’ ken about you, but I would no’ be able to stand that smell fer an hour, let alone a day or two.”
When the Wolf’s shoulders sagged with defeat, Roderick said, “There’s a river just a half an hour’s ride from here. Hopefully, the worst o’ the muck will dry and fall away by the time we get there and then the two o’ ye can bathe away the rest.”
“Aye,” the Wolf said with resignation, and then took Claray’s arm to escort her back to his horse, but the back of her gown was heavy and wet with mud, and her feet were bare. After half a dozen stumbling steps, he simply scooped her up into his arms. The moment he did, Squeak scrambled down his body to hers and disappeared inside her gown again. She felt him squirm around between her breasts, finding a comfy spot, and then glanced up to see Payton walking beside them, staring wide-eyed at where the stoat had disappeared.
Catching her eye he grinned. “I did wonder where ye kept him hidden all the time. Now I ken.”
“Aye, now ye ken,” the Wolf growled with irritation. “So ye can stop ogling the lass. She’s betrothed to another.”
Claray turned to him with surprise. “Nay. I’m no’. Remember? I told ye. I was betrothed to Bryson MacDonald, but he and his parents were murdered while I was still a bairn. I ha’e no betrothed now.”
“See. She has no’ betrothed now,” Payton said cheerfully, and then confided to her, “Fortunately enough, m’lady, neither ha’e I. Mayhap we should get to know each other better and see if we would no’ suit each other.”
“Oh.” Claray’s eyes went wide and she could feel herself flushing with embarrassment as she tried to think what to say. Payton MacKay was a handsome man and seemed good-natured, but she hadn’t even considered him as a betrothed ere his bringing it up. In truth, she hadn’t thought about marrying anyone in years. She’d actually resigned herself to never getting wed and simply taking care of her father, younger siblings and MacFarlane until her dying days.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to say anything in the end since the Wolf suddenly started to move much more swiftly, leaving the other man behind. She could have sworn she heard him growl as he did it too. But perhaps she’d imagined that, Claray decided as they reached his mount and he set her down while he climbed into the saddle and then pulled her up before him again. He was urging the mount to move before the other men had even caught up or mounted.
Much to Claray’s relief, Roderick had been right and they reached a clearing on the edge of a river some thirty minutes later. She did not think she could have withstood their combined stench much longer. Truly, they both smelled so rank her stomach had heaved a time or two as they rode.
Claray expected the Wolf would dismount in the clearing and escort her to a private spot along the river and then leave her to bathe. He didn’t. He reined in briefly in the clearing to bark orders, asked her to retrieve Squeak from her gown and then took him from her and passed the small stoat to Hamish along with the skin of milk and the linen-wrapped meat Squeak ate. The man, already burdened down with the bunny sling and the swaddled fox, accepted everything with a resigned expression, and then the Wolf urged his horse to move and steered him down to the river’s edge before following it away from camp.
Claray remained silent and peered around with interest as they rode for another couple of minutes, and then the Wolf brought his mount to a halt again, dropped the reins, scooped up Claray and slid off of his horse with her in his arms. She expected him to set her down then, but instead he carried her to the river’s edge and beyond. He was knee-deep in the water before she realized his intentions and began to protest.
“Nay, m’laird. Ye can no’—Ahhh!” she cried out, her arms tightening around his neck as she pulled herself up, curling around his head in an effort to escape the cold water when he dropped to sit down in it.
Laughing, he unlocked her arms from around his neck, and forced her to sit in his lap as the water rushed around them.
“Why?” she gasped with amazement, huddling close to the heat emanating from his chest as she shivered in his arms.
“Our clothes need a good cleaning too,” he pointed out. “We may as well get the worst o’ the mud off ere we bathe.”
Claray merely shook her head at his reasoning, thinking it was madness. He obviously had no idea how heavy and hampering a gown was when wet. She’d be lucky if she did not drown in it. Although ’twas just as likely she would freeze to death first the water was so cold, she thought grimly.
“Whist! ’Twill warm quickly,” he assured her, wrapping his arms around her and holding her close as her teeth began to chatter.
Claray just buried her face in his neck and waited for what he promised to happen. She was so distracted with the cold that it took her several minutes to notice that he was running his hands down her back, scraping away the worst of the muck into the water and letting the river carry it away. Unfortunately, while the mud had dried and flaked away from both their faces as they’d traveled here, that was all that had happened. Riding as they had with her muddy back to his muddy chest, it hadn’t dried there on either of them, at least not where their bodies had met, and there was a good deal of it still coating her gown.