Page 121 of Highland Spy

And she’d so readily rejected him.

He certainly wouldn’t make that mistake again.

From what he remembered, her horse had been closer to his. She had been closer to him.

“I’m almost certain.” Doubt faded the conviction from her voice.

“We were tired when we arrived,” he added. And distracted. But he didn’t speak the additional thought.

She frowned slightly and set her items on the floor beside an already stuffed bag.

Connor lifted the metal links from the wall to attach the loop which would connect the cart to his horse. They clinked against one another in a metallic jingle. Ariana’s horse gave an annoyed swish of her tail.

“What’s that?” Ariana asked.

He grabbed the Y-shaped bar used for keeping the cart sturdy as they rode. “A piece of a cart.”

She regarded him from the corner of her eye. “Why do we need a cart?”

“For the body,” Connor replied.

Ariana’s eyes widened. “You can’t mean we’ll be traveling with him being carted behind us.”

He nodded. “Aye, I do. If anything, it’ll decrease any chance of a robbery. Funeral parties are seldom attacked. It’s bad luck.”

Ariana opened her mouth as if she wished to say something more, but then let her lips close.

The cool air between them had grown hot with friction.

Connor straightened and regarded her with a hard stare. “Ye dinna have to come, Ariana. I can go alone.”

She gave him a narrowed expression that could only be described as shrewd. “I said I’m coming.”

“It’ll be a hard trek.” He realized he wanted her to back out of the trip with him, to find it too daunting. “We need to get there in as short a time as possible, but we canna travel as fast. That means less sleep, less rest.”

On their last trip to Urquhart, Ariana’s presence had made the return to his family’s home more bearable. The connection between them had been strong then, her regard toward him so sweet, so caring, so accepting—even after he’d told her about his da’s death.

Even after his confession about what he did for the king.

But now the connection had been snapped by his own hand, and her warmth had gone cold. It was better this way.

“Ye dinna have to go, Ariana. Ye can stay here with Liv and help her train.” His tone was urging.

“I said I’d go.” Her cheeks flared with a flush of red. She snatched up her bag from the ground and shot him a challenging look. “You can’t get rid of me that easily, Connor Grant.”

Somehow he knew she referred to more than just her involvement in this personal mission.

And somehow he knew she was entirely correct.

• • •

The body complicated everything.

Ariana let her gaze glide to the flat cart trailing behind Connor’s horse. He’d been correct. They could not travel as quickly, and they had sacrificed sleep to cover the same amount of ground. A lot of sleep.

Even more so, the body made it difficult to come up with an ideal time to slip Connor the draught.

Leaving Connor to sleep off the effects in safety while she slipped away was one thing. Leaving a body unattended was quite another.