The night had turned cruel after the afternoon's rain, the kind of cold that seeped through wool and linen like slow poison, settling deep in the bones. The campsite lay in a shallow dip between two low hills somewhere along the kingsroad north of the Red Fork; nothing grand, just a patch of trampled grass, a crooked hawthorn tree, and the small fire Duncan had built with patient hands. He'd split the damp logs himself earlier, cursing under his breath in that thick Flea Bottom drawl when the axe bit wrong, but the flames now stood steady, orange tongues licking the darkness, sending up thin threads of pine-scented smoke that mingled with the wet-earth smell of the ground.

You had crawled into the bedroll hours ago, head throbbing since sunrise, a dull hammer behind your eyes that no willow tea could quiet. Egg (bless the little bald imp) had eaten his salt beef and oatcakes in record time, asked permission to bed down early with a yawn that cracked his jaw, and vanished into his own blankets like a rabbit into a burrow.

Duncan had stayed up. Of course he had. You'd heard him moving about, the low creak of his weight on the ground, the soft scrape of wood against wood as he fed the fire.

Sleep had come in fits, shallow and restless. The chill kept dragging you back to the surface, your body curling tighter under the thin blankets, teeth chattering before you even registered the sound. The rain had left everything damp—the wool cloak you used as an extra layer, the straw ticking beneath you, the very air. Your fingers felt like ice, numb at the tips.

Then the blankets lifted.

A rush of cold air first, sharp against your skin, followed by the unmistakable heat of him. Duncan slid in behind you, careful, the way a man his size had to be if he didn't want to crush someone smaller. The pallet dipped under his weight; the ground seemed to sigh. His chest pressed to your back, one long arm curling around your waist, pulling you gently into the furnace of his body. He was still wearing his tunic, the roughspun linen warmed by the fire and by him, smelling faintly of woodsmoke, horse, and that clean sweat that always clung to him after a day on the road.

You let out a small, involuntary sound as the warmth began to bleed into you. It was immediate, almost shocking, like stepping from winter straight into summer. Your shivering eased, muscle by muscle, the ache in your shoulders loosening.

"Shh," he murmured against your hair, voice low and gravelly from the cold. "Got you, love. Ain't lettin' the night have you."

You turned your head just enough to catch the edge of his face in the firelight filtering through the canvas shelter.

"Head still poundin'?" he asked softly.