He felt her body relax into his, curling against him, as her breathing became deeper and slower. With her there, he felt safe somehow and he let sleep overtake him.
Upon waking on the fourth morning of their marriage, Athdar found his wife next to him, no screaming, no chaos, and decided he liked it more than he thought he would.
* * *
She felt much better this morn, better in fact than she expected to, but not so well that she did not take advantage of a few extra minutes of dozing comfortably in the warmth of Athdar’s embrace. Isobel felt the moment when his body awakened and then when his mind did. It would be difficult not to notice such a thing when lying like this. When she was certain he no longer slept, she spoke.
‘You slept?’ she asked softly.
‘Aye,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘And you? How do you fare this morn?’
She turned on her back then and looked at him. The terrible, haunted expression was gone and, though he’d slept for some hours, he still looked exhausted. With too many tasks left undone, she knew he would never remain abed.
‘Were the repairs finished?’ she asked, sliding to the side of the bed and regretting it immediately as the cold air in the chamber surrounded her instead of Athdar’s warmth. She went to the trunk that remained in this room and took another borrowed gown from it. She really must see to her own wardrobe soon. ‘And the barns?’
‘Connal is an excellent carpenter. He directed the building of the framework so the others could add work on the walls. The cottages will stand another winter’s assault and we now have more space for the additional crops harvested.’
He got out of bed and stretched to his full height. They’d awoken in the same position as they’d slept, so he was, no doubt, stiff from being in one position. She rolled her neck a few times, working out the spasms there. A soft knock on the door was followed by Glenna’s voice.
‘Lady?’ she asked. ‘I’ve laid out water to wash in the laird’s chamber. Do you have need of anything else?’
Isobel opened the door a crack. ‘Nay, Glenna. My thanks for remembering. I will see you in the hall.’
‘You already have retrained my servants?’ She met his gaze and did not see anger or irritation in his eyes. ‘That did not take long.’
‘I have found that, with few exceptions, your people would have seen to your care if you had let them.’
He winced.
‘And that they have been well trained, but not allowed to perform their duties.’
Another wince as the truth struck home. He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
‘I am gladdened then that my lady wife has freed them from the oppression of their laird and allowed them to work,’ he said. His mouth curved into a smile, not the terribly wicked one that made her want to touch her mouth to his and taste it. Nay, this one was genuine and it warmed her heart.
She decided she liked marriage if it meant moments like this between them.
‘I am going to dress and will see you in the hall?’ she asked.
At his nod, she left and went to his chamber to wash and dress. The first day of her courses were always the worst and she felt better now knowing that was past. Just as Athdar and the men had things to accomplish, so did she...and the women of the village and keep.
It was time to make her first significant change and she hoped he would support her in it.
* * *
Is he finally remembering?
Could he be?
’Tis too late now to save the others....
Or himself.
The last death was not pleasing.
The next one will protect the secret.
And the last one?
Him...
Or her?
Chapter Eighteen
He’d seen her in the village as she approached each of the women involved, but she avoided speaking to him while she was planning this change. She’d discovered that the four weavers, all widows with children, each worked separately in their own cottages. During the winters, they could be isolated for weeks at a time due to the storms.
That did not sit well with her.
So, after speaking to Nessa and Jean, her plan was to move them to live in the keep, at least during the winter, and to build a weaving corner in the hall where they could work together. Their children would be kept close, the older ones given chores, and it would benefit everyone. After Athdar’s comments about Connal’s skill, she approached him to build some screens that could be used to separate the area off from the rest of the hall, making it like a separate room. If this all worked, she would ask Athdar about building a place for them within the walls.
Her dowry, once settled on him, could pay for that and more.
Like another tower where they could have their own chambers, leaving the rooms on the second storey to others and other uses.
Maybe even to build a keep big enough to be named.
But, the dowry was dependent on her father’s approval and she did not want to think about that just yet. For now, she wanted to concentrate on what she could change and that was the weaving.
Connal promised to send his assistant to measure for the screens and Isobel planned to use some of the tapestries she’d found that could not be completely saved or repaired. Cutting them down, she could use the pieces on wooden frames for screens.
Her plans now in place, all she had to do was convince Athdar to permit the changes. As she waited for him to arrive for supper, she decided to use his sister’s approach—beg forgiveness rather than ask permission. It would take several more days before it could be accomplished, so she kept it to herself and engaged the servants and others involved to keep her surprise.
* * *
Athdar sat next to her at table and studied her face.
She was up to something. Just as he knew when Jocelyn had some plot underway, so did he know with his wife now. He could demand the truth, even force the servants—who wore the very same expression—to reveal it, but Athdar sensed that she, and they, were trying to please him.
How could he be mean-spirited and not allow them that?
Uneasy, he glanced around the hall to see if there was anything different there. Her loom had been moved aside. The tables used for supper moved forwards. Nothing else.
Isobel smiled at him then and he wanted to kiss her. He leaned closer and when she did not move away, he touched his mouth to hers. For a moment, she opened to him and he deepened the kiss, sliding his hand up under her veil to hold her head to his. Then the growing silence around them forced him to stop. Once conversations had been resumed around the table, he whispered to her.
‘Will it be painful, this change you are planning to make?’
She startled and then laughed at his words, not misunderstanding them at all. Then Isobel shook her head.
‘Not painful at all...for me.’
He took her hand in his under the table and stroked it until she shivered. ‘A hint, mayhap? A small one to put my mind at ease?’
‘Nay, Athdar. Everyone is under pain of death if they speak of it before it is complete.’
‘I will ask Glenna,’ he said, acting as though he would stand. She clasped his hand and pulled him back down.
‘She will not speak of it.’
‘Laria, then?’ He looked around for the healer, but she was nowhere to be seen.
‘Laria knows nothing of it.’ A smug little smile curved her lips. She still did not release his hand.
‘I see I will have to challenge you to a game of chess, then, for the answer.’
Her body reacted to those words in a most appealing way. He watched as a shiver of anticipation shook her. Her skin, from the neckline of her gown up through her face, blushed and he was torn apart with the need for her.
�
��I think not,’ she said. He felt her hand and the leg on which it rested entwined with his grow warm in reaction to her memories of the boons claimed.
‘I think I will reserve those games for other purposes,’ he said. ‘For other nights.’ He lifted their hands up and kissed hers. ‘For this, I suspect waiting is my only option.’
He heard her expel the breath she’d been holding within and watched as she nodded.
‘I think you may have ruined chess for me,’ she admitted, her voice breathy and soft.
‘Oh, nay, Isobel. I think that once the purpose of our game has been met, we will be able to play again.’ She met his gaze then and he saw no hint of fear there. Nothing but curiosity and desire lay in her blue-green eyes and he had only to wait on her word. ‘You will tell me when I can challenge you?’
‘Aye, Athdar,’ she whispered back. He was about to kiss her again when Padruig called out to him.
‘Let the lady eat, Athdar. Give her some peace!’ his friend called down the table to him.
The hall filled with the laughter of friends and family and Athdar leaned back and allowed her to finish her meal. They had accepted her as their lady, even helping her in whatever scheme this was she had planned.
He had not told her about the morning in the yard when she’d stopped him from fighting. Though he battled six, including his closest friend, dozens had challenged him as her champion over his treatment of her. Dozens had taken her side, believing he had wronged her in the most grievous of manners.
So, this banding together to help her in her plans did not surprise him at all. Not at all.
‘Is there much more to do in the village?’ she asked, as she put her spoon and napkin on the table. Being the last one eating, she signalled for the table to be cleared away. ‘The old ones say storms are on the way soon.’
‘Nay. With the barns done and harvest in, only the butchering and preserving.’
She shuddered then, a look of disgust distorting her lovely face. ‘I am fortunate that Broc wishes to oversee that duty.’
She glanced around the hall then, looking for someone.
‘Who do you seek?’
‘Ailis. I asked her to sup with us.’
‘Ailis?’
His eyes went dark and then empty. There was no recognition of the name she’d said at all in them. Watching him, she was reminded of the same kind of blank expression during their chess game here in the hall. He’d been telling her about the strife between him and her father and he had drifted away in his thoughts for a moment when his eyes took on this very empty stare.
‘Athdar,’ she said quietly so as to not draw the attention of the others at table. She put her hand on his leg and squeezed it. ‘Athdar.’
It took a short bit of time before he came back to himself. He blinked several times and then frowned at her. ‘Who were you looking for?’ He glanced around the hall then, clearly not remembering what she’d said.
‘Ailis, Robbie’s wife,’ she said, watching him closely this time.
‘I do not see her,’ he said.
‘I wonder if she has family to help her through the winter?’ she asked, still observing him closely. ‘I did hear her mention a son, but no others?’
‘Ailis is a MacDougal, from Lorne,’ he finally said. ‘She may decide to return to her family there.’
Did he even realise the break in his words? That, for more than a moment, he was gone? Lost somewhere in his thoughts or memories? So lost, he did not even know it happened?
Looking around, she was certain that no one else noticed it but her. He shook himself as though waking and stood, holding out his hand to her.
They went to his chamber and he took notice of all the small changes she’d made there. She lay in his bed that night, wrapped in his arms, but slept little.
Something was wrong here. Something was wrong with Athdar and no one else seemed to notice it.
Isobel knew with a soul-deep certainty that she had to get to the bottom of it. But if he did not know that something was awry, who could she ask for help?
Laria. Laria had lived here for decades. Surely, if there was a problem, she would know. When the sun rose the next morning, Isobel decided she would ask the healer.
And Broc. He was the same age as Athdar. He’d grown up in the keep with his father, the last steward. It was possible he would know.
With her purpose set—help Athdar whether he knew he needed it or not—she closed her eyes and sleep came.
* * *
Rains arrived instead of the dawn, making all but work inside the keep difficult, if not impossible. Unable to see to moving the looms, Isobel remained inside, claiming some fabric from Coira’s trunks and cutting out two new gowns for herself. Her skills were practiced enough to make plain, working gowns, but to make something more ornate, she would need help.
For Athdar, she planned three more shirts and pairs of trews, for he wore his clothing out quickly. The weavers and seamstresses would have plenty of work to do over the winter to get everyone who depended on the laird for the living dressed as they should be.
When she went to speak to Laria, the woman was not in her workroom. Broc, too, was not in the keep, helping with something in the village. Her decision to speak to them would have to wait.
* * *
For the next two days, everyone worked at their own tasks, but Isobel did manage to have several men disassemble the four looms in the various cottages and bring the pieces to one of Broc’s storage rooms so they were ready to be put back together. Then, taking advantage of his absence on the third day when he and Padruig rode to a nearby village, everything was done, the screens assembled and everyone waited for his return.
Since her courses had finished and there was plenty of time before Athdar was expected back, Isobel had a bath sent up to their chamber. After the hard work of the last few days, the steaming water felt wonderful, soothing away her aches and pains. She thought she might have fallen asleep, only to be awakened by the sound of the door opening and closing behind her. Expecting Glenna to come and help her wash her hair, the deep voice that spoke surprised her.
‘Lass, what did you do to my hall?’
She startled and began to stand before remembering that she was naked in a tub. Isobel sank down in the water as low as she could and waved him out. ‘Athdar, I am bathing,’ she screeched.
‘I can see that, Isobel,’ he said as he walked around to the front of the tub, making no attempt at all to avert his gaze from all that she exposed in her position. ‘Even better, I can see you.’
He reached into the water and touched her leg, sending shivers and chills along it in spite of the steaming heat in the water. Then he encircled her ankle with his fingers and began to lift her leg from the water. She grabbed the sides of the tub to keep her head from going under the water. She realised that the easiest way to keep herself balanced was to let him do it, so she did.
Until he picked up the washing cloth that lay next to the tub, she had no idea of his true purpose. Then he dipped it into the bowl of soft soap and began to spread the lather on her leg. He crouched down, attending to the task with more seriousness than she knew he felt, never moving his gaze from her leg.
He was playing a game with her—she knew it. He was going to continue until she stopped him. How did she play this?
Isobel was going to stop him, but the pure pleasure of his touch, sliding the cloth along her skin, enticed her. Did she act the maiden with him, demur, and object? Or did she allow him what he so clearly wanted? And what her body demanded of her, too?
‘Athdar?’ she said, shifting so he could lift her leg higher. Then his fingers reached her thigh, kneading the muscles gently with the soapy cloth, and she lost the power to think.
‘Isobel?’ he replied though he asked no question.
> ‘May I have a boon even if we do not play chess?’ She stopped talking then, stopped breathing, she thought, as well, as one of his fingers grazed the place between her legs. Her breath hitched and that place ached as she waited for him to move his fingers again.
‘A boon, wife?’ He took his hand away then and she almost screamed and dragged it back to where she wanted it most. ‘Have you done something that should be rewarded?’ He left her leg up on the side of the tub and reached for the other. When she lifted it herself, opening her legs and most every bit of her to his gaze, he laughed. ‘Oh, aye, you have.’
She wanted to let her head fall back and simply enjoy the riotous sensations he was causing, but she could not. First, before this could go anything further, was the matter of...
‘I want you to bed me,’ she said, forcing herself to speak when she wanted to moan as his hand moved on her other leg now.
‘Lass, I do not think you have to ask me for that boon,’ he said, his voice now a husky whisper.
‘That is not the boon,’ she said, gasping as the cloth moved higher and higher. Her body answered by arching almost into his hand. ‘I need to tell you something first. Before it is too late.’
‘Oh, Isobel, it was too late when I walked in this chamber.’
He stopped then and stared at her as he stood and walked behind her once more. The heated breath on her neck was the only warning before his hands began moving down her shoulders towards her...
‘Athdar! My boon!’ she gasped as she caught hold of his hands and stopped them. ‘You must know the truth. I will not deceive you about this any longer.’
He did stop then, lifting his hands and walking back to where he could see her face. His expression grew guarded and he looked ready to face some grave disappointment.
‘Tell me your truth, Isobel.’
Sitting there, naked in the water before him, and telling him this secret that stood between them was terribly uncomfortable for her. She brought her legs back into the water and thought on how to make him understand.
‘I am still a virgin, Athdar.’ The truth, plain and clear.
The Highlander's Dangerous Temptation Page 17
