by Alisa Adams
Alexa shook her head and tutted.
"Really, monsieur!" she said in shocked tones, "That is very defeatist. Act like a man! Shoulders back! Chest out! You're a king!"
He laughed.
"Mam'selle Alexa." He laughed. "You make me feel like one!"
They set out the board and began to play, and it soon became clear that Auguste had meant what he said. He was not the worst player she had ever played, but he was by no means the best. She won very easily and afterward challenged him to another game.
"Mam'selle Alexa." He smiled at her sadly. "I am only a man. To be beaten by a woman is embarrassing – since we tell ourselves that you are the weaker sex! I think I will save myself further embarrassment until tomorrow. After a good night's sleep, I may be able to muster my armies again!"
Alexa laughed.
"Then I throw down the gauntlet, sir!" she challenged him. "Tomorrow evening – your army against mine!"
He laughed as he bent down to kiss her hand.
"But here is something I do rather well." He poured out a large goblet of mulled wine for her.
Alexa tasted it, closing her eyes and letting the fragrant bouquet of grapes, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and sugar flow over her tongue. She closed her eyes in rapture, tilting her head back and smiling with pleasure. It was like nothing she had ever tasted before.
"Mmm…" She opened her eyes and looked straight into his. He was standing very close to her and had the flagon of wine ready to pour another goblet. "That is… heavenly," she said, while she could still speak. He was gazing at her in a way that mesmerized her, scrutinizing her face as if to commit every detail of it to memory.
"Auguste," she asked softly, "why are you looking at me that way?"
He sighed.
"So that when I travel again, I will remember this little face forever," he replied, his voice husky.
He smiled and cupped her cheek with one hand.
"I never want to forget it."
Then he tipped her chin up and bent his head down to touch her lips with his. It was soft and tremulous at first, barely a whisper of sensation, then it became something firmer and more demanding. She began to tremble involuntarily, and for a moment she stood immobile, then she gave in.
She was shivering all over, and as his arms drew her in to press her close against the hard warmth of his body, she trembled even more and clung to him as if her life depended on it.
She heard him moan and heard her own response as if it were coming from someone else. It was a noise that was almost a whimper, a pathetic, helpless little mew, but she was helpless against the attraction she felt for him.
She could feel by the way his body was responding to her that he was feeling the same.
He pushed her backward into a shadowed alcove and moved his mouth from her lips to her throat. She was wearing a soft woolen tunic, and he traced the tip of his tongue along its round neckline so that it just touched the curve of her breast.
"Auguste…" Her voice was barely there, a faint, desperate whisper. "What are you doing?"
"I don't know. But I will stop if you want, Alexa."
He sounded as though it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he did it with a great effort of will, raising his head and looking into her eyes.
"Oh, God," she murmured. "I don't want you to – but I don't want to be anyone's mistress or wife or… I hope you don't think that I'm trying to trap you."
He shook his head suddenly as if to clear it.
"Madness," he whispered, taking a determined step back. "No, Alexa, I want to be free too. I no longer have a sister to look after so now there is only me." He looked at her desperately, thinking how huge her sky-blue eyes were in the pale oval of her face. "I am leaving in a few days, and I will be going alone, selling my spices and – and being free, the way I have wanted to be for a long, long time."
"I know, Auguste." She gave a dejected smile. "I don't want to go with you. You suffered because of your marriages, and I can understand why you will not take that path again." She sighed. "It's simpler for me. I just want to be free because I don't want a husband or a family." She laughed shortly. "But it's strange how many people want me to have just that."
"But you are such a beautiful woman," he said wistfully.
"And you are such a handsome man." She wrapped her arms around herself as if she were cold and stepped up to the fire.
She looked into it for a while.
She sighed. "I must go to bed, Auguste. I will have another goblet of your delicious wine to help me to sleep."
He poured her another, and she raised it to her lips to take a single sip. Then she raised her eyes and the cup to him in a silent toast.
He watched her walking upstairs with a longing that was almost unbearable in its intensity, but if he had given in…
Alexa had to physically restrain herself from hurling herself back downstairs and into his arms again. Little did she know that if she had, she would have been very warmly received.
* * *
Both of them slept badly that night, but the morning dawned clear, bright, and just the weather for target practice again. Alexa decided that since Lachlan was the only person worth competing against she would seek him out for a little shooting match.
"Damn it, Shona," he complained to his wife over the breakfast table, "this woman should have been born a man!" He looked at Alexa in amused admiration. "Sword, dagger, crossbow, slingshot—"
"Chess!" Alexa supplied, laughing. "You were going to say that there was nothing I wouldn't compete in, weren't you, my Laird?"
"I was," Lachlan replied before emptying half a gallon of porridge into his bowl.
He looked at Auguste's mock-horrified face with an expression of exasperation.
"Auguste, I am just about to go and castrate fifty young bulls. A man needs his sustenance! Why don't you come and help me?"
Auguste hid his face behind his napkin.
"I will make a deal with you, my friend," Auguste said seriously. "If you do not trade spices, I will not castrate bulls!"
Lachlan nodded in agreement.
"Done." He laughed, standing up. "But a certain young woman has thrown down the gauntlet for target practice with the crossbow. I cannot turn down a challenge like that so the bulls can hang onto their manhood for half an hour longer!"
"She threw the chess gauntlet too!" Auguste laughed. "After dinner tonight."
Alexa shrugged and smiled.
"You can always back down," she pointed out reasonably to Lachlan.
Shona looked at her in disbelief, then at Lachlan.
"'Twill never happen, lass," she said gloomily. "The sky will fall in the day Lachlan McGregor backs doon from a challenge!"
At that moment, Annabelle walked in, smiling, yawning and rubbing her eyes. She looked tired and disheveled but very, very happy.
"Pardonnez-moi," she said. "I am sorry. I could not sleep last night because I was so excited!"
Shona stood up and hugged her.
"An’ ye are now gaun' tae be the Lady Arbroath?" she asked, cupping Annabelle's face in her hands.
"Oui. Yes!" Annabelle was practically jumping up and down with excitement as Shona hugged and congratulated her.
Alexa envied her, the simple joy of achieving her mission; wife and hopefully mother. It would be more than enough for most women, but it would never be enough for her.
But she smiled and congratulated Annabelle, and for the first time, a spark of warmth passed between them.
Lachlan and Alexa were very evenly matched, and it came as no surprise to anyone that they hit five bullseyes each and ended honors even, with a grudge match arranged for the next day.
Auguste and Anabelle sat watching them, but Auguste kept thinking of that kiss. Alexa could have pushed him away, but she had not. She had responded extremely passionately and had seemed reluctant to move out of his embrace.
Had it been an invitation? It hadn't seemed so, but it was very hard to tell with Alexa
. Auguste was beginning to wish he had never met her – but he was so glad he had!
What is she doing to me? he thought angrily.
Abruptly, he got up and strode away from the courtyard into the stables where he took one of Lachlan's horses and went out for a ride in the fresh air, hoping to clear his thoughts.
He had known this damnable woman for less than a week and look what was happening to him! He needed to get away from her, but his ship would not sail from Aberdeen for nearly a fortnight, and he could not be so rude as to leave his hosts before then.
He would just have to avoid her – but could he?
40
A Lesson From Shona
"Why did he do that?" Alexa asked Shona, looking at Auguste's retreating back.
Shona's mouth curved upward in an enigmatic smile.
"He's runnin' away, hen," she answered, "As sure as my name is Shona McGregor that man is head over heels in love wi' ye."
Alexa laughed in disbelief.
"Pfft!" She flapped her hand as if shooing something away.
"He wants to go back on his travels, that's all." Her voice was utterly devoid of doubt, but her heart was not. "It must be hard if you are a traveler to stay in one place for too long."
Shona's deep green eyes bored into Alexa's.
"He is runnin' away from himsel' jist as surely as ye are daein' the same thing," she said with utter finality. "Ye're baith scared tae death ye'll fall in love."
"Sometimes you talk such rubbish, Shona," Alexa said, laughing nervously. "I think I would know if I were in love!"
"Really?" Shona raised her eyebrows. "Ye knaw my big Lump Lachlan? Think we're a match made in heaven, I'll bet."
"Most people do. It's the first thing people notice about you."
Shona laughed merrily.
"I hated him at first." Her eyes were faraway, looking back. "But because I saved his life, he gave me an education an' introduced me tae Nanny Ishbel. He still looks efter my Ma an' Pa. But I widnae hae onythin' tae dae wi' him for months. We pushed each ither away again an' again before we admitted we loved one anither. Noo I couldnae imagine life withoot him, the stupid big Lump. We never get used tae bein' together. Every day is new."
Alexa smiled.
"That's wonderful," she murmured, "but it's your story, not mine, Shona. I am a different person with a different destiny."
"That's whit ye think, lass, but wait." Shona took Alexa's face in her hands. "I am no' the only one tae have told ye that one day ye will meet the man that will make ye glad tae be a woman. Lachlan did that fer me. An’ if I am no' very much mistaken, an' I hardly ever am, Auguste is gaun tae dae that fer ye."
Then she kissed Alexa's forehead and stood up. For a moment, Shona looked down at her, and Alexa had the strangest feeling that her very thoughts were being read.
"Remember my words, lass," Shona told her. "I'm no' a witch, whitever onybody says. I am jist an ordinary woman who is drownin' in love. An' so are ye."
Alexa saw Shona take her youngest child from Nanny Ishbel's arms, and for the first time, she felt a flicker of doubt. Would it really be so bad to be a mother?
Alexa decided to banish her personal cobwebs doing the same thing as Auguste that day. A ride in the outdoors would do her some good – since a gallop in the fresh air always restored her spirits. Jenny always enjoyed it too, but Alexa, being an expert rider, took the most challenging of all the bridle paths that led out from the castle.
The path led from the castle walls right along the edge of the cliff. She rode Jenny hard and fast, but the big horse, urged into action, tossed her head and responded quickly.
They cantered along the track for five minutes before Alexa got to a smooth and open path, broad but with the cliff on one side where she really gave Jenny her head. Jenny gave a joyful neigh and stretched herself out into her fastest gallop.
Later, Alexa would wonder why she had been so completely and utterly foolhardy. One moment she was flying along on Jenny's back, with the wind in her face, and the next moment, she was dreaming that Auguste was bending over her, his face desperately fearful.
She remembered no more till she woke up in the castle in her own bed.
Auguste, with the relentless doggedness of bad luck, had chosen the same bridle path. He groaned when he saw Jenny standing in the middle of the track, nosing something that looked like a bundle of rags. He urged his own horse into a trot, but it was not till he was only a few yards away that he realized what he was looking at.
His heart jumped into his throat as he saw the green of Alexa's cloak spread out over her prone body.
He leaped off his own horse and bent down beside her, his fingers frantically feeling for the pulse in her throat. To his relief, it was strong and steady. Her eyes were closed, and she was as pale as milk, but her breathing was normal, and she looked as if she were merely asleep.
As he watched, her eyes flickered open, and she smiled at him.
"Auguste," she whispered, smiling slightly before closing her eyes again.
Auguste picked her up effortlessly, but he had considerably more difficulty maneuvering her onto the horse in front of him. Her body lolled forward as he picked his way cautiously back the three miles to the castle, and he had never been so glad to see anyone as he was to see Shona at that moment, running towards him across the courtyard.
"Whit happened?" she asked fearfully as she summoned two of her biggest house staff to help Alexa off the back of Auguste's horse.
"I found her on the path," he replied grimly. "I think she may have tried to go too fast, or the horse's foot slipped, or – I don't know."
He passed a hand over his forehead, his face almost as white as Alexa's now.
"Go an’ get some whiskey," Shona instructed. "An’ dinnae argue wi' me. I am in charge noo."
August went to do as he was bidden, then swallowed the whole goblet in one draught. As the edges of his senses were blunted, he felt considerably better and went to see Alexa, who was being attended to by a strikingly handsome gray-haired woman and Shona.
"This is Kennethina," Shona said as Auguste came in. "She is oor local healer. She says that there is nae major damage, but Alexa needs tae rest. She has been given some milk o' the poppy."
"Will she be well again?" Auguste asked, looking up at Shona with desperate fear in his eyes.
"She will be jist fine," Kennethina answered in a surprisingly soft and soothing voice. "But someone must sit wi’ her at all times, in case she wakes."
"I will do it," Auguste said at once.
Shona, knowing that she could not dissuade him, patted him on the shoulder, then the two women left.
And suddenly it hit him. If anything happened to Alexa, what would he do without her?
He sat down on the chair by her bed, intending to watch her all day and all night if that would help her to get well.
In slumber, she looked almost like a doll with her soft, creamy skin and Cupid's bow lips. Her shining, fair eyelashes were resting on her cheeks, and her golden hair was spread like a banner on the pillow.
He laid his hand down on top of her dainty one, marveling at how small and dainty her fingers were.
Then he laid his head on the coverlet and drifted off to sleep, smiling.
Alexa was not quite sure where she was when she woke up. The last thing she remembered was the wind in her face as she sat on Jenny's back – then… nothing.
She looked around her, and by the light of lanterns streaming in from the courtyard outside she realized that she was in her own bedroom at the castle, but she had no recollection of how she had come to be there.
Auguste was slumped across her, his hand holding one of hers. He was fast asleep. A tiny sliver of a memory came back of his face bending over her, then it was gone. She had a slight headache and a feeling of deep lethargy as if she had not moved for a long time, but otherwise, she felt well enough to rise from bed.
She lifted her other hand and began to gently stroke Auguste's
hair, and presently he woke.
For a startled second, he looked into her eyes, then he threw his arms around her.
She stiffened fractionally then began to laugh.
"Auguste – what is going on?" she asked, deeply puzzled.
He took her by the shoulders, and looked at her, scrutinizing her as if to ensure that she was still there.
"Alexa – I thought you were dead!" His voice was ragged with relief. "I found you on the cliff path – Jenny must have stumbled and thrown you or some such thing. I brought you back, and you are well!"
"And thirsty." She coughed a little.
Auguste poured her a glass of water and held it to her lips while she drank it.
When she had finished, she looked at him closely.
"You look terrible," she said gently, looking at his pallid face and unshaven jaw.
"Thank you," he replied ironically, and laughed.
"Thank you for saving my life," she murmured. "I might still be lying there if it weren't for you."
"I doubt it, but you're welcome." He smiled.
"You are such a good man," she whispered.
"Thank you." He looked down at their hands, whose fingers were now intertwined.
Just then, Kennethina entered, bearing a tray on which rested a few jars and bottles.
"Ah, Mistress Alexa!" she said cheerfully. "Ye are awake! How dae ye feel?"
"A little sore in the head," Alexa admitted. "But otherwise, not too bad. A little hungry, if truth be told."
Kennethina laughed. "Always a good sign!"
She came forward and plumped up Alexa's pillows then sat her up in bed.
"A wee bit o’ breakfast should cure the sore heid," she said firmly. "Dinnae ask me how it works, but it always does."
Her glance flicked to Auguste.
"Ye look worse than Alexa," she observed. "Bed fer ye an' nae arguments!"
"But it's dawn," he protested.
"No' fer ye," Kennethina said sternly. "Fer ye 'tis night time. Bed! Now!"
"Do as she says, Auguste." Alexa laughed. " She might hurt you! Thank you, a thousand times."
