Mairi and Finlay said their goodbyes, and Sine promised that they would be back within the week, if not the very next day. Then Sine and Finlay headed back to the castle, trying to sneak inside without anyone catching them.
It was no easy task, but they would have made it if it weren’t for Mrs. Crannach. The guards could learn a thing or two from her, Finlay thought. She was the only one who kept such a close eye on everyone that entered and exited the castle.
“And what are ye two doing?” Mrs. Crannach asked, just as Sine was about to slip into her bedroom. Sine and Finlay froze on the spot, both turning their heads slowly to look at her.
“We are going to bed, Mrs. Crannach,” Sine said in her most innocent voice—the one that could always get her out of trouble, especially with her father.
Mrs. Crannach was not Sine’s father though, and she wasn’t impressed. “Aye, is that why ye were trying to be quiet? I ken ye…ye’ll no’ fool me.”
The three of them stood there in silence for a few moments, Sine’s hand still on her doorknob even though she didn’t have any plans of moving any time soon. Finlay didn’t know what to say, and he had no excuse for allowing Sine to be out so late.
Eventually, Mrs. Crannach simply sighed, hands on her hips as she regarded the two of them. “Off ye go, then…go to bed. Ye must have had a long day, and it’s verra late.”
With that, Mrs. Crannach turned around and left, leaving behind a dumbfounded Sine and Finlay. They could hardly believe their luck, but Finlay wasn’t about to push it any further.
“Go to bed,” he told Sine. “Mrs. Crannach is right, it’s getting verra late.”
“Aye,” Sine agreed. “Goodnight, Finlay.”
The two of them parted ways, Sine retreating into her bedroom and Finlay to his. Unbeknownst to each other, they were both thinking about the same thing; sneaking into each other’s bedroom and spending the night together.
Neither of them moved a muscle from their beds though.
Chapter Seven
The entire castle was decorated for that night’s feast, though no one knew what it was for, Sine included. Laird Duncan had only ordered everyone in the castle to prepare for a feast without giving any further explanation. Though it made Sine suspicious and curious about the reason behind the celebrations, she knew better than to press her father for the truth.
She spent the day away from the castle at Mrs. Crannach’s insistence, who pointed out that she would be in the way of the preparations if she stayed there. Besides, it was a nice day, one of the few that they had in Brims Ness, and Sine wanted to take advantage of it.
She and Finlay spent the day outside, walking around, exploring, and talking, and they were back in time for Sine to prepare for the feast. When Finlay saw her again, it was in the hall, and she was wearing a pine green dress, one of the few she had that she had bothered to embroider with gilt patterns—usually preferring simpler, more functional dresses.
The hall was full of clansmen. There were drinks and food in abundance, the entire clan feasting as though they hadn’t seen food in weeks, and despite her own suspicion, Sine found herself enjoying the celebrations. She had decided to mingle with the clan instead of just sitting at the big table reserved for the laird and his family. She was talking to a girl named Aileas, blonde and bubbly, the kind of girl who could always make Sine laugh, when she saw Finlay from the corner of her eye.
He, too, was dressed in more formal clothes, though Sine didn’t fail to notice that for Finlay, dressing formally simply meant wearing the same clothes as always, but clean. Still, she had to admit that he looked good, and she admired the way that the soft candlelight fell on the sharp angles of his jaw, making him look as though he was chiselled from rock.
She waved at him happily, spilling her drink as she did, and it was the first moment in the night that she thought perhaps she had had too much to drink. That wine was strong, stronger than Mrs. Crannach usually served, and it had the entire clan in high spirits.
Finlay joined Sine, though a little reluctantly. Within moments, Sine had thrust a cup full of wine in his hand, ordering him to drink up.
“Ye’ll need to keep up with us!” Sine said, louder than necessary. “I’ve already had a lot!”
“I can tell.” Finlay smiled at her, and he couldn’t tell her no. He drank the wine, draining the cup in one big gulp, and when Sine cheered, he reached for more.
Some weeks ago, being in the middle of such a feast would have made Finlay sweat until he drenched all his clothes. His head would spin, and his stomach would churn until he would have to empty its contents outside. Now, though, he was smiling and drinking, and even talking to people. He had a conversation with Aileas—whom he had just met through Sine—about medicinal plants, another with a clansman called Domnall about the most effective ways of landing a punch, which included a demonstration that ended in Domnall having a bloody nose, and another with Laird Duncan himself. The laird wanted to thank him for watching after his daughter.
“It’s my duty,” Finlay reminded the laird. “I will lay down my life for her; ye ken that.”
“Aye…I ken now,” the laird said, as he gave Finlay a pat on the shoulder, pouring him yet another cup of wine. He had lost track of how many he had had by then, but it didn’t matter. He felt better than ever.
“She is a good woman,” Finlay said, the alcohol giving him the courage to speak his mind in front of the laird. “Smart, too, verra much so. Perhaps ye should give her a chance to tell ye what she thinks every noo and then.”
The laird regarded Finlay with a curious expression, he too thinking that Finlay had changed a lot since he had last talked to him. “What dae ye mean, lad?”
“Sine talks about the people a lot,” Finlay explained. “She wants tae help them, and she wants ye tae take her advice on how to do that.”
“Would ye listen tae a woman?” Laird Duncan asked with a raised brow, wondering what had gotten into the boy. “There’s a reason why women dinnae go tae war, Finlay.”
Finlay wanted to point out that they weren’t talking about war, quite the opposite, in fact. Sine wanted to keep the peace among her people and help them to thrive, but all the laird could think of was the possibility of a war between his clan and another, or between his clan and the Englishmen.
Before he could say anything else though, Sine showed up seemingly out of nowhere and dragged him away.
“I want to dance!” Sine said, as the two of them joined the crowd that was dancing in the middle of the hall. There were swirls of petticoats and a blur of hands and heads, but all Finlay could see was Sine: the way she laughed as she twirled and moved, the way her eyes sparkled under the candlelight. The two of them danced song after song, but eventually, another clansman stepped in and asked to dance with Sine, something Finlay couldn’t refuse without the rest of the people thinking his behaviour odd.
Instead, Finlay handed Sine’s hand to the man and retreated to his table. At first, he watched her, how she moved differently than when he was with her: still merry and happy to dance, but a little more guarded, always staying a little further away from the man. Eventually, Finlay was drawn back into a conversation and stopped watching her.
“I’m telling ye…the lass was screaming for it!” one of the men, Ranald, with shoulders the size of a small building, was saying. “She begged and begged for me, and when I gave it to her, she said I was the best lover she e’er had!”
“Did ye pay her tae tell ye that?” Finlay asked. The entire table went silent, all of them watching him. He was momentarily transported back to a few weeks ago, when he thought that everyone was looking at him, always judging, always forming an opinion without knowing him; only now they knew him, and he seemed to have offended one of their own.
Then the table erupted in laughter. Even Ranald himself laughing until tears began to stream down his face. The man patted him on the back, perhaps a little stronger than necessary, but Finlay decided to blame it on the alcohol.
“I didnae pay her any more than any other man!” Ranald said, and the entire table laughed once again. “And she still said I was the best of all of them!”
“She tells that tae everyone, Ranald,” another man by the name of Calum said. “Ye think there’s a single man in this table that hasn’t had Donalda?”
“I bet Finlay didnae ever lay a hand on her, or any other part of his body,” Ranald joked, though he wasn’t wrong. “He doesnae look tae me like the type who would.”
Once again, the entire table turned to look at him, only now Finlay knew he was being scrutinized. For a moment, he thought about lying, about telling the men what they wanted to hear; he could easily make up a story about going to Donalda, whoever she was, and paying her good money for her body, having her tell him at the end that he was the best lover she had ever had. But there was no point in lying, especially not when they could catch him in the act. Perhaps if he had known Donalda, or at least what she looked like, he could have gotten away with it, but he had never even heard of the woman before.
Finlay shook his head. “No, I havenae,” he confirmed. “I dinnae need to pay, ye ken. Ah’m no animal like the rest of ye.”
The men laughed, and then they left him alone, too busy talking about Donalda and her sizable assets to scrutinize him any further. Finlay was just content to listen to them, the alcohol creating a pleasant buzz in his head that drowned out most of the graphic, borderline sickening details of Ranald’s encounter with the woman, something that Finlay was grateful for.
Eventually, his attention went back to Sine, and he began to look for her in the middle of the hall, but he could not see her anywhere. In a panic, Finlay stood up, the alcohol making him stumble a little as he began to search for her while trying to not alert the laird or any of the other clansmen to her disappearance.
Finlay searched half of the castle, rushing past corridors and rooms, looking high and low for Sine. The lass had such a penchant for disappearing right under his nose that Finlay thought he would be used to it by now. Every time he lost sight of her, though, he was gripped by the same panic as the first time she had slipped out of his sight, his mind immediately jumping to the worst conclusion.
Even after searching the entire castle, Finlay couldn’t find her. She was nowhere to be seen, and none of the servants had seen her either. She must have gone outside, he thought; outside, all alone, in the dark.
Chapter Eight
Sine had begun to feel the effects of the alcohol soon after the man she was dancing with had agreed to let her go. She had spent a lot of time dancing, and that didn’t help either, twirling around and upsetting her stomach that was already full of wine.
She decided to step outside for a while, her head buzzing and her ears ringing from the loudness of the hall. The fresh air was welcome, and she could finally take a deep breath that seemed to calm her stomach –at least at first. It was moments later that she found herself doubling over, and yet nothing came out, her stomach refusing to empty itself even as she retched.
She was only glad that no one was there to see her.
Just as she was wiping the spit off her mouth, wishing that she had some water with her, or even some more wine, Finlay showed up, his face flushed, and his breathing laboured. He had been running, Sine noticed. She wondered who he was running from, the thought of him panicking and looking for her never once crossing her mind.
“Trust in ye to show up at the worst time,” Sine said. “How did ye ken I was here?”
“I saw ye from the window.” Finlay pointed up at the second storey window, and Sine winced a little, hoping that he hadn’t heard her retching and trying to vomit. After all, it wasn’t very ladylike, as her father would remind her. “Are ye alright?”
“Aye,” Sine assured him. “The wine is verra strong.”
“That it is,” Finlay agreed, and with that they fell silent.
It was dark in the courtyard, with the lit torches on the walls providing little light. The lack of a moon didn’t help either, and Finlay and Sine were plunged into near darkness, though that was where Finlay had always been most comfortable; no one could see his eyes in the dark.
“Can I ask ye a question?” Sine asked, not waiting for an answer before she continued, “Why did ye lie tae me about yer parents?”
Finlay frowned at her, though in the darkness, Sine couldn’t tell. “I didnae lie tae ye.” He simply hadn’t told her the whole truth; that was all. Finlay knew there was no way that Sine had found out the truth, because no one in Brims Ness knew but him.
“Aye, ye did,” Sine insisted. “And ye are lying tae me the noo. Why did ye no’ tell me the truth? Everybody remembers their parents, Finlay…weel, I dinnae remember my mother, but only because I was only a babe when she died. Ye were a bairn of ten years. Ye must remember what happened!”
“I dinnae ken,” Finlay insisted. “And I’d thank ye tae stop asking me about them.”
Perhaps it was the alcohol, or perhaps it was Sine’s own deep desire for Finlay to trust her, to want to tell her everything about himself and his life before he met her. Either way, her anger threatened to bubble over and spill out of her, and her face flushed with something other than the alcohol.
“Ye are nowt but a liar, Finlay!” Sine shouted. “Ye ken everything about me! I told ye about my mother, I told ye about how my father treats me, I told ye everything! I showed ye my life! Ye willnae even trust me with yer past!”
“Ye dinnae ken me and I dinnae ken ye!” Finlay shouted right back, suddenly angry at Sine for demanding to know things that not even the people closest to him knew about. He had never told Rory, and he had never told Mairi. He didn’t see why he should tell Sine, especially since he didn’t know her for that long. “Ye have nae claim over my life or my past!”
Sine recoiled as if she had been hit, Finlay’s words hurting her as though they were wrapped in nettles and thorns. There was no reason for him to speak to her like that, she thought. She had been nothing but kind to him, and yet there they were, in a screaming match in the middle of the courtyard.
“I ken ye better than ye think!” Sine said. “I ken that ye hated it when a man would look at ye, because ye think ye are cursed. I ken that ye like jam and ye hate sheep heads. I ken that ye are a better man than ye pretend tae be.”
The last comment took Finlay by surprise, and he would be lying if he said that it didn’t make him a little weak in the knees. Sine’s observations didn’t prove that she knew him, not really, but he had to admit that she’d opened him up a lot more in the past few weeks than anyone ever had before.
It was unfair to say that Sine didn’t know him, and yet Finlay was so worked up that he kept shouting just for the sake of shouting.
“Ah’m nothing like ye!” Finlay said. “And ye ken nothing! Ye are nowt but a spoilt little lass who wants her pa tae pay attention to her.”
In her drunken stupor, Sine reached up to strike Finlay across the cheek, his words cutting deep. He stopped her before she could, grabbing her wrist with his hand and gripping it tightly. For a moment, the two of them did nothing but look at each other.
There was something in the air between them, a current that flowed from one to the other. Sine felt lightheaded, but not just because of the wine. Finlay was right there, finally looking her in the eyes, and she could feel his hot breath against her skin as he panted. Finlay, too, seemed to have a hard time breathing. As she watched him, it seemed as if the mere sight of her made breathing impossible; the air caught in his throat, never quite reaching his lungs.
In that moment, neither of them had to utter a word for the other to know that the very words cutting them like blades only moments earlier were nothing but a distant memory, lost in the haze of their own desire for one another.
Sine didn’t know who initiated it, but before she knew it, she had Finlay’s lips against hers. He tasted of alcohol, with a hint of something sweet, and under it his own saltiness. It made Sine melt again
st him in an instant.
She didn’t resist as Finlay pressed her against the castle wall, her wrist still firmly held in his hand. He held her there, pressing his entire body against her. Sine parted her lips, letting Finlay slip his tongue inside her mouth, the gentleness of his lips a contrast with the viciousness of his grip.
Sine gave back as much as she got, biting on Finlay’s bottom lip, then soothing the bite with her tongue. Finlay had her hands pinned above her head, but her hips were free to move. She pressed against him, feeling the hard lines of his thigh between her legs, the two of them moving in a stuttering rhythm against each other.
Sine could feel her breasts press against Finlay’s chest, and she had never regretted having clothes so much in her life. She wanted to feel his skin against hers, heat on heat; she wanted him to grip her tight and leave his marks on her hips.
Highlander’s Buried Identity (Scottish Medieval Highlander Romance) Page 6
