He flashed a grin, amused by her sudden surprise. “What?” he asked innocently, her body so close he could once more smell her.
“Ye intend to strip me of my honor right here, at the point of force, only to toss me back in a fortnight—”
“I wish to remain warm. Nay slake my lust on ye, lass,” he growled, shoving himself up, too. His smile dropped, and his eyes narrowed. Anger over Marjorie’s lot, always simmering beneath the surface, bubbled over now. “If ye ken one thing about me, let it be this: my sister Marjorie died because of a brutish husband. My faither married her to a nàmhaid MacLeod in hopes it would create peace, but it only put her, a wee mouse, betwixt the jaws of a lion,” he spat. “He humiliated her, raised his heavy hand to her more times than could be counted, and sent her home in such dishonor, my faither and I thirsted for blood revenge. I was nay even fully grown, but when she passed away, we sought it.
“I’ve never forced a woman to my bed, and I would never force ye, either. I trust that if I were to cause ye harm, yer brother would come for my blood, as I avenged my sister.”
“A mouse and lion…” she whispered to herself, as if his comparison meant something more. She sat stone still and then looked down at her hands as the popping of the fire intensified the silence between them. “I didnae ken that about yer sister. I didnae ken ye had sisters before tonight. Ye must have loved her very much.”
The gentleness in Aileana’s voice took him aback. No barbed words? No kicking the “nàmhaid” when he was down?
“Why did he send her back?” she asked, twisting a loose thread on her sleeve.
Blast it, he’d never talked about it, and he struggled to find the words.
“She lived there for more than a year,” he finally managed. “But the man couldnae get a babe on her, least of all a son, and blamed her for it. When illness began to take her eyesight, he—” Shite. His voice cracked, and he raked his fingers through his hair, snagging on his braids, then propped his arm upon his knee. Composure regained, he cleared his throat, and gazing into the flame, continued, “He disgraced her dignity in such a way, I wanted to…”
He couldn’t finish, and silence, once more, stretched between them.
“What did he do?” she whispered, and this time, a gentle hand came to settle upon his.
Ah, he’d thought Aileana’s willingness to help set up camp might be the beginnings of a truce, but this was their actual truce. She was in the position Marjorie had been in, and he’d just given her a piece of his soul by telling her about it. This was the common ground upon which they could build a temporary peace.
“He sent her home upon a blind ass. She never healed from the humiliation. Never spoke again, for the month it took her to waste away and pass on.”
“James, I’m sorry,” Aileana breathed.
He cleared his throat again and took the fingers she’d laid upon his in hand, looking down to examine them. They were icy. And yet the gesture was warm. “Brighde and Marjorie are, in sooth, my half sisters. I was bastard born upon my faither’s favored leman. But my faither saw fit to recognize me and raise me with his daughters, though at times, I wished he hadn’t, for my stepmither never accepted me.”
He stopped. He needn’t spiral down the high road of emotional scars inflicted by a woman who’d sabotaged him and needled him at every turn, all because of who he was through no fault of his own.
“My sister, Lady Brighde, lives with me still. I’ll nay bless a marriage for her until I ken the man who seeks her hand is honorable.”
Aileana looked into the fire beside him, pulling her knees up and wrapping an arm around them. “And yet I’ve been married off, on almost a whim, to someone my family only kens as an enemy.”
James said nothing. It was true. He knew he would never lay a hand on Aileana to hurt her, but Seamus couldn’t have been certain of that.
A fingertip caressed the back of his hand. “I’m sorry that the Lady Marjorie suffered…and that ye suffered, too.”
James lifted his eyes to hers as she gazed back to him, and he cleared his throat, setting his brow. “’Tis the way of things. Brighde will be pleased to meet ye, and mayhap, find a sister in someone new. At least for a fortnight. Losing Marjorie was hard upon her, too, for they were close.”
Aileana took a deep breath, still holding his other hand—a small acquiescence on her part. Pleasure at the gentle act warmed him, and his thumb took to caressing her skin, too.
“Mayhap ye best wait for the shock of a Grant wife to dull first before ye decide if she’ll be pleased,” she said, the corner of her mouth lifting in jest.
James chuckled, grateful for a reason to smile. “Aye, to be sure I’ll confound my people, for I’ve never kept a wom—”
Again, his eyes snagged hers at such a personal confession. A laird who had never kept a leman was an oddity. But his father and stepmother had taught him all too well the consequences of sowing bastards. He’d not do it to a bairn of his own.
He cleared his throat. “But Brighde will welcome ye with open arms. She’s kind like that. Always cheerful in spite of the rough lot dealt her. And considering what happened to Marjorie when she was married off to a nàmhaid, I suspect Brighde will be more understanding of yer position.”
Aileana smiled. “Peigi is like that. Normally, she’s always smiling, even when there’s so much bearing down on us.”
The fire crackled in the ensuing silence as their hands remained touching. The point of contact made his skin buzz, and he was reluctant to let go of this fragile connection.
“But now the real question is,” he continued, “are ye willing to freeze the night away because of yer pride? Or are ye willing to lie with me so we both might keep warm?”
She contemplated him, severing their hands’ embrace. A shiver racked her frame, and she looked longingly at the fur he’d piled up their legs, resigning to a decision and flashing a wan smile.
“I’ll lie with ye, nàmhaid. Ye are, after all, my husband.”
Chapter Four
This is the wise thing to do.
More sweat beaded Aileana’s brow—a bad omen, for with a still-damp tunic cold against her skin in this freezing night, she ran the risk of fever. Yet try as she might to convince herself that sleeping together for added warmth was best, she still couldn’t settle her nerves.
Slowly, she settled down on her side, turning to face the fire as her cheeks raged red with nerves, embarrassment, and perhaps more than a little excitement to be so held by this man. In the span of only a moment, James had become a human to whom she could relate—as he’d shared the wound that losing his sister had left on his soul—even if she still felt anger at him.
She swallowed hard. What sort of pain had he and his surviving sister endured, watching Lady Marjorie’s demise and death? She wouldn’t be able to bear it if something like that happened to Peigi. And yet that explanation was all she’d needed to feel safe in his presence. A man who had watched such a horror unravel with his own sister wouldn’t perpetrate the same thing upon another, would he? And he had been right as he’d negotiated with her brother that evening: their clans had clashed back and forth many a time. Her brother, and her father before him, weren’t innocent, and neither was James or his father.
At some point, this violence needed to stop. What if she and James could be the start of that change? Nay. He’d forced her to marry. Even in the face of his sister’s memory, he’d still held her brother by the proverbial bollocks to gain a woman—
His hand gently swept her hair over her shoulder, the coolness of the night air mingling with the heat on her exposed nape, inducing a shiver. Gooseflesh tingled her skin as his roughened fingers dragged across her flesh. His arm then slid beneath her neck to cradle it upon his bicep as he stretched his long limbs and contorted himself to fit against her. The blanket, then the fur, slid up them both to cocoon them togethe
r.
Her heart kicked up a notch at the gesture—imagine, gentleness coming from this upstart warlord. And knowing he thought her plain only made her heart pinch. Which is daft. I shouldnae want him to like me.
His chest came flush with her back, his, his…sakes, his masculine parts nestling against her rear, his legs now purposefully tangling with her skirts. He rustled for a moment to settle into a comfortable position, and her body burned where he shifted against her. And then his other hand fished for the hem of her cloak, migrated beneath it, and his arm settled heavily around her stomach, toned, long muscle, cinching her tightly to him.
Goodness, she trembled now, and not from shivering. To be touched so brazenly when a man had never wrapped her waist in his embrace before. And still, as if unconsciously, his thumb began to rub back and forth across her stomach, calming her jitters.
“I meant what I promised yer family,” came his voice, husky and deep against her neck and inducing another shiver as she imagined him whispering in her ear, perhaps nipping at it.
But after a moment of rubbing his head against the pack to dent a comfortable position, he exhaled, breezing against her nape, relaxed, and moments later, seemed to fall into the easy breathing of sleep.
Just like that? He could fall asleep tangled with her so, when not long before they had been enemies? Fascinating, for her heart was skipping frantically, and her chest rose and fell with ragged, ill-measured breaths, so much so she was certain she wouldn’t sleep a wink. Had he been speaking the truth when he said he’d never kept a woman? Was she the first that he would publicly announce? Even if this marriage was only an illusion? Either that or he was lying and indeed was no novice wrapping himself around a woman abed any night that he wished. She lifted her eyes heavenward and exhaled harshly. She wanted the latter sentiment to be the truth so she could continue to hate the handsome cretin, and yet he’d made her doubt all her beliefs about him.
How long she lay stone still, listening to the wood pop and watching the fire turn slowly to coals, it was impossible to say. But at some point, her shivering subsided beneath his possessive grip, and her eyelids grew heavy. His breaths came in deep, steady puffs upon the back of her hair. Slowly, she relented to the comfort of his embrace, drifting, as visions of his feral hair and sparkling eyes from astride his stallion, as he stared at her through Urquhart’s portcullis, danced in her mind.
…
25th of December
James smelled the herbal scent of Lady Aileana’s hair all damn night. So soft, so silky against his cheek and nose. And this newfound gentleness in her beckoned him to move closer. To be wanted by her. He opened his eyes, giving up on sleep, and took in the dark sky of early morn…and felt the warmth of her breasts pressed against his stomach, her cheek upon his pectoral, her palm slung upon his navel beneath the covers as if to torment him, for his manhood was well aware that her slender fingers lay so close to his belts. His skin buzzed as he tried to tether his wayward thoughts, squinting out at the predawn light casting grayness upon the snowy world. From this barbed woman, her touch, so gentle, was a gift.
She shifted ever so slightly, her fingers brushing upon his belts, and he froze, swallowing a groan, closing his eyes. But hell, if his thoughts didn’t gallop away, imagining things he would never do with her. Motionless and daring not to move, lest he disturb this sliver of contentment, when yesterday this woman had attempted to shred his patience, he tightened his arm around her, holding her more snuggly upon his chest.
Yet the throbbing of blood pulsing through his loins couldn’t be helped, lying so intimately with her. Fok, but he couldn’t remain any longer, cocooned together, while her wild hair filled his senses with desire, tickling his stubble. How had he lived his life at Tioram, a mere day’s ride from Urquhart, and never met Aileana Grant? Not even at a gathering or council between clans?
A breeze disrupted the surface flurries and sprayed them inward, causing them both to shift, and she softly sighed, a high, groggy moan drawing from her throat. He pondered her: such a spiked tongue when awake, such an angelic doe when asleep. Hell, it was just an innocent sound, and yet sensual, wanting.
He released his hold upon her, easing himself away and from beneath the covers to stand. The stark chill of winter stung his arms through his doublet and his bare legs. Oh, to tarry on this journey home with Aileana, joining in a kiss, a dalliance of lips and tongues… Would she be just as acerbic abed as she was when she was verbally sparring with him? Or would she blossom into a seductress?
Eejit. I build fantasies where there are none. Lady Aileana wants nothing to do with me. Even if she softened to me last night. She softened because of Marjorie’s plight, nay mine. Nay that I actually did much to win her affection yesterday, coercing her into a jest of a marriage…
Aileana’s eyes fluttered open as he gazed down at her, and he settled the fur around her, tucking her back in. “Sleep, lass.”
Her eyes drifted shut and she rolled over. “I thank thee, Jamie…” she mumbled so softly, it was clear she wasn’t awake, to have spoken so kindly to him.
Jamie. His breath caught. Only Marjorie had called him that, a sweet pet name that had been enough to feel loved.
He stalked out of the shelter to tend to his morning ablutions and catch his breath. Did such an unconscious utterance on her part mean she might feel affection for him? Or at least a desire to forge trust? Daft man. Ye need her to remain in this union so ye can claim yer money. But it was going to become hard to manipulate someone who didn’t want to stay into staying, if he started having feelings for her.
He found the nearest dip in the hillside to flip aside his kilt and take care of his morning needs, then wandered until light brightened the eastern horizon, losing himself in thought. He’d meant to offer her a return home last night, but her disappearing act, and ensuing argument, had thrown him off course. As he returned to camp, he glanced at her form. She lay still. She’d been nervous and as rigid as a curtain wall in his arms, and she must have stayed awake half the night, to sleep so now.
Devil flipped his ears backward at his approach. Coming up beside the beast, he stroked his powerful neck.
“Good morn, man,” he whispered, and he reached into his sporran for a wrapping of dried apples he kept stashed there, palming one to the horse’s mouth.
Devil lipped it up, and he rubbed the stallion’s muzzle. Turning toward the countryside, he plopped a bite in his mouth, idly offering another to his horse, who nudged his sporran for more, when a rustling noise drew his attention, as if something was routing through leaves buried beneath the snow. A critter. He quieted, until the pointed black tip of a nose attached to red fur and a bushy tail peered out from behind some rocks.
They regarded each other, the fox’s tail flicking curiously. James smiled and squatted. The wee beast would harm them none, and probably hoped for a nibble of food. Digging out a strip of jerked meat from his sporran, he broke off a piece and held it forth while the fox’s nose sniffed the air.
“Come hither,” he rumbled softly, clicking his tongue for encouragement. “I’ll hurt ye none.”
The fox darted back and forth, edging its way forward, tantalized enough by the prospect of meat to dare a closer encounter.
“That’s the way, beastie.” He wiggled the meat as he rested on his heels and lured the fox closer.
Furtively, it strained forward and snipped the treat out of James’s fingers, scurrying back to its den. James shook his head with amusement, slipped another piece of apple into his mouth, and chewed. But as he glanced back at Aileana, he saw her propped on her elbows, watching him.
His smile fell and he pushed up. How long had the lass been spying? He cleared his throat and returned within.
“Did ye sleep well?” he asked, and a sliver of concern gripped him. Her face was pale. He leaned down and touched the backs of his fingers to her forehead.
She gazed up at him, crinkling her brow at the unexpected contact, perhaps thinking about something she wasn’t sharing. “Ye’re fond of animals.”
He straightened and shrugged noncommittally. “In sooth, I like them more than most people.”
She laughed softly. “Aye, indeed I often think the same thing.”
Their eyes connected. “Aileana.” Why’d ye call me Jamie? He didn’t ask the burning question on his mind since he’d woken, and he cleared his throat. “Would ye like me to return ye home this morn? I worry that ye might be taking ill.”
Her eyes widened and she wrapped her cloak around her frame more tightly, pushing to stand, too. Her rich hair, slung over her shoulder, was tangled in such an unladylike fashion, he wished he’d been the one who’d cast it into such fetching disarray.
“Ye would do that?” she asked. “And what of my thievery?”
He huffed. “I was angered, aye. Our people have flung unkindness upon each other for so long, ’tis hard nay to feel affronted. But, eh…” He raked his hand though his hair. “I ken ye’d be unhappy. That I forced yer hand.”
She looked askance. “I’m nay averse to spending a fortnight at Tioram before I go home,” she finally replied. “I suppose, if ye and I can forge a trust, then mayhap we can return to our people and spread goodwill. I’m nay privy to the disagreements that pitted our faithers against each other. But should such madness continue?”
His heart skipped a beat at the same time it plummeted. A fortnight at Tioram would give him time to become better acquainted with this woman, who had been quick to despise him, even if she’d still be leaving eventually.
He nodded once, then turned away from her, scooping up his packs to heave them onto his shoulder. Whatever their decision, they needed to get moving and get indoors, in front of a crackling hearth.
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