Fifi palmed his cheek, her touch sweet and gentle. “Who is your favorite person?” she asked.
Slade struggled to focus on her question and not on the consuming warmth her touch elicited. After a protracted silence, he spoke. “At the moment it’s Peter. He is cathartic to my soul somehow, it’s difficult to explain. Ever since the war, he’s been a light to my dark. At Dettingen in 1743, I would have given in to my dark thoughts after Sylvia, if it hadn’t been for him. But I have to say Daegan and your brother Egan are close seconds. We’ve known each other for over fifteen years and formed strong bonds of trust, brotherhood and friendship while fostering with the MacDonell warlord. Those bonds will never break, regardless of arguments or disagreements,” he said.
She covered a yawn. He too was feeling the weight in his own body and eyelids, it had been an emotional hurricane of a day. Something snaked through his gut and tightened his nethers when her eyes landed on his lips but then she trained them back on his eyes.
“I always meant to ask you, who are your favorite authors? That day at the Saint Michael’s church I badly wanted to find out but I never got the chance,” she said, her eyes searching his.
Slade smiled at the question. “As a boy, I thought the stories about the insane Roman tyrant Caligula and his cruelties, extravagances and sexual perversions were shocking but an eye opener to the depravity of humans. But then I used to spend hours captivated by Homer’s tale of wanderings and omens in theOdyssey. I’d say the latter was much more enjoyable and probably my favorite. I love the idea of a grand life-altering adventure. Life in itself is one after all,” he said.
The slow stretch of her lips was gentle, commiserative, and breathtaking. Her radiance was as deep and wide as an ocean. It stopped his heart. And he wanted to swim in that ocean forever.
Her eyes fell on his lips again. “I enjoyed kissing you,” she said, her voice a low murmur.
He gazed at her, sleepiness lowering her eyelids almost closed. His heart ached at her unguarded loveliness, relieved the pained expression had vanished. “I enjoyed kissing you too, my love,” Slade said.
She then puckered her lips, edged closer and planted an innocent kiss flush against his mouth. The sweetness of the gesture melted his insides to warm honey. It altered the landscape of his heart, mind and soul forever. But then her body stilled, settling into sleep.
He lay on his side next to her and, with the backs of his fingers, gently stroked the curve of her soft cheeks, the tip of her chin and the sides of her forehead, watching her sleep. But somewhere in his belly, a dangerous fire blazed as he left Fifi sleeping and silently went to the adjoining bedchamber.
Early the next morning, before the adjoining marriage bedchamber door opened and soft sure footsteps of leather boots heading down the stairs sounded, Slade was already up and dressed.
Minutes later, when another pair of footsteps entered the adjoining marriage bedchamber, Slade pushed up from the desk where he’d been finishing up his correspondence, strolled to the adjoining door, pulled it open and stepped in.
Fifi’s maid, a diminutive girl with a clean and tidy pinafore, busied herself. She dropped the edges of a counterpane she’d been stretching over the bed, and with a startled expression turned to face him in a jerky motion, her brows almost lifting to her hairline.
Slade relaxed his features into a pleasant expression, not wanting to scare the girl into bolting for the door. “Tell me, Aila, how long have you served my wife?” Slade asked.
“Ab … about nine years, Master MacLean, except when Mistress Dunb … pardon me, except when Mistress MacLean was down south,” she said, her voice slightly tremulous.
“Then you would know who hurt my wife, wouldn’t you?” Slade asked, expending an inordinate amount of energy to keep murder from his expression.
The maid’s features went deathly pale before they crumpled in absolute and unmitigated distress. She started shaking her head, her chin and lips wobbled, and she took a step towards the door, looking like she was about to run.
“No, wait, please. I promise you are not in trouble. And I know how loyal you are to your mistress. I only want to help Phoebe. I only want to protect my wife and make sure it never happens again. Ever. You have my solemn vow,” Slade said, putting his right palm on his chest above his heart and letting his distress show for a breath before shuttering his expression.
Her throat muscles worked again and again just before she stammered out sentence after sentence through tears, explaining her suspicions regarding Faye Ross.
After the maid was finished, Slade thanked the girl, assuring her she wasn’t in any kind of trouble. He returned to the adjoining chamber and closed the door behind him without a sound while the rush of blood through his veins hammered like thunder in his ears. A dark, dangerous and desperate guttural howl sounded, and it took a second for it to hit Slade that it had escaped from his own throat. But then the need to contain the lethal predator inside him cracked and he punched walls, shattered tables, and broke chairs before collapsing to his knees in a heap of deadly fury and raging hatred. As his rapid pulse subsided and his racing breath slowed, an insistent knockingsounded at the door. He called out some platitude to assuage the servant’s concern, knowing he’d have to hide the aftermath of his rage from Phoebe, and deal with the wreckage himself.
Slade had always been a methodical and patient man. But his exalted patience was in tattered shreds a short while later. He hurriedly penned a missive to his former comrade, Colonel Wilfred Owens of the Second Division, Lieutenant Faye Ross’s commanding officer, requesting an immediate meeting.
CHAPTER 50
As Phoebe traversed the entire luxurious south wing of Garraidh expressing gratitude to her wedding guests staying at the castle, nausea gurgled in her belly and a tight pain stabbed her chest. Could they tell her smile wasn’t real? Her disastrous wedding night replayed in the back of her mind, making her muscles stiffer than when she’d left the bed this morning after a night of troubled sleeplessness.
If someone could die of mortification, agony and regret she would have long since been buried. The agonizing pain, shock, and sympathy on his beautiful face from when she’d yelledget offburrowed into her soul with the force of a hundred iron spikes skewering her, over and over again. Had he left the marriage bedchamber to avoid her?
After speaking to the MacLean’s guests, Phoebe spoke to her family before they left. She had to assuage a worried mother and a hovering father that the wedding night was successful. “I am perfectly hale, there is nothing to worry about,” she said to her parents.
She had been hurt at their inflexibility when the scandal regarding the supposed kiss first happened. But she realizedthey were constrained, the same as everyone else. They too had to follow propriety.
“Even though custom dictated you and Slade had to marry, and you are now a wife, I will forever remain your father. You can come to me for anything, always,” her father said.
And her mother had tears in her eyes as she fiercely hugged Phoebe goodbye. “Oh, my dearest, I will miss you terribly, please promise me you will come home for a visit as often as possible.”
Phoebe had to swallow back the thick emotion in her throat as she hugged her father. Deep in her bones she understood her parents loved her, the best they knew how.
No longer would she live with her mother, father and Egan at Eileanach, Garraidh was her new home now. The thought filled her with sadness. What type of home would she build together with Slade when her mortifying behavior hadn’t even allowed for consummation of the marriage?
