Her shirt fell to the ground. She couldn’t quite get her grasp around his broad shoulders, so she moved to working the fall of his trousers.
“Duty?” she asked, her arch question lost as he palmed a breast with delicious roughness. “Oh, aye, I see what this is, then. Just duty.”
He pinched a reprimand on her nipple. “Duty can be a pleasure, too.”
“Well, then,” she said, satisfied and, frankly, unable to think of anything else to say that really mattered.
“Well, then,” he agreed.
Her skirts hit the floor. And, after that, neither of them had anything to say for a good, long while.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ewan was enjoyinga dream that he had the pleasant recognition was mostly memory; in it, Ailsa, his bride at last, was splayed out for him, eager and willing. He felt half drunk on the scent of her, fragrant soap and warm woman, and his dream self seemed able to touch her everywhere at once?—
The trumpeting of horns shattered the illusion. Ewan woke in a flash, taking only a single blink to take everything in.
Ailsa was here, safe, though clearly as confused as he was as she pulled herself blearily from his arms. The horns were still screaming.
And there was smoke in the air.
“Christ. Stay here, Ailsa,” he barked as he vaulted out of bed, grabbing a pair of trousers from his wardrobe with the agility of someone who had gotten dressed for more predawn training sessions than he could count. He didn’t need his eyes to navigate this room, nor to make it to the balcony.
He tugged a shirt over his head as he crossed into the cool night, then drew up short as his worst fears were confirmed.
The blaze roared high in the distance, easily visible even from afar.
“Bloody hell,” he swore.
“Is that the distillery?” Ailsa asked from behind him, voice small.
She hadn’t followed his order to stay behind because, of course, she bloody hadn’t. He hadn’t even really thought she would. She was wearing only the sheet from the bed, which she held clutched around her shoulders. Ewan regretted not having the time to enjoy the sight more.
“Aye,” he said grimly.
Shouts and horses’ whinnies carried across the dale, indicating that the clan—no doubt with James at their head as Captain of the Guard—had already mobilized to fight the blaze. It would be a bitter fight, though. Once the flames reached the casks of whisky, they would become nearly as flammable as black powder.
“I have to go down there.”
“I’m coming, too,” his fierce little wife insisted.
“Ailsa—”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, her long hair whipping wildly. “I have to come help. They’re my people now too, Ewan?—”
He quelled her speech with a hand on her arm. “Just get dressed,” he said. “And quickly. Ye can come, but if I tell ye to run, yerun, do you hear me?”
He could tell she wanted to argue, but he could see, just as clearly, that she recognized the wisdom of his words.
“Aye,” she agreed. “I promise.”
“Good.” He turned back to the wardrobe and grabbed her another set of clothes.
They would be enormous on her, but he didn’t have time to find anything that fit her better, and it would take an age to get her back into the gown he’d peeled off her when they’d retired for the evening.
Christ, that seemed like an age ago, not mere hours.
Her long brown hair was loose and disheveled, but she just shoved it down the back of his oversized shirt, then shoved her feet into her boots, tucking and tying extra cloth out of the way as she went.
