This time he walked without touching her, pacing his longer strides to hers so that she was near him. When people passed, they bowed or nodded to him and greeted her as well. The same men who had leered at her just days before now only gave her respectable words or glances. Several men asked Aidan’s views on various matters affecting the village or the fields. It would be time to plant very soon and his opinion about when that would happen and which crops would do best this season seemed to matter.
He was his father’s son, after all, and would own and control all of this some day.
The one person she did not see and had not seen in days was Gowan’s son Munro. It was as if he did not live in Lairig Dubh any longer. No one mentioned him to her, not even Muireall, so she had no idea of his whereabouts or his circumstances. She just feared seeing him here while Aidan escorted her, his leman, for all to see.
When one discussion went on for several minutes, she considered how inappropriate she was for him. He was wealthy, learned, heir to a huge estate and titles that would take him even to the king’s court and possibly beyond that. She was the impoverished daughter of a whoremonger who’d barely survived with her life and could offer him nothing of worth. Not even a fertile womb. She’d been lost in her thoughts when his hand took hers.
‘Catriona?’ he said.
To pull away now would be an insult to him in front of these people, so she left hers in his larger one and walked with him along the path. He took it another step when he moved her hand on to his arm and placed his hand on top to keep it there.
They continued as such as though it a natural thing. Once, nay, twice, his hand slipped and touched the side of her breast. She thought it an accidental slip until she met his gaze and realised he did it a-purpose. Then, even as in the darkest part of last night, her body answered the slightest hint from him.
‘Again?’ she asked, the words escaping before she could stop them. He turned and pulled her close, now those aching breasts leaned fully on his arm.
‘Still.’ One word, said on an exhale and she was ready to lose herself in the passion he promised.
‘Now?’ How long would it take them to return to the house? she wondered. Not as long to get there as it had to reach this point, if they spoke to no one and rushed their pace a bit.
‘Now.’
One word and she was his. He began to turn back towards the house when a young boy called out to him.
‘My lord! The laird calls you to the hall. There are guests, he said.’
The momentary insanity that gripped them dissolved as duty called him to the keep. She knew he must heed his father’s summons and do it with some haste. Her body ached for his to ignore it and come with her. He nodded to the boy and faced her.
‘Later.’
Her body trembled, hearing all the promise in that one word it wanted to hear. Another night spent being pleasured by his skilled and questing hands and mouth and... She shivered again at the memories that flooded her now.
‘Your horse,’ she forced out. At first he frowned and then he laughed for clearly he was not thinking of his horse either.
‘I will leave it. I’ll send a boy to tend to it.’
He released her and she nearly melted there at his feet. Her body was not her own any longer. She was not her own. In only one night, she had lost herself to him and his, their, desires. She belonged to him and it had taken hardly any time at all for her to fall from grace completely and utterly. Far less time or effort than she thought it would have taken.
As he walked away, she understood one thing—this would not end well at all, for she was already half in love with a man she could never call her own.
* * *
She dared not seek her bed. Or should she?
Would he wake her with a word? A caress? A kiss?
Cat paced around the room that had once seemed so large to her and now could not contain her restlessness. The wrapped book on the table caught her gaze, but she’d decided to wait for his return before opening it.
Was this to be her life now? Waiting on him? She shook her head in denial, yet here she stood, not knowing if he would return or when. Duty came first so it was possible she would spend this night alone. She would spend many nights alone.
Cat promised herself in that moment that she would move past this infatuation, enjoy it for all the pleasure and joy it brought, and then find a balance and a pacing to her life.
Once she had learned to read and write, she had a skill she could barter with—for the cost of a monk or brother to teach those skills was far more than anyone here earned in a year. But she could trade that for the goods and supplies she needed.
Once he left her behind to carry on with his life.
And, oh, aye, he would do that sooner rather than later. Word of three possible brides and all sorts of guesses spread through the village the same evening as the announcement was made. His younger sister had been married twice to join clans. His cousins and other kin the same. As the heir, his marriage would be grander than anyone else’s.
Shaking off these thoughts of weddings and of a time too far in the days to come to worry, she filled the pot with water and pulled it over the heat to boil. Surely a cup of her tea would calm her nerves while she waited.
