She was silent for so long, Finn thought she wasn’t going to answer. When she spoke, her voice was hushed. “I’ve nae parents, nae family to speak of except a brother. We’re no’ close. I’ve sort of adopted my best friend’s grandmother as my own. Just to ken what it’s like to have one.” She kept her face averted from him as she spoke, eyes closed as if she were too tired to open them. He knew her body though. Aye, he knew it well. While she hadn’t moved a muscle, she was as tense as a stag in the seconds before it raced away from a hunter’s sights. “I broke it off with my ex-boyfriend almost six months ago now —”
“Yer what? Ye mean yer husband?”
“Nay, I’ve never been married.” She turned her head to look at him, her fine features barely discernable in the dim room. “I’m talking about a former…what’s the word? Beau? Suitor?”
Aila hadn’t been a virgin when he first bedded her. As she wore no ring and traveled alone, he’d assumed she was a widow. Never been married? That meant that once before she’d wanted a man enough to bed him outside the bonds of matrimony.
“We dinnae part on the best of terms.” She looked away again. A sigh and exhale curled her shoulders into a huddle.
It wasn’t shame that bowed her body so. As she’d proven herself to be outspoken on the disparity between commending a man for his sexual experience and castigating a woman for hers, it couldn’t have been embarrassment that caused her to withdraw into herself. She wouldn’t consider her reputation compromised by an affair. He also knew she wouldn’t appreciate questions about her lack of innocence. That’s why he hadn’t asked before about who’d been the first to bed her. The truth of it had no influence on his opinion of her — she’d rain bloody hell upon him if he dared say so.
That didn’t mean that he hadn’t wondered. Hadn’t experienced a shocking jolt of jealousy for the man who had once been the object of Aila’s desire. Who’d known her body and passion as he did.
“Suffice it to say, I’ve been at odds,” she continued, unaware of his rumination. Even in the dim light, he could read the sincerity in her eyes. “Looking for something new. Something to give me purpose. When I was offered the opportunity to come here, I took it. That’s the truth of it.”
“And the architects?”
Another pause. “The architect of all this is an acquaintance of my friend’s grandmother.”
The words rang with truth, nevertheless he couldn’t help but feel she withheld something more from him.
“Ye said ye dinnae part from this suitor of yers on the best of terms?” She stiffened again and he knew he’d struck a nerve. “What happened?”
Her head shook against the pillow. “We had differing views on the anatomy of the perfect relationship. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”
She was hiding something. He sensed it. “I dinnae think I can. I get the impression it was something more specific.”
“It wouldnae make any sense to ye.”
“Tell me anyway.”
Aila pushed aside the bedcovers and tried to rise. He caught her around the waist and pulled her back down. When she struggled, he pinned her beneath him. “Ye can trust me with the truth, lass.”
“As ye trust me?” She glared up at him. “Tell me, what is yer truth, Finn?”
“Da?”
With that single, questioning word, Finn stiffened with all the folly of a man who thought he might disappear from sight if he remained motionless. Beneath him, Aila stilled as well. A grimace of pure dread on her lips. One he mirrored when his daughter spoke again.
“What are ye doing on top of Aila?”
There was no way to answer that question sufficiently. Finn countered it with one of his own.
“Effie, what are ye doing here, lass? Ye should be asleep.”
He climbed off the bed — off Aila — dragging a sheet along to wrap around him while she buried herself under the coverlet.
“I dinnae feel well, Da,” she whimpered, rubbing her eye with one fist and her stomach with another. “My belly hurts.”
“Got yerself a case of the mulligrubs, have ye?” He lit a candle and squatted down in front of her with a smile. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d conjured a fanciful infliction to garner his attention. “I warned ye no’ to eat too much Dundee cake, did I no’?”
“I ate Aila’s care-a-mel, too.” Before he could ask what that was, she flung her arms around his shoulders with a pitiful sob. “I’m sorry!”
“There now, dinnae fret, lassie. Nae one is upset with ye.” He dropped to his knees and took her in his arms. He glanced over at Aila to see her struggle either under the bedcovers or with them. It was hard to tell. “Do ye have any idea what she’s talking about?”
“Sweets,” her voice was muffled. “She must have found the rest of my stash and gotten a belly ache for her trouble.”
She emerged from beneath the covers with her neckline tightly gathered and tied once more. She combed her hair over her shoulder with her fingers to regain some semblance of order and scrambled off the bed. He thought he saw a flash of unusual color on her thigh before she pulled on her skirt, but didn’t pay it much attention. Right now, he was more concerned with the other lass in his life. One who was uncommonly warm in his arms.
