“Promise me, Arran,” she whispered to him, as he held himself inside of her.
“Promise what?”
“That you’ll never sleep in here alone again. That you’ll be with me instead.”
He gazed at her for a moment. She looked so vulnerable to him, so delicate, but at the same time, he could sense a strength beneath her surface that he knew was formidable. To have survived this far into everything that she had been through, she must have born some true power.
“I promise,” he replied. And then, he leaned in to kiss her again, a smile curling up his lips as he did so.
16
Amelia stirred in bed, to the sense that something was off. She reached over to the side where Arran usually slept, and found it empty. Lifting her head from the pillow, she frowned as she looked around, trying to place him.
“I’m here.”
She turned to face him, and smiled when she saw her husband, already half-dressed, preparing for a hunt. In the few weeks since they had been sharing a bed, she had grown used to this; him having to rise early in the morning, or stay out late some nights, to make certain that his people were fed, and his larder was stocked. She reached out for him lazily, brushing her fingertips against his, and he reached out to grip her hand tightly for a moment.
“When will you be back?”
“I’m no’ sure,” he admitted, crouching down beside the bed to plant a kiss against her hand. “But I’ll be back here as soon as I can.”
She smiled at him, a little sleepily, and watched as he continued to get ready for the hunt. It was still dark outside. The darkness in these days seemed to stretch out further and furtherwith every passing week, but she didn’t mind. It meant more time for her to stay curled up in bed, beneath the warm covers, the scent of him clinging to her at every turn. She was hardly going to protest that.
She listened as his footsteps picked their way out of the chamber, and she closed her eyes again, ready for the warm embrace of sleep to take her once more.
This place had become comfortable for her in a way she never could have imagined, not when she had first come to the Keep. After she and Arran had finally consummated their marriage in his study that fateful night, it felt as though she had truly found her home. Not just in this place, but in him, in the curve of his back as he slept beside her, in the strength of his arms, wrapped around her. She craved nothing more than his touch, his kiss, his caress. Though she was still new to the world of marital closeness, she had found herself craving more and more, each and every day. Luckily for her, her Laird seemed more than able to keep up with her demands, and willing to satisfy every urge that took hold of her.
She turned over, tucking her hands beneath her head as she listened to the wind nagging at the outside of the window. She knew Arran would have wrapped up warm to ward off the cold, but still, she could not help but worry that he might catch a chill. Though he was utterly capable of taking care of himself, she still found herself worrying about him. Was that normal? To care about someone as deeply as she cared about Arran? She supposed it was.
And he took care of her in much the same way that she tried to do for him. He would make sure she had clean clothes ready to slip into every morning, and made sure to save a seat for her at the dinner table beside him, his hand resting on her knee beneath the table, like he was making certain she knew she belonged to him.
And that he belonged to her.
She tossed and turned a little beneath the covers, but found that she was too restless to go back to sleep. She threw back the covers and moved from the bed, pulling on a dress and a heavy robe to ward off the early morning chill. She liked the Keep when it was early. There were only a few people awake, and it was almost as though the whole place existed just for her.
She padded through the corridors, the cold bite of the stone on her feet enough to wipe any traces of tiredness from her system once and for all. As she passed Arran’s study, she slowed for a moment in front of the portrait that had caught his attention before. She had not yet asked him who it was, though she might have made a good guess. It had to be his mother, didn’t it? She could almost see a small piece of him in her eyes. Whoever had painted the picture of her had captured something of her spirit, and it was enough to still her feet every time she walked past it.
She ducked inside the study, and began to look through the books that she had yet to read. There was still so much she had to work through, so much she had to take in. She wanted to read all of these stories, of the youth that he had lived, the stories he had grown up with. The stories, she supposed, that he would expect her to pass down to their children one day.
Their children.A shiver ran down her spine at the notion, but a smile curled her lips in the same instant. She supposed she would have to grow accustomed to that thought, given the way things had been going between them. After all, as Effie had said, there would soon be an heir in this Keep, an heir whom she would raise under her loving guidance. She only wished that her sisters could have been there to see them, too. She could only imagine how wonderful Mary and Lily would have been as aunts.
But, before her mind could stray too much further down that saddening path, a knock sounded at the door. She glancedaround, half-hoping it would be Arran, having returned from his hunt early.
Instead, she found herself looking at Effie. The girl wore a light smile on her face, but there seemed to be something else to her expression, something Amelia couldn’t quite put her finger on.
“Is everything alright?” she asked Effie, turning from the bookcase. Effie nodded.
“Aye, it’s fine,” she replied. “I just received word from the Laird that you’re to ride out and meet him.”
Amelia frowned. Something about it didn’t sound quite right to her. Arran would normally leave her to rest for as long as she needed, before he would return, fresh from the hunt, and the two of them would tumble into bed together once more.
“Are you sure?”
Effie nodded. Her eyes slid to the side. She could not quite look Amelia in the face, and something about her reticence made Amelia’s hair stand on end.
“Aye, Colin is preparing your horse for you now,” she replied. “You should ride out soon. The Laird said to meet him at your special place.”
Amelia cocked her head to the side. The pond? It surely had to be, the place he had taken her when he had first been teaching her to ride. Of course, in the weeks since, she had developed something of an aptitude for it, though she still had a long way to go. At least now she could canter around without being thrown from Fern’s back, even if she did have to cling to the reins with all her might.
