Ewan looked him up and down. Much to his frustration, his captain knew him well, likely from the hours they had spent training together. One learned more about a man in practice than they did in anything else, and he had not crossed swords with anyone as much as he had with Ewan.
“Ye’ve been watching her all morning,” he remarked, lifting his chin to meet his gaze. “Why do ye keep standing here like a ghost? She’s yer wife if ye want to?—”
“I’m making sure she’s keeping up wi’ her training,” he lied swiftly. “I dinnae want to see her let it fall by the wayside, especially when she made such a scene about learning in the first place.”
“It seems ye dinnae know how to approach her,” Ewan remarked with a sigh.
Tavish chuckled. “Ye think she intimidates me?”
“Is it about Callum?”
His words cut through every defense that he had tried to throw up, and Tavish stood there for a moment, half-wishing he could tell him to shut his mouth and half-knowing there would have been no point in even trying.
Ewan had seen him watching her, not just today, but for months, years, even, before she had been his wife. He was not blind to the way that he had looked upon her for so long now, the way he had craved her like the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins.
“No,” he shot back, his voice harsher than he intended it to be. “Not everything is to do wi’ my brother, Ewan.”
“Aye, but this is,” he replied. “Why don’t ye tell her what’s on yer mind?”
“Because if she finds the truth,” Tavish muttered. “She’ll run.”
The honesty caught him off guard, a part of him wanted everyone to know the depths of what he was feeling. And yet there was another part of him that longed for nothing more than to just close himself off again, to pretend that she did not reach his heart the way she did, that she did not command such power over him.
He knew it would have been fruitless. If Ewan could tell that he was consumed by her, everyone else could, too, and there would have been no point in pretending otherwise.
“No, she won’t,” Ewan urged him. “Ye’re the finest warrior in the clan. Why don’t ye offer to train her yerself?”
Tavish stood there for a moment, considering the suggestion. In some ways, it made sense. It was something she wanted, after all, to learn how to fight properly, and he would have been better placed than any of his men to teach her.
Even now, as he stood there watching her, he could see the mistakes that the guard she was sparring with was making, the way his stance was too narrow, his arm too low. Perhaps it would have done her good to learn from someone who knew as well as he did.
And, before he could think on the matter any further, he strode towards her, pushing his way between the guard and his wife.
She stepped back, her eyes narrowing.
“I’m not finished with my training, if that’s what ye?—”
“No, ye’ve no’ even started,” he replied, and he turned to the guard behind him, extending his hand. “Give me yer sword, lad.”
He did not protest for an instant, handing it over at once. Tavish closed his hand around it, weighing it in his palm, feeling more at ease in the instant he took it.
“What are ye doing?”
“Ye need to plant yer feet wider,” he explained, grasping her hips and drawing her to the right so he could position her as she needed to be in order to stand against him in a fight.
He tried to ignore the way her body felt beneath his grip, if only for that instant, the reminder of how close she had been to giving herself to him on those brief snatches of time that they had been alone together and he had wanted nothing more than to take her on the spot.
He was sure he could sense her body tightening slightly, too, like her mind had traveled to the same place. Though, if it had, she did not let it show on her face.
“And hold the sword here—higher, like this,” he continued, sliding his hand along her arm and drawing it a few inches up.
Her skin was so soft beneath his touch, so delicate, it felt as though it might tear right there in his hand. But if she wanted to play with the men, then she would need to prove herself worthy of it, that much was for sure.
He stepped back from her, casting his gaze up and down her for a moment, and then nodded.
“Aye, that should do.”
“I’ve been training for days,” she protested, her knuckles whitening as she held tight to her sword. “Ye think I don’t know how to stand? How to handle myself?”
