“We are going to bed eventually, Sìl,” he said against her ear. “Don’t make me wait. I want ye badly.”
She shoved him away. “There’s nothing special about wanting to take me to bed, Ian MacDonald.” Flinging her arm to the side, she said, “Half the men in the clan could say that. At least, I don’t think many would refuse if I made the offer.”
Blood pounded in his ears. “If ye offered? If ye offered!”
“Ye wanting me in bed is not a good enough reason for me.” She stomped across the room. At the door, she turned and shouted over her shoulder, “You’re not good enough for me.”
She slammed the door so hard her pretty rocks on the windowsill bounced.
He was more than a wee bit annoyed himself.If she offered.How could she say such a thing?
He grabbed his shirt from the floor, pulled it over his head as he crossed the room in three long strides, and took off after her down the stairs. “You are the one who wanted to be married to me in the first place. Ye can’t deny it.”
“Just stay away from me,” she shouted back. “Or I swear, I’ll stick a dirk in ye.”
“You planned the whole thing because ye wanted to be away from your step-da,” he bellowed, as he followed her through the hall and into the kitchen. “And I wasn’t supposed to have any say over it, was I? Everyone would get what they wanted—but me.”
They were in the kitchen now, with the worktable between them. When he reached around the side to get a hold of her nightshift, she grabbed a skillet from the table and swung it at his head.
“Now that I want ye to be a true wife, ye change your mind,” he shouted. “Just what did ye think you were getting into? Did ye no expect a husband to want ye in his bed?”
“Perhaps I did expect it—a year ago. Or a month ago,” she shouted back. “Or a few days ago, when ye finally decided to bless us with your presence.”
“I am prepared to be your husband now,” Ian said, gritting his teeth.
“Oh, thank ye.” She rolled her eyes and patted her chest. “My heart is all aflutter over it.”
“You picked me, and like it or no, I am your husband,” he said. “And I don’t want to ever again hear my wife talking about other men and what they’d doif ye offered.”
That was when she caught him on the side of the head with the skillet.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, ye hit me!” He doubled over holding his head. It hurt like hell.
Sìleas looked as shocked by what she’d done as he was. He decided that if she were in a forgiving mood, so was he.
“Come, lass, this is no way to start our married life.”
“No, it isn’t,” she said in a shaky voice.
He noticed that she had a kitchen knife in her other hand now and reached for it. “Put the blade down, Sìl, and come to bed.”
That was when she hit him the second time.
He woke up on the floor with Sìleas standing over him, the kitchen blade still in her hand. Judging from the fire in her eyes, she was debating just where to stick it into him.
“I think you’re safe from the beast without having to use my best kitchen knife on him.”
At the sound of his mother’s voice, Ian risked taking his eyes off Sìleas long enough to see his mother standing in the doorway in her nightshift and cap. Her long, black and gray braid hung over her shoulder, and her hands were planted on her hips.
Ian rolled out of the way as the knife fell from Sìleas’s hand, and it clattered to the floor where he had been lying. Sìleas opened her mouth as if she were trying to form a reply to his mother, then she clamped her hand over her mouth and ran from the room.
“Thanks, mam,” Ian said as he got to his feet. He shook his head, trying to get his bearings and make sense of what just happened. One minute, he was kissing Sìleas in bed, and the next she was trying to kill him.
“And just what did ye think ye were doing?” his mother asked.
“Me?” he asked, thumping his chest. “Sìleas was the one attempting to murder me in your kitchen.”
“Ach, even half drunk as ye are, I expect ye could get away from a wee lass like Sìleas.” His mother waved a dismissive hand. “Now, are ye going to tell me how it is that sweet lass was chasing ye around the kitchen with a knife?”
