Page 19 of Highlander’s Lesser Evil

“We are married, Gemma. Ye should know. Ye officiated the ceremony yerself. This is yer bed. Now ‘tis my bed.”

“Funny how that works,” she said through clenched teeth. “I suppose those looms belong to you as well. Have fun weaving.”

“Easy, love. I amnae taking the cottage from ye, nor yer looms. I just want to rest my head for the remainder of the night.”

“All this talk about desire, and you couldn’t even be bothered to spend your wedding night with me. Tell me the truth. Was there another woman that you spent the night with? Another lass?”

“Jealous?”

Yes, although she was not going to admit it to him. “No. You do what you want.”

She tried to lie back down and ignore him, but the bed was hardly big enough for two, and soon, he was plastered up against her with his arm curved comfortably around the curve of her hip. Biting her bottom lip to keep from gasping, she held herself as still as possible. No one had ever touched her like that or been so close.

“Gemma,” he said huskily. “I havenae been with another lass tonight. There is none that I want besides ye, and while I cannae say this marriage will always be a happy one, I wilnae stray from ye.”

“Then where were you tonight?”

“I wanted a word with Graeme to make certain that he knew ye were taken. He was not at the wedding festivities and I was worried.” He hesitated. “Then I had to see to my duties.”

“And now you want to see to your husbandly duties?”

“Not tonight. We both need our sleep, but ‘tis not because I doonae want ye.”

The evidence of his desire was pressed against her backside, so she knew he was telling the truth.

She closed her eyes and wondered if she would get any sleep sharing her bed with a man who was a stranger to her, but surprisingly, exhaustion got the best of her, and his warmth comforted her until she drifted off.

8

When Gemma woke up the next morning, Theo was gone. The only sign that he had spent the night with her was the scent from the blankets. Confused by the strange sense of loss in the pit of her stomach, she pulled up the blankets to her nose.

Wonderful. Now she was acting like a woman who’d lost all sense.

Throwing the blankets down, she all but fell off the bed and scrambled away. Not enough sleep; that was her problem. She just needed to get her chores and work done for the day, and then she’d go to bed early.

As she changed out of her nightdress, her cheeks flushed from the memory of his body curved around hers. She heated some oatmeal in the pot and scarfed down her breakfast. Sitting at the loom, she hummed as she started to work.

There was a time when her mind would go blissfully blank while she worked. When the threading would chase away the fears of a marriage she didn’t want, when it would fill the loneliness of finding herself in a harsh land, when it would give her a purpose she’d always felt like she didn’t have.

Now it gave her too much time to be still, to think about the choice she’d made so rashly yesterday.

A marriage without love. He might be a good man, and Gemma desperately hoped he was, but it still meant she would never find the love that used to sweeten her dreams.

“Ye look tired, lass.”

With a shriek, Gemma whirled and started to topple off her stool. Theo grabbed her before she slid off entirely, and gently righted her. “‘Tis only me.”

“You scared me,” she grumbled, then squinted. It was so dark in the room, and her stomach rumbled. Clearly, she’d lost track of time again.

“Ye do everything with complete focus. Sleep. Work. Marry.” He chuckled at his joke and pulled her from the stool. “I checked on ye earlier and found ye hard at work, so I procured some dinner for us. Come, eat.”

Wooed by the smell of hot stew and potatoes, Gemma rose and joined him at the table.

“Were you training the recruits?” she asked as her mind wandered to David. She wanted to ask how he was doing, to make sure that he wasn’t in any dangerous situation, but she also wanted to trust Theo.

“David is doing well,” Theo said with a twinkle in his eye. “He is allowed to watch the training sessions so long as he helps keep the armory clean. Yer blacksmith keeps an eye on him to make certain that he learns to respect the weapons.”

“He is worried about what will happen to him and Cameron when I leave. I know that Loch Moran will look out for him...”