Page 20 of In Bed with a Highland Liar

Aaden knew his horse well, though, and he urged it to gallop faster, knuckles turning bone white as he held tightly onto the reins. He could handle speed easily, following the fluid movement of his horse, the two of them catching up to Lilith step by step.

If I defeat her, she may be impressed.

After all, she had to know how good she was, and to find someone just as good or even better than her would surely be a surprise. He was getting closer to her, closing the gap between them in his frenzied chase. All he needed to do was push a little more, overtake her at the last moment.

I cannae let her win. I cannae.

Not only would it do nothing but undermine his efforts, but his ego would be bruised by the end of it, too.

The closer he got to Lilith, though, the closer both of them got to the finish line. The point where the road split in two, one side leading to the lake while the other led to the town, loomed in front of him and in his ears, he could already hear Lilith’s mocking tone as she came to the realization that she had defeated him.

Before Aaden even knew it, Lilith breezed past the end point of their race, her bubbling laughter reaching his ears even over the thunderous sound of the horses’ hooves. It was a close race, closer than it had seemed to him at first, but he had still lost to her and irritation simmered hot beneath the surface.

Abruptly, Aaden came to a halt next to her, his horse almost bucking him off with how roughly he stopped. Lilith was still laughing, her entire body shaking with mirth, and Aaden may have found the sound pleasant if the blood hadn’t been rushing to his head, the anger threatening to spill out of him.

“Why didnae ye tell me ye could ride like this?” he demanded. All this preparation, all the effort he had put into it had been for nothing, but the worst part was the smug smile that Lilith sported. She seemed very satisfied with herself and her efforts, and though perhaps under other circumstances Aaden would have indeed been impressed by her abilities, now he couldn’t help but think that she had somehow planned this, even though it had been his idea all along. Irrational as the thought was, he still clung to it stubbornly just to make himself feel better.

“Ye didnae ask,” Lilith pointed out. “Ye only suggested we race an’ we did. Are ye displeased now?”

“Nay,” said Aaden through gritted teeth, but it was obvious to anyone with ears that it was a lie. He didn’t particularly try to hide his displeasure either. Still, Lilith laughed once more and Aaden spared her one final glance before he put his horse into motion once more, heading to the lake and calling over his shoulder, “Are ye comin’?”

That laughter followed him all the way to the end of the path, and Aaden realized that if he wanted to win her favor, he would have to play dirty.

It had become a strange day for Lilith since Aaden suggested they go to the lake near the castle. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before, but with Freya’s appeals to treat Aaden kindly in the back of her mind, she agreed to his invitation. She hadn’t expected the dare that was to follow, of course, but then again, Aaden hadn’t expected her to win.

She would never forget his flushed face at the end of their race, the way he looked at her with such disbelief and anger than she momentarily thought he would turn around and leave. He had stayed, though. The two of them had taken the route around the lake before heading back to the castle, but it had been far from a pleasant ride. Throughout the entire time, Aaden had hardly said a word.

Lilith hadn’t seen him, in the hours that had passed between their return and the start of dinner. Everyone else was at the table waiting for him, and the more the minutes passed, the more her irritation grew. Tapping her fingers impatiently on the table, she looked around at the others, though none of them seemed as irritated as she was.

When she caught Evander’s gaze, the man took a deep breath and put on an appeasing smile that only served to irritate Lilith further. “Forgive me cousin,” he said. “He isnae usually one tae be late without warnin’.”

Yer cousin is actin’ like a bairn simply because I won.

There was no doubt in Lilith’s mind that this was nothing more than a tantrum. Aaden was so furious that he had lost and that Lilith hadn’t warned him that she could ride well, that he now refused to eat at the same table as her, just like he had refused to speak to her on the way back. It was childish behavior and it only showed her that her first assessment of him had been correct.

“I kent he was a brute, but I never thought he would show me faither such disrespect,” Lilith hissed, leaning back on her seat to cross her arms over her chest.

“Perhaps somethin’ has happened,” her father suggested from the head of the table, concern tinting his voice. Lilith wanted to point out that the most likely explanation was that nothing had happened and that she had simply always been right about the kind of person Aaden was, but she held her tongue. She had promised her sister she would give him a chance, after all, and she didn’t want her to know about the ride they had taken together. “Cameron, go an’ see where he is. He may need assistance.”

Just as Cameron stood from his chair, though, a faint sound reached Lilith’s ears and, judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, they could all hear it, too. It was a song, one with which Lilith was very familiar, the tune carved into her memory. The volume rose steadily and soon everyone but Lilith was rushing to the windows to locate its source.

She didn’t need to look to know who it was. There was only one person in the world who could annoy her so much. Still, she stood reluctantly and followed the rest, looking out of the window to see Aaden there with an entire band of musicians. When he spotted her by the window, he smiled as he sang and began to gesture dramatically, much to Lilith’s chagrin.

As early I walked on the first of sweet May

beside a clear fountain

beneath a steep mountain

I heard a sweet flute soft melody play.

His voice was surprisingly melodious, a deep baritone with a slight hoarseness to it, even as he was all but shouting the song. Next to Lilith, Freya clapped her hands excitedly, her lips curled around a bright smile as she turned to Evander.

“It’s the song our maither sang tae us when we were bairns!” she told him. “How did he ken tae sing this? Perhaps it really is fate, after all, an’ they were destined tae be together.”

Lilith knew better than that, but she didn’t reveal that to her sister. It wasn’t fate. It was Cameron, who had told Aaden about the song because he could never keep his mouth shut when it mattered the most.

“Nay one has done anythin’ like this ‘afore,” Freya told Evander in a quieter voice, but Lilith heard her regardless even over the music. “The other suitors were all too fearful o’ embarrassin’ themselves.”