Chapter Nine #4
Lisle decided that the best course, when surrounded by so many men, was to ignore them, including the one parading as her husband, and it was easy, until he reached over to take the reins from the Fergus fellow.
Lisle looked along the line of his arm, where he was bent over slightly; up to his profile; reached his ear…
and then suffered through a flare of something so amazing, it sucked the air right into her chest and kept it there until it burned.
Lisle’s eyes were wide and her hands on the pommel shook until she got the reaction under control.
She didn’t know what the feeling was, and she wasn’t going to find out, either.
It was enough that it was related to what she’d experienced when giggling and gossiping about men and carnal pleasure, and everything that was illicit and sensual, and best said in the dark, in whispers, beneath the sheets, where one of the Sisters couldn’t hear.
She tried telling herself that it wasn’t the same thing now.
It couldn’t be. There was nothing she felt about Laird Langston Monteith except the basest hate and disgust. She had to blink the sheen of moisture from her eyes.
He was leading her out over the drawbridge, and when they were halfway up the perfection of that stone-lined road, he turned.
Then he was setting out across landscape that had been cropped recently, and groomed so closely that it wouldn’t have looked churned up, even if a thousand feet had just been walking across it.
Lisle watched the ground between them absently as he led her, letting his own horse have more and more lead, and nothing was making sense.
They were almost to the line of forest that he’d left in a pristine condition when the question hit.
Why was the grass up here in such a condition?
Excitement in her grew as she realized what it had to be.
The army that she’d been imagining out on the front lawn hadn’t been on the front lawn at all. It had been over here, on a side lawn!
Her eyes looked at the proof, and she swiveled her head to look back at the pathway of it. It didn’t seem possible, but Langston Monteith could be drilling and training an army! But if he was—why?
It was immediately damp, dim, and colder beneath the canopy of trees, and there was solid undergrowth beneath the horses, obliterating any trace of a path, although it appeared they were still on one.
That had to be the explanation for shrubbery and tree branches that looked like they’d been snapped off and why the overhang of limbs was just above his head at any given point she looked at.
Lisle wrapped her cloak closer, looked to either side of her, and noticed the same thing.
There wasn’t anything hanging low enough that a man would have to dodge while riding on horseback.
Her eyes went back to the man in front of her that she was using as a gauge for such a thing, and a twinge hit her belly, twisting it, and making her eyes widen with the gasp.
She looked aside, as quickly as possible, and waited for the sensation to fade.
The forest on either side was safer, and the amount of space that appeared to be a cleared area looked about the same width as the path on the lawns had been.
She wondered now, not only if there was an army, but if Langston was training them for his own use.
If he did, it was an interesting endeavor, and had to be for a reason.
She could think of several, but the most glaring was the most frightening.
He needed it. Scotsmen only had one enemy they could still fight… each other.
The thought that he needed such an army of protection had her glancing about nervously before she had her mind under control. He must know sentiment against him was high. The laird of Monteith needs this much protection? she asked herself, and then answered herself—only if his back was turned.
She narrowed her eyes on the thought. Langston Monteith was in front of her, riding with a side-to-side sway, almost like his walk.
He had a very nice back, she decided, and some very wide shoulders.
She watched as he stretched, putting his arms wide, and pulling her horse’s head up with the motion on the reins.
That was interesting, and broke into her thoughts, making her lose exactly what they were and why.
This Langston fellow must be quite a catch, if she’d been any woman other than a Culloden widow, that is.
He was young, robust, handsome, rich…alive—as many other Highland lairds were not—and he was extremely interesting to look at, as well. Handsome…masculine…virile…muscled.
Her thoughts mellowed on the descriptions.
Langston had well-developed arms, and she already knew he had a very thick, hard, and warm chest. Lisle shut her eyes and experienced such a thrill of gooseflesh over her entire body that it slackened her thighs and shook her to the point she had to reopen her eyes before she slid off her saddle, embarrassing herself.
She looked at the man in front of her unblinkingly, questioning reason and sanity, and wondered why she was losing both of hers at the same time.
Creatures like Langston Monteith were to be spit on and detested; maybe even put on a little, pointed, objective type of thing and examined by men with very long, white beards, and nothing of any interest to say, one way or the other, about it. Then, they were to be discarded.
Lisle smiled slightly—sickly, if she thought of it—at the imagery of that ever happening.
If it did, it would have to be a very large, pointed thing.
She gulped, and went back to trying to decide if Monteith had an army, and why; and then she wondered what he was supplying them with for weaponry, since it had been outlawed after Culloden.
Scots weren’t allowed anything that could be a weapon of war; no swords, no claymores, no muskets.
The Sassenach even considered the kilt and bagpipes weapons of war!
Her thoughts stalled as she remembered. Langston ignored the law. He flirted with imprisonment or worse. His men had worn kilts. Langston had also been wearing a kilt—tight about his waist, draped down over buttocks that probably carried as much muscle as the rest of him….
She shuddered at the unbidden memory of it, and rocked backward until the saddle stopped the movement.
“Are you tired? Chilled?”
Lisle yanked herself forward, grateful for the dim shade, and was unable to look at anything except her hands on the pommel at first. She wasn’t remotely chilled. Anywhere. She knew the reason. He was sitting right beside her, looking at her. She only hoped her face wasn’t giving her thoughts away.
“Well?”
He’d slowed the horse, Torment, and pulled on Blizzom’s reins, bringing her right next to him, and she hadn’t even noticed? Lisle shook her head.
“You shouldn’t let him have his head that way.”
He tipped his head and slid a glance to her. She moved her own away the instant their eyes touched.
“Who?” she asked.
“Blizzom.”
“Oh. Him.”
“Doona’ take offense, but a horse is like a woman.”
“Excuse me?” she asked.
“Women need a gentle, but firm hand, you see. One that guides, directs, but doesn’t interfere, unless necessary.”
“Are we speaking of horses?” Lisle asked.
“Of course.”
“Are na’ stallions male horses?”
“Aye.”
If he hadn’t answered that with a grin that went right to his eyes, Lisle wouldn’t have had the reaction she did.
As it was, she was grateful he had the reins, because she wasn’t in control of anything on her body, or anywhere else.
There was no way to ignore the gamut of shivers she was suffering; all she could do was prevent him from knowing about them.
“Then…why would you speak of women?”
“Because they react the same. Stallion. Mare.”
Lisle sent a prayer upward, begging for help to stop the immediate response those words created, and then she was cursing the Fates that decided her prayers must not be worth answering, again. “Is this how you…teach riding?” she asked.
“I doona’ know how to train a woman to ride a horse. I only know how to train a rider.”
Lisle looked at the ground. It looked like it was as far away as her mattress had looked earlier.
She looked at the side he wasn’t on. The trees looked sturdy, woodsy, exactly like a forest should, even one that had been pruned to allow riders through.
She looked at the horses’ ears in front of her.
She did everything she could not to look at the man on her right side.
Nothing worked.