Chapter Ten
Lisle knew then that it was going to be a day of surprises, and some of them were not going to be pleasant.
The emotion that dried her mouth, that made her heart hammer and her palms sweaty on the pommel was definitely one of them.
It was unpleasant and disconcerting, and had everything unsafe and unplanned and uncertain anywhere in the world in it.
So much so, her eyes went wide with it, and she watched as what had to be an answering movement happened to his eyes, too.
“What…are you doing?” she asked.
“Teaching you to ride,” was the reply.
“Is this how you do it?”
His eyebrows lifted higher. “Not usually,” he finally said.
At least, that’s what she thought he was saying. She couldn’t hear anything above the steadily increasing beat of her own heart in her ears.
“Why?” she asked.
He gulped. Lisle saw the motion it made as the lump in his throat moved. Then, she moved her gaze back to his. The sun wasn’t giving them much illumination, and that tended to make his ale-colored eyes darker…blacker…and much more mysterious.
“Because it’s normal to tie a lad on and give his mount a good smack.”
“What happens then?”
He shrugged, moving her glance to that. He had barely enough room in his English-tailored coat for that type of motion, she noticed with a portion of her mind.
That was a good thing, since his close-fitting trousers weren’t about to give an inch.
That wasn’t a good thing, she decided, wondering where on him it was safest to look.
“He rides.”
“What?”
“Or he falls off. Either way, ’tis the start that’s behind every good endeavor.”
“What?” Lisle asked again.
“A good endeavor is only good if it’s done. And that only happens if the thing is started to begin with.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Riding. What are you talking about?”
“Not riding,” she answered.
That remark had his eyebrows moving again, and drew her gaze to where she least wanted it, on his. All of which started that amazing, pleasant, warm, drumbeat sound about her ears.
“At least…not the kind of riding you are,” she finished with a whisper.
His eyes were wider than hers could possibly go, and Lisle felt like giggling at his expression.
Then there was nothing amusing about anything.
He pulled Blizzom’s lead, putting her right next to him, and he was too much male to do such a thing and not have it affect her.
All of which added to the unpleasantness of this surprise.
“You doona’ ken what you say,” he answered.
Lisle swallowed and winced at the dryness. “Are you raising horseflesh, or not, Monteith?” she asked.
He nodded.
“And are there nae mares in your plan?”
He gave another nod.
“Good thing. A foal canna’ come from a stallion.”
He reached out, grabbed the front pommel of her saddle with one hand, and the back of it with the other, and pulled himself closer by using her saddle for leverage.
Lisle felt it move absently, since he was inhaling and exhaling air, and making his coat look like it wasn’t tailored with much room, after all.
“Do you ken what you’re about, Lisle Monteith?”
She nodded. Then she shook her head.
“You canna’. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be so bold with me.”
He called it bold. It was more like insane. She pointed at him. “You are my husband, Monteith.”
“Na’ because you wanted it.”
“True. That does na’ change the fact of it. You are still my husband.”
He licked his perfectly formed lips, drawing her eye there. “Aye,” he said.
“Then, how can you call my words bold?”
“Because you’re a Highland lass.”
“True,” she answered again, still speaking to his mouth.
“And all Highland lasses detest me.”
“Why?” she asked, moving her gaze back to his. There wasn’t one expression on him.
“My absence from Culloden. My affiliation with the Sassenach.”
The words made the unpleasant even more so, she decided, sitting straighter and wondering what is was about those dark, now brownish black eyes that unhinged her mind and set her mouth to talking so boldly.
“Mayhap…things change,” she whispered, and knew for a certainty that her mind was unhinged. That was what happened when he hovered just above her and there wasn’t anything safe to look at, anywhere on him.
“You should save such talk for when we’re alone. In my bed chamber again. Without disruption. Without company…and without clothing.”
His voice had lowered. Lisle’s heart did the exact same thing, only it fell to the pit of her belly, where it started pounding heavily.
“We are alone,” she answered finally, lifting her chin a bit to breathe the last word onto the lips she was almost kissing, while everything else on her seemed to be shoving toward that very thing.
He closed his eyes on her statement, tightly enough that small wrinkles accompanied the act.
Then he released her saddle with a push, making it rock back upward, the span of it going askew.
Lisle sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, wishing it was his she was nibbling on, and wondered where the unpleasant idea for that had come from.
It wasn’t entirely her fault. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t find emotions of hate and disgust when faced with the physical specimen of Langston Monteith. She only worried over why he wasn’t doing anything about it.
“Come. I dinna’ bring you out here for such.”
“What did you bring me out here for, then?”
He didn’t answer at first. He simply moved forward, letting the rein slide from his hand as he did so, until there was a respectable distance of about a horse-length between their mounts.
Lisle watched Torment and his rider sway as one, and tried to do the same on her mount, and then she was watching kilt-clad men drop from the trees, and come from around shrubs to surround both of them.
Lisle’s heart stuck in place, right against the meshlike chemise, and directly behind the row of buttons up the front of her gown where Monteith had looked, what seemed like days ago, instead of just this morning.
Then the pounding got worse than ever, filling her throat and ears with painful beating.
Monteith didn’t do anything except sit there.
He didn’t so much as try to defend himself.
“You’d best rescue your wench, my lord. She’s about to fall from her saddle with the shock.”
One of the men waved her way, and Langston looked over his shoulder at her.
The expression on his face was a very unpleasant surprise in a day that was just starting to show how many of them it held.
Lisle couldn’t move as those lips sucked into a withheld smile, held it for a moment, and then turned it into a grin, with flashing white teeth.
“These are my groomsmen,” Langston revealed.
“Groomsmen?” she replied, in what she hoped was an icy tone, but it sounded like it warbled to her own ears.
“I believe my wife is wondering where your mounts are,” Langston informed them, turning his head to the left and right to encompass all of them.
“Wife? You went off and wed?” one asked.
“Without a betrothal?” another one piped in.
“And without the banns?” yet a third man was asking.
“It was a short courtship,” Langston replied, drawing out each word.
There were sounds of amusement given his statement, as well as the droll way he’d said it.
Now that she knew she wasn’t being threatened by a band of murderous Highlanders spotting the green and gold of a Monteith, she found it easier to breathe.
That was also assisted by her heart, as it moved back from lodging at her breastbone and frightening her with the strength of its pounding.
“How short was it?” another man asked.
“I would say it took me less than an hour to select her. She was a trifle slower with her decision. Weren’t you, my dear?”
She sincerely hoped he didn’t expect her to answer to anything. His words were taking her voice, and there were too many men chuckling and milling about, making it patently obvious that the forested space they were in had been cleared to accommodate such a horde.
“Groomsmen, my lord?” she finally managed to ask.
He sighed in an exaggerated fashion, moving his shoulders with the strength of it. “Come along. Show my wife where the horses are.”
It wasn’t far. The trees thinned, opening into a meadow, where hundreds of horses were hobbled.
They weren’t Arabians, either. They were the Scot Clydesdales.
Lisle’s eyes narrowed as she looked at all the horseflesh, carrying either a saddle or a pack on its back.
It didn’t look like Monteith was just raising horseflesh to her untried eye.
She hoped he didn’t think to fool an Englishman with such a fable.
The groomsmen started filing through the horses, bobbing and weaving amongst the distinctive, dark red coats.
“How many horses do you put with each groomsman?” she asked, while Monteith sat there on his horse and watched her watch the scene in front of her.
“Two,” he answered.
“Two.” She didn’t state it as a question, because it wasn’t one. She didn’t know anything about it, but that sounded absurd. “Is that normal?”
He shrugged. “I doona’ care. My horseflesh is the best quality. Their grooms will also be, and overwork makes for shoddy care and grooming. I pay for the best grooms. I can afford it.”
She was well aware of that. Lisle looked at him, wondering if the expectant look on his face meant what it did. She decided to ask it. “You want me to ask why they’re not Arabian stock, doona’ you?”
His lips twitched, and then he got it under control. “Perhaps,” he answered.
“You bought Clydesdales?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“I dinna’ like the alternative.”
“What?”
“A horse is the first thing a clan parts with when they’re at the end of their luck. ’Tis also the first thing an English soldier dumps once he’s raped and pillaged and plundered the countryside, and has goods to sell.”
“You know they did that to us?” she asked.
He nodded.
“You bought such ill-gotten goods?”
He nodded again.