Chapter Seven #4
I was entirely aware that my words would anger him, but I had the strong feeling that sitting idly in Wilkie’s bed, waiting for him in his absence, would very nearly drive me mad.
I wanted this man, so much and in such an unrealistic capacity that it made me feel reckless and quietly irate.
I had to do something: to be busy, to react, to somehow fight for the life of what we were.
“You want me to lie patiently in your bed for you, warrior? As your faithful servant awaiting you? Is this what you desire of me? Submission and servitude?”
“Are you deliberately trying to provoke me, Roses? You’re not my servant!” he growled.
“Nay?” I said, sulkily. “What am I, then?”
He studied my face, as though reading there the reasons behind my insolence.
And he countered my tactics with his own.
His manner calmed considerably. He leaned over me, so his hair skimmed across my lips.
His hand cupped my face, and he kissed me, his tongue gentle and fierce simultaneously, opening me to him.
His mouth succeeded in warming all the coldness out of my body, infusing me once again with his honeyed glow.
“You’re my sunlit angel,” he said. “And I want you safe.”
But I wanted more of him, now. And I was hurt by his plan to keep me sequestered away, like—well, like the fugitive that I was.
I didn’t want to feel shameful and afraid anymore, hiding, as I had for so long.
Wilkie had introduced an energy, an optimism and a sense of self-worth to me that was new and so very life-affirming.
I wanted him with me, to feel again the closeness and heat of his body.
If I did as he asked, how long would my isolation last?
I might wait there for hours, or longer, lying idle in his antechamber, alone, wondering about my fate and my future: it caused what felt remarkably like a small glimmer of panic in my heart.
I wanted too much—more than he could give—and I knew it.
I made it perfectly clear to her that nothing would come of it. I made no promises.
“What’s to be my fate, warrior? You intend to keep me as a captive? To hide me away in your chambers and soothe me secretly, at your whim?”
Wilkie contemplated me coolly, as though my words stung him. “We’ll discuss this when I return to you.” There was a distinct bite to his words.
I felt crazed by lust and longing, and the thought of loneliness crowding around me once again, as it had so insistently before him.
The threat of his sudden departure shone light on the precariousness of my future and the juxtaposition of its two very different possible outcomes, upsetting me greatly.
“I don’t want to discuss this when you return,” I dared to say. “I want to discuss it now.”
He remained frozen in place, clearly surprised and also enraged by my refusal and maybe by my desperation.
He was a man used to being in control, and to giving orders.
I had no way of knowing if he was thinking what I was: who was I to lay conditions and make demands, on him?
I was a servant and clanless vagabond; he was the second-highest-ranking nobleman of one of the most prosperous, powerful clans in all of Scotland.
He tried again, and his tone was stern and commanding.
“I’m not having this out with you now. I’m returning to the meeting.
And you’re going to my chambers. We’ll talk about this later. ”
But I wanted him too badly not to fight him, and fight for him. “This? What this?”
“What do you mean?” His patience was becoming more and more frayed around the edges.
“I mean this, as in the impossibility of me staying here with you and giving myself to you wholly, which is my every waking wish? Or this, as in you being undecided about what it is you want to do with me?”
He watched me for a moment, fierce and direct. “I’m not undecided about what I want to do with you.”
I looked into his eyes, and I could see both sureness and worry in them.
Again, it frustrated me that I didn’t know the depths of him well enough to read the layers of his emotion.
I wanted to discover and learn all the intricacies of him, so I could banish his pain and his fears, to soothe him and comfort him.
But my own worries were rising up in equal measure, and they were dark and biting, yet hopeful, too.
More hopeful than they had ever been before.
Which made the dark doubts seem all the more spiky.
Voices spilled into our tense little bubble, causing Wilkie to step back and look away.
“Wilkie?” It was Wilkie’s sisters. “Roses? Oh, there you are.”
They were there, sensing the tension and attempting to defuse it. “Are you finished talking?” asked Ailie.
“Nay,” said Wilkie abruptly.
“Because Knox has asked that you return to the meeting,” said Christie.
Wilkie looked at his sisters, and he said, “Tell Knox that I must respectfully decline returning to the meeting this evening. Tell Effie that Roses has been detained. And—” to Christie “—Roses will not require a chaperone until I call for one.”
And with that I was swept into Wilkie’s arms, tight against his big, warm body and carried to his private chambers.