Chapter 7
When she bit down on the lip he had very nearly claimed moments ago, Aiden cleared his throat and grabbed the whiskey bottle from the side table, holding it out to her.
Her little white teeth still sunk into her lower lip. When she released it, there was a sheen of moisture left behind. He imagined tracing it with his tongue, and heat tightened in his gut.
“I’ll entrust this to yer capable hands as I see ye home.”
Nobody had ever accused him of being a gentleman, but he also wasn’t a common rake and wasn’t going to snatch up a lass in some back room just because she had a flush in her cheeks that suggested she wasn’t quite as indifferent to him as she’d been pretending.
“Aye.” She took the bottle from his hand and looked around, making him realize he hadn’t returned her satchel.
He turned and scooped it up from beside the door where he’d tossed it earlier, then offered it to her. Hannah took it from him and secured it across her body, before sliding the whiskey bottle carefully back within.
“I’ll see to it that it survives a ride on that beast ye call a horse.”
Aiden gasped in mock horror. “Ye hold yer tongue. Me Liath is naught but pure majesty.”
Hannah snorted as she pinned her cloak into place and looked up at him. “It’s twice the size of me horse.”
“Yer pony,” Aiden corrected, unable to help returning her smile with his own. “Ye’ll note I’m twice yer size.”
He received a full once over, feeling it in his bones in a way he hadn’t when they’d first met, as if it was the first time she’d really taken in his size.
He knew that was impossible. The lass was over a head shorter than him. There was no way she hadn’t noticed it. Still, he indulged her playacting and held his arms out to the side for her examination.
After a moment, she waved a hand at him. “I suppose.”
He chuckled despite himself and turned, straightening his plaid. “Aye, well, ye’ll see when ye’re astride her with yer eyes open this time.”
He heard her soft answering chuckle behind him as he strode to the door and opened it, then stepped to the side and gestured. Again, nobody could accuse him of being a gentleman, but his mother hadn’t forgotten to teach him basic manners.
Hannah glanced up at him as she passed by, and he saw a mix of caution and amusement on her face. It was a nice change from the terror he’d seen there earlier that evening.
Aiden followed her down the hall and back to the front room, where the innkeeper’s wife sat beside the fire with a bundle of wool at her feet and a wooden dealgan in her hand.
As soon as she heard their footsteps, she looked up from where she was spinning the wool into yarn and scrambled to her feet with a curtsey, the wooden drop spindle clattering to the floor.
“Me Laird, do ye need somethin’?” she asked immediately, blue eyes wide in a pale face and wisps of blonde curls peeking out from beneath her cap.
“Nay, mistress. Please, be careful of yer work,” Aiden reassured her. “Me companion feels much improved by yer soup, and I’ll be settling up with ye for the use of the room.”
He reached into his sporran, withdrew a silver coin, and offered it to the woman, who studiously kept her gaze diverted.
He noticed she hadn’t grabbed the spindle from where it had fallen and chose not to bring attention to it twice.
He knew he was intimidating, so there was no need to spook the old woman any more than she had already done for herself.
“Oh!” She looked up and down again, and held her hands out in front of her. “Nay, me Laird, ye were here so briefly, I willnae take yer coin.”
“I’ll hear none of that,” Aiden replied firmly, a flare of heat in his chest pushing him forward. He grasped the woman’s right hand and pressed the coin into her palm. “I took up the space, I pay for it and yer food like anyone else.”
The woman looked at the coin in her palm, which was surely more than she’d have charged for the room and the dinner in the first place.
Aiden didn’t find himself concerned by such a thing. He saw no benefit to himself or anyone else in being stingy when he had enough, and the extra money could inspire the innkeepers to keep their silence regarding his presence with an unknown young woman, unchaperoned, in a room under their roof.
Before she could start trying to puzzle out how to provide change, he closed her fingers around the small coin. “For yer trouble, mistress.”
She met his gaze for a split second and then nodded her head, and he let her retreat from his hold. “I’ll see to yer horse, Laird MacBain,” she said breathlessly.
Aiden followed her gaze to the signet ring heavy on his hand and simply nodded his head.
The woman curtseyed hastily once more and hurried out of the room in a rustle of skirt and slippers.
Aiden turned back to Hannah, only to find her watching him with curious eyes. “Ye didnae have to pay a two nights’ fee for one,” she pointed out. “Why did ye?”
“We took up the space,” Aiden responded gruffly and crossed his arms. “Doesnae hurt me any to see they’re compensated fairly.”
The lass nodded her head. She was still holding his gaze with those expressive green eyes.
He realized with a jolt that she hadn’t cowered before him like the innkeeper’s wife had the entire time they’d known each other. Even when he’d frightened her in his study and she’d gone as pale as a cloth, she had held his gaze as she thrust the whiskey bottle into his chest.
He preferred it that way.
“Let’s go,” he said, after realizing they’d been standing in silence for a tick too long.
He led the way out of the inn and nodded to the innkeeper, who had clearly been sent by his wife to fetch Liath from the paddock.
On arrival, he had hastily instructed the man to keep his mare tacked.
He hadn’t decided what his next move would be, and until he knew the state of the lass who had been draped across his arms, there was no reason to ask the man to go to the trouble.
Liath nickered and nudged his shoulder, and Aiden patted her round cheek. “Aye, Li, we’re moving on.”
He took the reins from the innkeeper with murmured thanks and swung himself up easily into the saddle. He shamelessly took a moment to arrange his plaid over the saddle, ensuring a soft seat for his companion. Then he reached his hand down for her.
He’d thought the lass had only been teasing him about his mare, but he noticed she looked a little spooked as she stared up at him. He supposed he cut an imposing figure, with his own size, atop a warhorse.
“She’s steady as they come,” he reassured her. “Just as safe as yer pony, if a bit more heft to her. Let us be on our way, lass, before dawn finds us sitting here.”
His words got her moving.
She took a long breath, something he noticed she did often right before she made a decision, and then she reached her hand up to him. It took a moment of maneuvering.
Aiden didn’t recall the last time he’d shared his saddle, but with the use of the stirrup, the pommel, and his grip on her other hand and one arm looping around her waist, he settled her into place before him.
He managed not to groan at how perfectly her soft body settled between his legs and against his chest. As if she’d been carved from the space in the first place and now nestled into it again.
He cleared his throat and reached around her to gather the reins, his other arm holding her steady before him. “Are ye steady, lass?”
“Aye,” Hannah said, after a moment’s silence.
She shifted her satchel before her, and Aiden helped her rearrange her cloak to cushion between them somewhat and wrap around her.
The evening’s chill had settled in fully, and he’d not gone to the trouble of rescuing her from a group of bandits just to see her die from something so simple as a chill.
“Then we’ll be off. Keep yer grip on the pommel.” He himself settled against the cantle. As much for his own sanity as her comfort.
“Ye ken the way?” Hannah asked, glancing up at him over her shoulder.
“Aye. I’m nae a complete stranger to me own lands, lass.” Aiden couldn’t help the amusement that slipped into his voice at the notion that he’d be lost traveling through his own territory. He’d never live it down; Lucas would bring it up every time they saw one another.
“Oh.” She subsided, and they both jolted slightly as Liath took the cue to start walking.
Once they were on the main road, their way lit by generous moonlight that Aiden secretly sent up a prayer of thanks for, his mare was far more surefooted on the well-worn path and moved with swift confidence.
“What happened to those men?” Hannah suddenly asked.
She didn’t need to clarify which men. They both know full well.
“The innkeeper will send word to the kirk to see to it they daenae remain where a horse might break a leg on them.”
She nodded and didn’t ask further questions.
He supposed her concern had been much the same. She seemed a practical lass. She also smelled good, a mix of barley and something sweet that he far preferred over the smell of the road dust. Almost as if she wore the whiskey she made like perfume.
Aiden inhaled deeply and let them ride in amiable silence. The lass hadn’t made it more than a few hours on foot, he suspected, before she’d run afoul of the men on the road.
His jaw clenched at the mere thought of what might have happened to her had he not been there to intervene.
He couldn’t help tightening his grip just a bit on her waist, which only brought her soft frame more firmly against his chest. Which had the side effect of throwing his mind back to just a little while ago.
The lass standing between his legs when he’d grabbed her shoulders. She’d been fully clothed in her léine and kirtle, but he’d been able to feel the heat of her despite the fabric. Much like he’d been able to see the way her cheeks had reddened and her breathing had hitched.