Chapter 8 Flowers in Her Hair
“YE ARE BOTH looking bonnie this eve,” Ailean called out as he drew near. “Nymphs with flowers in their hair.”
“Ever honey-tongued,” Carrie said under her breath.
Fiona harrumphed. Indeed. Even so, she resisted the urge to reach up and adjust the crown of creamy white hawthorn blossoms. Like her friend, she knew that compliments slid too easily from this man’s mouth. And yet, she couldn’t help but warm under them.
Her defenses were crumbling, and she couldn’t seem to shore them up.
“How is the tapestry coming along, Mistress Fiona?” Rowan asked, flashing her a warm smile.
“Very well, thank ye,” she replied, smiling back. Rowan was always so polite and attentive whenever their paths crossed. “I’m enjoying seeing it take shape.”
“Will we be able to have a sneak peek at it?”
“What’s this, Rowan?” Ailean jabbed him with his elbow. “Developing an interest in weaving, are we? Next, I’ll catch ye embroidering pillowcases.”
His friend blushed at this, cutting him a glower. “I’m just showing some interest. The tapestry is important.”
“Of course, it is.” Ailean grinned.
Flashing Ailean an irritated look, Fiona focused on Rowan. “No one besides the laird and his wife is allowed to see it yet … sorry. This project will take me a year or two to complete … even with Arabella’s help.”
“So, ye shall remain at Dounarwyse a while?” Ailean asked, sobering.
She nodded, even as warmth flushed across her chest. Christ’s rood. When he focused on her, it was hard not to break into a sweat. She hoped the heat wouldn’t spread up her neck to her face. If she turned red, he’d know he flustered her. “Aye, for as long as Lady Kylie needs me.”
“How about a dance?” Rowan cut in then, the words tumbling out as he stepped closer. The blush on his cheeks had deepened, yet his gaze was intent.
Fiona stiffened. She’d thought he’d ask Carrie, yet it wasn’t her he was looking at.
Cutting her friend a quick look, to find that Carrie’s expression had now shuttered, Fiona then noted that Ailean’s brow had furrowed. He didn’t appreciate his friend’s bold move.
Relief fluttered up then. It was an opportunity to escape Ailean’s inexorable pull, and she’d take it.
“Come on then,” she said brightly, putting her cup and half-eaten honey cake down on a tree stump behind her. “This song is one of my favorites.”
Grinning, Rowan took her by the hand and led her away, into the swirling melee of dancers.
They joined the circle, and soon Fiona was flying across the trampled grass, the heat of the fire kissing her cheeks, the pounding of the drums and the trill of pipes pulsing through her veins.
The song ended shortly after, yet another, even more rousing, struck up, and for a short while, Fiona forgot herself.
All her life, she’d exercised control. It was why she’d taken a different path from the other lasses she grew up with.
They were all wedded with bairns clinging to their skirts, but not her.
She was a woman with ambition. She had talent and wanted the world to know it.
What if, one day, the King of Scotland called upon her services?
However, ambition and self-control had their downsides. Sometimes, she felt as if she stood on the sidelines, watching everyone else enjoy themselves, while she slaved over a loom.
But not tonight. Right now, she was free, just a lass with flowers in her hair.
The song eventually ended, and breathing hard, Fiona slowed to a halt.
The piper halted briefly and then struck up another tune, this one even faster than the last two. Cheering and clapping ensued, and Rowan grinned. “Come on,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Let’s—”
“Give the rest of us a chance.” Ailean stepped in then, moving between them so that Rowan let go of Fiona’s hand. He then gestured to the fringes of the crowd, where Carrie stood alone, watching them. “There’s a lass over there that wishes for a dance.”
“Why don’t ye dance with her then?” Rowan replied, scowling.
Ailean bumped him with his elbow. “It’s ye she wishes to dance with, clod-head.” Not waiting for his friend’s response, he took Fiona’s hand.
When Rowan had touched her, she’d felt nothing, yet the moment Ailean’s fingers slid through hers, her pulse leaped.
Hades, this wasn’t good.
His gaze then met hers. “Ready?” A challenge glinted in his eyes, and despite that she knew better, something in Fiona made her want to answer it.
Lifting her chin, she gave him an arch look. “Are ye sure ye can keep up with me?”
His lips quirked. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
He drew her with him into the throng, and an instant later, they were caught up in the tide of dancers.
She shouldn’t be dancing with the laird’s son, shouldn’t be clinging to his hand as if her life depended on it, and yet she was doing both. Right now, there was no place she’d rather be.
Although Rowan had danced well, Ailean moved with the confidence his friend lacked. She’d never felt so safe with a man, and yet danger pulsed in her blood with every step.
Keep yer distance.
He’ll only ruin ye.
Stay away!
But she just outran each voice. Each warning.
It was just a dance. Couldn’t she, for once, just let herself go?
She was only enjoying the company of a handsome man. There was no harm in that.
Even so, when the music finally changed, and she and Ailean slipped away to the fringes of the crowd once more, she noted that he didn’t release her hand.
And she didn’t let go either.
She looked for Carrie then and eventually found her.
She and Rowan had joined the dancing. The lass’s face was flushed, her long brown hair flying like a flag as she leaped and bounced around the fire, clinging to Rowan’s hand.
“Finally,” she said, still breathing hard from the dancing. She glanced over at Ailean. His chest also rose and fell sharply. “I was hoping Rowan would ask her to dance.”
“Aye, but the lad needed a push all the same.”
“So, ye noticed that Carrie was soft on him?”
Ailean cocked an eyebrow. “Ye sound surprised.”
“I am,” she admitted. The dancing had lowered her inhibitions, and she was now more at ease. “If I’m honest, I’ve always thought men oblivious to such things.”
His eyes widened for a heartbeat, and then, to her surprise, he laughed. The sound, warm and rich, washed over her. “Do ye think we are stupid?”
“About some things, aye.” She was enjoying herself now, although she was keenly aware of the fact that he still held her left hand in his.
She was also aware that she was loath to let go.
“Mead?” A ruddy-cheeked woman carrying a jug in one hand and a tray of wooden cups in the other bustled over. She then flashed the laird’s son a look that was both motherly and admiring. “I’d wager ye’re thirsty after all that dancing, Ailean.”
“Aye.” Ailean flashed her a charming smile. “Thanks for looking out for me, Cath.”
Gently, reluctantly, Fiona slid her hand from his to take the cup the woman handed out. It was the perfect excuse to sever contact. As heady as this moment was, she couldn’t let it continue.
Cath wandered off, and Ailean held up his cup to Fiona in a silent toast. Their gazes fused. “To bold-tongued women,” he teased.
She held his eye. “Aye … and here’s to men who appreciate them.”
Mother Mary, she wasn’t acting like herself tonight.
Nonetheless, her pert reply made him grin once more. “I’ve been wanting to spend more time with ye, Fiona,” he said then. “We run into each other now and again inside the castle … but never long enough for us to learn about each other.”
“That’s because we’re different species,” she replied. “A castle is like a loch … with fish swimming at different levels.”
He snorted. “Like eels slithering through the mud and trout darting above?”
“Aye, something like that.”
“Ye are no eel, Fiona Mackinnon.” His voice was low and serious now. Intimate.
Pulse fluttering, she raised her cup to her lips and took a large swallow of sweet mead. “Maybe not … but I know my place.”
He inclined his head. “Are ye happy here at Dounarwyse?”
“Aye,” she answered without hesitation. “Happier than I’ve ever been.”
“And yer weaving?”
“It’s my life.”
“Ye don’t want a husband and bairns then?”
Her fingers tightened around her cup before she took another gulp.
She wasn’t used to discussing herself with men.
Especially with one so far above her in rank.
This conversation was quickly becoming dreamlike.
“I do,” she admitted. “But I want to pursue my craft more. Sometimes a woman must make a choice.”
Interest glinted in his eyes. “What do ye mean?”
“A husband and bairns would draw my time and energy. How could I spend all day at the loom, weaving a beautiful tapestry? No man would put up with it.”
He nodded, taking her point. His expression grew thoughtful then. “I envy ye, lass.”
She stilled, surprised. “Why?”
“Ye know exactly who ye are.”
“And ye don’t?”
He shook his head, severing eye contact as he took a long swallow of mead.
He then glanced over the sea of bobbing heads and drifting smoke to where the laird now spoke with a dark-haired young man who bore a startling similarity to him.
The younger of his two sons: Lyle. Fiona had seen the lad numerous times from a distance, yet they’d never been formally introduced.
The two men were in deep, earnest discussion about something, and watching them, a groove etched between Ailean’s auburn brows.
“Sometimes being the firstborn is a curse. It would have been better if Lyle were the eldest. He’s better suited. More like our father.”
“And ye aren’t?” Warmth stole over her then. She shouldn’t ask such pert questions, yet the dancing and mead had loosened her tongue, it seemed. She couldn’t help herself.
He snorted. “No.” He shifted his gaze back to her then, his attention lingering. “I’ve spent the last few years fighting against the English. The warrior’s life has left me restless. I don’t think I shall make a good laird.”
His candor made her still once more. Her first instinct was to disagree with him, to tell him that he was wrong, and that he’d one day rule Dounarwyse as well as his father currently did. Yet, something in his eyes stopped her.
A seriousness that she hadn’t seen in him before. A shadow. Sadness.
But, like a cloud passing over the sun, it was fleeting. And when Ailean blinked, it was gone. She could almost believe she’d imagined it.
“I imagine lairdship is a skill … and much like anything, it can be learned,” she said eventually. “Perhaps ye need to start paying more attention to yer father.”
He harrumphed. “I try … but the old man rubs me up the wrong way more often than not these days … and I frustrate him.”
He dragged a hand through his hair then, leaving it even wilder than before, before lifting his cup to his lips and draining it. He then tossed it aside and reached out, catching her hand once more. “Enough depressing talk … how about another dance?”