Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“Is this place not safe?” she demanded from Donald when he had insisted on joining Martha and her for a walk in the gardens. “Is there something I should be aware of out here?”
It had been nearly a week since the wedding, and it felt as though she had hardly had a moment to herself since.
Of course, most young brides might have thought such a thing normal; a husband was meant to spend all of his time doting over his newly beloved at a time like this, but she had hardly seen a thing of Tavish since the wedding night.
So, she had been doing her best to make sense of her new place in this Keep, and there was so much she needed to learn about how it worked. Martha had been kind enough to accompany her for the last few days, showing her around and introducing her to a few of the other staff who worked there.
It was clear most of them had their doubts about her, perhaps because of the strange circumstances that had brought her there, but Martha seemed cheerful enough and never questioned what it was that had brought her new lady to the Keep.
But, of course, everywhere they went, they had been accompanied by his damn guards.
Two of them, Donald and Gregory, had followed her from place to place everywhere she had gone, from her chambers to the Great Hall for dinner every night, and she did not know what it would take for them to leave her alone.
“Ye dinnae ken what can befall a young woman if ye’re no’ keeping watch, my Lady,” he replied, and his gaze dragged across Martha, like he was imagining at that very moment just how many bad things he could do to her.
Ailsa glowered at him.
“And are ye going to keep speaking so mysteriously or tell me what it is ye’re referring to?” she asked.
Martha glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, perhaps silently willing her to stop making such a scene, but Ailsa paid her no attention.
It was up to her to try to make this place liveable, and it wasn’t going to happen as long as she could always see those two thuggish guards out of the corner of her eye everywhere she went.
But he just shrugged as he stared her down with that doltish gaze, and she could tell that Martha was as uncomfortable as she was at constantly having to be under surveillance in this way—especially after this last comment.
Ailsa was sure that if they had looked hard enough, the guards would see the steam pouring from her ears in a rage as she stormed down the stairs. She needed to speak to Tavish because if these guards tried to cause her any more trouble, she would lose her mind entirely.
Not surprisingly, she could not find him anywhere in the Keep.
Which only made her angrier.
Reaching his chambers—the chambers he had left her to sleep in alone all this time, as a matter of fact—she couldn’t help but turn over everything that had happened till then in her head.
The attack while they had been on the road, then the tease of her wedding night, the way he had avoided her ever since.
Was all of it designed to drive her mad?
She could not make sense of it, but she was starting to wonder if this man had gone out of his way to make her life harder than it needed to be.
He had already taken her as his wife, after all, why did he need to go about it in such a fashion? Wouldn’t it be easier if he had just taken what he was entitled to as a husband so the two of them could get on to living as they would for the rest of their lives?
She could not stop thinking about what he had said to her when he had pulled back and left her wanting so badly, that he wanted her to beg for him.
She could not imagine such a thing, it would be too satisfying for him to see in her such indignity.
He might have thought that she was the one who would bend first, but he had not imagined the kind of woman he was contending with.
The sound of sparring from the courtyard below caught her attention then. Peering down, she spotted a handful of men, stripped to the waist and in nothing but kilts, training with swords, the occasional clash of metal floating up through the air around them.
And, amongst them, of course, stood Tavish. She almost scoffed to herself. So, he had time to train with his men but not to attend to his wife?
As she rushed to the training field, her mind turned over everything he had said to her till this moment—especially about the MacCairns.
He seemed sure that they were not to be trusted, and it might have been for a perceived attack that he was training for so carefully, but she could not shake the feeling that there was more to it than that.
They had never been anything other than allies, as far as she knew. Malric—now Laird Malric—had visited often, and they played together with Callum and Ailsa as children. What had changed since then?
Well, she could see why he might have taken a slight to Tavish. He hardly seemed like the kind of man who would go out of his way to make nice with the people he should have been paying his respects to.
With her skirts lifted above her ankles, she stomped down the stairs and out to the courtyard, where a half-dozen or so men were training. She had expected to see them lined up in pairs, practicing their technique, but instead, four were clustered around Tavish.
He had his back to her, his blade lifted, his other hand extended as a counterbalance, and for a moment, all she could do was stand there and watch him. Sweat glistened on his back despite the cool weather, his muscles flexing with motion as he paced around his would-be attackers.
What was it he was training so hard to protect this place from?
She chewed her lip as she watched him, the tension hanging in the air as the men before him waited for him to make his move, and then…
In a flash of steel, he lunged forward. With a single blow, in a split second, he sent three swords clattering to the ground and caught the tip of the fourth with his blade and tipped it out of the hand of the man who had been holding it.
Her lips parted in shock, and, for a second, she wondered if she would have been better off returning to her chambers instead of angering a man who could so clearly snuff her out in an instant.
But, before she could consider that thought any further, he glanced around and locked eyes with her, drawing his arm across his brow to wipe away the sweat.
His stormy eyes seemed to flash with something she had only seen before during the attack that he had rescued her from; a confidence that permeated every inch of his body, as though this was the only place he truly knew he was in control.
“What is it, lass?” he called to her as he planted the tip of his sword into the ground and leaned on it.
The other men, muttering to each other, picked up their weapons, testing to make sure that the attack had not done too much damage to them.
She hated, more than anything in that moment, that she wanted him.
And she hated that he had been able to take such utter control of her on their wedding night, to leave her chasing her tail as she tried to make sense of what she wanted from him.
If she had been enough to keep his attention, he would have stayed on their wedding night, and even now, he greeted her as if she was little more than a distraction, not his wife.
Well, two could play at that game. She caught the eye of Ewan, the kind Captain of the Guard who had introduced himself to her on the day of the wedding, and she brushed past him and smiled at Ewan.
“I wasnae here to talk to ye,” she replied, waving a hand at him as if he was little more than a bother to her. “I was here to speak wi’ Ewan.” She paused, thinking of a good excuse. “About… training!”
“Training?” Tavish scoffed, and a small chuckle rose from the crowd around them.
She ignored it as Ewan made his way towards her, clearly surprised that he had been called upon for such an occasion.
“Aye, since yer guards will not give me any peace,” she shot back, feeling more confident about her decision by the second. “If I can take care of myself, then there’s no need for them to follow me everywhere I go, is there?”
“It’s fer your own safety,” Tavish snapped out in return, clearly frustrated by her, but she had already done enough in trying to go along with his way of doing things.
“Not long ago ye said ye were done trusting me with yer guards,” she retorted, raising her eyebrows at him. “Better that I can defend myself, should something happen, than having to rely on someone else to do it.”
She stared him down, daring him to argue with her. Ewan stood beside them, glancing between the two of them, clearly wondering if he was about to put himself in the midst of an argument that he would do better to stay out of.
“Ye’d rather pick up a sword than listen to yer husband?” he asked, with some incredulity.
“All I do is listen to ye,” she replied.
For the first time, she felt as though she was actually successful in getting under his skin. For all the ways that he had played with her since she had arrived here, he had clearly not expected her to be able to do the same in return.
“Ye won’t last a day,” he warned her, and she shrugged once more.
“Then what’s the harm in letting me try?” she pointed out. She turned to Ewan, her hands on her hips, her brows held high. “Would ye be willing to train wi’ me, Ewan?”
Ewan looked over at Tavish, who was glaring at Ailsa, hardly able to pay attention to anyone else in that courtyard. Getting no response, he must have decided that it would be a finer choice to just agree with everything that was being laid out here than it would be to argue.
“Aye,” he replied. “Aye, I can help ye wi’ that, my Lady. We can choose a time in the afternoon that suits ye—”
“No, ye train in the morning,” she replied, gesturing around at the men surrounding them. “I’ll do the same. I can keep up wi’ ye all.”
Tavish snorted slightly but did not try to cut in again. She pretended she did not hear him, though she could easily sense that it was bothering him.
“If that’s what ye’d prefer…”
“It is,” she replied, and she flashed him a broad smile, intending to make sure everyone knew how pleased she was with the way this had turned out. “Thank ye for your help, Ewan. It’s much appreciated.”
And, with that, she turned on her heel and made her way back into the Keep, having to bite back a triumphant grin as she went.
She might not have won entirely, but she had at least managed to land a blow in this war that seemed to be taking place between her and her husband.
He might have thought that she would fail at the first hurdle, but she would show him.
She was stubborn, and she would not let him throw her off when she was just getting started.