Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Tavish hung back in the shadows, watching as Ailsa finished her training for the day.
This morning, she was not with Ewan alone but had been joined by a few more of his men who seemed keen to share with her all they knew about the matter of swordsmanship.
He had to admit she was starting to get some real skill to her name, even if he would never tell her that. He could only imagine how she would react, the preening grin that would have sprung over her face if she had known that he was giving her such credit…
Not that he had seen enough of her lately to say anything to her, let alone comment on the matter of her training. Ever since he had called her to his study the other day, she had been avoiding him like the plague, and he couldn’t say he blamed her.
His jealousy had boiled to the surface faster than he could get a handle on it, and he knew that she would find some way to make him pay.
She laughed at something Ewan said as she caught her breath, her cheeks flushed, and he drew his lip into a curl at the sight of her so free with someone else.
If any of his men dared even think of having designs on her…
They were all too aware of what he would do to them if he caught them so much as looking at her askance.
But to see her so happy, having such fun with men who were not him, it stirred something in him he was not proud of; a possessive insistence that made him want to lock her away in a tower and never let another man lay eyes on her again.
And it wasn’t the first time he had watched her from afar, though he doubted she would so much as remember it.
His mind drifted back to a distant memory from when they had all been children; Callum and Ailsa rushing out ahead of him in the fields, laughing at some shared joke that he was on the other side of, as he had done his best to close the distance between them.
But they had seemed so far from him then, so distant, as if they belonged to another place entirely. They had been friends all their lives, and the families had agreed to marry them when they were barely teenagers.
He had never had a claim to Ailsa, not like Callum did, but the need for her still stewed deep within him, even if she would not have looked twice in his direction, what with him being the younger of the two brothers.
He could almost see it now, her hair flying out behind her, the way she had looked like an angel to him, so untouchable she might as well have been something holy. And now, even though he had married her, she still did not look at him as much more than a source of frustration.
He had imagined that making her his would change things between them, but his obsession over all these years had driven him to want more than just marriage from her. No, he wanted her to feel the same need and desperation he felt about her, and he was not sure he would ever be able to—
“What are ye staring at?”
Ewan’s voice cut through the distraction in his mind, and it took him a moment to remind himself that he was not hidden out in his rooms, watching from afar, as he had been before. No, he was standing in full view of the rest of his men, and he’d have to be careful about what he let them see.
“Nothing,” he muttered, straightening up and brushing off his indolence.
Ewan looked him up and down. Much to his frustration, his captain knew him well, likely from the hours they had spent training together. One learned more about a man in practice than they did in anything else, and he had not crossed swords with anyone as much as he had with Ewan.
“Ye’ve been watching her all morning,” he remarked, lifting his chin to meet his gaze. “Why do ye keep standing here like a ghost? She’s yer wife if ye want to—”
“I’m making sure she’s keeping up wi’ her training,” he lied swiftly. “I dinnae want to see her let it fall by the wayside, especially when she made such a scene about learning in the first place.”
“It seems ye dinnae know how to approach her,” Ewan remarked with a sigh.
Tavish chuckled. “Ye think she intimidates me?”
“Is it about Callum?”
His words cut through every defense that he had tried to throw up, and Tavish stood there for a moment, half-wishing he could tell him to shut his mouth and half-knowing there would have been no point in even trying.
Ewan had seen him watching her, not just today, but for months, years, even, before she had been his wife. He was not blind to the way that he had looked upon her for so long now, the way he had craved her like the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins.
“No,” he shot back, his voice harsher than he intended it to be. “Not everything is to do wi’ my brother, Ewan.”
“Aye, but this is,” he replied. “Why don’t ye tell her what’s on yer mind?”
“Because if she finds the truth,” Tavish muttered. “She’ll run.”
The honesty caught him off guard, a part of him wanted everyone to know the depths of what he was feeling.
And yet there was another part of him that longed for nothing more than to just close himself off again, to pretend that she did not reach his heart the way she did, that she did not command such power over him.
He knew it would have been fruitless. If Ewan could tell that he was consumed by her, everyone else could, too, and there would have been no point in pretending otherwise.
“No, she won’t,” Ewan urged him. “Ye’re the finest warrior in the clan. Why don’t ye offer to train her yerself?”
Tavish stood there for a moment, considering the suggestion. In some ways, it made sense. It was something she wanted, after all, to learn how to fight properly, and he would have been better placed than any of his men to teach her.
Even now, as he stood there watching her, he could see the mistakes that the guard she was sparring with was making, the way his stance was too narrow, his arm too low. Perhaps it would have done her good to learn from someone who knew as well as he did.
And, before he could think on the matter any further, he strode towards her, pushing his way between the guard and his wife.
She stepped back, her eyes narrowing.
“I’m not finished with my training, if that’s what ye—”
“No, ye’ve no’ even started,” he replied, and he turned to the guard behind him, extending his hand. “Give me yer sword, lad.”
He did not protest for an instant, handing it over at once. Tavish closed his hand around it, weighing it in his palm, feeling more at ease in the instant he took it.
“What are ye doing?”
“Ye need to plant yer feet wider,” he explained, grasping her hips and drawing her to the right so he could position her as she needed to be in order to stand against him in a fight.
He tried to ignore the way her body felt beneath his grip, if only for that instant, the reminder of how close she had been to giving herself to him on those brief snatches of time that they had been alone together and he had wanted nothing more than to take her on the spot.
He was sure he could sense her body tightening slightly, too, like her mind had traveled to the same place. Though, if it had, she did not let it show on her face.
“And hold the sword here—higher, like this,” he continued, sliding his hand along her arm and drawing it a few inches up.
Her skin was so soft beneath his touch, so delicate, it felt as though it might tear right there in his hand. But if she wanted to play with the men, then she would need to prove herself worthy of it, that much was for sure.
He stepped back from her, casting his gaze up and down her for a moment, and then nodded.
“Aye, that should do.”
“I’ve been training for days,” she protested, her knuckles whitening as she held tight to her sword. “Ye think I don’t know how to stand? How to handle myself?”
But, before she could say another word, he lunged forward.
She lifted her sword just in time to parry the blow, sending his blade glancing to the side with a loud crash. Her eyes widened as it seemed to fall into place that he was not holding back, as perhaps his men had been before him.
She managed to steady her stance just in time for the second blow to come, swinging her sword upward to meet it, her arm trembling with the weight of keeping from letting the damn thing slip from her hand entirely. Ewan had taught her well.
He had never been more aware of the way her body moved than in that moment, the way she looked at him. Such caution, such fear in her eyes, like she knew that one wrong move would have her skewered at the end of his blade.
He would never have done anything to actually hurt her, of course, but he didn’t seem to know that. When she came here to train, perhaps it was as much him she was training to protect herself against as any would-be attacker.
She lifted her sword, swiping it awkwardly through the air, and he slipped his blade beneath it and tipped it upwards with a single motion. Just like that, she lost her balance, stumbling forward as the weapon fell from her hand and hit the ground with a loud clatter.
She nearly followed it, her feet all but giving out from underneath her, but he wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her against him firmly.
“Ye dinnae pay attention, lass,” he snarled at her, her back to his chest, one arm pinning her in place.
She squirmed, trying to get out from underneath him, but he made no move to let her go, having no intention of allowing her to slip away so easily, not when he had a point to be made.
“Let me go,” she protested, trying to pull herself out from under his grip, but he did not yield.
His men seemed to have scattered now, sensing that it was not in their best interests to stand around and watch this chaos unfold for another moment. Though they were only sparring, there was something more intimate to it, something not fit for the eyes of everyone in this Keep.
“Ye must take notice of yer surroundings,” he continued, his mouth so close to her ear that he could see the shell-like curve, just begging for his lips.
He inched closer, letting his mouth brush along the outside of her lobe, and all at once, she stilled in his grip.
“Ignorance gets ye killed, Ailsa,” he told her, and he could make out the shiver that ran along the length of her spine as he spoke to her.
As much as she might have tried to deny it, tried to pretend that she could withstand the tension between them, there was a part of her that wanted to give in, right then and there. A part of her he intended to coax out of hiding, no matter what it took.
“Ye want to fight?” he continued, his hand splaying against her belly, the flat of the sword pressed against her thigh. “Then ye must do it properly. Meet me at the stables. And this time, be ready to listen.”
He let his grip linger on her for a moment longer, and then, just as quickly as he had pulled her in, he let her go.
She was breathing hard by the time he pulled back, her eyes narrow as she glared at him. But the flush to her cheeks and the part to her lips spoke to something deeper that lay beneath—something that, whether she liked it or not, was just as intense as her stubbornness and resistance.
And something that he could not wait to pull apart at the seams.