Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Tavish hooked the reins of the horse around the large steel post that sat outside the local inn and turned to see where Ailsa had already managed to get to.
He couldn’t help but smile when he saw what she was in the midst of. From a large satchel over her shoulder, she was distributing blankets to a small group of children who had formed around her skirts, making sure that each of them had one to take away with them.
“And share them, if ye can!” she called after the little ones as they took off back in the direction of their houses.
Or, at least, what remained of them.
The attack on the village had not been a pretty one, and it had left a few of the would-be homes burned to the ground, or close enough to it as made no odds.
Most of the townsfolk had been out in the fields when it had happened, so at least no lives had been lost, but they had lost their homes, and for some, that was about as bad as it got.
For many of them, their homes had been the places handed down to them through generations. Now, they were left with nothing—nothing to fall back on, nothing to call their own, except the kindness of the townsfolk who would do their best to make ends meet.
She planted her hands on her hips as she watched the children leave, and she glanced back towards him, pulling a face.
“I don’t suppose ye think they’ll actually share them, do ye?” she asked him, and he shrugged.
“They might not,” he conceded. “But their parents will. They ken that the only way to rebuild is if they look out for one another.”
She smiled, a little sadly, as she cast her gaze along the small street that made up most of the hamlet of Naoburgh.
A few of the houses that still stood had been badly singed in the attack, the blackened wood damp from a recent rainfall, and a few people were making their way back and forth with the supplies that Tavish had brought down to get them through the following weeks.
While they focused on the rebuilding of their homes, they could not be expected to work the fields, and they would need someone to provide for them in the meantime.
“I cannae believe that someone would do this,” Ailsa murmured, shaking her head. “To this place, to these children…”
She trailed off, her teeth resting on her bottom lip with obvious distress. It made his chest hurt to see her that way. It was, he supposed, a good thing in some regard; the knowledge that she had never had to witness such cruelty or madness before.
But it was clearly weighing heavy on her, and he wished there was more he could do to ease up the shock of it.
“Ye can go back to the Keep if ye want,” he told her gently, wrapping his hand around hers.
When she had suggested coming with him, he had, at first, been a little less than enthused about the idea; he didn’t want her dragged down to this place when it was in such a bad way. But she had insisted, and he had sensed that he would be a fool to try to deny her.
When she got it into her head that she was going to do something, there seemed to be little he or anyone could have done to convince her otherwise, and the sooner he came to terms with that, the better.
She shook her head firmly.
“No, they need as much help as they can get,” she murmured. “I’d like to go to the houses, see if there’s anything in particular they need. That way I can bring down something really useful when I next go to the Keep.”
“Aye, of course,” he replied, and he smiled slightly.
She was sweeter than he had given her credit for, especially after the way she had been so dismissive of the maids before. Perhaps that had been a front, just as much as he had put one up to try to keep from letting himself be seen too clearly.
She had a few more blankets in her bag, and he had several packages of bread and fruit taken from the gardens.
Not much, but it was better than nothing, and he could not be seen letting his people deal with such a horrible attack all alone.
Sometimes, it was the very presence of someone there that made them feel better, even if there was little they could do in the way of practicality.
And each door they knocked on, Ailsa met the person on the other side with the same brightness, the same kindness, the same gentle offering of provisions.
A few of them were wary of her—hard for them not to be, after what had happened—but they soon warmed up as she offered them recipes to cook a delicious apple crumble with some of the dried oats they had stored in the pantry.
“Just pop it under the stove for as long as it takes to get all brown on top,” she advised one of the women. “It’s delicious, ye have my word.”
“I’m no’ much of a cook,” the woman replied, pulling her daughter close to her, more protective than usual.
“Do ye have a parchment and some ink?” Ailsa asked. “I can write it down for ye, if ye’d like.”
“No, but I have a good memory,” the girl piped up. “Why don’t ye tell me again?”
Ailsa happily recounted the recipe to the little girl, and soon, they moved on to the next house. She took her time in each one, making sure that they had everything they might need for the coming days, and soon enough, it was starting to get dark.
“We should be getting back to the Keep soon, if we dinnae want to be caught under cover of night,” he remarked to her as they headed back to the inn, where the horse was waiting patiently for them.
“Do ye think we could stay here tonight?” she wondered aloud, catching him somewhat off-guard.
He glanced at her, frowning.
“Ye dinnae want to…”
“It’s not that I don’t miss our chambers,” she assured her, a playful twinkle in her eye. “But I’d like to see the village by dawn. And perhaps see if anyone else comes to us to ask for anything. Ye know how people can be, they don’t always tell ye the whole truth the first time around.”
She looked at him hopefully, and he knew at once that there was no denying her.
“Aye, of course we can,” he replied. “I’ll speak to the innkeeper, make sure there’s a room free for us.”
“I could use something to eat as well,” she remarked, flashing him a smile. “I got so distracted during breakfast, I hardly had a chance to finish it.”
He chuckled, shaking his head at her. There was something about the light playfulness to her tone when she spoke to him like that that made it hard for him to keep his mind on the task at hand.
He went inside as she stood with the horse, running her fingers through his mane, and spoke to the innkeeper to get a room for the night, which, of course, he made sure the man was handsomely repaid for.
Perhaps more than anything, what this place needed was coin, though the people here were too proud to accept it in the form of a handout.
If he could find services that needed to be rendered, he might be able to get enough gold circulating around here that they would soon be back on their feet. Or, at least, he hoped so.
Once they’d taken some dinner—a simple stew and some ale by the fireplace—Tavish wasted no time in guiding her upstairs to their lodgings for the night, his hands practically itching for her as they had been all day.
He had never felt a lust like that for a woman before, something all-consuming and demanding. He’d had lovers before her, but none had made him feel this way, so alive, so mad with desire that he’d have done almost anything to get her alone.
She giggled as he pushed her back against the door, nuzzling his face into her neck and breathing deeply.
All through the day, he had found his gaze drawn to the milky softness of her skin, how delicate it looked.
It had taken everything he had in him not to make a move upon her right then and there.
“Ye’re relentless, man!” she teased him, but she wrapped her arms around him as he pulled back, brushing his nose against hers for a moment and pausing to simply drink her in.
Her green eyes glittered in the dim light of the moon that poured through the window beyond, a passion in them that drove her to bring his lips to hers once more.
The kiss was soft, sweet, and exploratory.
She’d had a long day, and he knew that she must have been tired, and he was testing her pace, her energy, to see what she’d be able to keep up with. And, when he pulled back, he noticed that her expression had changed slightly. Furrowing his brow, he eased away from her, confused.
“What is it, lass?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, now,” he murmured, sliding a hand along her waist and pulling her against him. “There’s something bothering ye. Ye cannae hide it from me.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip for a moment, examining his expression, trying to parse whether or not she should tell him.
“I just… It’s just that ye’re different than how I had imagined ye would be. When it comes to… when it comes to matters of the bedroom.”
He frowned at her, more than a little confused.
“What do ye mean by that?”
“Nothing bad,” she assured him. “I had just imagined… I had thought that ye would be rougher when it came to our marital bed. That’s all.”
He paused for a moment, taken aback. In all the times that they had been together, this was the first she had expressed such a thing, and he wasn’t sure whether it was meant as a good thing or a bad one.
“Why so?”
“Ye told me that ye would make me beg for ye,” she reminded him. “It’s hardly what I had expected to hear from a lover as… as attentive as ye.”
He grinned, brushing her hair out of her face.
“Aye, I said that I’d make ye beg fer me,” he conceded. “But I didnae mean that I would force ye. More that I would make it so you would have done anything to feel my hands on ye…”
He squeezed her waist demonstratively, and he saw gooseflesh appearing on the tops of her bare arms. Her cheeks darkened, and a smile curled the corners of her lips.
“And I have seen that through, have I not?”
She laughed as he reached up to tilt her chin in his hand.
“Aye, I suppose ye have,” she agreed.
He softened his tone at once, sensing that she needed his comfort.