Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
The training ground lay beyond the inner bailey where the castle wall cut the wind but did not soften it.
Gordon trained under the gray early-morning sky, his boots muddy from the rain that had fallen during the night.
He was used to sleepless nights. There were many when he lay awake and plotted his uncle’s battles.
Many times, he stared at the ceiling boards in his cramped chamber, inhaling the damp smell and enjoying the heat because he did not think he deserved more.
Gordon had grown accustomed to them early on, when training with his uncle allowed little to no sleep. He had survived all of that.
So why did last night feel like torture?
Knowing Miss Ailis was nearby in his old chamber—maybe asleep or overwhelmed by her soon-to-be role as his wife—disturbed him. The very idea unsettled him, and Ailis’ presence had somehow embedded itself in his thoughts, yet he could not bring himself to stop.
He dragged his blade sideways and thrust forward again, his steel blade clashing with Malcolm’s.
Gordon understood the skill of battle: the fierce rush of energy that surged through a man when he had to decide whether to live or die. He could not understand why Ailis’s brilliant blue eyes and rosy full lips were stuck in his head.
“Again,” he ordered Malcolm. “Hold yer courage.”
Malcolm circled him with his sword raised. “We’ve been at it since dawn.”
“Again.”
Malcolm’s mouth tightened, but he attacked. Gordon met him hard. Steel struck steel with a sharp ring. Malcolm feinted left. Gordon turned the blow aside and stepped in close, shoulder driving forward, sword angled to force Malcolm back.
It should have been easy. It was definitely familiar. His body knew the work even when his mind grew restless. Yet Ailis’ mouth rose in his thoughts. Soft. Full. Curving into mischief as she said, “Me chamber.”
And Gordon’s grip faltered. Malcolm’s blade slipped beneath his guard and scored across his upper arm.
Pain flashed hot and clean through him, and he stepped back.
For one breath, neither man moved. Blood welled through the torn linen of Gordon’s sleeve.
Malcolm lowered his sword slowly. “Saints.”
Gordon stared at the cut. It was shallow. More insult than wound.
Still, Malcolm had touched him.
And that never happens.
“Again,” Gordon said, his jaw even tighter now as he ignored the pricking sensation in his arm.
Malcolm’s brows drew together. “Nay.”
Gordon looked up. His man-at-arms did not flinch which was one reason Gordon valued him. Malcolm was broad, weathered, and old enough to have lost his fear or nerves when he needed to speak the truth.
“Yer mind is elsewhere,” Malcolm said, shaking his head. His eyes narrowed as his brows drew together in concern.
“Me mind is where it should be.”
“Then I must be the finest swordsman in Scotland.”
Gordon’s jaw tightened. “Mind yer tongue.”
“I would, but apparently ye are not mindin’ yer blade, Me Laird. Ye always tell me the mind is the sharpest weapon. Lose it, and ye lose the battle before it begins. Yer thoughts are troubled.”
Gordon turned away, pulled a cloth from his kilt, and pressed it against the cut. The sting steadied him, and he welcomed it.
Anythin’ is better than thinkin’ of her.
He had endured battle wounds with less torment than three days of Ailis Sinclair beneath his roof.
Her scent somehow followed him everywhere now.
Lavender, he thought as it came to mind, so fresh and real.
Gordon closed his eyes for half a breath and tried not to think of it or of her. But laughter rose from the fields beyond the training ground, and he instantly tightened all over because he knew it was Ailis.
She stood near the edge of the kitchen garden with Marion, Beth the housekeeper, and Jane, one of the younger maids. The four women stood by a basket of cut herbs, and whatever Ailis had said had bent Jane nearly double with laughter.
Marion shook her head though even from a distance, Gordon could see his aunt’s smile. Beth, stern Beth who had once made a lad cry for stealing sugared pears, wiped at one eye with her apron. They all seemed to enjoy her presence, even his aunt who rarely ever spoke to anyone.
Ailis wore a gown of soft blue wool, the color bright against the gray morning.
Her light brown hair was braided loosely though several curls escaped to frame her face.
The wind caught them, tugging one across her cheek.
She pushed it back, still smiling, her mouth warm with mirth, her eyes alive in a way that made the dull sky seem poorer for standing behind her.
His chest gave a strange, hard tug of desire.
It stirred first beneath his ribs then lower, a fierce heat rousing through him like embers kicked awake beneath ash.
His fingers curled at his sides. His body remembered how close she had stood in the little chamber.
It remembered the catch in her breath and the slight tremble of her lower lip.
His mind, fool that it was, wondered what that mouth would taste like if she smiled against his.
Gordon looked away sharply.
Malcolm followed his gaze and made a low sound. “Ah.”
Gordon turned on him, his voice sharper than he intended. “We ride to the village.”
“Now?”
“Aye.”
Malcolm glanced at Gordon’s bleeding arm. “And the cut?”
“It willnae kill me.”
Malcolm only lifted both hands and went to fetch the horses.
Gordon did not look toward the fields again.
By evening, the day had settled into his bones.
The village had needed him longer than he expected.
A quarrel over grazing rights. A roof beam split by rot.
Two families arguing over a goat that seemed determined to belong to both and to obey neither.
Gordon had listened, judged, ordered repairs, and sent Malcolm to fetch extra timber from the keep’s stores.
He had done his duty, and it had kept his mind from Ailis for nearly an hour at a time. That, he decided grimly, was victory enough.
When he returned to the keep, dusk had fallen. Torches burned in the bailey. Rain threatened again, darkening the sky beyond the wall. Gordon handed his horse to a groom, refused supper, and climbed the stairs to his chamber with the weary relief of a man seeking silence.
He opened his door and stopped dead in his tracks.
Candles burned everywhere. On the mantel. On the table. In iron holders near the bed. Upon the chest. Their flames filled the chamber with warm gold, turning the walls soft and treacherous.
Flowers stood in every corner. Blue, white, and pink blooms filled clay jugs, wooden bowls, and even one old helmet Gordon had not seen in years. Hortensias, of all things.
Great round clusters of them, bright as summer and utterly foolish in a room meant for sleep, study, and nothing more.
But the flowers were not the worst of it. Fabric had been draped over his curtains. Pale cloth embroidered with tiny, ridiculous sheep. More sheep marched across the coverlet. Another length hung over the chair.
A woolen blanket lay folded at the foot of his bed, white and soft and covered in plump little lambs with black stitched faces. Gordon stared hard, his eyes burning with the first onset of his fury.
Ailis stood near the bed with a candle in her hand, looking pleased enough for him to know she was up to no good.
He shut the door slowly behind him.
“What,” he said, each word cut from stone, “in the heavens has happened to me chamber?”
Ailis’ smile was sweetness itself. “Me chamber,” she said. “Or rather ours.” She tilted her head. “It will be our chamber soon, will it nae? Daenae ye agree?”
Nay.
Nay, nay, nay. All of this was wrong. The candles.
The flowers. Her scent, tangled with the air in his chamber.
Her body standing beside his bed as though it had any right to be there.
As though one day soon she might sleep beneath those sheep-covered blankets, loosen her hair before his fire, look up at him in candlelight and—
“These,” he said, voice hard, “will go.”
Her smile faltered only for a breath.
It should have pleased him, but it did not.
Ailis looked down at the blanket beneath her hand and smoothed her fingers over one embroidered sheep. When she spoke, her voice had changed.
“Me Laird, I had me maid pack these with me things.” She swallowed, and the small movement caught his eye, letting his gaze drift down her mouth again. “They are from me childhood. They are all I have left from me mother. She stitched them with her own hands.”
Gordon’s anger struck the wall inside him and fell uselessly to the floor as he saw her eyes soften.
Ailis touched the blooms beside the bed. “The hortensias were Sorcha’s favorite flowers when we were lasses. For me to grow used to this room, I need me family near me.” Her hand moved to her chest. “Only in small ways.”
Why does she have to speak of family? Why does she have to take me fury and make it feel like cruelty?
Gordon exhaled slowly through his nose. He crossed to the bed and touched the edge of the woolen blanket. His fingers brushed over one soft, foolish sheep.
He himself had not known much of family warmth until recently.
Growing up with his uncle had ensured that.
His throat tightened at the memories of nights spent alone in his dark chamber, eating his supper while the rest of the keep enjoyed theirs in the dining hall.
Loneliness was a concept he knew too well. He did not wish it on anyone.
Regardless of the fact that she is doin’ so to torture me.
Gordon felt his throat tighten as he found his voice again. “And is the sheep yer favorite beast, too?” he asked, his voice rougher than he meant.
Ailis’ smile returned, smaller now but more dangerous for being real. “It is, aye, Me Laird. Temporarily, as it happens.”
He looked at her, one brow arching. “Temporarily,” he repeated.
“Aye.”
“Of course,” Gordon said.
She stepped closer than she needed to, and the chamber seemed to draw tight around them as he inhaled the lavender on her skin. His heart hammered too fast, his pulse leaping in response. The shameful speed of his body’s response was more than he was ready for.
Candlelight trembled over her face, gilding the freckles across her nose, the curve of her cheek, the full softness of her mouth.
Heat roused low in him, slow and savage as a beast disturbed in the dark.
His fingers curled against the sheep-stitched blanket.
Every part of him strained toward her while every hard-won scrap of honor commanded him to step away.
Ailis looked up at him, eyes bright. “Besides, Me Laird, everythin’ is temporary, is it nay?”
Is she speakin’ in riddles? Or literally?
She did not move back, and he felt his head spinning too fast.
I should push her away… make her uncomfortable… make her retreat.
His gaze dropped to her lips instead, and he knew that was a mistake. Her mouth parted slightly, and that small, soft opening struck him harder than Malcolm’s blade had.
He imagined bending his head as he envisioned taking that mouth and seeing whether her sharp tongue would turn silent beneath his. Whether she would gasp. Whether she would step into me or slap me for darin’.
His hand tightened in the blanket.
“Or perhaps,” he said, the words nearly a whisper, “it is a fine chamber for us both.”
Ailis felt it. He saw the awareness pass over her face, saw color climb her throat before she could deny it. Her fingers flexed against her skirt. Her breath caught once, soft enough that he might have missed it if he had not been listening for his own doom.
Still, she did not retreat.
“If ye wish, Me Laird,” she murmured.
The words were meek, but her eyes were not.
Gordon’s restraint strained like a rope under too much weight. For one breath, he stood close enough to take what he had spent days forbidding himself to want.
Candlelight and flowers.
It was absurd that she made him feel anything, so he stepped back, fearing that if he stayed a minute longer, he would indeed give in to the reckless urge to kiss her.
“This chamber remains mine until the vows are spoken,” he said in a stern voice now. “Return it all to the way it was.”
She glanced about the room, innocent as a saint in a painted window. “But I have more…”
“I will only say this once.” His jaw gritted shut as he rasped that final tone.
“But…”
“Daenae forget yerself, Miss Ailis. This is me keep and me chamber, and it will remain so until I say otherwise. I shall head to me study now, and by the time I return, I want everythin’ back to the way it was.”
He stormed out of the chamber right after that, slamming the door after him before finally letting out the breath he held.
Gordon braced one hand against the stone and bowed his head. Every part of him trembled with the wave of sensations she stirred alive in him.
For the first time ever, Gordon feared no battle or enemy.
He feared going back inside his own chamber.