Chapter 4 #2
The way he’d tasted last night when they kissed.
And most of all, the sight of him this morning in the stream.
Aye, but it was hard to focus on anything else while she was plagued by such decadent things.
At least he hadn’t drank any ale this morning nor had he accepted Aenos’s offer to take it with him when they left. It appeared he did intend to remain sober while they were together.
That was most definitely a good thing.
They passed the morning quietly until they happened upon a peddler who was coming down the road toward them. The man’s wagon was heaped with cloth, boxes and kegs. A small, muscled brown horse pulled the loaded wagon while the man walked before it, holding onto the horse’s reins.
He was a short, pudgy man with kind brown eyes who smiled and tipped his cap at them.
Nora’s heart quickened at the sight of his wares.
“May we stop?” she asked Ewan.
“Why?”
“I wish to look. Please?”
Ewan reluctantly stopped the peddler for her and helped her from her horse.
The lady was much a magpie whose head was turned by any item she found passingly attractive or interesting. But at least today she hadn’t made him stop while she dawdled with flowers.
He expected her to grab one of the costly furs that was draped over the back of the wagon.
Instead, she approached the side where the peddler had four lutes tied.
She ran her hand over them as if they were the most precious objects on earth.
A chill stole down his spine as he watched her gentle caress and wondered what her hand would feel like gliding down his back.
“Oh these are beautiful,” she gasped.
“My lady likes the lute?” the peddler asked.
“Aye.”
Ewan scoffed at her enthusiasm, even though her bright face enchanted him. “They are only lutes, Nora. They’re not even particularly good ones.”
She scowled at him. “What do you know of them?”
Her face softened as she looked back at the rosewood lutes. “They are beautiful, aren’t they?” she asked the peddler.
Ewan shook his head at her as she plucked one of the strings.
The peddler pulled one of the lutes from the wagon and handed it to her. “Would you like to hold it?”
“Oh, aye. Thank you so much.” Nora’s face beamed brightly, much like the sun itself. She was a beguiling creature. Filled with as much merriment as he was with ill humor.
“Have you played much?” the peddler asked her.
“Nay. My father said I played like a maid wringing a cat’s neck. So one night after I went to bed, he used my lute for kindling.” Nora cradled the lute in her lap and strummed an ill-fated chord.
The discordant sound made everyone cringe.
Her father was right. It did, indeed, sound like someone wringing a cat’s neck.
“Let me have that,” Ewan said, pulling it from her hands before she tortured them further.
Nora started to protest until he took the lute in his own hands and quickly tuned it.
Stunned, she cocked her head and watched the expert way he held and strummed it.
Why, he didn’t even need a pitch pipe to tune it like the minstrels she had seen in her father’s home.
“You play?” she asked rhetorically.
He answered by playing Bad Roy’s Anthem.
Nora gaped at his expertise. Who knew the big, giant bear would be so talented?
She’d never heard anyone play better. His large hands made the chords with an ease that bespoke years of tender practice. Fierce and strong hands that had also chopped and piled up wood the night before.
Hands that belonged to a man wholly unrefined.
Wholly unrefined and yet strangely delectable. Even more delectable now that she’d heard his skill.
He handed it back to her.
She smiled up at him as she tested the strings with her hands.
“How much for it?” he asked the peddler.
Nora paused at his words.
“Five pounds, my lord.”
Ewan didn’t even quibble. He pulled the money out and handed it over to the peddler. “Have you extra strings?”
“Aye, my lord.”
“I’ll a take two sets of those.”
Her heart hammered at his kindness. Why would he gift her with such a thing? He barely knew her and she had forced herself rather rudely into his life.
He should hate her for what she’d done.
Instead, he gave her a present. One she had pined for every day since her father had destroyed her original lute.
Once Ewan had paid the peddler for the strings, the man took his leave of them.
Nora stood in the center of the road, looking up at Ewan in awe. At that moment, he was the sweetest man she’d ever known.
“Why did you purchase this for me?”
Ewan swallowed at her question. He still wasn’t sure why he did it.
Other than the look on her face when she had seen it had struck him in the gut like a fist. It was obvious that the cheap lute would bring her untold hours of happiness and for some reason that didn’t bear thinking on, the thought of her being happy made his day brighter.
Unable to speak a word of that, he shrugged and headed back toward his horse.
“Wait!”
He turned at her call.
“Can we not stop for a bit and you show me how to play it?”
“Nora, we’ve still got...”
Her face fell.
So did his stomach.
“Very well,” he said.
She smiled a smile at him that dazzled his senses.
She rushed toward a fallen log and took a seat on it while he grabbed the horses’ reins and led them to an area where they could rest and graze.
Nora sat with the lute in her lap, held at an awkward angle. Seeking to correct her, he put his arms around her to show her how to hold it and was immediately assailed with the fresh, sweet scent of her blond hair. With the softness of her hands on his. The way she felt like heaven in his arms.
Deep seated need tore through him, making him so hard for her that he ached with it. He breathed her scent in, letting it wash over him as her hands touched his.
Och, but the woman felt too good in his embrace.
And she tasted even better...
Nora was all too aware of Ewan’s arms around her. Of his breath falling against her neck.
The way his strong hands led hers to the frets and strings to show her how to play.
She savored the warmth of him as dreams of her fictitious courtier evaporated. Gone was the image of her blond minstrel and in his place, she saw only the face of a man who held tormented blue eyes.
A man who could make beautiful music with his hands.
Ewan clenched his teeth as he fought the urge to bury his face into the crook of her neck. He lost all track of time as he sat there with her practically in his lap as he ran her hands through a series of chords to teach her an easy song.
“Do you know the words to the song?” she asked.
“I do.”
“Will you teach me that too?”
“Nay, Nora. You’ve no wish to hear me sing, I assure you. I’ve been told a frog’s hoarse croak is infinitely superior to my bellowing.”
“I don’t believe it. I wish to hear you sing.”
Ewan cringed at the idea. He’d spent far too many years with his brothers’ brutal mockery to have any delusions about his talent.
But as he stared at her and the expectant look she had, he couldn’t resist her plea. “Only if you swear not to laugh at me.”
Nora looked up over her shoulder to see the sincerity in his eyes. Who would have thought a man like him would be afraid of someone mocking him?
Who would even dare? Better to mock the devil than a man like Ewan MacAllister.
“I promise not to laugh.”
He sang a few words and quickly proved that he was right. He sounded dreadful. But she didn’t laugh.
She only smiled at him until she’d learned enough of the song to sing it herself.
“You have a lovely voice, my lady,” he said.
She couldn’t remember the last time a compliment had warmed her so much. “Thank you.”
Ewan listened to her and let the sound of her voice wash over him. To soothe him. Before he realized it, he was lacing his fingers through her hair.
She didn’t protest.
“Who are you really, Nora?” he asked quietly.
“I can’t tell you that. You’ll summon my father if I do.”
Ewan traced his fingers from her hair, down her soft, delicate cheek. He’d never felt skin so soft and smooth.
He’d been so long without a woman. So long without the peaceful release of a tender body close to his that it ached to be close to her now.
And yet he couldn’t bring himself to move away. She compelled him in a way he’d never experienced before.
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her if she would let him make love to her. But he knew better. Bold though she might be, she was a gentle born lady.
A maiden whose innocence reached deep inside him.
She’d never known a man’s touch. Never known the beauty that came from that one moment when two people were naked and entwined, both taking comfort in each other as they reached the ultimate in human pleasure.
Isobail had been the one who had shown him that for the first time. There for a little while, he had felt as if he were something other than the forgotten MacAllister.
Braden was the handsome one. Lochlan the smartest. Kieran had been the charmer and he...
He’d been the quiet one.
The one his father would look at and shake his head while mumbling under his breath. “There’s no telling what will become of that one. Mayhap we should just oblate him for the priesthood and let them deal with his sullenness.”
“Och now, Duncan, keep your voice down before he hears you. Ewan is a good lad and he’ll be a fine man.”
“He’s weak, Aisleen. Do you not see how he bows down before his brothers. Even Braden who is younger. It’s embarrassing. He might as well have been born a daughter. At least then I could understand why he wants to stay hidden in his room. He’s no match for the others.”
His father’s condemnation had always burned deep in his soul. He’d never been afraid of his brothers. He’d just never seen the use in fighting with them over every little thing. There was only so much fighting a man could do.
Unlike his brothers, he’d always valued solitude and quietness.
Mayhap he should have been a monk after all.
But as he watched the lady practice her song, he realized that the priesthood for him would have been a tragic mistake. There was no way he’d be able to keep those vows.
Nora leaned back in his arms, startling him instantly.