Chapter 8 #2
He leaned forward and cut off her words with his mouth.
It was an extraordinarily bad idea, but he couldn’t stop himself.
And once he was about the very pleasurable business of kissing her, he didn’t want to stop himself.
He wished his side didn’t hurt so much, for he would have pulled her down into his arms and done quite a few other things besides kiss her.
And then he realized, as her breath began to come in gasps, that she was no practiced wench with a score of lovers to her credit.
He softened his kiss immediately, turning it to something far chaster than it had been but a moment before. It took a bit, but she finally relaxed in his arms. In time, he felt her hand steal up to rest on his shoulder.
By the saints, he was in trouble.
He kissed her mouth softly, her closed eyelids, her cheeks. He pulled away whilst he still had some hint of sense left in him, but he kept his hand under her hair, buried in it to keep her close.
A single tear trickled down her cheek. “Heaven help us,” she whispered, not opening her eyes.
“Sunshine, I fear we’re past any aid.”
She looked at him then. “We can’t do this.”
He took a very deep breath, nodded, then smoothed his hand down her back before he stretched out next to her again.
He stayed close enough, though. It was killing him to touch her, but he suspected it would be far worse not to.
He dredged up something useful to say. “I’ll list all my faults for you,” he said lightly.
“It will make you vastly relieved you never need have me.”
She reached up and touched her mouth. He suspected ’twas unconsciously done for when she caught him watching her, she dropped her hand immediately.
“All right,” she said, putting on a smile that didn’t convince in the slightest. “You’d better make it a good list.”
“It will take some effort,” he said wryly, “but I’ll try. First, I’m brusque. Demanding, as well. I have many sour and unpleasant humors. I’ve no patience for stupidity and I do not tolerate disloyalty. ” He paused, trying to see if any of that frightened her off.
She only watched him silently.
He pressed on. “I don’t trust easily. I spend an unholy amount of time training with the sword, and I tend to kill first and wonder if I’ve made a mistake later.” He paused. “Frightened yet?”
She shook her head. “Better dig deeper, I suppose.”
He smiled in spite of himself. “I like a hot fire, a hot bath, and a willing wench in my bed. Now are you put off?”
“Do you have many willing wenches in your bed?” she asked, with a faint smile, “or do you frighten them off with your sour and unpleasant humors?”
“There have been a few,” he muttered. “How many willing men have you had in your bed?”
Her face was suddenly quiet red. “I’m certainly not going to tell you.”
He watched her blush furiously and a thought he’d never considered suddenly presented itself. He felt his mouth fall open. “Are you a maid?”
She was the single fastest wench he’d ever seen.
It didn’t help that the moment he tried to crawl to his feet to chase her, pain shot through him so suddenly it left him there on his knees.
He heaved himself up and ran after her just the same.
He caught her halfway to the stream and turned her around, but he didn’t dare pull her into his arms, or kiss her again, or make any display of what he might or might not have felt for her.
They were too close to the village for that.
He simply held her by the arms to keep her from running any farther.
“I thought of another flaw,” he said, latching on to the first thing that came to mind.
“What?” she said miserably.
“I’m too bloody nosy. I have been known to think too much and ask too many questions.
My father found it a most undesirable trait in me.
He was wont to tell me that I should have been a lady’s maid in some fine house rather than a swordsman in his.
” He paused. “He called me a gel from time to time as well.”
She smiled. “He didn’t.”
“He did,” Cameron said honestly. “I think it might have been to inspire me to step out and train a bit more, but who knows? The man was completely without scruples.”
“You seem to have quite a few.”
“To my eternal shame.” He wanted to pull her into his arms and let his heart be at peace, but knowing it would endanger her cooled his ardor abruptly.
He released her, smoothed his hands down her arms, then took a step back.
“We should go fetch your weeds, woman. I think I feel a wind coming up.” He smiled his most unassuming smile at her. “Come with me?”
She took a deep breath, then nodded. He wished he’d had something charming to say, but charm was not his strong suit, despite whatever his mother had claimed about him.
He could muster up a decent smile now and again for Cook to have an extra bit of something sweet, but nothing more than that.
He had to at least say something at present, though.
He opened his mouth and hoped for something useful to come out.
“What do you want from your life?” was apparently the best he could manage.
She looked at him in complete surprise.
He agreed. He had never in his life asked such a stupid question, not even in front of his father to inspire yet more lectures on the perils of asking too many questions. He looked at her in consternation.
“I am not given to introspection,” he said weakly. “I don’t know where the hell that came from.”
“Flowers in your hair.”
He reached up and found that his crown was still lying atop his head. “I daresay. And you needn’t answer, if you’d rather not. ’Tis a very personal thing.”
She shrugged. “I’ll answer, though I’m afraid it won’t be a very interesting answer. I would like a husband and children. A garden.” She smiled briefly. “Rain on the roof.”
“You are a proper Scottish lass, aren’t you? Besides, those aren’t dull things, Sunshine. They’re worth having.”
And given that he would never have them freely from anyone, they were precious indeed.
“And you?” she asked.
He shifted uncomfortably, but supposed she deserved an honest answer. He clasped his hands behind his back. “I want a woman who would love me if I weren’t laird.”
“Is there really all that much benefit to it?” she asked. “It seems to me that you’re in front in the battle, the last to sleep when there’s something amiss in the keep, and the first to wake when you’re needed.”
“It could be worse. I could be a kitchen lad and get just as little sleep but not eat nearly so well.”
She smiled. “Would that be so bad?”
“Normally, I would say aye. Today, I think I might settle for it quite happily.” He paused. “It would allow me quite a few freedoms I don’t enjoy.”
She stopped as he reached down to pick up his sword. “What does Gilly think about you and your lairdliness?”
He resheathed his sword with a smile. “Actually I have no idea what she thinks and couldn’t care less. Why is it you speak of her so often?”
“You’re going to marry her. I thought it was appropriate.”
He supposed she had that aright. He groaned as he strapped his sword to his back, then cursed as he started to lean over. Sunny stopped him, then gathered up her herbs and their sustenance.
“Well?”
“Gilly would sooner stick a knife in my belly than give me a kind word,” he said with a snort. “I’m quite sure she would much prefer to wed Giric. Then again, I suppose what she really would rather do is kill me and Giric, then take over the clan herself.”
“Duty is a difficult thing sometimes,” she offered. “Especially when it involves your heart.”
“Sunshine, love, you’ve no idea. But since I cannot change mine, let us go back and make the best of it.”
She nodded and started across the meadow with him. “Where are you off to now?” she asked.
She wore a smile that bothered him somehow. It was the single falsest smile he’d ever seen. He supposed that should have flattered him that she felt the need to wear it, but it didn’t. He was too busy wishing it hadn’t been necessary.
He took the crown off carefully, then put the flowers over her brow. “I need to go beat some respect into my men this afternoon, but I will come back later and bring you something else to eat.”
“Cameron, you don’t have to—”
“I will come back later and I will watch your door tonight.”
She looked up at him. “You can’t stay awake forever.”
“When I can’t stay awake any longer, I’ll simply hand you my sword and trust you to guard me. You’re up for that, aren’t you?”
She nodded and wore that smile again.
He walked with her back across the meadow, then left her at her door with the food he’d brought.
“Be careful.”
She nodded, but said nothing.
He understood. What was there to say?
He walked back through the village, made a point of chatting easily with the heads of households, then continued on up the way.
The sooner his people grew accustomed to Sunny, the sooner they saw he was unaffected by her, the sooner they would believe she was just a woman and the safer she would be.
He supposed he could save his grief over the fact that he could not have her for the privacy of his own bedchamber.
He walked into the hall and looked over the men loitering uselessly about before the fire. Only a few of them looked up and acknowledged him and that sparked his anger. He walked over and put his hand on the back of Brice’s chair.
“Well, lads,” he drawled, “no work today? No steeds to be tended? No swords to be sharpened so you don’t die on the end of a Fergusson or MacLeod blade? No time spent actually training with those swords so you remember how to use them?”
Brice stood. “Come on, lads. He has it aright.”
“Cameron has it aright,” Cameron growled. He swept them all with a look. “Must I take you out into the yard as a group and beat the remembrance of who is your laird into your thick heads?”
They all managed some sort of deference before they trooped out of the hall. Cameron watched them go, then realized who hadn’t been there.
Giric.
He turned and walked over to the stairs.
He took them two at a time until he reached the landing, then padded silently down the passageway.
He put his ear to his own door, but heard nothing but Brianna singing happily.
She was no doubt stitching or cleaning or going about something behind a safely locked door.
Cameron continued on down the passageway and stopped in front of Breac’s chamber.
The noises coming from within that chamber had very little to do with grief.
Cameron pushed the door open and looked at the occupants of his brother’s bed. Gilly looked at him in consternation, Giric with a smirk. Cameron leaned against the door and waved them on.
“Finish, by all means.”
“I have,” Giric said, rolling from the bed and pulling a plaid around him. He folded his arms over his chest and looked at Cameron. “You wanted something?”
“My brother’s wife,” Cameron said placidly.
“You cannot have her,” Giric said in a low, dangerous voice.
“Can’t I?” Cameron said. “I believe I have a duty to my brother’s memory.” He looked at Giric coolly. “Or am I mistaken?”
Giric pushed past him. “Watch your back.”
Cameron snorted. “I could best you half asleep.”
Giric cursed him, which Cameron ignored. He looked at Gilly, who was sitting up, clutching a sheet to her throat.
“Get dressed,” he suggested.
“I don’t want to wed you,” she spat.
Well, he certainly shared that sentiment, but it didn’t particularly matter what he wanted.
She pointed to her son with a shaking hand. “He’s not Breac’s, he’s Giric’s.”
Cameron had certainly never considered asking his brother about the state of his marriage bed, his own damnable curiosity aside, but unfortunately for Gilly’s attempt at deceit, Aidan looked exactly as Sim had as a young lad—something Cameron could actually remember quite well.
She was obviously quite desperate to avoid his bed if she was willing to lie to keep herself from it.
And if she was willing to claim she was bearing other men’s children, perhaps he had less of a duty to Breac than he thought. Perhaps he might wed where he willed.
He wondered what sort of uproar it would cause if he wed with the MacLeod witch.
Probably better not to know.
He looked at Gilly. “I’ll give you a se’nnight.”
“I’ll kill you first.”
Cameron grunted at her, then turned and walked back down the passageway. He didn’t doubt she would try, so perhaps he would be safer to camp out in the forest for a bit until she had accustomed herself to her fate.
Besides, that would put him closer to Sunshine.
That was certainly the most pleasant thought he’d entertained in the past quarter hour.
He went to join his men in a bit of training, but he supposed he wouldn’t be at it long. His side ached abominably and he knew just where he could go for a few herbs.
Could he be blamed if his heart might be eased by the same woman?