Chapter Six #6
“Would you even be willing to become Wilkie’s mistress?
’Tis not a particularly glamorous prospect, Roses, and a woman possessing of your beauty might prefer to wait for a husband of her own, rather than to share a man with his wife—and perhaps even other mistresses—waiting for his visit, and meanwhile foregoing a marriage and legitimate children of your own. You do have a choice.”
Ah, dear Christie. I loved her already for her candid take on each and every matter, even if the matter being discussed was the man of my heart and the unlikelihood of my ever being allowed to marry him.
But Christie was right. Of course I did have choices.
I’d been given no choice in the matter of becoming Ogilvie’s mistress, yet I had chosen another path, despite the significant difficulties that choice had introduced.
I could leave Wilkie, as I’d left Ogilvie, and sneak away and make my way north as I had originally intended.
But the prospect of becoming Wilkie’s mistress was, most certainly, a very different one to becoming Ogilvie’s.
“What do you want to become of you, Roses?” asked Christie.
Her question caught me somewhat off guard, and I took a moment to consider it.
What did I want? This was a path I rarely chose to wander.
My personal wants were not something I reflected on often; they were largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of my life.
Work, servitude, survival, the needs of others: these were the only priorities I had ever known.
What I wanted was a frivolous indulgence I rarely pondered.
Yet I did so now. I had nothing else to do, mainly, divulging my innermost thoughts to Christie as I waited here for Wilkie to return.
“What do you want for your life, Roses?” asked Christie, mirroring a question I was asking myself at that very moment.
“I would like my own garden to tend,” I told her with utter honesty, and she listened with quiet, eager interest. “A small house, like my father’s house, made homely by the loving attentions of my mother, surrounded by the acres he worked.
” I paused, thinking. “Safety. Belonging. The freedom to work and express my talents for the good and prosperity of my clan and my own.”
Christie was quiet, watching me, so I continued.
“I think these are lofty aspirations, indeed, for someone like me,” I said. “I’m a servant with no past and no family.” I stopped, wondering if I was revealing too much.
“Tell me more, Roses,” encouraged Christie. “I won’t share your secrets, unless you’d like me to. Wilkie will get them out of you anyway. He’s not one to take nay for an answer. And he’s most interested in you, ’tis clear enough.”
“’Tis not something I’ve had much need to consider before, Christie.
For many years, all day, every day, I’ve been told what to do and when to do it.
To attend to menial, undesirable tasks that no one else wanted to perform.
I lived in the crowded servants’ quarters, adjacent to the kitchens.
And I’ll likely be relegated to similarly damp depths at Macduff’s, if I make it there, or somewhere yet unknown. ”
Christie listened, wide-eyed. “Do you want to go to Macduff’s?” she asked.
“Not really. I had no other choice but to head in that direction, on my journey. I don’t have acquaintances beyond clan Ogilvie, except the one.
But I’ve heard nothing very positive about Macduff’s keep, except that there are especially good hunting grounds along their northern border, according to Ogilvie’s men.
They described Macduff as old, crotchety and not particularly welcoming...
and his son as a massive bearded ruffian who delights in showing off his impressive strength. ”
“Aye, I’ve heard similar things,” she commented. “They don’t sound particularly appealing.”
Nay, it was true. Those details, I could admit, had whispered their warnings once or twice. But that was at a time when I’d had no other reasonable alternative.
Now, it seemed, I might.
“You could stay here, Roses,” Christie said, following my thoughts. “You may have no choice in the matter, in fact, if Wilkie gets his way.”
Kinloch, with its vast, carefully tended fields bursting with abundance, with its order and its warmth: it was the most inviting place I had ever seen or imagined.
Ogilvie’s assessment of Laird Mackenzie was less threatening to me, too, now that I’d met him for myself.
The laird was gruff, aye, but he seemed fair, and I hadn’t detected cruelty in his manner, even if he was as intimidating as any man I had ever met.
Kade was not at all as severe as he had been described, although the descriptions of his armory had hardly done it justice.
That the Mackenzies had so far shown me tolerance only added to Kinloch’s appeal.
Wilkie’s sisters, to be sure, were some of the kindest, most welcoming people I had ever met.
And all these details were only a crown to the most urgent desire I had ever known: Wilkie.
But the decision of whether I would stay or go could ultimately be made by only one person: Laird Mackenzie, who was, for now, indulging his brother’s peculiar new obsession.
I detected in the laird’s manner that he was hopeful that Wilkie’s affliction would soon wear off, that Wilkie would keep me in his bed until he tired of me.
I had a strong feeling that if he could talk some sense into his delusional brother, Laird Mackenzie would likely order me away at his first opportunity.
“What do you want, Roses?” I detected in Christie’s repeated question a prod for confirmation, as though she had Wilkie’s interests in mind and was concerned about the suddenness and strength of his reactions to me.
And I could assure her in this way without hesitation.
It was an easy question to answer. I wanted Wilkie to come back to me, to lie with me, to kiss me again.
To make me cry and fly and burn with his beautiful, insistent, stunning touches.
And I wanted to pleasure him, too, as he had done to me.
I knew there was much more to these touches than what he had so far given me.
I was curious.
And I was willing.
My desires surprised me with their vehemence.
“I want him,” I whispered.
Aye, what I wanted was Wilkie Mackenzie. Something I knew I could never have.