Chapter 4
Ada noticed her fingernails were stained green; she was busy scraping underneath them when the laird’s grandson came back to his horse. But she looked up when he said, “Would ye care to ride with me? We can attend dinner in the great hall together if that is acceptable to ye, Apprentice Ada.”
Weighing up the advantages of doing this took Ada only a moment.
She was pleased with the way this morning had turned out.
Having a strong man around to help her and her mother had its benefits.
She knew the great hall at the Castle well enough; a washstand was always placed outside the entrance for people to wash their face and hands.
She would not have to eat with green-stained fingers.
“Aye, Calvin, I will ride with ye if ye give me a hand up. Dinner sounds like a good idea.”
He moved toward her, and before Ada knew it, she was flying into the air and placed over the saddle pommel.
“Are ye comfortable, lass?” the tall man wanted to know before mounting behind her. “The trick is to hug the pommel with yer thighs.”
Ada had never been on a horse before and was finding the feeling of being so high off the ground an interesting one.
She did not want to think too hard about Lachlan’s arms around her waist holding her so tightly because, for some inexplicable reason, she was finding it very nice.
There was something about the width of his broad shoulders and the hard muscles on his chest that invited her to rest her head back against him.
Damn it all, why did she want to nestle herself against him so bad? !
She tried to take her mind off such unmaidenly thoughts by concentrating on his hands holding the reins, but all this did was make her very aware of how delightful it was to be wrapped in his arms with his large, strong hands guiding the horse home.
“How would ye like it if I rode a wee bit faster, lass?” She felt his warm breath on the back of her neck as he said the words and fought down the instinct to shiver with pleasure. “I will nae if ye’re afeared.”
Keeping her eyes firmly fixed on the dusty road, Ada replied in a light tone, “Ride as hard as ye like, Calvin, but if ye let me fall, I’ll curse ye again!” That made him laugh and tighten his hold around her waist before urging the horse into a trot.
When he felt her relax into the rhythm, she heard him say, “D’ye want me to go faster, lass?”
Ada felt brave, saying, “Aye, why no’? Let us arrive at the great hall as swiftly as an arrow leaves the bow.”
The words were hardly out of her mouth before the horse began cantering and then galloping like the wind.
The going was soft and grassy, so the sensation of flying atop the ground was not as harsh as it might have been, but the hard gallop had the effect of making Ada twist sideways to grip his shirt with anxious hands.
This did much to stop the fearful rocking of the horse’s withers.
Ada was aware of feeling sad when the tall man reined in his mount until it slowed to a walk.
“How do ye stay on when ye’re riding at such a rate, Calvin?” she asked him as he dismounted.
The handsome man with the red hair grinned up at her before holding out his arms for her to jump into, which she did, her long braids flying around her as she landed.
For one moment, their faces were only inches apart.
She caught the scent of leather and forest moss rising up from his skin before he placed her back down on the ground.
He seemed reluctant to release his hold on her, murmuring in her ear before he stepped back, “The same as ye do, lass—by gripping hard with me thighs.”
For some inexplicable reason, Ada felt transfixed to the ground and could not move.
The buzz of his voice in her ear managed to do strange things to her.
All at once, she felt excited and weak, as if her independent thought had left her.
Her body thrilled at his touch and his words, too stimulated to make sense of why it was reacting to this tall man’s proximity.
Ada gave herself a shake and tried to snap out of the trance his voice had put her in, only for her body to deny her the strength to do it.
She had no choice but to reach out her hand and place it on his elbow.
“What d’ye ken, Calvin, but I’m a wee bit shaken by me adventure ridin’ yer big horse.”
He helped her up the stairs toward the hall eagerly, not yet finished with all the things he wanted to say to her.
“Why d’ye call me ‘Calvin’?”
She shrugged, allowing him to lead her to the entrance doors.
“Because I have nae bothered discovering what yer real name is, of course. I’ve heard men call ye William, Wee Willie, Lachlan, and the saints ken what other names, but ye’re the laird’s grandson, so Calvin seems the best way to solve that problem. ”
He grinned and gave her hand a wee pat. “I’m William Lachlan MacNair, son o’ Laird Callum MacNair and the lady formerly known as Meria Calvin.”
“So many names,” Ada teased him with a smile and then withdrew her hand from his arm. She was not happy with the effect his arm muscles were having on her heart.
She curtsied to the laird as Lachlan led her to the stone dais and pulled a chair out for her to sit on. It was a great honor to sit at the head table and not at one of the trestle boards with a bench pulled next to it. The steward, the scribe clerk, and the physician were seated at the same table.
Laird Calvin nodded and said, “It’s nice to have a female grace our table at dinner, Ada. Ye’re most welcome. We hope to see ye up here again.”
This announcement seemed to please Lachlan, and he smiled at his grandfather. Ada was shy, but she had been well brought up.
“Ye’re so bonny, Daughter, but never think that is enough to make ye attractive to all an’ sundry.
Yer manners must pass muster too,” Iona used to say when it was clear Ada was becoming a young woman.
“So ye must no’ eat yer meat by holding it by the bone an’ gnawing at it like a dog does a bone, the same as men do.
Ye must pry off the flesh with yer fingers and then bring it up to yer dainty lips in small pieces because when ye marry a laird, ye must set a good example to all the bairns ye have together. ”
All the youthful Ada would say to this was, “I dinnae want to leave our home, Mither! Please don’ make me. I dinnae want a laird to take me away from ye!”
But she had learned to eat politely anyway because it was what her mother wanted.
The conversation on the high dais table was stilted. The people seated around the table were men, after all, more interested in their food than making small talk. Lachlan seemed to notice this.
“Will ye ride up to the hut in the forest with me after dinner, Apprentice Ada? To fetch yer mither? I can teach ye how to ride a horse on yer own if ye like?”
He could be quite sweet when he was not making judgments on people, Ada decided. She poked his forearm lightly with her spoon.
“How does this sound? If ye tell me what name I might call ye all the time, then ye can call me Ada. Right?”
He looked down as he held the end of her spoon.
When he looked up, his eyes were shining.
Blue-green eyes…and so very, very attractive.
The same color as the shallow sea when the sand was covered with seaweed underneath it.
For one crazy moment, Ada felt like a rabbit standing in front of a ravenous wolf.
Then he smiled, and she felt safe again.
“Call me Calvin if ye like, lass. Any name that comes out o’ yer mouth sounds sweeter than honey.”
These winsome words made Ada blush. She had been wooed by many men since she had reached womanhood, but this was the first time the way a man looked had such a physical effect on her. After giving herself a tiny shake to make herself concentrate, she was able to reply.
“Calvin, why d’ye make me stay here? I want to know. It would have been easier for ye to send a message to the Guild of Physicians in Inverness and take on a nice, young physician, newly come out o’ university, willing to ply his learning on the Castle inhabitants.”
He frowned and stabbed at the food on his trencher with a sharp knife.
“I ken. I should have taken counsel from the other men around me before makin’ the decision. But I was blinded by…”
He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away. The more she thought about it, the more she realized how much she hated Calvin for thwarting her plans to leave.
“Blinded by what?” she snapped.
He looked at her with an enigmatic expression on his face. “An Inverness physician would no’ have suited me, lass,” he growled.
This made Ada’s frown deepen. How dare this man treat her mother’s and her request to leave in such an arrogant way!
“Am I to construe from it that ye are a whimsical fellow or simply mean-hearted?” Ada had forgotten about her food and was spoiling to continue her brangling. Now that his arms were not wrapped around her, she was finding it easier to discover things she disliked about the laird’s grandson!
“I am no’ the first counselor to make a decision to favor themselves, Ada,” he drawled, “but I’ll wager I am the first man to ever volunteer to carry an auld crone on me back to make her life easier.”
“Don’ call me mither an auld crone, ye jumped-up saucy knave!” Ada bit out the words before she could think about her surroundings.
The chomping and gulping noises in the hall ceased. She saw the people at the back of the hall lean to ask their neighbors what the healer’s apprentice daughter had said to the laird’s grandson.
Everyone at the dais table looked to Lachlan MacNair to see how he would respond to Ada’s scolding. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the scribe clerk clutched his throat, fell off his chair, and began foaming from the mouth.