Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
I’ll prove to ye I ken hard work… Me Laird.
She had expected filth when she decided to work at the stables. Of course, stables were not scented chambers, and horses, for all their beauty, had very poor manners.
What she had not expected was the stable boy’s horror when she took the broom from his hand and asked where the clean straw was kept.
“Ma’am,” he stammered, “ye cannae—”
“I can,” Ailis had said sweetly. “And if ye stand there gawpin’ much longer, I shall think ye wish to join the muck pile.”
After that, he helped.
By the time the sun leaned westward, the stables smelled less of damp straw and old manure and more of fresh rushes, hay, leather oil, and cool earth.
The stalls had been swept clean. Fresh bedding had been laid.
Buckets had been scrubbed. Saddles hung straighter than soldiers awaiting inspection.
Even the old cobwebs above the beams had been attacked with such determined violence that the stable boy had watched her with the wide-eyed awe of a lad witnessing a miracle.
Or a madwoman.
Ailis did not care which.
Once the work was done, she climbed onto a hay bale near the back stall, tucked her skirts beneath her, and drew.
The mare nearest her was a sweet gray creature with a dark mane and the gentlest eyes Ailis had ever seen. She stood quietly, one hind leg at rest, her head angled toward the window where late light slipped through the slats and touched the curve of her neck.
Ailis’ fingers moved over the parchment. Charcoal smudged her fingertips and darkened the side of her hand. A curl had fallen into her face, and she blew it away twice before giving up and letting it hang there.
There was peace in drawing. Peace in making a line become a shape, a shadow become softness.
For a while, she forgot she was meant to be proving a point by cleaning the stables as Gordon had ordered. For a while, there was only the mare, the straw, the soft shift of hooves, and the sound of her own breathing.
Then the stable boy made a strangled sound.
Ailis looked up. Gordon stood at the stable entrance.
Her hand stilled over the parchment.
He filled the doorway as if it had been built too small for him. The afternoon light fell behind him, turning the edges of his hair and shoulders dark.
He wore no cloak, only his plaid and a linen shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. His gaze traveled over the spotless stalls, the fresh straw, the polished tack, the scrubbed buckets.
Then it moved to the stable boy. The lad straightened as though Gordon had struck him with a spear point.
“Me Laird,” he said, “I tried to get her to stop, but she insisted.”
Gordon looked from him to the stalls again. His brows drew together, not in anger but in a sort of silent disbelief.
Ailis bit the inside of her cheek.
Gordon’s gaze finally settled on her, and she smiled.
“Ye may go,” Gordon said to the boy.
The lad blinked. “Me Laird?”
“For the remainder of the day.”
The boy’s mouth fell open. He looked at Ailis as if she had performed witchcraft. Then he remembered himself, dipped his head, and hurried out before Gordon could change his mind.
Ailis returned her attention to her sketch though every part of her knew Gordon still watched her.
“How did ye manage to clean an entire stable,” Gordon asked, “and still find time to sketch?”
She looked up at him, letting her smile turn bright and infuriating because it had never failed her before.
“I’m fast,” she replied.
For a heartbeat, Gordon only stared. Ailis could not read his face. That was one of the many vexing things about him. He gave very little away unless one watched closely. And she had begun to watch closely though she told herself it was only because a woman ought to study her enemy.
His gaze dropped to the parchment in her lap. The mare’s neck curved in charcoal, half-finished but recognizable.
“Ye draw well,” he said. The compliment was so unexpected that Ailis’ fingers tightened around the charcoal.
She looked down quickly and answered playfully. “Aye. I ken.”
A soft breath left him. “Of course, ye do.”
Her lips twitched before she could stop them.
Then his eyes shifted toward the gray mare.
“Do ye ken how to ride?” Gordon asked.
The question stole the ease from her chest.
Ailis’s smile did not fall so much as freeze. Her fingers went suddenly cold around the charcoal, and the stable, which had felt warm and close a moment before, seemed too large.
She blanked out for a moment as she recalled the familiar sounds of hooves striking wet earth and the feel of rain slashing her face when she lost her balance in the saddle.
She vividly recalled the ache of her body hitting the ground.
Too full of remembered sounds. It knocked the breath from her lungs as it had two years ago.
Gordon’s voice cut through the memory. “Ailis?”
“Aye,” she said. Her throat felt too narrow. “But the last time I rode…” The words thinned as she swallowed hard.
Gordon did not move. Did not fill the silence with questions. He simply waited, and somehow that made it harder.
“I fell,” she said at last. “It was hard, and it was…” She looked away, shame prickling behind her eyes because fear had always made her feel smaller than anger ever did. “Well, it was the last time I rode.”
Gordon understood. She saw it in the way his face changed. Not soft, exactly, but his eyes stilled, and the sternness of his mouth eased by the smallest measure.
“The night ye tried to flee from yer uncle when I came to get ye,” he said.
Ailis’s spine stiffened. “Aye. If ye hadnae found me, I daenae ken what would have happened.”
He stepped closer to her. “Then perhaps it is time ye ride again.”
Ailis laughed, but it broke at the edges. “Perhaps fears exist for a reason.”
“Or perhaps,” Gordon said quietly, walking to the gray mare’s stall, “it exists to remind us what still has power over us.”
He opened the stall, haltered the horse, and led the mare forward with a calm hand on the rope. The horse came easily, trusting him. Of course, she did. Creatures likely obeyed Gordon because they sensed that disobedience might be met with a lecture on duty.
Ailis set her sketch aside and rose slowly. “I daenae like this.”
“I daenae think ye should.”
“Then why make me do it?”
His gaze met hers over the mare’s neck. “Because ye shouldnae lose ridin’ forever to one fall.”
“Ye are very fond of decidin’ what I should and should nae lose.” The words came sharper than intended, but he did not rise to them.
“I’ll be beside ye the entire time,” Gordon said as he saddled the horse. “Ye have me word.”
His word. Can I trust it?
She approached the mare with reluctant steps. The gray turned her head, dark eyes gentle, breath warm against Ailis’ sleeve. Ailis touched her nose with trembling fingers.
“She is calm?” Ailis asked.
“Aye.”
“She doesnae throw people?”
“She doesnae throw anyone unless they frighten her first.”
“Comfortin’.”
Gordon held the reins and nodded toward the mounting block. She held her chin and climbed it even though her insides trembled with a nauseating fear.
The moment she settled upon the saddle, her whole body went rigid. The leather creaked beneath her. The reins lay in her hands, but her fingers closed around them too tightly. Her knuckles whitened.
Her breath came shallow. The mare shifted, feeling every drop of fear that traveled through Ailis’ stiff arms and down the reins.
“Easy,” Gordon said. The mare tossed her head.
The mare shifted again, hooves scraping straw.
Ailis gasped softly. She hated the sound at once. Hated the way fear seized her throat. Hated the stable walls blurring into rain and mud and the memory of lying winded on the ground, certain no one would come.
“Hold,” Gordon said. He was already moving.
Ailis stiffened further, the worst thing she could have done. The mare tossed her head again and shifted just enough underneath her to unbalance her.
Ailis’ breath vanished.
Then Gordon was there. One hand closed firmly over hers, steadying the reins. The other settled at her waist, strong and secure, anchoring her before she could slip. His body came close alongside hers, the warmth of him cutting through panic more surely than any command.
“Breathe,” he murmured. His voice was low. Rough. Near enough that she felt it against her skin as much as heard it.
Ailis tried, but nothing came.
“Again,” Gordon said, softer now. “With me.”
He breathed slowly. She followed because he left her no room for pride.
Air entered her lungs in a shaking pull. The mare settled beneath his calm guidance, but Ailis did not. She became aware of everything all at once. Gordon’s hand over hers and the other at her waist.
She felt the hard plane of his chest lightly against her back. His breath near her ear. The scent of leather, rain, and him surrounding her until the stable seemed to fall away.
Her fear did not vanish, but it slowed beneath everything else. Her pulse still raced, but now, it raced for reasons that had nothing to do with the horse beneath her.
“Like that,” Gordon said softly.
Ailis swallowed. His hand flexed at her waist, not possessive, not improper, only steadying.
That somehow made it worse. She could not bear the gentleness of it. Not from him. He helped her dismount in one smooth motion.
The moment her feet touched straw, she pulled from him, allowing anger to mask the real sensations burning through her.
“Ye shouldnae have forced me to do that,” she snapped.
“Ailis…”
“It was nae yer place,” she argued again. Anger rose swiftly because it was easier to hold than the trembling still moving through her limbs. “I am nae over me fear. Sometimes fear protects ye. Sometimes it keeps ye alive.”
His eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. That silence angered her more. Her chest felt so clustered, she feared it would explode. And Gordon kept looking at her through it all, his eyes intense and unyielding.
Her chest rose with her next heavy breath now.
“I cannae breathe,” Ailis choked, and once the words began, she could not stop them.
“I daenae ken what arrangements me brother has made. I daenae ken what will happen once we wed. I daenae ken what ye expect of me and why ye even agreed to any of this.”
Her voice wavered. She hated that too.
Gordon’s expression shifted, but she pressed on before he could speak.
“It is me duty.”
“Daenae speak to me of duty!” she argued, stepping close to him as the words raked out of her.
Gordon thundered, his mouth pulling harshly, “Ye think inheritin’ a castle makes a man whole?”
Ailis’ breath faltered.
“I was cast out,” he said, voice roughening. “Raised to hate the very name I carry. Shaped into a weapon for a man who cared naught for blood save how it might serve him. I belong nowhere, Ailis. And ye certainly shouldnae be here.”
The words struck with such force that her anger stumbled. Their breathing was ragged as they glared at each other, and the thrumming race in her pulse slowly took over from everything else she felt.
This is madness.
He was too close to her… close enough that she smelled the fresh scent of linen and earth that clung to him.
His gaze dropped to her mouth while he stared at her too, and her mouth parted before she could think. The air between them tightened until she feared an explosion would happen. The heat in the moment pressed against her skin and stole her breath.
Every part of her was aware of him, and delicious tingles filled her.
She should step away from him and walk off; instead, she stared at his mouth.
His lips were close and shaped in that grim, unsmiling line that made her want, absurdly, dangerously, to know what it would feel like to press her lips against his.
Gordon panted too. His chest rose and fell with a heavy rhythm that made Ailis suspect he was just as troubled as she was. When the silence stretched longer than another second, she turned to walk away.
Gordon caught her wrist before she could pivot fully. His fingers circled her skin, warm and steady, as she glanced over one shoulder to look at him.
His eyes seemed darker now, and his gaze dropped to her mouth. A brief flicker of hesitation followed before he tugged her all the way to him, dipped his head, and sealed his lips on hers.
The smallest sound broke from her before she could stop it, and Gordon went still for the span of one heartbeat, as if that sound had struck straight through him.
Then he kissed her deeper.
Longer than he should have.
Longer than she should have allowed.
Ailis’ thoughts scattered beneath it. The stable vanished. The mare. The hay. The quarrel. All of it disappeared beneath the heat of his mouth and the impossible truth of his body, so close to hers.
One more second… one more breath.
She let out a soft, helpless sound against him, and just then a woman’s voice cut through from beyond the stable door, shattering the moment as they sprang away from each other.