Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
It was not Aidan’s way to rush straight to the uisge, but Lìli understood why he did so today. She had a mighty yen for it herself.
He was not pleased.
She was not pleased.
“She’s but a child,” Lìli argued.
“Her name is Constance, Lìli, and they are nearly the same age.”
Her mood soured even more. Rarely did her husband ever speak her name, not like that. She was most often his sweetling—never Lìli with that horribly impatient tone.
They had returned from Chreagach Mhor, with a surprise en tow. Her husband and son were home in one piece—thank God—but her son Kellen had brought along with him a wife.
A wife!
To Lìli’s way of thought, this was taking charity a bit too far.
They’d gone merely to carry supplies to an allied clan, and she had supported this rare show of solidarity in her husband, but this was not what she had anticipated when she’d agreed he should leave the vale so close to the birth of their new bairn.
“That is not the point,” Lìli argued, as Aidan poured himself a dram.
Already, her son had been deprived his birthright with the enfeoffment of Keppenach to Jaime Steorling—not that she begrudged Jaime the keep.
Her son would not have been old enough to accept his patrimony for many, many years, and in the meantime, the demesne would have remained unsecured or fallen to ruin.
But she’d had modest hopes for Kellen’s future, and now they were all dashed.
Someday, her father would die, and as yet Padruig had begot himself no heirs.
It seemed that God had cursed him for his evil ways, and made him barren as a brick.
Because of this, Kellen should have married well enough to put him in a position to inherit what Lìli could not.
Her father might loathe her still—he might even count Lìli amongst his greatest enemies for what he had considered a betrayal—but she was still a child of his blood.
She was a Caimbeul whether he liked it or not.
But of course, she was content here in Dubhtolargg.
It wasn’t that. It was merely that a man without a demesne was ever destined to serve others, and even where there was no greed, or ambition, it undermined the relationship even so.
Much as she loathed the truth of this fact, she saw the way it had separated Aidan and Keane—brothers who had once been inseparable.
A boy could not become a man until he left his father’s house and someday Kellen must make his own way, whether Aidan agreed or not.
At any rate, Dubhtolargg was no longer the safe haven it once was. Slowly but surely the world was encroaching upon them—more surely than only a few weeks before, for here, now, was yet another mouth to feed.
But a new bride?
Did Aidan truly mean to gift them Lael’s cottage? Outside the protection of the crannóg? Already Cailin had insisted upon her own home. Next it would be Ria and then the babe, and then she and Aidan would inhabit the crannóg all alone. It was far too cavernous for just two people!
Aidan lifted his tankard to his lips, quaffing the uisge down, his body tense.
Lìli felt the tension as well—in her belly, wherein she ought not feel it right now.
They rarely ever argued. That she must needst greet her husband with harsh words, especially now when she was so grateful to see him, upset her more than he could know.
Out in the hall, her son sat cooing over his sweet new bride. She was lovely, in truth, but the thought of Kellen bearing bairns of his own—well, he was only a boy!
“Why di’ ye not say nay, Aidan?”
His stark green eyes begged her to understand. “The evidence was indisputable, Lìli, particularly since Kellen admitted to the deed wi’ his own two lips. Would ye have me begin a feud with the MacKinnons?”
“Well, nay,” Lìli confessed. “Though ye should ha—”
“I should have what? What choice did I have, my love?” Once again, his gaze begged her to understand, and Lìli’s shoulders fell despondently.
Tears pricked at her eyes. She moved backwards and sat on the bed, feeling weak in the knees as she tried to make sense of all she’d heard.
Her son was found in the arms of a girl—both cuddled together in a loft atop the MacKinnon’s stable.
Hair mussed, clothes full of bits of hay.
They’d been left all alone to fondle each other, and who knew what more!
But who had been watching them all the while? No one, this much was clear! And yet… it was true… he was not a wee bairn to be coddled all the time. She must confess at least this much. “What if she is already pregnant?” Lìli worried.
Her husband tilted her a sympathetic look, appealing to Lìli’s sense of fair-mindedness. “Then we will have a new grandson afore long.” His beautiful, full lips turned up at one corner, as though to wrest a smile from hers.
Feeling cantankerous, Lìli’s hand went to her belly. “Ach, Aidan! We will have a child and a grandchild both nearly the same age.”
Aidan shrugged. “Surely we will not be the first?”
Defeated by her husband’s sense of reason—and the soft lilt of his gentle words—Lìli lay back upon the bed, with one hand splayed upon her belly, surrendering to the facts. “But he is not ready to be a father,” she whined.
Her husband’s tone was calm and reassuring. “Kellen is a fine lad. He’ll make a good husband and a verra good da.” And then he reminded her, “He is only two years older than I was when I became laird of this clan.”
Lìli considered that truth as well. On that day when her father betrayed the dún Scoti clan, Aidan took up his sword beside his father as a youth of ten and four, and then after his father was slain, he became chief.
So, aye, two years younger than Kellen. It was a sad, sad story—one her husband might never have forgiven her for, and yet he had.
Unbidden, Lìli pictured her sire looming over Aidan’s father’s body, his long grey beard splattered with blood.
Padruig Caimbeul had gone to Dubhtolargg under the pretense of friendship, supping at their table and partaking of their ale and then altogether, he and his warriors had risen up in the midst of the festivities and slaughtered half the dún Scoti clansmen whilst their noses were deep in their cups.
It was the gravest of transgressions amongst Highlanders—to shed innocent blood under another mon’s roof when one was invited in friendship, and for that alone, her father would rot in hell.
And to imagine… all this her father had done without any knowledge about the stone hidden here in the vale.
They had come simply to appease their monstrous pride—to say they had driven the heir of Black Tolargg to his knees.
They’d defiled Aidan’s mother, left her with a babe in her belly.
And that babe was Sorcha, although Sorcha did not realize the truth of her patrimony as yet.
Lìli had been sworn to secrecy—as was the rest of the clan—until the day Aidan determined it best to reveal this news.
Alas, insofar as transgressions went, Lìli was hardly in a position to hurl any stones.
Reading her so well, and sensing the turn of her thoughts, her husband came and sat beside her on the bed, caressing her thigh.
Lìli smiled, despite her quarrel with him, for she knew him so well. Whenever he touched her belly, he was content to be a father. When he avoided that round, unavoidable, lump that was her belly, he was in the mood for something else…
He continued to caress her thigh. “Will you forgive me?" he asked. "I have missed ye so, my sweetling.”
Lìli inhaled a breath. She was not an old woman, and despite that she had two children and another on the way, she refused to behave like an old woman.
In response to his sweet words, she spread her legs a bit—an invitation, if he should like to take it.
She was still too vexed to confess it, but she would welcome Aidan’s peace offering.
Her husband chuckled. “I take it you’re pleased to see me, despite our son’s indiscretions?”
Of course, she was pleased to see him—so pleased, that her nipples tightened beneath her gown, aching to be set free. Pouting still, Lìli turned her head. “I am pleased,” she said, and then spread her legs a little wider. “I suppose he is a man, after all, and men will do what they are led to do.”
The wicked gleam that returned to her husband’s bright green eyes nearly stole her breath away. “And what are men led to do?”
“Things they ought not,” she answered coyly.
“Like this?” He snuck a long finger up the hem of her gown and Lìli’s breath caught on a gasp. There he teased her inner thigh. “Should I not do this?”
As an answer, Lìli spread her legs a little wider, reaching down to pull up her gown, but slowly, teasingly, enjoying the feel of the soft wool sliding up the length of her skin.
Aidan chuckled darkly, and stood, looking down on her on their bed.
Lìli had been feeling quite frisky, cleaning everything within sight.
The room was cozy with a fire she’d had waiting now for days.
Even after all these years, she felt little doves fly inside her breast at the sight of her husband undressing so purposefully before her.
He was not a man who shied away from pleasures of the flesh.
At six and thirty, Aidan was still darkly handsome, his hair as black as raven’s wings. His green eyes boldly inspected her, ravaging her body without ever touching her. And yet she felt his gaze as surely as she would his big, strong hands.
As he looked down upon her, he took himself into his hands, teasing her. “Is this what you want, Lìli?”
He stood bare skinned now, his body tinted copper by the firelight and he began to stroke the length of his shaft, smiling wickedly as his thumb caressed the glossy tip.
Gooseflesh erupted over Lìli’s flesh, and she licked her lips gone dry, but she knew something more than she once did about pleasing her lover and she smiled back, nodding only once.
That was all it took.
Her husband fell to one knee… intending to kiss her until she became wet.
He loved the taste of her, or so he’d said.
But she was already wet, didn’t he realize?
From the instant she’d spied that gleam in his eye and the first naughty turn of his familiar lips.
Arching into his soft mouth, she reveled in the heat of his tongue…
Aye, this was a fine way to end an argument… a fine way to greet her husband… and, even if she didn’t crave him deep inside her—which she did—she would have let him take her if only for the simple fact that she wanted this babe born.
Right now.
“Make love to me, Husband,” she demanded.
Ever dutiful, and never inclined to disobey… Aidan hooked his arms beneath her knees and pulled her to the edge of the bed, wasting little time in giving her his warm, thick flesh. Lìli felt him slide inside and melted into the bed.
I am his master and he is the master of me.
So it was, and so it should be.