Chapter 4 #2
“What does she need protectin’ from?” Keith asked, his eyes searching the yard, as if trying to pick out the guard who had failed so spectacularly.
Gordon gave the short version of events as he understood them.
“So, for now, she’s the Mad Laird’s bride,” he concluded.
The very next moment, Keith erupted into laughter. A sound so jarring and unwelcome that he earned a sharp glare from Gordon, which only made him laugh harder.
“Och, I never thought ye were a man to follow fashions, me Laird,” Keith teased through his laughter. “It’s apparently very fashionable to have yerself an English wife these days. Laird MacLellan got himself one nae that long ago.”
“Logan?” Gordon blinked in disbelief.
“Aye. Heard they were due to have another bairn soon.”
It had been a while since Gordon had had any reason to visit with Laird MacLellan, but the man was known to him from days gone by, when, under his father’s reign, Clan Buchlann had garnered some of its wealth from piracy. Raiding English ships for whatever they could take.
He would not have said that he and Logan were friends, but they were certainly allies.
“She’s nae goin’ to be me wife,” Gordon said tersely. “It’s nae real. It’s just until I can get rid of the man who’s pursuin’ her, and she’s said I cannae kill him, so it willnae be as quick as I’d prefer.”
“At least she has sense,” Keith commented. “If ye kill one Englishman, ye’ll have to kill the twenty others who come after him, cryin’ for justice they daenae deserve.”
Gordon was about to remark that he’d like to see them try when he spotted Agnes. Her face lit up as she met his gaze, and she broke into a run, waving both her hands as if it was possible to miss her.
“Fuck,” Gordon grumbled. “Why does she have to be so… so… bright and… sunshiney?”
Keith arched an eyebrow. “I daenae think that’s a word, me Laird.”
“Aye, well, maybe nae, but what does she have to smile about so much?”
A few of the soldiers cast appreciative glances in her direction as she hurried around the side of the yard, graciously avoiding the swing of blades and the speed of flying arrows, and came to a breathless standstill in front of Gordon.
Immediately, another bright smile curved her tempting lips, though they rounded out into a slightly surprised ‘o’ as her eyes wandered over his half-naked body.
Perhaps she hadn’t seen as much as he thought the previous night.
She seemed frozen, staring, not a sound escaping that luscious mouth of hers. Only her eyes moved, roving over him, taking him in. Was she even aware that she was openly gaping at him?
His body responded as if it were her touch and not just her eyes admiring him. An intense heat that flared in the pit of his stomach, smoldering down to his loins. A rush of blood roared in his ears, awakening a different wolf in him, a ravenous one that had not been fed in a very long time.
Of course, he was no monk. Lasses had joined him in his bed whenever the desire took him, but that was just a routine matter, like sparring with his man-at-arms to work off a frustration.
This was different. This was a wolf that had been caged for a long time. This was need and want combined, not mere habit.
He cleared his throat. “Ye wanted somethin’, lass?”
And ye can have it if ye just say the word, a voice whispered in his mind, stoking the flame within him.
She blushed a shade of red so perfect, so deep that he craved to touch it, to feel its warmth against his fingertips, and to perhaps see how far down it went.
“Ah… Ah, yes, of course I did,” she stammered, her hand falling onto her chest.
It drew his eyes to her heaving ripe bosom, which flushed a tempting pink.
“Goodness, what was it?” She laughed awkwardly. “Oh, yes, I remember…” she trailed off, her gaze following the line that cut up the middle of his muscled chest to his collarbone, her head slightly tilting to one side as her gaze reached his neck… and then his lips.
“Lass?” Gordon prompted, for his own sake.
She shook her head, clarity returning to her eyes instead of glazed admiration.
“I’m sorry for the intrusion. I didn’t realize that a training yard meant…
this kind of training, with… um… sharp weapons and such.
” She coughed. “Since you’re a man of obvious discipline, I assumed you might have a lot of rules that I wasn’t yet privy to, so I didn’t want to just barge into your study without asking. ”
“Me study?” His eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What do ye want to go in there for?”
“Well, my Laird, I should like to write a letter back home, to let my aunt know that Lizzy and I are safe and well and under your protection,” she explained in a rush.
“She will, of course, inform my father. Although I will say nothing of the… um… agreement between us for now, lest he suffer apoplexy.”
There was that faint edge of hope again. Gordon didn’t care for it, yet he didn’t quite know how to make it any clearer that their ‘betrothal’ would not and could not lead to an actual marriage.
“Why, does yer faither have a weak heart?” he asked instead, keeping his voice even, almost cold.
She grimaced and shrugged. “A broken one, certainly. I dread to think what he would have to say about a union between me and a Sc—”
“Fine,” he interrupted sharply, aware that most of his soldiers were no doubt eavesdropping.
They wouldn’t exactly take kindly to hearing that their Laird was betrothed to an Englishwoman either. Then again, most of them were looking at her with intent appreciation, which Gordon rather wanted to smack from their faces.
“Fine. Write yer letter,” he added. “Ask Iona for the key.”
With an annoyingly bright grin, Agnes thanked him and turned to leave.
“And lass?” he called.
She paused and glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Yes, my Laird?”
“Ye were right about the rules,” he told her darkly. “We’ll discuss them tonight over dinner. Leave the bairn with Iona, so ye willnae have to keep coverin’ her ears.”
Agnes’s mouth fell open, that torturous shade of red reappearing in her cheeks. He watched her throat bob and imagined his lips grazing that warm skin, before she nodded, quickly turned her head, and hurried off to the castle.
Left with fresh frustration that made him pull his sword, he glanced at Keith and muttered, “Round two.”