Highland Storm (11 page)

“Alexander? But ye promised—”

“I’ll save a couple for the lad, but you—ye must go!” She seized Isla’s apron by the corners, dumped half the scones into it and shoved the warm bundle into her hands. “Such a bonny face, and a miracle-worker in the kitchen too! Alex will be so pleased, he—”

“I thought ye said it didnae matter if I couldn’t cook?”

“Och, well, I lied!” She seized Isla’s shoulders, whirled her around to face the door and prodded her unceremoniously in the small of the back. “Get one with ye, while they’re still warm!”

Isla let herself be pushed from the kitchen, bemused. While she wasn’t so sure the scones were the key to marital success, she was glad for an excuse to visit Alexander. Her time in the kitchen was the longest she’d spent without him since they’d met, and she felt his absence as acutely as the dull ache in her healing foot. She cradled her apron full of scones, regretting that he’d have to eat them without cream.

She found Alexander close to the stables, mounted on a grey gelding that danced beneath him, tossing its head irritably. It was one of the three colts he’d shown her, a young charge he was busy acquainting with the idea of carrying a rider. When she rounded the corner of the stable, he glimpsed her and turned in the saddle, a smile spreading across his face as he reined the animal in.

“Watch his head and feet,” he said, indicating his mount, which had turned a curious gaze upon Isla. “The bugger’s none so sure he likes this ridin’ business, and I amnae so sure I like ridin’ him, either. He’s got a stupid streak as wide as the day is long.”

Isla beamed, wishing Alexander wasn’t so high up so she could plant a kiss on his smiling lips. The horse was a good fifteen hands high though, so she settled for unbundling her apron, revealing its contents.

Alexander’s eyes lit up, and his smile widened. “Scones, and with currants. There’s nothin’ I’d like better at the moment. Give my thanks to Mrs Mary.”

He eagerly held out one large hand, and Isla pressed a scone into it, a pleasant shiver racing up her spine as his rough fingertips brushed hers. His grin made it difficult for her to suppress a smile of her own that was fighting to emerge.

“You’re an angel for bringin’ em’ to me,” he added, rendering it doubly challenging for Isla to keep a straight face.

The look of surprise that transformed his features as he bit into the pastry sent Isla over the edge. She grinned, and when he popped the other half into his mouth and eyed her apron hungrily, she laughed.

“Have ye tried these?” he asked. “Mrs Mary hasnae ever made anythin’ so delicious.”

“Well no,” she said, handing him another. “I havnae had one just yet.”

“Ye must.” He began to devour the second without hesitation. “They’re heavenly.”

Isla took one of the scones for herself and chewed thoughtfully for a few brief moments. They had turned out well, and the currants were so flavourful they almost drove thoughts of clotted cream from her mind. Pleased at the realisation that the batch was probably her personal best, she dropped the charade. “I’m glad ye like them. I spent the morn makin’ em.”

Alexander’s eyebrows rose almost to his hairline. “Ye made these?”

Isla nodded, using the back of her hand to hide a grin under the pretence of wiping away a smudge of currant juice. “Ye didnae think I could cook?”

His broad shoulders rose and fell as he shrugged. “I never thought of it, to tell ye the truth.” His swept his gaze over her from head to toe and grinned mischievously. “I had other things on my mind.”

A thrill of excitement rippled through Isla’s consciousness, but she held his gaze as she sidled up to the horse, close enough to lay a hand on his knee. Warmth blossomed in her core, too, as she brushed the inside of his thigh with her fingertips and saw in her mind’s eye what lay beneath his kilt. After two weeks of marriage—during which they’d frequented their bed, along with a few other less conventional places—she was able to effortlessly summon a perfect mental image of that considerable length of flesh.

“Oh, aye? Like what?” After two weeks as his wife, she knew perfectly well what, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to hear him say it.

He caught her hand in his and drew it under the tartan fabric. “I think ye ken—”

His demonstration was abruptly cut short by the horse, which turned its head to nose in Isla’s apron. Surprised, Isla came perilously close to losing her now one-handed hold on its corners, and one of the scones tumbled to the ground. Another was seized smartly by the grey gelding and promptly consumed.

Alexander cursed and swung out of the saddle, seizing the animal’s head and stepping between it and Isla. “Sorry. I should hae been payin’ closer attention to the beast.”

“I suppose ye had other things on your mind again,” Isla said, drawing close to Alexander as she cradled the couple of remaining scones in her apron.

She’d caught quite an eyeful of the rapidly stiffening flesh beneath his kilt as he’d swung down from the horse, and they were close enough now that his erection pressed against her through the fabric. It bulged against her belly, and he made no move to usher her away. The only attention he gave the horse was a firm hold on the reins—the rest he devoted to her. He wrapped his free arm around her waist and clutched her against him, crushing the scones between their bodies.

“Aye, well, can ye blame me?” he asked. “‘Tis the first day since we met I’ve had to spend without ye.” He grinned. “Ye’ve turned me into a useless lout, I’m afraid.”

She privately thought of a very specific use for him and the growing hardness against her middle, but no sooner had she prepared to voice the suggestion aloud than a figure on horseback interrupted their solitude.

The animal was galloping, its rider’s kilt flapping dangerously around his knees. Isla had seen the red-bearded man before and knew him as one of Benstrath’s tenant farmers, though she struggled to recall his name. Whoever he was, he appeared to be riding with significant purpose, half-standing in the saddle with his blue eyes wide and fixed on Alexander.

The young grey gelding whinnied shrilly at the sight of the other horse and began to dance. Alexander handled his mount skilfully, finally tearing his attention from Isla to divide it between his horse and the man who was swiftly approaching.

“What is it, Will?” he asked when the red-haired man had reigned his horse to an abrupt halt.

“A stranger,” Will huffed, his eyes shining as he delivered the news, “down at the mill pond!”

“The mill pond?”

“Aye, he’s fallen in. The fool had galloped his horse into a lather, and he fell straight off the beast as he passed the pond and tumbled right into the water.”

Alexander frowned. “Ye didnae leave the man drowning to come and fetch me, did ye?”

Will shook his head silently while pausing to draw breath in apparent preparation to tell the rest of the story. “Nae. I left my boys there, and they were just wadin’ into the pond when I set out to fetch ye or your father, whoever I found first.”

Alexander climbed onto the grey’s back and settled into the saddle with a pensive frown. “I’ll ride with ye to the pond, then.” His expression softened as he turned to Isla. “Go straight to the house,
mo chride
. I must see to this and I dinnae want ye alone with a stranger about.”

Isla suppressed a stab of disappointment and nodded, thinking all the while that a man who’d managed to tumble off his horse and into a pond probably posed little threat. Still, she didn’t wish to worry Alexander, and she could surely put herself to better—if much duller—use in the kitchen than out in the fields, distracting him from his responsibilities.

“Aye, I’ll go.” She watched him heel the grey gelding, which tossed its head with annoyance but complied nonetheless. Then she turned towards the estate house, the heat that lingered in her middle reminding her there was much to look forward to when the day’s work was done.

* * * *

Isla nearly dropped the spoon she held into the scone batter when the sound of Alexander’s voice rang down the hall and into the kitchen, heralding his arrival scarcely half an hour since he’d departed for the mill pond. He was speaking, it seemed, to at least two other men, among whose voices she recognised Will’s excited burr.

“A little whisky, maybe, to revive him?”

“I dinnae think so…” someone else replied, reproachful.

Alexander spoke above them both. “Nae. He’s had more than enough already. I can smell the stink of it on his breath.”

Isla stared, the butter she was cutting into the batter forgotten as a shadow darkened the doorway and the men’s voices filled the kitchen. Alexander and Will were carrying an apparently unconscious person between them, Alexander with his hands beneath the man’s oxters and Will gripping his ankles. The sagging body was a mess of sopping green tartan and ginger hair that had escaped any restraint and had plastered itself across its owner’s face. A sharp spike of panic pierced Isla’s heart, spurring it into a wildly beating gallop. She gripped the counter reflexively and silently willed herself not to be ridiculous.

“Mrs Mary!” Alexander called, looking over his shoulder and scanning the kitchen.

Though Isla’s mouth was as dry as the heated griddle awaiting her latest batch of scones, she managed to speak. “She’s in the pantry.”

Alexander favoured her with a small, wry smile, despite the fact he was being dripped on. His hose, thoroughly wetted, sagged around his ankles, revealing the scar on his muscular calf. “Would ye mind fetching her? We may need to make use of her handy stitching.”

For the first time, Isla noticed a spot of deep crimson gleaming from among the lighter tones of the unconscious man’s red hair. With her own blood rushing in her ears, she hurried to the pantry.

“Mrs Mary,” she breathed when she’d entered its shadowed sanctuary, ripe with the smells of cheeses and a dozen other foods. “Alexander is here, askin’ for ye.”

Mrs Mary turned from where she’d been scooping oats from a large sack, took one look at Isla and gasped. “What is it, dear? Ye look as if ye’ve seen a ghost!”

She shook her head, privately thinking a ghost would have been preferable to the freshly-arrived stranger. At least a spirit couldn’t seize you by the hair and strike you across the jaw, couldn’t—

But no, she was being foolish. No one here would do those things, either. She was only jumping at shadows.

“I had a strange thought is all,” she mumbled, exhibiting a weak attempt at a reassuring smile.

Mrs Mary frowned dubiously and glanced towards the doors, obviously torn between attending to Alexander and getting the truth out of Isla. Eventually she strode out of the pantry, but not without a backward glance.

Isla stayed behind, remaining still and breathing slowly in an effort to quell a sudden bout of nausea. When the worst of it had passed she squared her shoulders and prepared to step out of the shadows. She would look this stranger in the eye, and when she saw his face her ridiculous fears would slip back into the darker corners of her memory where they belonged.

Mrs Mary had hurried to the group of men and was now bent over the stranger’s head, exclaiming over the wound.

“Och, well it isnae anything I cannae handle,” she said in reply to a question from Alexander. “But is it true ye fished this fellow out of the mill pond?”

Isla had told Mrs Mary about Will’s news and Alexander’s consequent departure. Now she listened intently from beside a counter, willing her curiosity to override the queasiness that pitched to and fro in her stomach.

“Aye,” Alexander replied. “Will’s two lads fished him out and had him layin’ on the bank when I arrived.”

“Let me fetch a few cloths and my needle then,” Mrs Mary said. “‘Tis better to do the stitchin’ while they’re still out if ye can.” She bustled away, exposing the man’s sopping locks to Isla’s sight.

Isla gripped the edge of the countertop hard and forced herself to breath evenly. When the man who hung between Alexander and Will jerked suddenly and clattered to the floor in a rush of damp tartan and curses, she nearly fell herself. Fortunately, nobody noticed, intent as they were on the suddenly conscious man.

Alexander had a hand on the hilt of his dirk, and a hard look made his blue eyes gleam. Will and the third man appeared equally wary as they each seized one of the man’s shoulders and forced him to sit on the kitchen floor, legs sprawled in the puddle of pond water that had dripped from his clothing. Now that the stranger was awake, the men seemed more than willing to consider the possibility that he was dangerous.

He was definitely a threat—or at least had been.

Her hands shaking even as she clutched the edge of the counter, Isla slid slowly to the floor, fighting the blackness that tried to invade her vision as the room span around her. Bitter realisation churned in the pit of her stomach. He’d come for her. After two weeks of bliss, she’d been found out. It was as if she’d slipped into a nightmare without even falling asleep.

She could see it all in her mind’s eye—the rumour of Alexander’s marriage to a red-headed Forbes lass spreading over the highlands, the juicy bit of gossip crossing even boundaries that had been drawn between clans in blood. Judging by his advanced state of intoxication, her father had drunk himself into a lather and saddled his horse, riding on a thoughtless mission that had been doomed from the very start.