The Clan MacDougall Series (31 page)

“Ah. I see,” said Isobel. “And whose heart are we discussing?” she asked, looking straight at Aishlinn. “Duncan’s?” Aishlinn wanted to slide of out of the chair and crawl away.

“’Tis all right, Aishlinn,” Isobel said smiling. “Everyone can see how he feels about ye.”

Aishlinn sighed. “Then why didn’t I know of it?” She was frustrated. It seemed everyone else had seen it coming but her. She suddenly felt quite immature and far too inexperienced.

Isobel laughed along with Mary and Laren. “Because ye didn’t think such a thing could happen,” Isobel offered. “Ya still be thinking yer plain and no’ worthy of a man’s affections, am I right?”

She had her there. Until Duncan had kissed her for the first time last night, she never would have thought such a thing could have happened to her. Aye, she may have wished it and dreamed of it, but to think it could actually happen, that was where her heart had failed her.

“You’re right,” Aishlinn said, sitting straighter in her chair. It was as if a bolt of lightening had suddenly hit her. The awareness that she had let four selfish, mean and ugly men who did not love her rule her life, even now when she was no longer anywhere near them, gnawed at her.

“My brothers, my step-father, they were just mean, selfish twits.” She stood and took the vegetables to the sink. “I am not plain and I am not stupid.” Looking at Isobel she said, “I may not be as beautiful as you are Isobel, but I be not a pigling either!”

The more she thought of all the harsh things her father and brothers had ever said to her, the angrier she became.

“I may not be very educated yet, but I will be soon enough.” Stewing silently for a moment, she thought of her life thus far while Isobel, Mary and Laren looked at her with proud smiles on their faces.

“I promise you this, you’ll not hear me say I be plain or I am not good enough ever again.” She put her hands upon her hips as a scowl came to her face. “It be them, my brothers and my stepfather who are ugly, mindless fools and I promise you this as well, I’ll never let another man say or do those things to me again.”

She walked out of the room, uncertain from where her newfound courage came. Resolved to take a firm hold of her life, she left behind three women who could not be more proud of her than they were at that very moment.

“God’s bones, it’s about time!” Isobel said. “I wondered how long it would take the lass to figure it out.”

“Aye,” said Mary. “I pity the fool that crosses her! He might come away missing something dear to his heart!” The other women agreed as they laughed themselves silly over it.

There had been very little time to meet privately with the McDunnah the day before. At first Duncan had been glad for the arrival of Caelen and his men, but once he’d seen the way Caelen looked at Aishlinn, all good feelings were flung out the window.

After having time to think on it, Duncan realized he could not hold the McDunnah’s behavior against him forever. He needed to keep the good relations between his clan and theirs for a multitude of reasons. Every Scot loyal to King David would be needed in order to free him from the hands of the English. It would do no good for the clans to waste precious resources fighting amongst each other. They needed their strength to fight against the English.

There was still a good chance that the English would seek out justice for the murder of the Earl of Penrith. The Clan MacDougall had given refuge to the person responsible for the earl’s death and he knew the English would use that fact against not only his clan but all of Scotland. The English would use the earl’s death as a means of seeking retribution against them. It was just the excuse the English needed to attack and invade.

Duncan would need every able-bodied man he could get his hands on to help defend against the English. He knew the McDunnah was loyal to King David and hated the English as much as Duncan’s own clan did. What he did not know, however, was whether or not the McDunnah would fight in order to defend Aishlinn’s honor and life.

While the McDunnah was loyal to King David and to Scotland, he was also a very shrewd man. There was a very strong possibility that he would chose not to waste his clan’s precious resources if there weren’t something in it for him. Had Aishlinn been a nobleman’s daughter the situation would be much different. A nobleman might be more willing to pay for the protection of a daughter. But as it was, Aishlinn was a peasant, a scullery maid and an orphan. To date, the only value ever given her was the two sheep her brothers had traded her for.

After leaving Aishlinn at the kitchens, Duncan headed off to meet with the McDunnah. The only thing Duncan had going for him at the moment, was the fact that the McDunnah liked to fight. Caelen McDunnah it seemed had been born for it. Duncan had personally witnessed a time or two where the man had picked a fight just to say he’d fought it and won. Hopefully Duncan could appeal to that side of the man for help if or when the English might come for his Aishlinn.

With her newfound strength and determination Aishlinn tackled her studies that afternoon with the fierceness of a Highland warrior. Smart enough to know she could not learn everything she wanted to in a day, she was determined to succeed and cared not how long it might take.

Bree and Ellen joined her in the study room to help her in any way that they could. Aishlinn decided that while weaving was indeed a wonderful thing to learn she would put that on hold while she turned her entire focus to learning to read and write, as well as speak the Gaelic.

That evening when Duncan came to her room to escort her to the evening meal, he noted that there was something different in her demeanor. She did not look at the floor while she walked; instead she held her head high, her shoulders back, walking with the grace and dignity of a nobleman’s daughter.

Although she was quite determined to have a new opinion of herself, not one of conceit but merely one of realizing she was more than she had ever been allowed to be, she was still quite nervous around Duncan. She blushed red when Duncan told her she looked beautiful in the new green gown that Bree and Ellen had made for her. You can’t change everything in one night she told herself.

After they had eaten, Duncan asked “Would ye like to take a walk around the loch with me, Aishlinn?”

“Aye. That would be very nice,” she said as he took her hand and led her out of the castle and through the gates towards the loch. With no breeze and a nearly full moon, the loch stood gleaming in the darkness like a giant silver platter. Night insects and creatures called to one another, their sounds carried through the warm night air.

As they walked hand in hand Duncan broke the quietness of the night by saying, “There is something different about ye this night, Aishlinn.”

“How do you mean?” she asked.

He took a moment before answering. “Ye have a new presence about ye, as if yer stronger, in yer heart.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I wonder, was it my kisses that brought this new presence to ye?”

From the corner of her eye she caught his wry smile. “Perhaps.”

She was not sure if she should share her morning conversation and awareness with him. Had he not kissed her and she not had the smile on her face, the conversation with Mary and Laren would never have taken place. She felt it right then to give him most of the credit. “I think it had much to do with it.”

“But not all?” he asked playfully.

“It was a realization I came to this morning, with the help of Isobel, Mary and Laren,” she said.

“And what was that realization?”

She let out a sigh, wanting very much not to sound full of herself. “That I am not as plain as I might have once thought. Nor am I as unintelligent as people in my past might have wanted me to believe.”

Duncan stopped and turned to her. “Well it’s about time,” he said before pulling her to him. “I’ve been telling ye that for sennights now.”

Were it possible for a man to be considered beautiful, Duncan McEwan would be that man. The moon cast silver bands across his twinkling indigo eyes. When he had pulled her to him for the first time last evening Aishlinn was certain his muscles had been chiseled from stone. His arms had felt so hard and strong yet they gave her a sense of safety.

All she could think of at this moment, however, was how badly she wanted to kiss him. Although she had a new inner strength, she did not think she had the tenacity to reach up and kiss him.

He gave her no time to think of it. Before she could get up the courage, he leaned into her, his lips feeling like a whisper, lingering just on the precipice until she could stand it no more. Putting her hands around his neck she pulled him to her, deepening the kiss and surprising herself with her own courage.

His large hands swallowed her waist as he drew her nearer. He felt her teeth as they began to nibble upon his lips, just as he had done to her the evening before. Duncan found himself growing more excited at her boldness. He wondered only briefly from where this new strength, this new confidence of hers came. Briefly only because he was swept away as she searched for his tongue with her own.

Their breathing came faster as they caressed one another. Her hands caressed his face, then his neck before spreading down his shoulders to his arms.

He wanted, needed and hungered for more of her as he pulled her even closer. There was a passion in her kiss, one he had not expected, had not prepared himself for.

Slowly he slid his hands up and down her back, resting only briefly again at her waist before traveling back up her sides. A gasp came from her as he touched the sides of her breasts before winding his way up to her neck.

Aishlinn had never felt this way before, so desperate for a touch, a kiss. She loved the way his mouth felt on hers, warm and moist. It was as if they searched for a deep secret. And when his hands touched her breasts, she thought she would most certainly faint from the sheer pleasure as well as the improperness of it.

The more he kissed her, the less she cared for what might be proper and what not. She only cared that he would kiss her this way again and again. As her breaths grew faster her body grew warmer, as if she had been stuffed into the ovens.

Duncan could have taken her in that moment, there, on the ground in front of the loch and not cared who might stumble upon them. He wanted to feel her skin on his. He wanted to know what she might look like with her naked skin bathed in the light of the moon. And from the way she was returning his kisses, his touches, he thought she might not object.

Before they could do something they might later regret, he pushed her from him. He could go no farther than this, not here, not now. His heart told him he wanted to do this properly, to court her as a she deserved.

Aishlinn looked at him with a look of exasperation upon her face. “Why did you stop?”

Duncan laughed at her. “Lass, I had to or I’d have stripped ye naked and taken ye here and now. I think ye be deservin’ a little more respect than that.”

He kissed her lightly on her forehead while she took deep, slow breaths in an attempt to calm herself.

“I don’t think ye be wantin’ me to do that on our first day of courtin’.”

As much as she hated admitting it, she knew he was probably right. Even with her new sense of worthiness and confidence, she did not want the first time she laid with a man to be out of doors, on the ground where anyone might happen upon them.

She almost asked him how long he would court her before he would lay with her, but bit her tongue. Thinking she might go mad before it happened, she could only thank him for respecting her. Inwardly, she wished he would behave like the devil she knew he could be. She prayed that the courting process would not take long for she didn’t know if she had the strength to hold onto her own self respect and dignity.

For the next few days their routine remained relatively the same. Duncan would meet her outside her bedchamber each morning with little tokens such as a ribbon for her hair or a bit of dried heather or more flowers. He would escort her to the kitchens before heading off to either train or see to his duties as acting chief.

It was not easy to study in the afternoons, what with her stomach tied in knots with anticipation of him escorting her to the evening meal. After the evening meal, they would enjoy a walk around the loch where they would share stolen kisses that were becoming more and more intense.

A light rain had come to Castle Gregor this day, casting dark gray shadows across the loch and lands. The castle felt oddly quiet as if its moods matched the weather around them.

Aishlinn was finding it more difficult to study for her mind kept turning to Duncan’s kisses. Bree and Ellen were with her, giggling more over lads than they were concentrating on their studies. Aishlinn shushed them more than once, reminding them that if Isobel overheard their giggling she would be most displeased.

There was a knock upon the study door and Bree jumped up to see who it was. She returned moments later, an impish grin on her face as she clutched a bit of parchment in her hands. Quickly she scrambled back to her seat next to Aishlinn.

“What is it?” Ellen asked. “Who was at the door?”

Aishlinn was trying to ignore them but it was nearly impossible.

“’Twas a messenger,” Bree said. “For Aishlinn.”

Aishlinn spun to face her. “A messenger? For me?” she was very surprised over it. It was then that she saw that Bree was clutching something to her chest. “Is that for me?”

Bree nodded. “’Tis from Duncan!” She giggled before handing it over. Aishlinn’s hands shook with excitement as she carefully unfolded the parchment. Her smile was instantly replaced with a look of disappointment. “’Tis written in the Gaelic!” she said.

“I’ll read it!” Bree said excitedly as she grabbed the parchment. Aishlinn was not sure what the message might say and she was worried it would hold some very improper message. Before she could take it back, Bree began to read it aloud.

“Mo Chuisle,” she began.

“In English!” Aishlinn pleaded.

“My pulse, my heart.” Bree couldn’t help but giggle when she saw Aishlinn turn as red as a beet. “My pulse, my heart. Ye are beautiful and I am finding it quite difficult to concentrate on my duties this day. Meet me near the stables as soon as ye read this. Duncan.” Bree clutched the note to her chest as she and Ellen giggled again.