The Clan MacDougall Series (32 page)

“Och! ’Tis so romantic!” Ellen said excitedly.

Aishlinn took the note and folded it as neatly as her trembling fingers would allow. She tucked it into her apron before going back to her studies.

Bree and Ellen looked at her curiously. “Are ye no’ going to meet him?” Bree asked.

“Aye, I will,” Aishlinn said staring at the pages before her. It was impossible to focus on any of the words.

“But he said as soon as ye read it to meet him,” Ellen said, wondering why Aishlinn didn’t rush from the room.

“Aye, it did,” Aishlinn said, trying to keep her voice calm.

Bree and Ellen exchanged puzzled glances. “Aishlinn?” Bree said, “Why are ye not goin’ to him?”

“I don’t want to appear too anxious to see him.” She finally smiled at the two girls. “I’ll go to see him, but when I’m ready, not merely because he says come woman!” she explained. “’Tis not always a bad idea, ladies, to make a man wait on occasion.” She wondered how she knew such a thing. Perhaps it was some more of her natural instincts that were kicking in.

Bree and Ellen were stunned at Aishlinn’s reticence. “If it were me,” Ellen said, “and ’twere me affections Duncan wanted, I’d not make him wait!” she giggled. “I’d have flown to meet him!”

As much as Aishlinn wished she could have sprouted wings and flown as Ellen suggested, she also did not want to appear that she was too ready and willing to drop everything to be at his beck and call. It was nearly all she could do to keep her feet firmly planted and not go rushing to meet him. Aishlinn knew that by making him wait, just a few moments longer, his want of her would grow even more intense and make the kisses even more passionate.

When she felt sufficient time had passed, she finally closed her books. She bid Bree and Ellen a good day and left them giggling in the study room.

She had to will her feet to move at a steady and deliberate pace. Had she not, she would have run at a great speed and it would not do to go to him covered in sweat and out of breath. As she walked toward the stables she could see him pacing back and forth, running his hands through his hair. He appeared more frustrated than she had anticipated and she suddenly felt guilty for making him wait.

He looked up to see her coming towards him and a scowl came to his face. “Aishlinn!” he shouted causing her to walk just a bit faster. “Where have ye been? I sent the message long ago! Did ye no’ read it?”

“I received it and it was written in the Gaelic. I did not know all the words, Laird McEwan. Bree had to read it to me.” She could not understand why he was angry with her for she had only made him wait but a few minutes.

God’s teeth he hated it when she called him Laird McEwan. He took a deep breath and let it out very slowly.

“When I summon ye, it is very important that ye come to me immediately, Aishlinn.” He would be made chief one day and it would not do for him to appear weak by being made to wait by his wife, if only for a few minutes.

She raised an eyebrow. “Summon me? That isn’t the way your message to me read, Laird McEwan. It professed that you missed me and wished to see me as soon as possible. Had I known it was official business that you summoned me for, I would have come straight away.”

His scowl deepened as his voice began to take on a note of anger. “So if I summon ye, ye shall hurry. But if it be a romantic moment alone with ye that I want, ye make me wait?”

She cupped her hands in front of her. “Perhaps, Laird McEwan, you would like me to follow you around like a pup, waiting for your commands to retrieve for you? Or perhaps like a concubine, to be there to serve your needs whenever they arise?” Outwardly she remained calm, or at least hoped for the appearance of it. Inside she was frightened as well as angry with him.

He saw the flame of anger rise in those deep green eyes of hers, “That is no’ what I meant, Aishlinn.”

He came and towered over her. “I have many duties to tend to and my time is no’ my own to do with whatever I please.” It was true that he had only but a little while to spend with her. Could she not see or understand that any free moment he had he wished only to spend it with her?

“I do apologize most sincerely, Laird McEwan.” There was coolness to her voice as the flame of anger intensified. “So which is it you want me to be this day? Pup or concubine?” She would not shrink, would not cower and would not bend to him. “Is there something you wish me to fetch for you? Or should I lift my skirts and let you take me here and now, m’laird?”

It wasn’t just anger he saw in her eyes, there was hurt there as well. He’d been yelling at her as though she were a possession or one of his men, not the woman that he loved with every fiber of his being. “Did ye make me wait fer ye on purpose?” he asked.

“Aye, I did. But only for a few minutes.”

“Why?” he asked as the scowl began to soften.

She swallowed hard, not wanting to admit why. “Because I am not a pup nor a concubine nor one of your soldiers nor your mistress.” She looked into those piercing blue eyes and truly wanted nothing more than to have him kiss her, but she would not admit to it.

He sensed there was more. “And?”

She took a deep breath. “Sometimes the kisses are better when you are made to wait a moment longer to receive them.”

She worried that he would become so incensed with her that he would be done with her, would send her away, either to her room or from the clan altogether.

But he didn’t. With no warning he pulled her to him and began to kiss her hard on the mouth, his tongue forcing her lips open as he wickedly searched for hers. As much as she wished to not respond she could not help it. Grabbing his shoulders she pulled him closer as his hands held her waist with a firm grip and she felt his excitement growing against her. The passion was so intense in the kiss that she would have stripped herself bare had he asked her.

As she melted into him, her body weak, her heart pounding, she knew she wanted to be with him for all their days. She wanted to know what it would be like to lay with him each night, and to feel his hands upon her bare skin.

As quickly as the kiss began, it ended when he pulled away from her. A wry smile had come to his face as she stood trying to catch her breath. “Is that what ye meant by better, lass?”

The slightest breeze could have knocked her over as she stood with quaking knees and shuddering body. “Aye,” she said breathlessly, wishing he would kiss her that way again and damning herself for wanting him to.

“Well then, I shall no’ be so angry with ye the next time ye make me wait.”

G
od’s bones, this woman was going to drive him completely mad! “Because I said nay,” he gritted, arms crossed over his chest. “And I’ll hear no more of it.”

Aishlinn was standing before him with her hands on her hips and a fierce look of determination set in her eyes. Over the past days she had changed. It wasn’t necessarily a new Aishlinn that stood before him. This was the Aishlinn he had been determined to set free, the one he had been sure had lay hidden just under the surface by the many years of abuse and harsh treatment. A small voice inside his head told him he had gotten what he had wished for and he had no one to blame but himself.

It seemed to Duncan that the more kisses he bestowed upon her, the stronger and more determined she became. He was wondering if perhaps he should not hold back on the kisses for a bit. But as he looked at her now with the fire in her eyes and the willful determination to have him hear her out, he knew he could not. She looked absolutely beautiful in the early morning light with the sun casting streaks of red through her hair. He was angrier with himself more than he was with her. ’Twas all he could do not to drag her across the field to the trees and ravish every inch of her body.

“Laird McEwan,” she said, trying to hold her anger in. “Would you prefer then, that when we are ever attacked in the future, that the woman go screaming about in a panic, unable to defend themselves?”

“The women can defend themselves, Aishlinn, and they be quite good at it.”

He was beginning to miss the days when all he had to do was scowl at her in order to tame her temper. As far as the women she spoke of, they were good with knives. And there were a few he would put his money on in any wager against any man in either contest or battle.

“Aye, but with knives and pots and pans and nothing more. If you would but at least allow them to learn to use a bow—”

Duncan cut her off with a raise of his hands. Although he was glad to see her becoming a beautiful, determined young woman there were limits to how he would allow her to behave in front of his men. She was quickly approaching a line he could not let her cross.

He was silently cursing Isobel for teaching the lass to read, as well as Bree for reading to her the book where she got this cursed notion of hers. A book about a woman who could outshoot any man with a bow and arrow and who had defended her land, her people and her castle to her death. He’d have to talk with Bree later about what stories she’d be allowed to share with his betrothed.

“Nay,” he said firmly. They had been arguing back and forth for at least a quarter hour and were standing near the field where the archers practiced. Wee William and Black Richard had come to listen to the argument Duncan was having with Aishlinn. They stood on either side of Duncan with crossed arms, creased brows and firm expressions to show they gave Duncan their support on the idea that women should not be taught to use the bow and arrow.

Aishlinn was trying very hard to not let her temper get the better of her but it was not easy as these three men stood in front of her. Any one of them was big enough to crush her with their hands, but she was not going to allow them to intimidate them with their size. Well, Wee William perhaps, for one couldn’t help but be intimated by a man as large and tall as he.

“Laird McEwan,” she said, “I can shoot, and quite well, and I see no reason why we,” she stopped when the men snickered. The sweet smile she’d been trying to maintain quickly evaporated.

“Do you not believe me when I say that I can shoot, or that I can shoot quite well?” she asked them. Why must men be so thick headed, she wondered?

“Now lass,” Duncan began. “It isn’t that we don’t believe ye.” This was quickly getting out of hand and he needed to put a stop to it.

The patronization in his voice was enough to send Aishlinn over the edge of reason. If neither he nor his men would listen to a good and valid argument, then by God, she would show them. She turned on her heal and headed down the slight incline towards the archers, mumbling under her breath as she stomped along. “Stupid, stupid men!”

“This is why the Sassenach do no’ teach their women to read!” Wee William said to Duncan as they watched Aishlinn stomp angrily towards the archers.

Duncan was calling after her, but she ignored him. As she neared the archers, she heard Wee William boom out an order for the archers to hold. Some twenty-five men immediately stopped shooting, lowered their weapons and looked towards him.

Aishlinn approached the first archer and without asking, yanked his bow from his hands and pulled an arrow from the quiver that sat at his feet. The poor archer seemed uncertain as to what he should do. If she were any woman other than Duncan’s, he would have reclaimed his weapon and given her a lecture as well as a smack or two against her rump. The archer knew that Duncan would have killed him in the blink of an eye for doing just that, so he stood flummoxed and looked to Duncan who was fast approaching.

“Put that down before ye hurt someone!” Duncan boomed. She had just crossed the line.

Aishlinn continued to pretend she could neither see nor hear him and took aim towards the targets the men had been using. The large bales of straw draped with cloth banners stood at different intervals, some at seventy-five yards, others at one hundred, and others yet at one hundred fifty. She decided against a simple target—even though she was dealing with simple-minded men. If she were going to impress them, she might as well go all out.

She cared not how angry Duncan was at the moment, for she was determined to prove to him that women can defend themselves and could be quite useful in the event of an attack. They only need be taught properly. It was the principal of the matter.

Holding the bow firmly, taking only a moment to choose her target, Aishlinn took a steady breath as Duncan had stopped just steps away from her.

“Do. No’. Release. That. Arrow.” He seethed as he pointed his finger at her.

She did not take his words as a command, but as a challenge. Looking away from her intended target she stared right into Duncan’s eyes, paused long enough to cast him a look that told him she’d not be treated like a weak minded fool, then let the arrow loose.

The arrow flew over the field, across the bales of straw and landed dead center of a tall pine tree that was a good fifty yards beyond the furthest target. She turned to see if her aim had been true.

“Ha!” Duncan called out as he saw the arrow had missed the large straw targets the archers had been using. “Ya missed!” he said wagging his finger at her and looking as though he had just won a very large wager against a very wee young woman. His delight was short lived however, when he saw the triumphant gleam in her green eyes and a twitch of a smile on her lips.