“What should I call you then?”
“I thought it was obvious.”
His eyes slid into a roll and suddenly I wanted to kick him.
“If it was obvious, I wouldn’t have asked.” My voice came out harsher than I intended but his arrogant demeanor was getting on my nerves.
“Ye may call me, Laird.”
“Unbelievable.” I threw up my hands.
He gave me a stern look and then resumed his pacing. It seemed the formalities were at an end because he resumed giving me instructions once again.
“Now…” He gave her a pointed look as he paced.
“Ye will cook, clean, and wash my body…” He ticked each task off on his fingers one by one. “And if ye are fortunate and I deem it so…”
He stopped in front of me and leaned down so close I could see the rings of sapphire surrounding the emerald colored iris of his eyes.
“I will also let ye tend me…in bed…”
His warm breath wafted over me as the tips of his fingers gently stroked my cheek. Shivers of delight raced over my skin, not only from the action but from the way he spoke, smooth and velvety, like a decadent piece of candy, and it took just about everything I had in me not to lean in closer as his sexy smoldering gaze lifted from my face to the aforementioned bed behind me.
His words finally registered, I shook some sense back into my mushy brain.
“Wow.”
I couldn’t believe his arrogance. Who did he think I was? As if I would just tumble into bed with him. Not likely. But even as I thought it, I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like. And by the looks of him, it would be pretty damn fantastic.
“I know, lass,” he said. “I am a generous partner in bed and have yet ta hear any complaints.”
He added a sly smile that nearly knocked the breath I didn’t realize I was holding from my lungs.
That faded though, and in its place, a rush of anger shot through me at his audacity. “Of all the egotistical, arrogant, conceited…”
His smile faded quickly, replaced by a scowl. He dropped his hand and stepped away from me.
“Ye can always sleep on the floor.” He flung out his arm indicating the rumpled fur in front of the fire. “Makes no never mind ta me.”
“Wait…what?” My stomach flipped over on itself at the look of pain that entered his eyes for a brief moment.
“If ye find me so displeasing…” his velvety voice took on a harsh edge as his eyes hardened. “Ye can sleep on the floor,” he repeated and shrugged his broad shoulders like he could care less.
That was such a quick turnaround, I felt like I had whiplash. I guessed my face showed my shock because his lips turned up at the corners, just a hint. Was he smirking at me?
“I will even give ye one o’ the furs from my bed, not the good ones, o’ course.”
“O’ course,” I mimicked with a hefty amount of sarcasm and a large dollop of disbelief at how quickly the conversation had veered from tending him in bed to sleeping on the floor, alone.
“Ye may also bathe in the water once I have finished.” He pointed to the now empty tub. “I am finished now, so ye should bathe as well.” He crossed his arms. “See, I am not… inhospitable.”
He gave me a small but meaningful smile.
My blistering rebuttal puttered out at the sight of that smile. I was done for. “Great.”
CHAPTER SIX
LOCH MORAR, SCOTLAND
Sometime during the reign of King James
As I stood over the tub, watching the steam rise, I decided a quick bath wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Peeling off my wet clothing, I dropped them to the floor. Besides, he didn’t leave me much choice. It was either bathe up here, or down in the hall with his men. Luckily, he had matters to attend to, so I was alone to bathe in peace.
Bracing my hands on either side of the tub, I slid down into the water. The burning heat immediately warmed my chilled body. I was amazed it was still so hot. Leaning back against the rim of the tub, the water soothed my aching, everything
Unfortunately, it did little to soothe my brain, which was spinning a mile a minute. How did I get here? How many women had that damn gypsy sent here? How was any of this even possible? Maybe I hit my head harder than I thought and was now having some kind of concussion induced hallucination… except, I didn’t hit my head until I was already here.
“Oh hell!”
Not able to come up with any real answers to the deluge of questions swirling through my mind, I vigorously scrubbed my body with the pathetic sliver of hard soap he deemed worthy for me to use. I noticed he also took the shampoo along with the large bar of soap I had used on him and locked it in the trunk at the bottom of the bed. Lifting up the tiny sliver of soap, I tried my best to wash my hair.
♦
Gavin sat in his usual chair at the head of the table in the great hall as he and his men made quick work of finishing off one of the last remaining barrels of ale they had stolen from one of the neighboring towns.
Well, it wasn’t stealing per se, he amended, but a lengthy borrow until such time they could replace it with another. Of course, they had nothing to replace it with, so, it would be a really, really, lengthy borrow. But once they had the treasure, he would pay them back tenfold, or so he often told his nagging conscience, time and again to assuage his guilt. The problem, as it had been from the beginning, was getting the treasure out of the cave away from the serpent or ‘the monster’, of the Loch. Now that was the quandary. How did one go about getting a treasure from a monster that he had never seen and sincerely doubted even existed?
The crone had told him it was real, as real as the mist she had disappeared through. The same mist he had gotten the lass from, in exchange for the latest witches’ freedom. She also told him if he stuck to his end of the bargain, he would be able to retrieve the treasure. But how did one go about sacrificing someone to a monster?
At the time, he would have agreed to anything…but now, he had to wonder if the treasure was even worth it? His empty belly said yes, but his mind and heart had different ideas. He squelched down that foreboding thought, burying it deep into his subconscious to attend to at such time he would need to retrieve it.
Besides, he sincerely doubted it would even come to that because he couldn’t seem to find the bloody monster in the first place. So now, what was he to do with the lass?
Keep her?
She was comely enough, he supposed, that is, he amended, when she kept her shrewish mouth shut. Aye, she did have a quick temper, he thought, as he remembered how her amber eyes had ignited with fury when he told her to wash the filth from his body.
He chuckled aloud with the remembrance, which garnered a few curious looks from his men. He ignored them, as he usually did, and soon enough they went back to talking/bickering amongst themselves.
Aye, he was looking forward to what the lass would do next. For him, that was foreign emotion to him to be sure, especially these days, but he found he was looking forward to it nonetheless.
♦
The red coals in the fire had turned black by the time I was finished my bath. Bracing myself on the rim of the tub, I pulled my pruned reddened body from the now tepid water. Immediately my nipples hardened into tight buds from the contrast in temperature. Water dripped onto the cold stones under my feet as I used a small dishtowel sized piece of cloth to wipe the excess water from my body. Shivering, I pulled on the gown he was kind enough to leave out for me to wear, or so he told me as he was leaving. At least it was clean, but it made me wonder who in the hell it had actually belonged to.
♦
After I gave myself a headache wondering how any of this was possible, I climbed down on the floor and tugged a smelly fur over my shoulders, trying to keep the chill at bay. I was almost asleep when I heard the door scrape against stone. My body tensed immediately.
A few moments later, the door scraped shut once more as the heavy clank of metal sounded in the darkness as the
bolt was brought down into place.
“Lass, are ye asleep?”
Heavy footsteps thudded on the stones as they drew nearer to my makeshift bed on the floor.
Feigning sleep, I squeezed my eyes tightly shut.
I felt, rather than saw, him standing over me. My heart pounded a mile a minute, drowning out everything else. I held my breath, wondering if he could hear it too.
When I was almost out of air, he mumbled some kind of expletive and shuffled back across the room. I gasped for breath as the bed creaked and two distinct thuds hit the floor. More things dropped with a swishing sound and then the bed creaked louder. He emitted a rather loud groan as more swishing and a final creak, sounded.
“Good night to ye, lass,” he said so low I wasn’t sure if I had heard him or if it was wishful thinking on my part. Either way, the room became quiet. As my eyes drifted shut, the quiet was broken as he started to snore. It started out as a low rumble, at first, but grew in volume as the night progressed. Shoving the fur over my head to buffer the sound, I finally, albeit reluctantly, drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LOCH MORAR, SCOTLAND
Sometime during the reign of King James
Gavin stood over her sleeping form, watching the rise and fall of her chest and the way her full lips parted slightly, expelling her breath. Irritation filled him. He swiped his hand over his face and pushed his hair back over his shoulder.
Why he was irritated was not something he wanted to ponder overmuch, but it may have had something to do with the fact that when he mentioned her tending him in bed, she didn’t seem overly enthusiastic at the prospect.
Women normally fought for his attention and all too willingly fell into his arms without the slightest provocation on his part. Granted, that had not happened for a while since he had recently escaped the hangman’s noose but it had happened before, quite often.
Now however, that he was a wanted man, as were the other men with him, there were ‘13’ of them in total and they were damned. So, when the King had commandeered them from their fate, which was to die for a paltry misdeed or two and in some cases three, they had all readily accepted the reprieve he had offered them. But he had yet to do what was asked of him and instead of slaying the monster of Loch Morar, and in doing so retrieve the treasure; he was now awaiting the Kings retribution, as one would await the other shoe to drop.
The other problem was that he also needed to feed his men, so they had resorted to stealing, which was another crime punishable by death. He only just missed the hangman’s noose only to be a candidate for the gallows once again if he was ever caught.
♦
I was dreaming and it was a rather good dream too. This dream was filled with ‘13’ handsome Highlanders and one in particular that set my heart to pounding. The sun heated my face and I rolled over slowly, enjoying the warmth from it. Something pushed against my arm. I cracked my eyes open only to find a filthy boot beside my hand. My eyes slowly climbed up from the boot to a bare leg, then climbing higher, up a muscular body to the same blue-green eyes of the man I had been having the heated dream about.
Scrambling up to sitting, I pushed my hair from my face. It would seem I wasn’t dreaming after all. “Good morning.” I rubbed my eyes.
“What’s good about it?” he snapped.
I tensed from his tone. “Looks like someone woke up from the wrong side of bed,” I mumbled.
“Lass, ye need to speak clearly if ye want me ta answer ye. I cannot understand ye with all the mumbling ye always do, aye?”
“Oh, so, Mister, aye, och, and ye, is complaining about my speech?” Really? As if. I was only half way through one of my staple eye rolls when his expression changed and not in a good way.
“Och,” he exhaled as a fierce frown pulled his dark brows together. “If I were ye I’d watch that sharp tongue of yers, lass, if ye want to keep it in yer mouth.”
Wait…what? Was he kidding or threatening me? Just to be safe I swallowed back my snappy retort.
“The morning is waning, and we need to break our fast before we leave.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you.”
His frown turned even more severe which I didn’t think was possible.
“Ye are the one that will be making the food ta break our fast, so if I were ye I would get moving.”
“How dare you.” I stood up, and the top of my head barely reached his shoulder.
“How dare I what?”
His brows nearly covered his eyes, as he stared me down— again, not in a good way.
I may not understand everything he was saying but his expression alone made me hold my aforementioned tongue. “Okay.”
“Once ye rouse yerself and do yer morning ablutions’ ye will need ta go down ta the cook room and prepare our meal so we may break our fast.”
I wanted to break something, all right, but it had nothing to do with food. “Sure.”
His scowl softened significantly but I still held my tongue.
“There is water behind the screen.”
And with that, he turned on his heel and left the room before I could even respond.
After his hasty exit, I did rouse myself (his words) not mine and went behind the screen to relieve myself. There was a bowl with water and I splashed some on my face.
Exhausted from lack of sleep; not to mention the firm dressing down I had just received for God only knows what reason, and after I made myself reasonably presentable I made my way through the darkened corridors and down the steep stairs, heading off in the direction I presumed the cook room to be. Surprisingly, I had only taken two wrong turns before I finally found it.
♦
A good hour or more had passed before I could figure out how to cook something that slightly resembled food in a big black pot hanging over the fire. Granted I had cooked in a cast iron skillet on camping trips with my ex, but nothing like this. This was ridiculous.
Straightening up, I pressed my hands against my aching back, looking over my attempt at making breakfast. Food on a whole was on the slim side here. So, I made do with what looked like oats and made my version of Oatmeal, which didn’t look that appetizing. It may have had something to do the burnt bits of brown floating on the top and throughout the unappetizing concoction. And even though I made it, I was reluctant to taste it. There was no meat, either.
There was something, however, that looked like an old piece of shoe leather on the rough-wood-work table. I supposed was some archaic version of bacon, however, I had no idea how to cook it or even cut it.
The kitchen, which was more of a dingy room with blackened stone walls from smoke and one tiny window that barely let any light inside didn’t have much in the way of utensils other than a few spoons, which looked a bit too modern and I couldn’t help wondering if this was something brought from the future as well. If it was, they should have sent pans, food, and some damn decent clothing to wear. The dress was scratchy and had a strange odor clinging to it. There were some dried herbs but since I had no idea what they were so I didn’t want to chance using them in the food.
A rather large dog sat in the corner and watched my every move. It looked like it had mange since part of the fur was missing in spots and it also looked hungry. Using a long-handled wooden spoon, I dipped it into the pot and scooped up some of the ‘Oatmeal Surprise’.
The food stuck to the spoon like glue.
With a hefty shake, I shook it off on the floor.
The dog walked over to it, sniffed, made a whining noise, and then with his tail tucked between his legs he ran straight out the open door.
Good lord. If the dog ran from my food, what the heck were all those men going to do?
♦
“What is taking her so long?” Callum complained, rubbing his empty belly.
“I do not think she knows how ta cook.” Muir reached up and scratched his head.
“What did we get rid of the crone for? At least she could cook.”
/> “Aye, but she wasn’t much ta look at.”
“Who cares if she was comely, at least she could cook and look, we are now going ta starve.”
“The lass doesn’t have much to work with, remember?” Muir added.
“Aye, I remember.” Callum adjusted his bottom on the chair, leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table awaiting his meal.
♦
Gavin massaged his forehead as he listened to his men moan like a bunch of hens. He was hungry too but he knew there was not much in the larder to cook. He felt bad for being so short with the lass earlier, but he was not sure what to do about her or the treasure he needed to retrieve. So he had taken his foul mood out on the lass. He decided, he would make it up to her, at least he hoped he might, but he wouldn’t make any promises.
♦
As I entered the hall, thirteen hungry pairs of eyes tracked my every move. I dropped the pot on the table. The wood bowed underneath the weight. I wiped my sweating hands on my skirt and stepped back.
“Come and get it,” I called as loudly as I could and then took another deliberate step away as the young man I remembered from last night stood and walked over toward the pot.
“Och, lass.” His lip curled in displeasure. “What is that?” He pointed down at the pot.
“It’s ‘Oatmeal Surprise’,” I informed him none too nicely, since I was tired and grumpy.
His brow creased as he leaned forward and took a good sniff. Leaning back, he shook his head morosely. “What are the wee bits of brown in there?” He pointed down at the pot again.
“That’s the surprise.” Looking for an exit, I took another step backward.
Lost in the Highlands, Volume One Page 5