Aila blinked. Gah, was he making a joke? She wouldn’t have thought it possible. As there was not so much as a twinkle in his eye, she wasn’t entirely sure that was the case. “Och, ye’re mistaking my words. I ken yer an arse. If there is someone who disnae believes it, it is no’ I.”
He took another step forward and a hot flush rose from the low neckline of her dress as her heartbeat accelerated.
“There are some who dinnae think of me as such.” Another step and a keening of protest passed her lips. He mistook it as denial. “Is it so hard to believe?”
“Aye, it is.” She circled a hand around her face. “Hence my genuine astonishment.”
“Is that what that expression is? Astonishment?”
The question was thick with innuendo. As his expression hadn’t changed a whit, Aila couldn’t determine if it was intended or not. If he accurately identified her desire.
Stepping to the side, she put Rab and Effie between them. A buffer zone to her sanity. A reminder that she could look but not touch. “It has been so entertaining speaking with ye, but I must be on my way.”
Finn offered no protest this time as she walked away, though his gaze followed her with a tingle between her shoulder blades. Effie let out a pitiful sob when the shepherd reluctantly followed Aila around the side of the old keep. Once out of sight, she’d peeked around the corner to see him lift the girl in his arms and console her.
He was an unpleasant, irritable man. She wanted to despise him for making her feel so undone and rattled. It was difficult to do so in that moment. Bloody hell, she’d thought he couldn’t get any more appealing. Any man could be handsome as the devil and build muscle enough to torment a woman, but there was something infinitely sexy about a man who loved his child like that.
* * *
Even so, it wasn’t Finn’s parenting skills that tagged along as she returned to the castle. It was him and the unprecedented effect he had on her that lingered. She found Elliot in the servants’ hall scratching in a journal. Against his wishes, the cook invited her to leave Rab below with the promise of snacks and water. The dog seemed happy enough so Aila let him be, too preoccupied to argue.
Or to converse with the young clerk as he led her to her room. The quiver in her knees as she scaled the stairs to the third floor had nothing to do with the climb. Nor did the ragged breaths and pounding heart that plagued her upon her arrival at her door have anything to do with the exercise. Elliot handed her a key with the admonishment to use it for her own safety. Poor lad, he had no idea that Aila was more in danger from herself than any other right now.
Letting herself in, she closed the door and flung her cloak on the bed. While spartan, the room wasn’t what she pictured as servants’ quarters. The bed posts were carved with delicate leaves, the coverings silk and fine linen. A thick rug covered most of the floor and a wing chair upholstered in velvet sat before the fireplace. Aila took it in at a glance as she crossed the room. Through the far window, she saw the construction site beyond and knew if she were to look out, she would be able to see him below. Her feet carried her in that direction of their own accord before she swung about with a curse and dropped onto the bed. She lay back against the pillow and stared up at the pleated canopy.
She’d be far better off if she didn’t allow herself to dwell on Finn Keeley further. Not the lust that suffused her or the regret that she couldn’t explore it. Yet all she saw when she stared up at the embroidered medallion at the center of the canopy above her was Finn’s mercurial hazel eyes.
She wasn’t a romantic by any means. She’d never fantasized about being swept off her feet by a man and carried off to a happily ever after. Not like Brontë, who’d always dreamed of white knights and fairy tales. And to be honest, romance itself had very little to do with what Aila was feeling, yet she did feel swept away. Consumed. Helpless against the attraction that simmered with a low hum of desire when she looked at Finn.
Thought of him.
Pictured him.
The walk had done nothing to diminish the extraordinary impact he’d had on her. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had gotten her so hot and bothered or left her aching with unrequited lust. An emphatic never in achieving it with a single look, without laying a finger on her first. One look from Finn had the effect of an hour’s worth of foreplay and left her literally throbbing for him. Aila ran her hands up her stomach and ribs and covered her breasts with her hands with a yearning exhale. She closed her eyes, but he was still there.
Why him? He was aggravating, infuriating, maddening…probably a dozen other -ings. More than she could enumerate. Like devastating. Overwhelming. Even when cross. How would that translate to passion? What would he be like in good humor? What sort of body was hidden beneath those many layers? Jacket, waistcoat, linen shirt…even that cravat wound tight and tied right up to his chin couldn’t disguise the thickness of his chest or account for the breadth of his shoulders. His stockings hugged muscular calves and his thighs strained against his breeches. Finn Keeley exuded a heretofore unimaginable degree of magnetism, masculinity. Every part of her wanted to unwrap him and explore the possibilities.
There was no treading on another woman’s territory, though. If Donell had wanted her to have that sort of fun, why hadn’t he thrown her in the path of an unattached man? Aila couldn’t become the thing that ruined an otherwise happy relationship. That acknowledgment did nothing to ease the fire simmering within her.
With another sigh, this one more regretful, she kneaded her breasts before releasing them. Her hand slipped down her sides, over her hips…and, unable to deny the need, between her thighs where a hot, pulsing desire lingered contrarily. Even through layers of fabric, that single touch amplified the hunger, her heart pounding against her ribs. Panting breaths caught in her tight throat. Gathering up her skirts, she closed her eyes and pictured Finn there, imagined him naked. His eyes dark with wanting as they had been earlier. Her fingers grazed over her panties, already warm and damp, then dipped beneath. A low moan escaped her as she touched herself, pleasure coiling hard and fast in her belly. A few seconds later she cried out an almost painful release.
With a groan, she rolled on to her side, breathing hard as the sweet throbbing of her orgasm continued. Gah, it had been too long. And face it, sex with Kyle had never been so hot. They hadn’t had a pump in months prior to their breakup, and in the long months since, she’d denied herself any of the personally provided pleasures that she’d used to fill the long weeks away from her while working on the oil rig. Three weeks out. Two weeks in. For almost two years.
Then they’d broken up, the reasons many. Among them had been her dissatisfaction with Kyle. Dissatisfaction that burgeoned with every intimate detail Brontë shared about her historic hottie. When she’d finally met Tris and seen the couple together, Aila knew she couldn’t continue to live such a farce. Tris was attentive and affectionate. Considerate of Brontë’s wants and wishes. And, according to her friend, unbelievably talented in bed. In short, Tris MacKintosh had been everything Kyle was not.
Tris. Aila’s thoughts slowed. MacKintosh.
Chapter 7
Inveraray, Scotland
September, 1748
Aila rolled onto her back, her lust-fogged mind clearing. Finn’s friend had introduced himself as Ian MacKintosh. Could there be a connection there? A relation?
Another hidden agenda Donell failed to tell her about?
Curiosity nagged deep within, but she forced aside the urge to explore the possibilities. This time was no place for her. September 20, 1748. She’d seen the date in Elliot’s journal before he’d closed it. Far beyond the optimal timeframe for her to search out the Boyce clan legacy.
Climbing off the bed, Aila went to her trunk and pulled out the history book she’d been reading the previous evening. Aye, the 1st Duke of Argyll had been the one to conceive of replacing the old castle before he’d died in 1703. It was the second duke who’d commissioned John Vanbrugh, the famed
London architect who’d begun as a clerk to Sir Christopher Wren before designing Blenheim Palace, to draw up the plans for what would become the castle she knew. That duke had died in 1743. The third duke was the one who’d actually started building it with the help of Vanbrugh’s successors, breaking ground in 1745.
And the Battle of Culloden had been fought in 1746. The duke’s cousin Colonel Jack Campbell — who would one day succeed to the dukedom himself — commanded the Campbell militia there…on the side of the English. The wrong side, Violet would say. Taking part in the Redcoats’ victory while his countrymen suffered the consequences of what King George deemed treason.
There too, Ian MacKintosh’s words made more sense in retrospect. Finn was an angry man these days. As were they all.
Angry at falling under the rule of a king who cared nothing for their tradition and culture. Angry at losing everything they had when they failed to put Bonnie Prince Charlie on the throne. They’d spent the past two years paying for their rebellion. Little did they know, the worst was yet to come. With the onset of the Clearances, many of them would lose their lands along with their way of life.
What would become of Ian MacKintosh? Of Finn? His children?
Aila turned the page of the book and a piece of paper fell out, fluttering its way to the floor. A piece of paper she hadn’t put there and that hadn’t been there the previous night. Retrieving it, she saw one side was covered in a bold, scrawling script. She read:
‘Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up.’ Stephen Hawking spoke these words, lass. Don’t be the one to fail him.
The note wasn’t signed but it didn’t take a legendary astrophysicist to know that Donell had been the one to leave it. The old man had more confidence in the strength of her curiosity than she did herself. Not that she intended to give up. She still wanted to find the treasure and solve the mystery. She simply needed to do it someplace other than where she was now.
Some time other than where she was now.
Shoving the note back into the book and the book back into the trunk, Aila withdrew the time travel device and considered her next move. The easiest thing would be to return to her own time and recalculate the proper historic date from there. Sweeping her thumb across the cool white porcelain of the device, she woke the glowing blue circle that highlighted the dial. Its center pulsed, enticing her to push it.
Unfortunately, this castle didn’t exist in her time. She’d end up without a floor beneath her feet. Brontë had made that mistake. Aila didn’t intend to do the same. She didn’t fancy a fall of thirty or more feet only to land herself on the private property of the future duke’s gated park. She needed a known space. Something untouched by the centuries to come. The inn would do as it existed in its present form in her time.
Or…
The counterclockwise movement of her thumb around the circle prompted a date and time to appear, descending as she sketched a quarter rotation. Going back to the turn of the century might be her best bet. Prior to the first duke’s death, yet following his ascension from earl to duke.
May 1, 1700. Ten in the morning. That should do it. She could still accomplish her mission. Her thumb hovered over the center button, but she didn’t push it. For obvious reasons, she told herself. She needed to retrieve Rab from the kitchens and find a discreet location outside from which to depart as there was no guarantee that this room would remain untouched. Aila didn’t want to become part of the furniture any more than she wanted to fall on her arse.
Slipping the time machine in her pocket, she latched the trunk and donned her cloak. Through the window, she saw that the sun had dipped beyond the trees. Darkness would cover her departure so there would be no more startled sheep or worse. The trunk scraped across the wood floor as she hefted it by one handle and dragged it to the door.
Her steps dragged as well. She didn’t want to leave. Not yet. Her curiosity about this time hadn’t been satisfied yet. There was more she wanted to do here.
“Ha,” she muttered under her breath as she yanked open the door and backed into the hall with the trunk in tow. “More I want to do? More like someone.”
“Still talking to yerself?”
Aila’s head jerked around to find that certain someone standing at the door down the hall from hers. Hand on the key inserted into the lock. Gah! She closed her eyes and sent up a prayer to whoever might be listening. Thank God I had the good sense to leave on my own. Temptation one door down would have been too much to resist.
He’d changed from the plain woolen suit he’d worn earlier into a navy jacket better tailored to his broad shoulders with a tartan wool waistcoat beneath. He was divine, wrapped up tight with that high cravat and topped with a bow. Like a Christmas present begging to be unwrapped.
She needed to get out of here…fast. Preferably before he realized the puddle of mush he reduced her to.
“As one does.” She straightened as she delivered the response with forced cheer.
For a moment, something bordering on humor almost lit his moody gaze. Almost. Then it shifted down to her trunk and back up again, serious once more.
Pulling his key from the lock, Finn pocketed it. “Ye cannae be thinking of leaving now. Night has fallen and there will be nae one traveling who might take ye anywhere.”
Be that as it may, she had all the means and mode of transportation she required. What she needed most was to get out of here before she did something stupid.
His eyes drifted downward. “Ye’ll catch a chill without yer fichu.”
“My what?” Aila slapped a hand against her bosom to cover the flush that rose under his gaze. “Oh, that scarf thing?”
* * *
Her peculiar response hardly registered. Through the gap at the front of the cloak, full breasts swelled against the low, squared neckline of Mistress Marshall’s gown with each breath. The light smattering of freckles dancing over her fair skin left him wondering how thoroughly they covered the rest of her.
She’d left him wondering about many things since they’d parted a couple of hours before.
At himself and his unusual reaction to her, to say the least.
Her hand rose to block his view and Finn blinked, lifting his eyes to her face. She stared not at him, but rather past him down the hall. Her expression one of patent impatience, waiting for him to step aside and allow her to pass. He should let her be on her way, leaving as he hoped she would.
“Ahem?” The prompt from her lips indicated she, too, was eager to leave this cursed place behind. He had no place keeping her.
Even so, he didn’t move.
Her hasty departure wasn’t prompted by the same good sense that had driven his rejection earlier. It was an emotionally motivated withdrawal that left him overcome with shame. Employment was scarce these days. Like anyone else, she likely needed the position he’d yanked away from her. She’d called him an arse. He’d become precisely that over the past few years. Today, it had been readily apparent. He’d meant to apologize for his abrupt dismissal, along with the other he still owed her, if and when he saw her again.
Neither leapt to his lips now. Her presence had a way of diminishing his good sense. Which is why he’d sacked her to begin with.
“Ye see, how it works is ye move out of the way so I can get around ye.” Mixed with the exasperation clear in her voice was a hint of amusement. As if the world were a game she played. One she enjoyed. Though she had yet to display anything close to a smile on her full, pink lips, he couldn’t help but think she was enjoying this. Him. Despite everything he’d said.
And that intrigued him, too.
“Is that how it works?”
“Generally speaking.”
A touch of humor softened something deep inside of Finn, something deep that light hadn’t touched in a long while. Yet she had managed to reach it twice in the space of hours. He should let her go rather than grasp at whim
sy.
How many times had he told himself that thus far?
With a sigh, he relented to common sense. “Allow me to carry yer trunk down for ye.”
She acquiesced with a murmur of gratitude. “Only because it’s getting heavy.”
Another ping of fleeting amusement. Finn took the coffer from her. Middling size, it was moderately weighty. More than a lady should bear, yet all evidence indicated she’d carried it from one end of town nearly to the other. Tall as she was, she was willowy of build. He couldn’t imagine where she found the strength. She brushed by, and the seductive scent of fruit and spice tickled his nose, the combination as contradictory as she.
Like a dog on a leash, he followed her down the hall to the steps he’d come up moments before in a much calmer state of mind. The brass banding that crisscrossed the fine leather dome of the trunk flashed in the light of the sconces dotting the spiral staircase. The reflection undulated against the stone wall as they descended. Narrow then broad, the glare could be likened to a beacon, drawing one closer. Or like that of a lighthouse, warning one away from peril.
He’d be wise to take it as such. He didn’t have time to spare for what she represented.
Intrigue. Curiosity.
His plate was nigh heaping with responsibility already. The burden of waking each morning. Rising from his bed had become a chore. Caring for his children. Earning enough to put bread in their bellies and a roof over their heads. Working a job he hated for a man he loathed. A man who had helped send his clansmen to an early grave and supported those who had destroyed half of Finn’s own manor. The home where he wished to be. A place to raise his bairns. To live in peace.
He didn’t have time for any interruption that might prolong his return to that way of life.
A Good Scot is Hard to Find (Something About a Highlander Book 2) Page 6