“Aye.”
The woman’s answer was so quiet and so full of understanding that Aisla turned. The look of pain on her face was impossible to decipher, but Aisla felt an instant moment of connection. Of shared accord. Aisla frowned, belatedly noticing a fading bruise at her temple. She wondered at the secrets those eyes held…and what had brought her to Maclaren lands alone. Makenna caught her stare and ducked her head, a determined smile coming to her mouth.
“There’s only one thing to be said for it then,” Makenna announced cheerfully. “We must go shopping.”
Now, it was Aisla’s turn to be surprised. “Shopping?”
“If ye’re only here for a few more weeks, then we have lost time to make up for. And I have just the idea on how to do it. Let’s go spend my brother’s money and spruce up this old ballroom, shall we? Lord kens he willnae do it himself once ye’ve left. Let us throw a party with just us as guests! Or better yet, invite everyone around for miles.”
Aisla couldn’t help the delighted grin that was spreading over her face. Nor could she shy away from the break from loneliness that Niall’s sister was offering. And a thoroughly obnoxious way to pay him back for the wager he’d agreed to with his brother while regaining the upper hand.
“Something tells me Niall wouldn’t approve,” Aisla said, already thinking ahead to the shops in the village where he would, no doubt, hold several accounts. She well remembered his expression when he’d entered his bedchamber to find all the belongings she’d brought with her, spread out among his own things. He’d been second-guessing his strategy, Aisla was certain of it.
“Oh, he’ll be sour for days,” Makenna replied, and though she tried to sound somber, Aisla could easily hear her amusement. For the first time in days, she felt a twinge of mirth. “But it’s no’ as though he doesnae have the blunt to afford a little splurging on his wife’s part.”
Aisla would shop, all on her husband’s credit, until she fell from exhaustion. And if she enjoyed herself in the process with her sister-in-law, then all the better. She shoved away the sudden rush of guilt. She didn’t truly have the right to spend Niall’s hard-earned money. Then again, Makenna had said he wasn’t hurting for coin, and it would be a harmless bit of fun, with a mild dash of revenge thrown in. He’d sunk so low as to bet his brother he could change her mind about the divorce, after all.
Movement distracted her as Fenella hurried past the entrance to the ballroom. No doubt the malicious woman had been eavesdropping, ready to ferry news back to her master. Any guilt Aisla felt disappeared.
Aisla turned around and walked back toward Niall’s sister. “I would love that.”
Her eyes fell to the brooch Makenna had pinned to her plaid. It was a stunningly clear topaz stone, shaped in the form of a yellow rose with intricate gold filigree work around its edges fanning into a diamond shape. It was the loveliest piece of jewelry Aisla had ever seen, the craftsmanship truly exceptional.
“Your brooch is gorgeous.”
Makenna glanced down and frowned, something like confusion dawning in her eyes, as if Aisla should have known something she didn’t. “Er, thank ye. ’Twas a gift.” She hesitated. “Ye’re no’ familiar with the stones? They’re cairngorm crystals.”
Aisla shook her head. “I’ve seen several similar beautiful Scottish topaz pieces around the castle, in the hilts of dirks and such, but I’ve never seen anything like your brooch before. It’s exceedingly exquisite work.”
Makenna’s perplexed look was replaced by one of mischief, though the expression didn’t make sense to Aisla. “Aye, the design was hand-crafted by a local artisan.”
Aisla’s eyes widened in appreciation. “How wonderful.”
“The craftsman of the pieces is well esteemed in this area,” Makenna added. “Perhaps we will find ye something comparable in his shop in the village.”
“That would be splendid.”
Something to take with her, Aisla thought. A memento. For she would be leaving soon. When Niall finally returned to Tarbendale, she fully planned to either drive him to madness by foiling his wager with Ronan—or into her bed, and winning the one of her own.
Chapter Nine
Niall opened the crate that had been plunked down upon his study desk, and the scent of roses knocked him straight in the face. Soaps. At least twenty squared blocks of them sat nestled in golden straw. He glanced up at Angus, one of the young men he employed at Tarben Castle.
“What the devil is this?” he asked. Even though he knew. For the last few days, ever since he returned from Edinburgh, crates and packages had been arriving at the front doors to the castle. Velvet drapes, silk bedding, lacy doilies, a porcelain tea service, ivory combs and brushes, and carved jade trinkets—a dozen monkeys, peacocks, dragons, and even one well-hung bull—had been among the flood of newly purchased items.
Angus, hands clasped behind his back, looked nervously to the crate. “I think they’re soaps, laird.”
“Aye, I ken what they are,” Niall replied, his patience thinning by the moment. He didn’t mean to take it out on poor Angus, but hell, the boy was the only other person in the room. “Why have they been brought here, to me?”
Angus blinked. “Because the crate was addressed to ye, laird.”
He closed his eyes and restrained himself from shouting. “Aye, Angus, they have all been addressed to me.”
Every last sodding package.
The first, a box of fine linen paper from Italy, had confused him. He’d wondered if perhaps he’d ordered the stuff and forgotten all about it. But then, an hour later, the velvet drapes had come, and Niall had known for certain he had not simply forgotten about them. When the jade knick-knacks had been delivered not an hour more after that, he’d stared at the anatomically correct bull and figured out what, exactly, was happening.
His wife.
He had to laugh at her ingenuity, the little minx. Clearly in his absence, she’d done a little shopping, and by the looks of every package, had directed all of them to be addressed to Laird of Tarbendale. She’d wanted him to see them. Niall wasn’t lacking for coin, but he knew the purchases would have put a notable dent in his coffers.
“Laird, should I bring this crate up to Lady Maclaren as well?”
It was what Angus had been doing for the last two days…first bringing them to Niall, then hauling them up to wherever his wife happened to be at the moment. Usually, it was inside one of the many unused rooms inside Tarben Castle, directing maids to tidy up and taking notes on how she planned to redecorate, as if she intended to stay for longer than six weeks. He’d be a fool to believe that, though.
Niall snatched up one dainty soap. Brought it to his nose, and gave it a sniff. It smelled like a woman, fresh from a bath, her skin still warm and dewy. Aisla had used a different soap long ago, one that smelled of honeysuckle. A flicker of heat burst through his chest before he squelched it.
“Laird?” Angus said, interrupting the memory.
Niall tossed the soap in with the others. “Nae. I’ll see to it.”
He’d avoided confronting her about the purchases for long enough. She’d wanted to work a reaction out of him. Spark an argument, perhaps. She’d wanted him to rush to her, disgruntled, and let loose. She wanted his emotions charged, which they both knew would make him more susceptible to lust.
So Niall had done the reverse. He had stayed away. He hadn’t said a word, or raised a brow, or formed a single grimace, even when Fenella had informed him that Lady Maclaren had bought three frilly white mobcaps for the housekeeper to wear. “She says it’s required of the servants,” she had fairly screeched. Fenella didn’t wear any head covering the way some of the lower maids did, and she certainly didn’t wish to put on one of the dowdy caps now.
“Do as she says, Fenella. ’Tis only for a short while,” Niall had replied, trying not to grin as a puce flush bloomed on his housekeeper’s cheeks.
“Where is Lady Maclaren?” he asked Angus now as he placed the cover back
on the crate and lifted it.
“Last I ken she was in the dining room, m’laird.”
“Thank ye, Angus,” he said as he strode toward the study door. He paused a moment, thinking of something, if a bit belatedly. He grinned. “And if any more packages arrive, have them sent to Lord Leclerc’s chambers at Maclaren, with a message to the shop that the bill is to be scrubbed from my account and directed to him instead.”
With a chuckle of satisfaction, he left the study and headed toward the dining room. It wasn’t as grand as the great hall, where there were tables and chairs and benches and tapestries, all collecting dust. Niall had no use for such a large room when he could take his meals in the smaller one, or better yet, in his study or bedchamber. He didn’t entertain except for once or twice a year, and he didn’t have a collection of men to feed the way Ronan did at the Maclaren keep.
The last two evenings since he’d returned from Edinburgh, he and Aisla had supped together in the dining room, though it had been quick. And quiet. His wife was waiting for an outburst, a barrage of questions about the bevy of packages turning up on his doorstep. And each night, she’d worn something that was…well, a little less.
Last evening, her breasts had practically been spilling out of the bodice of her dress. Niall had worked to keep his eyes on the stew and bread before him, though his appetite had been pushed aside, drowned by a different hunger. One that involved giving the trim of the bodice a scant tug, freeing her breasts and setting his mouth to them. He’d eventually given up on eating and withdrawn from the room. Christ, the woman was either going to drive him insane, berserk with lust, or starve him slowly.
He took a look at the tall clock as he walked the hall toward the dining room. It was too late for the morning meal, and too early for the maids to be serving the midday one. What was Aisla doing in there?
Niall gripped the edges of the crate he carried and let out a controlled breath when he finally stepped through the propped open doors to the room. In every corner, along each wall, there were new potted ferns, palms, and shrubbery. On the center of the table, there was a birdcage, with a pair of doves inside. And standing near two of Niall’s men, employed loosely as footmen, was Aisla. She had her back to him, as did the footmen who were attempting to position a giant painting on a wall that had, up until that morning, housed an ancient and hideous portrait of the first Maclaren laird.
“To the left a bit,” Aisla said, and the footmen did as she instructed, adjusting the framed picture of…well… Niall wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at exactly. Upon further scrutiny, he felt his face—and other parts of him—fill with blood. He was not a prude, but the image made heat scorch every part of him like a blushing schoolboy. The footmen’s faces were red, though he couldn’t determine if it was from exhaustion or embarrassment. Niall swallowed as they centered the painting according to his wife’s demands.
Locked in a passionate embrace with one hand settled intimately between her legs, the painting of Venus and Mars by Titian was priceless—and unapologetically scandalous. For a moment, Venus’s face morphed into Aisla’s, and his into Mars. Niall couldn’t help the growl that crawled to life in his throat, and tore his eyes away, his fingers clenching on the crate beneath his arm.
“Oh, yes, that’s perfect,” his wife said with a small clap of her hands. The footmen stepped back, their eyes pointedly averted from the painting.
“What have ye done with my ancestor?” Niall asked, alerting them to his presence. He saw her shoulders and spine go rigid with surprise, then almost instantly relax again. She then turned slowly, confidently.
“Nothing that shouldn’t have been done to him ages ago,” she replied, lifting a small copper jug from the table and walking toward one of the larger palms, which practically blocked an entire window. “He was a crabby looking old man, with a pouty lip and a lazy eye.”
“He did no’ have a lazy eye.”
“He stared down at the dining table as if he was appalled at everything being served.”
“What kind of fanciful rubbish is that? ’Tis a painting.”
“So is this,” she replied, waving her hand toward the new piece while watering the palm. A burst of color warmed her cheeks, though she did not look up at her new acquisition. Evidently, she was not insusceptible to the lurid display of flesh, either.
Niall eyed the painting, and with a nod of his head, dismissed the two uncomfortable footmen. They scurried out, fast.
He then walked to the table and set the crate of soaps down with a crash. “Yer soaps have arrived. All fifty of them.”
“Twenty-five, actually,” Aisla said, coming toward the crate. Niall kept his hand on the trim of the crate, and when Aisla realized she would need to come within inches of him to inspect the box, she curtailed her approach. Her apprehension wasn’t surprising—this was all a show, after all. Though she was doing a damn fine job of it.
“Just how many baths do ye plan to take in the next few weeks?” he asked.
“Do you object to having soap in the castle?”
He’d already had the increasing feeling that his wife’s mind had become a labyrinth of clever twists and turns; Paris had, he figured, made her accustomed to such intrigues and schemes. It was a new side of Aisla that simply hadn’t been there years back. An astute and hot-blooded disposition. As much as he hated himself for it, it made him want her even more. Somehow, matching wits with her made him feel curiously energized, eager to see what she would do next.
“I dunnae object to soap,” he replied, and taking a step closer to her, “In fact, I hope ye take as many baths as ye please. However, what exactly do ye think I’m to do with all this hodge podge?” His gaze slanted upward. “Including that.”
He didn’t say “after you’ve left.” As much as he’d thought it in the last forty-eight hours as the stuff had started to arrive, his tongue wouldn’t form the actual words now.
“You said you wanted me here so I’m simply making myself at home,” she replied sweetly, bending at the hip to water another one of the plants that now comprised his jungle of a dining room. His eyes went to her behind and trim waist, and, instantly reminded of the nude Venus in the painting, he nearly forgot his planned response. He smiled tightly.
“Fine idea,” he said, averting his gaze. He had every intention of seducing Aisla, but it would not happen here and now. Not when she was expecting it, and he had no doubt that she was. That was what she’d intended with the painting, he realized, but desire was a double-edged sword. She would not be immune to the sting of it if he had anything to say about it.
“Is it?” she asked, a trace of real surprise on her tone. “I’m glad you see it my way.”
“Yes, all yer changes and additions to the castle…yer soaps and doilies and jade bulls…they’re just what Tarben Castle needs. Especially this week.”
Aisla straightened her back, distracted away from the plants. “This week?”
“Aye. For my annual summer feast.”
Niall watched the news of the feast settle, her shoulders drawing higher.
“It marks when I became laird three years ago,” he went on. “And this’ll be the first feast where my castle will indeed appear to be a home. All because of ye.”
He wanted to chuckle as she blinked and pressed her lips tight against the praise and flattery, when she’d clearly planned for a blustering argument.
“I see. A feast. Here, at Tarbendale?”
Niall never liked hosting the feast to begin with. He’d grown used to being alone, and had learned not to mind it, even welcoming the peace of a drafty old home. Of an empty bed, without a woman to hold close. The rare times when Tarben Castle ran rife with revelry never failed to challenge his own feelings.
Was he truly happy alone? Did he miss the wild times he used to have with his friends? Why shouldn’t he just be the man Aisla had despised and left? Why had he spent so much time trying so bloody hard to change?
But change he had, and so
when he opened the castle up to the men and women who worked the cairngorm mines and their families, and all those who lived and worked on Tarbendale lands, he endured the several hours’ worth of feasting, drinking, games, dancing, and music. It was simply what a good laird did.
“Aye,” he said, and with a firm tone, added, “and ye’ll attend as the Lady of Tarbendale.”
Aisla bristled, her pert chin lifting the way it did whenever her temper had been stoked. “Did you imagine I might hide away?”
“I only want to be sure of it. There’s been gossip regarding your return.”
He hadn’t heard any such thing, of course, but he was certain a number of his clan were itching to see the woman who’d left their laird high and dry years back. Chances were, they weren’t going to be overly warm with their welcome, either.
As if she’d determined this for herself, Aisla’s skin looked a bit chalky all of a sudden. “I hardly think they need to see me. And I’m not the Lady of Tarbendale.”
“Oh, but ye are, at least for the next few weeks by my count. And they will.”
Niall would be sure of it. Already, his mind whirled with ideas on how to up the ante after the small fortune she’d spent on useless trinkets and unnecessary purchases.
The soapy rose scent curled around him as he stood within an arm’s length of his wife. She seemed to be grappling with some inner conflict. Or perhaps she was only busy trying to piece together what he was up to. She chewed the corner of her bottom lip, and the motion seemed so utterly artless and unintentional that Niall felt a shove of wistfulness. It snuck up on him, reminding him of the girl he’d met at Montgomery, when he’d visited his sister’s new home and first met her young sister by marriage.
She’d been so innocent, peering at him shyly at first, then openly curious. And once he’d snared her eyes a few times, letting it be known that he didn’t mind her staring, she’d started to tiptoe her way around flirting. He recalled being genuinely surprised that he’d managed to snag the eyes of someone so lovely, what with a useless stump of a left hand. But she’d never asked him about it. Or stared. Or flinched.
Sweet Home Highlander Page 11