There was so much information in these statements, Conall felt as if he’d been gone not only months but years. As laird, and as one with a keen interest in his own castle, he asked, “Does their croft sit empty?”
“No. They’re to let it out to another family.”
“Why dinna Serena help Leslie in the storerooms?” Not that he took any issue with Tess working there, but Serena was essentially the lady of the manor.
“She’s too busy trying to learn how to keep the records for Ranulph and Angus, which Leslie has been teaching her. And, too, she has been visiting market towns lately, trying to find a better source for the hides. The business has expanded so much, Ranulph’s supply has been wiped out and his present supplier of hides cannot keep up. Leslie says that Inesfree is making much more coin from Ranulph’s tithe with this growing business, as compared to what he’d produced and sold on his own.”
“It’s no too much for Angus? He is verra old.”
“He is much happier working, this I know. He wants to contribute; this gives him worth. And truly, he and Ranulph are perfect for each other. Ranulph is very skilled but Angus is gifted, and they each enjoy the benefit of that—teaching and learning.”
One of the kitchen girls approached the front of the table, looking slightly harried. “Milady,” she said desperately to Tess. “Cook is wanting you to decide what he might do with Renny. He just returned.”
Conall had no idea who Renny was.
Tess set down her knife. “Oh, Moira, I’d forgotten to tell Eagan—please inform him that I spoke with Renny. You can tell Eagan it’s all settled and Renny should resume his duties.” The girl bobbed her head, and turned to leave but Tess added, her tone hushed now, “Moira, please remind Renny to apologize to Eagan. Oh, and tell him to make it flowery. That should soften him.”
Moira bobbed again and grinned at this last bit before returning to the kitchen.
And Conall wondered if he’d perhaps returned to the wrong keep. He didn’t bother to ask about Renny or what he might have done to have need of Tess’s intercession. But damn, if she didn’t look so...happy. He considered that he’d left her, all those months ago, a frightened girl, nearly broken by these very people she now called friends, who deferred to her and laughed when they never had before, while she conspired all these little arrangements so that everyone else was happy, too.
Was it really that easy? To have them eating out of your hand, did you just cater to them, see to their well-being, indifferent to your own? He didn’t think life worked that way. But here she was, one of them now, sought after and adored.
“You’re stewing,” she observed, while she continued eating.
“I dinna like change.” Actually, he didn’t dislike it. Mayhap, it was merely the unexpected he struggled with, and time would settle that.
But Tess had set aside her knife and turned to him. “Conall, Inesfree is your home. If—if you don’t like something or would rather some change be undone....”
He shook his head. There was no change that wasn’t good or didn’t make better sense. “But I don’t have to like it.” His eyes again found Ranulph. “And if you think to sway me with your very delectable body, you should ken—”
“Can I do that?” He could very well see the intrigues turning around in her pretty head. “Is that possible?”
Best she didn’t know the truth then. “Nae, lass, ‘tis only for weak men, that.” He almost laughed out loud at her crestfallen expression and was thankful she’d hadn’t any idea how she did indeed weaken him.
LATER THAT EVENING, when Conall was finally finished in the hall, when all items requiring the laird’s attention had been addressed, when Tess herself had been gone more than an hour, having carried a sleepy Bethany away, he entered his chamber to find it empty. He wasn’t sure why this surprised him—he’d just expected Tess to be there, waiting.
But he wasn’t about to sleep the night through without her. He closed the door to his chamber and climbed one more flight of stairs. In the tower room, he found her already asleep, snuggled under the heavy furs, and with not one line marring her forehead.
He stared for a long while, enjoying the lengthy sweep of her hair across the furs and pillows. It was, in some places, very near to the color of those furs and matched perfectly that soft blanket of smooth wool, and still other parts were highlighted to perfection by the low fire, streaking the silky tresses with gold.
He passed a glance over Bethany, found the child sleeping with her arms and legs tucked underneath, pushing her bum into the air. Quietly, he doffed his belt and sword, laying them at the side of the bed. His plaid followed, though the proper wearing of it did require some time to remove. He didn’t worry about anything else but pulled back the furs and joined her, folding himself around her, his arm slowly and smoothly pulling her close.
She woke, just a bit, and smiled at him.
“I don’t want you in the tower, lass. I want you next to me.”
Tess nestled against him. Her response was a long time coming and uttered rather sleepily. “But then I would ask, ‘what of Bethany?’, and you would say, ‘she can come too’,” —she paused to let out a very vocal yawn— “and then I would say, ‘you might as well just sleep here then’.”
Conall smiled at this and fell asleep with Tess in his arms.
CHAPTER 29
“I need to discuss something with you.” Conall said to John the next evening.
John’s bushy brows crunched over his blue eyes, considering Conall’s intense expression. “Will it require ale?’
Conall shrugged. “Aye, it might.”
“C’mon, then.”
John stood and slid his fingers into two cups, taking them up from where they’d sat on the table, and grabbed up the crock of ale with his other hand. Conall followed him outside, across the yard and up the steps to the gatehouse. They acknowledged the watchmen and strode further down the elevated walkway. John stopped some distance away from the guards and poured out two cups from the jug. He handed one to Conall.
“I get three guesses who we might need to discuss?”
Conall considered the view before him, out over the yard and beyond. There wasn’t much to see, save the fields and line of trees, shown by the light of the moon.
He took a long sip of the ale.
“That night, at Marlefield, and then after, why did you no let me seek revenge? You of all people?”
John nodded and there was something in his demeanor which suggested he’d expected this question, maybe even long before now.
He bent at the waist and leaned his thick arms on the stone embrasures. “Is true what I’d said then—before your dear mother passed, she bade me promise to keep you safe. Your da were an honorable man, a guid man, but he were a hothead, and dinna your mam know it.” He was quiet then, memories teasing him. His lips pursed and quirked. He stared now into his cup, the ale half gone, giving the impression of being very far away. “Belle died first, with our third. Your mam were gone the following year. Then me boys were gone, and you were all we had left. Your da dinna dote on you, that’s no what you needed. But he was fearful all the time, that’s what made him underestimate Munro. He wasn’t thinking straight, kept looking on the English, as if they were the only threat.” He waved a burly hand. “Dinna matter now. That’s why I grabbed you out of there. I vowed to your ma. But I tell you, the thought of you being eaten up with vengeance, or dying too soon for it, I could no bear it. Muriel would’ve haunted me dead, I ken.”
He looked sideways at Conall, two hands around the cup now. “Anger, regret, vengeance—they’ve no place with the living, boy.” He sighed deeply, suddenly much older than even his advanced years. “When you came to me with the idea about marrying the lass, I dinna like it, but I thought, ‘let him have it’. No fighting, no violence, just a wedding.”
He stopped talking though his gaze and his thoughts were perhaps still in the past.
Conall stood beside him, considerin
g John’s words.
After a while, when Conall hadn’t asked one question or uttered one word, John said, “So here I am, guessing you’re fretting about the lass now, and wondering what you’re really about, ‘cause it sure as shite is no about Marlefield anymore.”
“But it should be,” Conall finally said.
“Why? Why, boy?” John stood straight now, while Conall stared out over the battlements now. “Why? For all the dead gone before you? What’s it got you? Let it die.”
Conall’s gaze swung sharply to John. “Let it die? I owe my father—”
“You owe him nothin’ boy! You owe yourself, tha’s all. You planning on spending the rest of your bluidy life correcting his mistakes? He made a mistake! It got him killed. Munro is a monster! It’ll get him killed one day. But you’re young, you got the lass—why is that no enough? Happy no good enough for you?”
“I can no be happy if I abandon this.”
“Then you dinna deserve to be!” he roared. He sighed then, rubbing his hand over his thick beard. “You want permission, is that it? You think your da’s up there saying ‘avenge me, boy’? Aye, he’s no. He’s with your sweet mam and believe me, they dinna want this for you.”
Another pause, while he stared hard at Conall. “Wed the lass, boy. No for Marlefield. No for your da. Marry her ‘cause you love her, ‘cause she loves you back. Have bairns and grow old. Life is hard enough.” He slid his huge paw around the jug but didn’t refill his cup. “If you dinna wed her, then send her home. Dinna be making your sweet ma weep no more.” And with that, he stepped around Conall and walked away, the crock of ale swinging near his thigh.
INSIDE THE STABLES the next day, Conall and the farrier and the stablemaster discussed the state of the army’s stock of horses. Their time with Wallace had diminished the number of MacGregor war horses significantly; in truth, they’d lost more mounts than men. Presently, the number of mares who would foal in the spring was not enough to replenish their stock. And while most of Conall’s knights were responsible for securing and caring for their own steeds, he would still need to purchase dozens himself to outfit the rest of his army properly.
“If the army needs to move before spring,” his stablemaster, Davidh, was saying, “you’ll need to do so with smaller numbers.”
Conall shook his head, “We won’t march again before then,” he assured him, and hoped that was actually the case. But he knew he could at any time receive a call to arms from any of the Scottish loyalists fighting for freedom.
They wrapped up their discussion and agreed they would need to travel in the spring to Glasgow to replace the lost war horses.
Conall turned and spied Tess exiting the keep. As he was within the shadows of the stable still, she did not notice him as her eyes wandered the courtyard. She was greeted by several peasants in the yard and smiled prettily at them. She ducked down into the cellar near her garden, emerging after only a moment with the wooden bucket she regularly used to fill her water barrel. She hadn’t stepped more than a few feet when she was approached by Rodric, who kept the livestock pens inside the bailey. Rodric, a robust man more than twice Tess’s age who’d fathered no less than eight or nine bairns, reached for the bucket. Tess resisted but Rodric was insistent. Tess handed the bucket to him with a gracious smile and the pair of them walked side by side across the yard to the well. Rodric said something that made Tess laugh. She replied with something that had Rodric chortling as well. Conall watched this without a shred of jealousy, not even for the smiles she bestowed upon another, but with a deep satisfaction for the happy place she had made for herself here. It hadn’t anything to do with him, he knew. He’d done nothing to pave the way to her general and favorable acceptance here at Inesfree. That was all Tess, he thought, watching her and Rodric now at the well, the older man reeling in the filled bucket.
The smithy approached the well now, his own bucket in hand. The three now talked conversationally for several minutes. At one point, Bran, the smithy, pointed off over the roof of the keep, and Tess and Rodric’s eyes followed and nodded at whatever Bran was saying. Tess and Rodric moved away from the well, Tess smiling and waving at Bran, who seemed to watch the pair for several extra seconds, his own smile kindly.
Conall could only stand by and watch for so long. The very familiar feeling of wanting to be near her, to be the recipient of that glorious smile, reminiscent of those very first few weeks after Tess had been stolen and brought to Inesfree. He needn’t invent reason to be near her now. Those days were gone.
On a normal day, Conall and Tess, both quite busy in and around the castle, only happened upon one another throughout the day—sometimes by design, Conall didn’t mind acknowledging. Today, he had planned to seek her out, with the intent to speak to her once again of wedding. He had no plan to demand, but instead thought to ask if she might—good God! He stopped his own considerations, his palms suddenly sweaty, realizing he hadn’t put together any words he might say to her. He wanted to ask her properly, let her know it hadn’t anything to do with Marlefield now. He just needed her to know he wanted her with him. Always.
Would you do me the honor...?
I think we should wed now, lass.
It would give me great satisfaction.... Immense pleasure?
Conall threw his head back, considering the timbered ceiling inside the stables. Jesu, why did these all sound so bloody awful?
It had to be right. She had to know—
“Laird?”
He started and turned to find Davidh considering him with a worried frown. Davidh raised his eyes to the ceiling as well, though his head never moved.
“Aye,” Conall said lamely, and mumbled something unintelligible as he stalked out of the stables finally.
He couldn’t remember a time, not in his entire life, when he’d been nervous. Scared? Yes. Angry, annoyed, frustrated? Regularly. He could easily list a dozen emotions he’d felt, the greatest range admittedly coming after he’d met Tess of Marlefield, but he would vow he’d never experienced this chest-pounding anxiety before, not ever.
He began walking toward her and she turned, catching sight of him, shielding her eyes against the afternoon sun. And he witnessed, not for the first time, one of the reasons he very much thought they should wed: the smile she now offered him. It wasn’t the same one she’d give to Eagan or the smithy or even Angus or John, and it was even different from one he could scarce recall but was sure his own mam had shown him when she’d been pleased with him; this smile was for him alone, he knew, a lover’s smile without calculated enticement, an intimate smile that warmed and mesmerized him.
Conall stopped but a few feet away from her, a fleeting thought teasing him that if they were wed, he would keep right on walking, and he would kiss her.
He was still staring at her, at those green eyes that so rarely showed fear these days and her indescribable hair, shining and bright under the kerchief of soft pink, streaming down across her shoulders. He should probably suggest to her that she wear a brimmed hat to keep the sun off her perfect skin, but he found he much appreciated the golden color she’d earned all summer. Her small hand lowered from her forehead. And then sadly, her smile disappeared.
“Conall?” Worry tinted her voice.
Well, yes, he had forgotten to speak.
“Will you walk with me, lass?” His silent approach and pained expression had surely unnerved her, but he feared his attempt to smile now resulted only in a grimace, for she appeared concerned still. When she turned to hang her garden gloves over the rim of her water barrel, Conall exhaled deeply, trying to steady himself.
Tess faced him again and slid her hand into his. And now Conall relaxed. He led her away, out of the courtyard and through first one gate and then the next. Outside the castle walls, he turned toward the loch.
“Conall, is aught amiss?” She asked as they reached the water’s edge.
He considered a place for them to sit.
“You have me fairly anxious,” she
added, “looking so glum and—”
He shook his head and faced her, cutting off her words. “Aye, ‘tis me that’s nervous, lass.” He should have brought a blanket, something for her to sit on.
Tess tilted her head at this. “You? Nervous?”
Conall looked into her pretty green eyes, a hint of disbelief, a hint of excitement given equal space.
“You might want to kiss me then,” she said boldly.
His lips tilted upward. “That will no relax me, lass.”
“But it will remove all worry from your mind, if only for a while.”
This was true.
Still holding her hand, Conall removed his sword and set it upon the ground then sat on the dry coarse grass. He reached up and put his hands on her hips to guide her to come atop him, her legs straddling his. Her eyes widened at this, but he thought she might be more intrigued than scandalized. She settled onto him and arranged her skirts about her thighs and Conall began to think of other things.
Their faces were only inches apart. Tess wrapped her arms around his neck while his hands remained at her hips. She moved her face closer. Conall didn’t move, wanting her to pursue even more. She did so, slowly, her eyes holding his gaze even as she touched her lips to his. When he tightened his arms about her, she closed her eyes and opened her mouth to him. He let her keep the lead, let her be the first to involve tongue, let her press herself beguilingly against him.
They kissed and Conall forced himself to keep his hands still. They could do no more, as he knew they were nearly visible to the guards atop the gatehouse. And, too, he had a question to put to her. But, aye, didn’t she feel so damn good, and didn’t he just want so much more?
The Touch 0f Her Hand (Highlander Heroes Book 1) Page 28