Ada clapped her hands for his accomplishment, while Callum announced he actually did have other duties that needed his attention.
“But you stay right here, my lady, with the lad, and straight back to the keep when the angling wears thin.”
When Callum had trotted off, Henry cast his line again, as he’d been shown, and then surprised Ada by taking a seat on the ground quite close to her.
She commended him once again on his first catch, but he seemed to have some agenda for their discussion and asked, in a rather frank manner, “Is it true, what the laird said?”
Ada had an idea of what he asked but wasn’t sure specifically which part he wanted confirmed. “I shouldn’t think your laird would lie, Henry,” she said, gently, not with any chastisement. “But what would you like to know?”
“I remember we waited for you,” Henry said, haltingly. “The laird and the captain and me. We waited for a while, and the laird was right angry, stomping his feet, and using bad words.”
Ada frowned. “What was he angry about?”
“He wanted to go back. But he ken we could no. Captain said everyone would die if we did. Said our only hope was to find our own soldiers, or maybe the MacGregors.”
After a moment, Ada wondered, “Were you very frightened, Henry?”
He shook his head, his shaggy hair shaking. “Not then. I was tired. I was real scared earlier. I wanted to be with the others. But is it true, that you and Will were...?”
Ada nodded, plucking at the tall grass around her. “Aye. Will was a champion that night, lad. So very brave.” Giving herself a mental shake, needing to lose the maudlin thoughts around the boy, Ada said, “It’s all done, Henry. And in the past now, where we should leave it. Here we are, safe and well protected.” A good lesson for herself, as well.
They were quiet for a while, watching the part of the line above the water sway somewhat with the slow breeze.
“Do you live inside the keep, Henry?”
“Aye.”
“With your mother and father?”
“Nae. I dinna remember my mum, she died when I was a bairn.” He hesitated before adding, “My da died last year, after Dornoch.”
“I’m sorry, Henry.”
“Do you have a mum and da?”
“I do. And several sisters and one brother. How old are you, Henry?”
He shrugged. “Captain said I might be twelve, said I had to wait few more years to start training with the army.”
“Will you like that?”
“Aye, then I can save myself.”
“Aye.”
Voices sounded behind them, coming closer through the brush. Two soldiers, one who had been at the table in the hall this morning, erupted onto the quiet scene.
They stopped suddenly. Whatever had brought them here, they hadn’t expected to find the lady of the manor keeping company with a lad while he fished. The man she had not seen before dropped to his knee, bowing his head before Ada. The other, not to be outdone, quickly followed suit.
Ada stared at their bent forms and lowered heads. She glanced at Henry, who’s matching confusion was evidenced in his scrunched up face.
Ada stood, feeling fairly put out by their display, and then quite disadvantaged by her seated position. “Kind sirs, there is no need...”
They rose and faced her, but their stances remained formal, feet braced wide, each with one arm tucked at his back, the other resting on the hilt of his sword.
Ada sighed. “Please, there is no need...for this. Can I not just know your names? Know you?”
They exchanged glances. The young man she’d noticed in the hall earlier spoke first. “I am Simon, my lady, and I am at your service.” He made to bow again, his cheeks and ears pinkened.
Ada nearly lunged at him, arms extended. “Please, no more,” she said with a laugh. She faced the other man, as tall as Jamie, and nearly as handsome, with smiling gray eyes and close cropped black hair.
“Peter, my lady.”
Ada smiled beautifully. “There, perfect. I’m pleased to meet you. What brings you to the lock today?”
Again, they looked at each other, before Simon answered. “For truth, my lady, we were about to have a quick dunk, now that our training is done for the day.”
“Pray, do not let me—oh, you’ll want to...” be naked, she thought, biting her lip. “Um, I can leave you—”
They wouldn’t hear of it, both chirping at once. They would join her and Henry, they said. Their baths could wait.
Ada was overjoyed with this, and then even more so when they sat and the four of them chatted amiably and easily. Simon insisted Henry was angling all wrong, but his own attempts bore no more fruit than the lad’s. True, more than once she’d caught either one of them staring overlong at the marks upon her—Simon seemed particularly curious about the legacy of the rope upon her neck—but politely, they asked no questions, so that Ada enjoyed her time with them.
An hour later, their baths apparently forgotten or forfeited, Simon and Peter walked back to the keep with Henry and Ada. Henry proudly swung his day’s catch, three small fish, which Peter said were tasty brown trout, expanding Henry’s smile.
Gallantly, Peter offered his hand to Ada over that small wooden bridge. Once crossed, Ada was surprised to find Jamie waiting for them near the postern gate. Her first instinct, to smile at him, was tempered by the glare he currently leveled upon the foursome.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said specifically to Ada, his tone bearing no pleasantness.
“Callum knew where I’d gone,” she said with some hesitation. “Is aught amiss?”
With pursed lips, all but glaring at Simon and Peter, so that they rather scurried by him and into the yard, Jamie shook his head.
Only Henry, proudly lifting the strung-up fish to Jamie, lessened his scowl. He ruffled Henry’s hair and told him, “Well done, lad. Get ‘em on up to Baldwin. He’ll be happy to make use of them.”
Henry nodded and scampered off and Jamie’s glower returned.
“Jamie, what has happened?”
“I dinna want you outside the walls, lass.”
No, that wasn’t what he was upset about. She didn’t know what had wrought such a foul mood in him, but she knew somehow that if her being outside the wall were truly the issue, Callum would not have allowed it. She spared him only a slight frown and walked past him. She had her own moods to contend with, she couldn’t try to manage or interpret his as well.
HE WATCHED HER WALK away.
I’m ten kinds of an idiot, he chided himself with a heavy sigh.
She is not Diana. Not at all.
He knew that.
Truth was, he hadn’t cared what Diana had done, hadn’t been around much to notice. He recalled returning to Aviemore, only weeks after Diana and her babe had died. The only thing he’d felt, or recognized, at the time, was guilt. Guilt that he felt absolutely nothing else.
The marriage had not begun as such. In hindsight, Jamie had determined that neither was to blame explicitly, yet both were at fault. He’d quickly learned that the bride his father and the guardians of Scotland had chosen was a spoiled and needy girl, not a woman at all. When Jamie had remained unmoved by her tantrums, she’d only acted out more. But in her defense, he hadn’t cared enough to make the marriage work, or even to stay around to try and figure out his bride. He only found more reasons and more missions to take him away from Aviemore. That pattern had stuck with him, repeated often, despite the fact that Diana was gone now more than five years.
He had to wonder now, what seeing Ada so cheerfully engaged in company with obviously smitten soldiers, would do to him, to their marriage. While only disgust had plagued him when it had been Diana so blatantly peddling her wares, he knew this time around his reaction was entirely different. And Ada and her intent were entirely different—she had not, he was somehow sure, enticed any man to her side. It just wasn’t her nature. He would do well to remember that.
He wou
ld do well to be unaffected by it.
But to do that, he would need to have much less feeling for her.
Unfortunately, it appeared that it was already too late for that.
Jamie spent the rest of the day upon the training field with Callum, being shown the drills which Callum ran them through daily. Presently, the army housed at Aviemore numbered exactly sixty-eight. Yesterday, Malcolm and Callum and Jamie had poured over the records kept of the entire army, having determined that Aviemore could call up one hundred more. Malcolm had also hinted that there was coin aplenty to hire additional, if he desired. Jamie did, and the necessary letters had been sent this morning.
When he’d returned from the field, Jamie reacquainted himself with the stablemaster, Donnan, and then the smithy, Finlay, and only returned to the keep in time for the late meal. People were just coming in, finding seats at the trestle tables. He wondered where Ada might be and knew a twinge of guilt when he realized he had, more or less, left the lass to her own devices today. He supposed he’d just assumed Aunt Agnes would have taken her under her wing. But mayhap that had not been the case, as he’d found her at the loch earlier, seemingly uninterested in getting on with the running of the keep.
He found his wife only seconds before the meal was delivered to the hall, as Ada came in from the yard, and not the kitchen. At her side was Henry, and the pair laughed, rather in a burst, as if one of them had said something only moments before they’d crossed the threshold.
The pair parted ways near the table closest to the family’s table, where Henry took a seat upon the long bench. Ada’s gaze found Jamie’s, and she smiled at him, though he was keenly aware of her hesitation, likely a remnant of their brief encounter earlier.
He might have smiled back at her—he’d planned to do so—but that was before he caught sight of all the eyes on his wife. These were not the stealthy gazes of persons curious about her scars, nor even the hooded, frowning stares she’d been subjected to at the beginning of yesterday’s meal. These glances were cast from men, soldiers, some furtive, some overt, but to a man, every one of them was appreciative.
Jesu, but the last thing he wanted was to be thrust into a role of jealous husband.
She is not Diana, he reminded himself darkly.
Curling his lips into a smile, leaving off the snarl he wanted to give, Jamie elected to make a point. To Ada, and all her admiring onlookers. He closed the distance between them, even as she was walking toward him, and without preamble, wrapped one hand around her neck and kissed her soundly. She did not exactly balk, but she was clearly taken aback by his very public kiss. When he lifted his head, the hazel eyes regarded him warily before the arched brows dropped into a suspicious frown.
THREE DAYS LATER, ADA was confused and frustrated and not entirely happy.
She laid the blame for her confusion directly at her husband’s feet. Her experience with marriage was only days old, and her limited knowledge was based solely on observation of others—Gregor and Anice, most recently—but she was fairly certain that what she and Jamie were living since coming to Aviemore was neither what she’d envisioned as wedded life, nor what she imagined might be normal. She saw Jamie only rarely during the day, about the castle or keep. When she’d happened upon him yesterday and today, he’d kissed her openly, possessively, just as he had in the hall three nights ago. He’d come upon Ada and Henry exiting the dovecote yesterday, where the lad had told her more than she’d ever thought she’d need to know about the pigeons and doves of a castle. Jamie didn’t seem to have any purpose to approach her, and truth be told, the smile he’d given her hadn’t quite reached his eyes, so that when he’d kiss her then, with a seeming hunger, Ada was left with only an impression of falseness. The kiss was empty, lacking both passion and promise, which should have served more as a portend, as she and her husband had yet to share their bed as a wedded couple. True, the first night was her choice to avoid him. But every night since then, Jamie hadn’t even come to their chambers until the wee hours of the morning.
Were the daytime kissing and petting then, every time he saw her, only given essentially as an apology for being unavailable—uninterested?—at night?
Honestly, she had no idea what was happening. And with Jamie, and his inscrutability, could anyone possibly hope to make sense of the first days of their marriage?
The frustration, however, was an entirely different circumstance, and this could only partly be attributed to Jamie. The issue really was the people of Aviemore, and their perception of Ada. While she had become friendly with Agnes and Callum and Henry, to the extent that they treated her as Lady MacKenna, or in better moments, as simply Ada, most other persons regarded her with something akin to silent adulation and nervous reverence, better reserved for men such as William Wallace, and even their own laird. It made Ada terribly uncomfortable, and truth be told, hampered her efforts to get to know people.
Just this morning, Henry had taken her by the hand and dragged her over to the alehouse. The castle brewer, Mona, a woman whom Henry had assured her was ‘right nice’, had gawked at Ada, unable to make or form any words. When Ada had tried to engage her in conversation, asking about the process of ale-making, the middle-aged woman had only smiled and bobbed her head repeatedly, so that Ada wondered if she had somehow spoken in tongues.
They’d left the alehouse and twice, while crossing the yard, people had stopped and had dropped to their knees as Ada passed. One woman, whom Henry named Mary and had said was from outside the gates, yanked at the hem of Ada’s gown, pressing kisses onto the fabric.
And therein lie her unhappiness. Aside from the fact that she was extremely discomfited by their adoration, believing it both overwrought and misplaced, she lamented the fact that it would be near impossible to have real and true friendships within these walls while the people of Aviemore continued to regard her as some sort of consecrated being.
As it was, she was just now returning to the keep, intent on finding the kitchen and mayhap less adoration and more industry. But there was Jamie, inside the hall, holding court with his officers and Callum and Malcolm, likely about some castle business. She had no plan to interrupt and only sent a pleasant smile in the direction of the men as she passed, seeing only a short-lived frown crease her husband’s brow, presumably at her lack of attention. The smile was tainted then as the men surrounding her husband—all of them—made smart bows in her direction that Ada had all she could do not to roll her eyes.
“Bloody Lady of Aviemore,” she mumbled with some vehemence as she reached the corridor and was out of sight.
She found the cook, Baldwin, in the kitchen, but there was no sign of Aunt Agnes. Several youths, lads and lasses, scurried around the room, about some chore as the supper hour drew near. Ada approached Baldwin while he bent over a kettle in the hearth.
When he stood and turned, he seemed neither surprised nor pleased to see her. Ada pasted on another cheery smile and wondered, “Might I have a chore as well? It would suit me to be helpful.”
Baldwin nodded and walked around her, busying himself with mixing some dried herbs into a wooden bowl, in what she guessed must be butter, on a table near the wall.
“Sir?” Ada pressed. Perhaps he had not understood her.
He turned again, heaved out a sigh, and gave her that formal stance and what looked to be an impatient glower.
Nonplused, Ada stammered. “Pardon me, I thought I might be of some assistance.”
He stared at her, making her feel as if she intruded, quite unwanted, into his domain. “You may not be of assistance, dear lady. I have no need of interference, and I would prefer that you remained away from this room.”
Somehow, Ada was now shocked that he actually spoke. His voice, or rather his accent, was thick and clipped, and any d at the end of a word sounded like a t. Ada was mesmerized by the sounds, though definitely not his intonation, nor the message.
She sputtered the beginning of some rebuttal, “I—that is, I—”
The oily cook lifted a brow at her, almost daring her to continue. Hmph, and to think that she had felt sorry for him yesterday, when Aunt Agnes had said she’d asked him not to speak.
Now, with a very verbal harrumph, Ada gave him a good glare of her own and stomped out of the kitchen, marching along the corridor and then through the hall, to the far side and the stairway.
With little grace, she hiked up the skirts of her gown and trudged up the stairs. In another minute, she was inside her own chamber and slammed the door, not without a belated grimace for that childish action. And then she didn’t care and flounced across the bed, burying her face in the coverlet. What was the point of being Lady MacKenna? It afforded her no privilege so far that she could see, she concluded. The people were either afraid of her, or ridiculously worshipful, or outright rude—one reaction was worse than another.
“Not allowed in my own kitchen?” She groused into the bed. “And all that scraping and bowing! Bloody bollocks, I am no saint!”
“I hear words,” said a voice above her, “but I canna interpret those blown into the mattress.”
A weight upon the bed shifted it and her, just as she recognized her husband’s voice. Ada rolled over to find Jamie poised above her, a hand on either side of her, pressed into the firm feathered mattress.
Her gripes, which had brought her into this room, and her thoughts about these, fled as Jamie’s eyes showed so much more attention than they had over the last few days. Even as he said, “I’d come to see what had you stomping around the keep, lass,” he was staring at her lips and lowering himself onto her. He pressed a kiss against her mouth and then her cheek and then further, along her neck. The heated trail took him up to her ear, “But I’m forgetting just now to care about anything but the sight of my pretty bride in our bed.”
Suddenly, Ada could recall nothing prior to this moment, as his body covered hers completely and his lips returned to her mouth, favoring her with a scorching kiss. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the moment, hoping it lasted for hours as she slid her arms up around his broad shoulders and into his hair. And all the worry she’d experienced over the last few days, when he had not sought her out thusly, dissolved to wisps of smoke in her head. One of his strong hands found her breast, his nimble fingers brought the nipple to peak. Ada moaned as the hand left her breast, but it reappeared, rucking up her skirts, delving between her legs, and her moan became a cry of increasing delight.
The Shadow 0f Her Smile (Highlander Heroes Book 3) Page 20