He settled more comfortably on the edge of her desk and finally she glared up at him. He grinned back. “Excellent. That means we can converse about him in comfort.”
“I have no wish to converse about him.”
“I have rarely,” Uuen said, “seen you so animated in the presence of a stranger. It fills my heart with joy and felicitation.”
Aila deepened her glare then gave up. It wasn’t worth remaining angry with Uuen because he simply failed to react. “I’m merely extending hospitality to our guests.” Just because she never had before, was quite beside the point.
Uuen raised one eyebrow in clear disbelief. Then he leaned toward her. “And has our handsome Scot confided what brings his savage band to our palace?”
“Why would he confide in me if he hasn’t in our queen?”
The monk gave a theatrical sigh, not hiding his disappointment that she had no gossip to share on that subject. “I believe they come in peace.”
She was sure they did. “It would be a wonderful thing if Pict and Scot could become allies. Surely then, together, we could eliminate the Viking threat?”
Something flared in his eyes, compassion—regret. But she didn’t want his compassion. And she had lived with regret for too long.
Somehow she knew the coming of the Scots heralded a new beginning. It wasn’t simply the attraction she felt for Connor—it was more than that. A bone-deep conviction she didn’t understand but couldn’t ignore.
“What do the Scots have that we Picts covet?” Uuen appeared to consider the matter. “They live on our lands, are subject to our laws. Even if they break them with every breath they take.”
“Yes.” She knew all that was true. “But they have strength of numbers. If our warriors united, imagine how formidable we would be.”
“Hm.” A thoughtful expression creased his face. “That would be worth considering. Of course, it depends what price the Scots demand for such allegiance.”
There was no doubt in Aila’s mind. “As long as they don’t crave human sacrifice to pagan gods, any price would be worth paying.”
* * * * *
Aila found her grandmother, Brilicie, dowager queen Eilidh of Ce, in her favored eastern-facing garden. Grandmamma said if the wind was right she could smell the sea, and it reminded her of her girlhood in the neighboring kingdom of Circinn.
“Aila.” Her grandmother smiled in welcome and patted the stone bench on which she sat. She might have been approaching her sixty-fifth summer but her back was straight, her eyesight clear and mind as sharp as ever.
Aila sat and her cloak slid unhindered to pool onto the bench.
“Not cold?” Her grandmother gave her a searching look. The kind of look she hadn’t given her for years. Not since Aila had embraced the new religion to the exclusion of their old.
She decided to ignore the look. “It’s uncommonly warm today.”
“For spring.” She couldn’t tell whether her grandmother’s remark was expressing agreement or not, but it scarcely mattered. The temperature had risen quite astonishingly. “Have you had any further interaction with your mystery Scot, Aila?”
Aila smothered a sigh. It appeared her entire family knew of her conversation with Connor the previous day. As long as that was all they knew. She didn’t feel up to explaining the other times they had conversed.
Or touched.
Her fingers curled against her gown and she attempted to push the memory aside. Her grandmother, unfortunately, possessed pagan gifts and she didn’t want her innermost secrets exposed.
“Only in passing.” She shot her grandmother a glance and saw her lips give a twitch of amusement. “And he isn’t my Scot.” Belatedly realization dawned. Perhaps she should have said that first?
Their conversation was interrupted by the arrival of her mother who flounced into the garden accompanied by two of her ladies and her personal bodyguard.
“Goddess.” Her mamma sounded irritated as she swept her glance around the courtyard at the half dozen slaves who tended the garden. “Can I believe my eyes? Are there truly no foul Scots polluting this corner of my kingdom?”
“Calm yourself, Devorgilla,” her grandmother said. “They’ll be gone soon enough.”
Aila tried to ignore the odd pain that twisted through her heart at those words. The Scots would be gone soon. And so would Connor.
“Indeed.” Her mamma glowered at her mother. “And if they had the manners to convey to me the purpose of this imposition, they could leave this very day.”
“I fear,” her grandmother said, “their presence is required for longer than one day. Although not for the purposes they imagine.”
Her mamma frowned, trying to make sense of the words, and Aila stifled a resigned sigh. When her grandmother spoke in riddles people assumed she was channeling a god.
“What do you—” Her mamma glanced at Aila and her eyes widened in apparent astonishment. Then she returned her attention to her mother and Aila saw a meaningful look pass between them.
“No.” Aila accompanied her denial by standing up for added emphasis. “I am not returning to the fold as you so quaintly phrase it. I have no use for your old beliefs so please stop trying to persuade me otherwise.”
The two women stared at her, but it was her mamma who finally responded.
“I know that, my love. And although it grieves me you chose to discard your gifts—gifts I would sacrifice a great deal to possess as you know—I wasn’t thinking of that.”
“What were you thinking of, then?” She knew she was overreacting but she couldn’t help it. Why couldn’t her kin accept her decision? Even after all these years, she knew they still harbored the illogical belief she would one day reopen her heart to Bride.
So many of their people now worshipped the new God without it affecting their devotion for the ancient ways. But she couldn’t stomach the thought of allowing Bride back into her life. Before Onuist died, she’d had no time for the new religion. And now she had no patience for the old.
Her mamma glanced pointedly at the bench. Aila followed her gaze and stared at her discarded cloak.
“This is the first time since you returned from the veil of the Otherworld that I’ve seen you outside not wearing your cloak.”
Despite the heat of the day—and it truly was a hot day—a shiver chased along her arms. Even in the height of summer she would wear a thick shawl. She flexed her fingers, fingers that were not chilled at their tips.
“And is this a sin?” Her voice sounded oddly hushed, mocking her effort not to allow her mamma’s awe to affect her.
“No.” Again her mamma glanced at her mother. “It’s a miracle.”
* * * * *
In her bedchamber Aila secured her blue silk veil with a gold circlet embedded with three sapphires. The precious circlet had been a wedding present from Onuist, procured at great expense from pirates masquerading, at the time, as merchants. She shook her head but the veil remained in place.
As it should have remained in place since her wedding day.
What was she thinking, to even consider meeting Connor by the stream? It felt like an assignation, an illicit rendezvous. But what it really felt like was a betrayal of Onuist.
Desperately she clawed through her memories, seeking reassurance in Onuist’s familiar features. But all she could recall with clarity was his deep-chestnut hair, his infectious laugh and the way they had run, as children, hand in hand through sun-filled glens.
With every passing year his face became harder to recollect in detail. And the details she could remember were of the boy he had once been, not the man he had become.
Guilt flared and indecision snaked through her soul. It didn’t matter how much she desired Connor, she had no intention of succumbing to an affair. And instantly fevered visions of her lust-fueled dreams filled her mind and fired her blood.
Would it really be so wrong?
Silence condemned her. Her fingers curled around the chain at her throat and she
pulled the heavy cross up from where it nestled beneath her bodice. She stared at it in her mirror and the familiar, distressing maelstrom of love and loathing tangled her thoughts and constricted her breath.
This cross, another gift from her seventeen-year-old bridegroom. He had given it to her not because of its religious significance but because of its remarkable heritage.
And nine years ago it, like she, had been wrenched from its moorings.
She shoved the thought aside. She wouldn’t think of that time, not now. Not when she was going to meet Connor. If he showed.
Somehow she knew he would. Just as she knew that if she met with him today, she risked losing forever the fragile peace of mind it had taken her so long to attain.
* * * * *
She wasn’t coming. Connor glanced up at the ridge as if he could make her appear by sheer force of will. But the grassy slope remained void of an enchanting Pictish lady.
Damn it, did she expect him to wait for her all afternoon? His irritation only increased when he realized that, most likely, he would wait here all afternoon. Just in case she changed her mind and condescended to meet with him.
He kicked a stone into the stream and tried to recall the last time he had been kept waiting by a woman. And couldn’t. Because Maeve never had, his mistress before her never had and before then—
Before then he had been married. And his wife, God keep her, had never had occasion to keep him waiting.
Aila wasn’t going to meet with him. She had never intended to meet with him. It was the sign he needed to reinforce his certainty that by continuing to see her he was in serious danger of compromising his convictions.
So what was he still doing here? In fact why had he ventured this way at all? It wasn’t as though seduction was on either of their minds.
Damn lies.
The notion of seduction haunted his mind and tortured his body. But even knowing this encounter wasn’t a prelude to a sexual liaison, he’d looked forward to seeing her again. As if he was a starstruck fifteen-year-old boy instead of a warrior of twenty-six whose stars had been seared from his eyes long ago.
No sound alerted him, but a strange awareness prickled the back of his neck. Slowly he turned and Aila stood on the ridge, looking down at him.
Chapter Nine
He stared at her, spellbound. The afternoon sun cast a halo around the delicate fabric of her sapphire veil, illuminating the gold and auburn of her hair. A light summer shawl caressed her shoulders, allowing him an unhindered view of the blue gown that clung to her breasts and waist and hips.
Only after he’d approached and offered her his hand did he notice the heavy Gaelic-inspired cross. And although it reinforced the twin reasons why he and Aila could never enjoy a brief affair, the warning was distant in his mind.
“My lady.” He smiled up at her, because how could he not? With one glance his irritation had dissolved. “Take care.”
She smiled back and allowed him to take her hand. “I’m familiar with this land, Connor. I know quite well how to take care.”
He clasped her fingers and assisted her down the slope although it was plain she required no such help. “Do you wish to sit by the stream? Or shall we walk for a while?”
Her fingers slid from his and for a second he felt oddly bereft. Yet she didn’t turn away. Didn’t rebuff him by word or glance. She simply held the folds of her shawl to keep it in place.
“We can walk if you wish.” She glanced at the dog by her side. “But not too far. Drun’s days of tramping the mountains for hours on end are long past.”
Connor followed her glance. “He did well to recover from such an injury. What happened? Did a stag fall on him during a hunt?”
Aila, face averted, ruffled her dog’s head. “Not exactly. Although,” she hesitated, obviously uncertain whether to continue. “It was a hunt, of sorts.”
He couldn’t imagine what she meant. “His devotion to you is clear.”
This time she did look at him. For a moment, he thought he saw an icy bleakness in her eyes but then she blinked and it vanished.
“Oh.” She offered him a small smile. “The devotion is mutual I can assure you.”
Lucky dog. The thought chased through his mind and dark amusement unfurled at the realization he envied a dog Aila’s regard. “Then we will walk until the noble Drun wishes to rest.”
This time her smile reached her eyes and they sparkled with mirth as they had yesterday. Before his blunder. And the oddest sensation assailed him.
She was made for laughter. And yet an aura of sadness clung to her, as if the loss of her husband was a recent tragedy, still raw.
The dog limped between them, a four-legged chaperone. They followed upstream, leaving the copse and entering untamed woodland, where seclusion beckoned.
Except he wasn’t searching for a secluded hollow in which to take Aila. Much as the notion enticed.
“So, Connor.” Aila glanced at him as she detoured from the stream. And because he didn’t care where she led him, he followed. “What do you think of our Highlands? Isn’t it the most beautiful country you’ve ever seen?”
“Aye.” He grinned back at her. “It’s beautiful, Aila. But Dal Riada is also beautiful in her own way.”
Aila lifted her face to the sun that penetrated the sparse, leafy canopy and her exquisite golden circlet tumbled from her head. As he bent to retrieve it, never taking his eyes from her, the blue veil slid to her shoulders.
She appeared not to notice.
“Dal Riada could never compare.” She turned and looked surprised to see him on his knees grasping her circlet. “This land is in my blood.”
He rose and offered her the circlet. She took it then appeared unsure what to do with it.
“And Dal Riada is in mine.”
She slid the gold circlet through her fingers and finally placed it back on her head, although she forgot to secure her veil first. He didn’t remind her. Wasn’t sure why.
“Well,” she said. Her circlet was a little off-center, giving her an oddly endearing look. He battled the urge to straighten it before it slid off her hair once again. “We have that in common, at least. A love for our country.”
“It’s a good start.” The words were out before he could prevent them, before he could analyze what, exactly, he meant by them.
“Yes.” She didn’t appear to think there was anything strange about his remark. And why should she? It could easily refer to a long-term peace between their two peoples.
Wasn’t that what he’d intended to convey? Yet even as he tried to convince himself he knew, deep inside, he’d meant something more. Something personal.
“It’s a good start.” She repeated his comment and he caught her eye, and a flash of awareness seared through his chest. Perhaps she, also, infused the words with intimate possibilities.
Then she looked away but the connection remained, sizzling in the air between them. He followed her deeper into the woods, where the trees grew closer together and the sunlight faded to green.
And then she paused.
“Perhaps we could rest awhile.” She indicated a fallen tree, its mossy trunk a more than serviceable bench. “I don’t like to overtax Drun.”
“Of course.” Hell, he didn’t care whether they walked or sat or paddled their feet in a freezing loch in a nearby glen.
She sat, as regally as a queen, and then bent toward Drun and her circlet once again slipped. He caught it at the same instant she did and their fingers tangled against the slender gold band.
She gave a breathless laugh and he was enchanted to see the blush stain her pale cheeks. “I keep forgetting I’m wearing it.”
“It’s exquisite.” He took the circlet from her limp fingers and examined it. The workmanship was superb. The sapphires genuine. “A family heirloom?” If so, her family was grand indeed. And again he wondered why her father hadn’t insisted on her remarriage. One worthy of her status.
“No. My husband gave it to me on
our wedding day. It’s quite unconnected to any of our kin.”
Her husband. Suddenly he lost interest in discussing the masterful craftsmanship of the circlet. Except if her husband had been able to afford such riches, he had likely been of the nobility.
And because he didn’t know what else he could say, he handed the band back to her. She took it, traced her fingers over the sapphires and then placed it on her lap.
Carefully he sat next to her. Closer than decorum decreed but not as close as he wished. She didn’t appear to mind, unless the way she toyed with her cross was an indication of distress.
His glance snagged on that cross. In Dal Riada many women possessed such items of jewelry although he’d never seen one this elaborate outside of a church.
Realization dawned and it wasn’t particularly welcomed. “Another gift from your husband?” He nodded at the item although he couldn’t fathom why the damn object offended him. Just knew that it did.
Aila snatched her hand from the cross. “What?” She appeared distracted. “Oh, yes.” Her fingers fluttered over the intricate carvings before dropping once more to her lap. “This was a family heirloom. Rumored to have once belonged to Columba himself.”
Connor frowned and leaned in to get a closer look at the artifact. If it was a relic from Columba’s time, it would make the cross almost three hundred years old.
And it certainly looked it. He’d wondered at its Gaelic influence. Was it possible the Christian saint, who originated from his own ancestors’ land across the water, had lived among the Picts long enough to bestow upon them personal items?
Connor had always believed the saint’s relics remained on the sacred Isle of Iona. It was one of the reasons the cursed Vikings kept raiding. For the treasures left there over the centuries.
“A precious heirloom, for sure.” No wonder she kept it close to her heart. Not only was it a gift from her dead husband. It had also belonged to the man who’d brought the light to a pagan land.
He knew, now, the Picts weren’t the savage heathens he’d first thought. But neither were they truly Christian. The queen and her kin made no secret of the fact they continued to worship the old gods. So why then would a noble-born lady like Aila not follow the conventions of the royal house of Ce?
Her Savage Scot: 1 (Highland Warriors) Page 9