by Lisa Torquay
“Where is he?” She asked. Only now did she notice a cut on her husband’s temple together with a weariness hovering over his taut frame.
“In the nursery, sleeping. The nanny is with him.” He even hired a nanny for her son in this short time. His concern did not escape her though he took the boy without her permission.
Drostan inspected his wife from her auburn hair plastered to her head, her soaked peasant’s dress, the faded cloak—with which he had gifted her—to the cracked muddy boots. Guilt coursed through him for forcing her to walk for hours to reach the manor. He had not expected her to travel at night and the fact ate at him with persistent worry.
Anguish still smothered her beautiful face. But before explaining, he must get her warmed up or she would catch her death. “Come.” He motioned her to the stairs. “First you will refresh, then we will talk.”
She hesitated, staring at him as if she wanted to refuse it. Several seconds elapsed when she finally nodded and followed him.
In the chambers that had been theirs, and in which he slept alone now, the maids poured steamy water in a tub. He watched her come in, eyes wandering around an unchanged decoration. “I will leave you in the maids’ care. Your dresses are where you left them.”
Hazel attention flew to him in surprise. Their eyes held for long moments as her voice came strained. “Thank you.”
With a short bow, he turned and closed the door behind him. Despite the circumstances, Drostan regarded her presence here as a small victory. Right in his bedchamber where she belonged. And he would make sure she stayed in it, preferably in his company. Especially in his company. The knowledge she was alive made him intent on tying his family together anew. With his son, and the brothers and sisters he would be sure to follow.
He had feared he would die a childless, bitter man counting a lost wife and decades of loneliness. Without proof that he had become a widower, there had been no chance of marrying again. Not for long years. Seven, according to the law. Fingal, his middle brother, would inherit after him. What angered him most was the idea of living a life with no family to call his own. His mother had passed away almost ten years ago, but she had given his father three robust sons and an insubordinate daughter. The thought drew a crooked smile from his sensual lips. Aileen found her match in The McDougal. This opportunity for him to put his life to rights had just presented itself. He would grab it with his both hands.
Freya’s eyes slapped open in startled alertness. She lay in crisp bedsheets and a fine wool coverlet on a bed that rivalled with fluffy clouds. Her former bed, warm, cosy. Dripping in nightly recollections.
Their wedding night had been here. Even celebrating during the whole day had not tired them. They had barely entered the chamber as their hands grabbed each other with a blazing passion worth of setting fire to the entire manor. After months of dissatisfying, too short encounters, the newlyweds had been alone at last. But those encounters showed her what to expect. More, what to lust after. Him. She had been rippled with an impatience that had made Drostan laugh, and then groan when they joined with unrelenting urgency. Goodness gracious! She could still feel him filling her inexperienced body, the pain forgotten, the pleasure heightened. The explosion shattering. Only on their almost immediate second time did they make it through foreplay.
Her frame jerked up to a late afternoon sun. Darn it! She did not plan to sleep this long. Even less going down memory lane. Checking her length, she saw the refined, frilly chemise she dressed. Her hand ran on the fabric reacquainting with the luxury. And imagining Drostan’s large hands sneaking under it along her eager skin.
Darn it again!
The fantasy got her jumping from the bed and rushing to select something to put on and go find her toddler. Mother and son must leave this place post haste.
A respectful rasp on the door brought a maid in as she curtsied. “The Laird requires you in the drawing room, my lady.”
Her son would have to wait. In front of the cheval mirror, she made sure her simplest and most demure dress was in place before heading down.
“Well, at least one McPherson lass has made it back home.” Fingal greeted her sarcastically.
Naturally, Freya did not miss the allusion to her cousin Fiona and how she did not resist the lure of the city and forgot all about her husband and son.
“It is good to see you, too, Fingal.” No need to raise to the bait and create friction with her brother-in-law. Her reasons would speak for themselves, had she the chance to reveal them.
He scoffed a side-smirk and his cinnamon eyes twinkled.
“Father.” She addressed Wallace. “Lachlan.” Her youngest brother-in-law. Both nodded at her.
Drostan sat casually on an armchair wrapped in his tartan, staring at her from up his hawkish nose. In this position, his tanned knees showed between his white hoses and the green, black and white plaid.
“You had an accident?” She demanded, forcing her eyes from his masculine frame to his attentive glare.
“I fell from the horse.” His low voice without inflection.
The rush of adrenalin, and fear flooded her veins and she blanched. “Fell.” She repeated numbly.
“I managed to hold Ewan firmly, and he fell on me unharmed.” The contribution did nothing to calm her.
“H-how did this happen?” The McKendricks were famous for their fine horseflesh and their skilled horsemanship.
“Ewan and I stopped at an inn for me to feed him breakfast.”
A public place where anyone might have identified them. Queasiness soured her stomach.
“We left, and a few miles ahead, Threuna reared and took me by surprise.” His strong hand raked his wavy hair.
“A villager found him passed out on the road, Ewan by his side trying to awaken his father.” Wallace intervened.
At this, Freya’s hand fumbled behind her to find an armchair, on which she sat slowly as her legs threatened to turn to jelly. Eyes bulged, the free hand on her mouth in sheer terror. “Are you hurt?” She asked her husband.
“He came by only this morning.” Lachlan spoke for the first time. “Father sent for Aileen. You missed her by minutes.”
“I spent the whole day looking for Threuna.” Fingal used to be quite fond of the McKendrick’s horseflesh. He had named the horse ‘Valiant’ in Gaelic. “Found him not far from here.” He volunteered with a strange look on his face.
The conversation got interrupted by a running Ewan barging through the door. “Mama!” He jumped on her lap while the nanny stood by the entrance.
“Here you are, my love.” She hugged the little boy tight, heart squeezing at the danger he went through.
“We had a big adventure!” Ewan started excited and chatted on telling it as if there had been nothing serious about the whole event.
The McKendrick men watched mother and son closely. Drostan did not disguise his pride.
“I brought papa home and met aunt Aileen.” He boasted.
“What a brave hero you are!” She praised him, kissing his forehead, and forcing herself to produce a faint smile.
As Ewan finished his story, she took the opportunity to look at him, bathed, fed, well-slept and in very fine clothes. Drostan wasted no time in providing for his heir.
“Papa said we can live here with him, if I want.” He taunted innocently.
Her eyes involuntarily flew to her husband who pierced her with his old-whisky irises and caused her skin to go crimson.
No answer came from her as she would promise nothing she knew she could not keep. She hugged the toddler again, her mind distancing to that worrisome place it inhabited the last few years.
Not long passed before Baxter came to announce dinner. Drostan took Ewan to the nanny for her to help him with dinner in the nursery as the others headed to the dining room.
Freya just stood up when she heard the knob click shut. Her gaze lifted to see Fingal leaning on the massive wood, arms crossed, an accusing expression on his face.
“I wonder if you know why our stable help found a thorn under Threuna’s saddle.”
Colour bled from her face and nausea threatened to humiliate her in front of her brother-in-law. She had not been wrong unfortunately. Drostan and Ewan in a public place arose the McPherson. Worse, they were watching her and her husband.
Swallowing whatever wanted to come up the wrong way, she replied, “You think I put it there.”
He did not move though his stance sharpened. “Did you?”
“I stayed away for more than four years and did nothing to re-approach any of you. What do you think?” Composure came back to her and her stance took him head on.
“But then Drostan found you by chance, I understand.” He pushed from the door and neared her, piercing attention unfailing.
“An unfortunate coincidence I would say.” Her feet kept her ground. She got nothing to fear, having done nothing wrong.
“Why would you want him dead?”
The blatant accusation caused fury. She understood they did not have the whole picture, but to point fingers at her without proof pushed it a bit too far. “I do not!”
This emphatic negative must have given Fingal pause. “I will believe you for now.” The cutting tone suggested just the opposite. “Should I find out otherwise, you will have a lot to answer for.”
They stood there for long moments in a battle of wills. Finally, she nodded and joined the others for dinner.
The McKendrick siblings had always been protective of one another, and Freya did not blame Fingal for worrying about his brother. Well he should. She wished she could tap in such cohesion to fend off the threat which had hung over her head for so many years; if she was sure it would not turn out to be a foolish step.
CHAPTER FOUR
Drostan climbed up the manor’s stairs after sharing a whisky with his brothers and father. Fingal sat on a corner too silent, something unusual for his blunt brother. He wondered if the reappearance of his wife got anything to do with it.
During their year together, Freya built a good rapport with his family. She used to be a cheerful, easy-going lass, content to share the manor’s management with Aileen, who undertook it since their mother passed. They reciprocated the empathy she showed them. With an unobtrusive personality, she seemed happy to walk the grounds or read a book when she had finished her work. Also, she helped with sowing and harvesting, or any other chores which needed all hands available.
And she was never too tired for him when they finished the day and reunited in their chamber. Then, the best part of the day, or should he say the night, started. His amazement at her warmth, ready smile and sensuality unending. Someone who shared such space in his life had been sorely missed when absent. He did not get over the emptiness she created. Ever. To think she left willingly splintered everything he knew about his wife. Together with what he felt for her.
His guts now tore with ambiguous reckonings. Anger for her abandonment. Wonder with her courage to face raising a child alone. Resentment at the fact she kept him ignorant of it. Desire that surged hotter than ever. It was as if four horses tried to split him to pieces.
Like now, as he entered his bedchamber to find her tempting curves wrapped in a warm nightgown and a shawl, sitting on their four-poster bed, arms crossed. The sight ignited a furnace in him, burning any of those ‘reckonings’ to cinders.
At his presence, she sprang up and turned a full contrariety to him.
“What is it?” He asked, appreciating her feminine frame in the firelight.
“You abducted Ewan and exposed him to danger.” Her blame came with no preamble.
“I did not abduct him.” He prowled to mere feet from her. “He asked to accompany me.”
“And if a four-year-old asks you to try whisky you will comply.” She maintained, tilting her delicate chin at him.
He was aware that a toddler held no maturity to decide more than the colour of the shirt he wanted to wear. “I am sorry.” He saw himself obliged to admit.
“You should have talked to me first.” A mother’s worry all over her.
A humourless side-smile sketched on his masculine lips. “The answer was clear without asking.”
“I am his mother and I decide what is best for him.”
At that, his fists rested on his tapered hips. “As his father, I have precedence over you.”
Indignation creased her delicate brows and narrowed her beautiful eyes. “More’s the pity.” Her tone transformed in obstinacy. “We are leaving tomorrow.”
His large hand raked his chestnut hair as he gave her his back. Did she think he would let her go when he had just found her? With his heir, moreover. “No, you are not!” He edited turning to her again.
She did not flinch at his incensed glare. “Want me to sneak out in the middle of the night for the second time?” Defiance washed her every move.
Bunched arms crossed over steel chest. “There will be people watching this time.” He devolved. “I learned from past mistakes, you know.” Disdain added to his stance.
“These things are always manageable.” Not a false reasoning, he recognised.
“Ewan stays.” The irreducible ultimatum hung in the air between them.
Those hazel eyes bulged with emotions hard to name. He saw worry. He saw fury. And terror. Depthless, naked terror. Did she imagine he would mistreat his own son? She and Drostan met years ago. In fairs and festivals. They counted a long betrothal, spent one year married. She should understand him by now.
As her feminine jaw dropped and her nervous head shook from one side to the other, he hardened on his decision. “He needs a proper upbringing. An education.” His diamond voice reiterated.
“I can give it.” Her soft voice came out gritted.
“With what books? I could hardly find a piece of paper and pencil in your stolen cottage.”
She tossed her long auburn tress back in a gesture he remembered as tense. “You will lend them, I expect.” The McKendrick library rivalled any of the highest British nobility.
“Ewan stays, I said.” When her dainty hand flew to her brow, it trembled. His eyes narrowed on it. “What is it, Freya?” The question husky.
Her stare snapped to him, and she took a long time to talk. “I mean to take Ewan from here.” Despite her clear tension, her tone spelt determination. And it did not provide a clear reply. She never did, come to that.
His nostrils expelled impatient air. “Look, let us find a compromise. If you want distance from me, alright.” The idea ate at him, a voracious rodent at his guts. “But I will find a better cottage and supply you and Ewan with a decent living.” He would make sure the cottage was easily accessible, including the possibility of checking on them regularly.
Hands clasped, they rested on her worried chin, face bent down in long deliberation. He waited. This was as far as he would go.
She lifted her head, eyes clear and decided. “Tomorrow.”
This would cut it close. And gave him no time to gain her over or change her mind…on everything.
Curtly, he nodded at last. “Tomorrow.” He paused. “I will accompany you.” And just like that she would slip away for the second time.
Another worried look passed by her eyes, but she said nothing as a faint smile pulled her full lips.
Even this almost non-smile beguiled him. He had not seen her in a light mood since…well…since he found her in that derelict place so below her rank.
It had the power to change the mood though. He kept his attention on her as much as she did on him. The fireplace roared with a cosy light flicking on her in the silent night. She drew her shawl closer as if a shiver ran through her.
The want of her he had been holding at bay for the length of their conversation emerged full force. He did not resist it. What was the point? She would leave in a question of hours.
A few long strides and he stood inches from his wife, inhaling quality soap and woman. He took her shoulders and pulled her to him.
She did
not oppose resistance. On the contrary, her pupils dilated and her breath hitched.
His, in contrast, accelerated with the heatwave of arousal it preceded. “Spend the night with me.” He rasped hotly, unable to smother the near-desperation coursing through him with her imminent departure.
When had he ever begged a woman for anything? Yet here he stood doing exactly that to the one who uttered so many vows before a priest. And broke all of them.
Her body went lax and leaned on his. If this was not his wife wanting him too, he did not fathom what it was. His bunched biceps registered fingertips reaching them as if reluctant to give in to it. Satisfaction invaded him when her whole palms rested on his shirtsleeves, his muscles reacting to her touch. His head lowered to the point their breaths mingled in the warmed room.
Triumph and anticipation dominated him with her possible capitulation. All the signs displayed there with her puckered full breasts, separated lips, half-mast lashes. And a slight, almost imperceptible, moving of her middle to cradle his tented tartan and what lay, or rather stood, beneath it.
His scrutiny took in every tiny detail of her flawless face. The silky skin, the perfect eyebrows, the upturned little nose, the delicate jaw. To zero in on her cushioned rosy lips begging for his. Yes, begging, no doubt remained. His mouth aimed at them, going for the kill.
“You can find solace with your mistress.” The satiny attack came low, but sure.
Reflexively, he released her and stepped back to a distance she would not affect him. If that would ever be feasible.
Not that a reasonable number of women did not offer to regale said solace to the poor, abandoned Laird, by the by. In many ways, in many places, in many subterfuges. He found, to his misfortune, they did not tempt him. Not even for a romp his body was so much in need of. One of those “candidates” called him a lonely wolf.
Wolves matted for life.
Frustrated and vexed with yet another rejection, he stuck his right hand up in the air, and held it there until her gaze found it, quizzical. “This is my mistress.” He barked, unconcerned to hide his response to her.