Chapter Seven

Aisla stood at the narrow window looking out over the expansive Loch Rannoch. The glistening, reflective surface was one of the few beautiful memories she’d taken from Maclaren, and it looked much the same as it had from her bedchamber window at the Maclaren keep with the setting sun glinting off the water like dancing flames. Although Tarbendale was on the western edge of the loch, the view was still comparable. Better, even.

Niall had been fortunate that his sister had decided to sell the land to him. Aisla had never visited Tarbendale in her short time at Maclaren, and it was strange to think that Niall was now laird of the small but lucrative estate. The Niall she’d married had been young and carefree, and careless. A spoiled, indolent lord who’d been coddled to his own detriment. He couldn’t have been less motivated to do anything beyond drinking, brawling, and wenching.

Precisely what he might be doing now.

Not that she cared. Niall’s behavior no longer had the power to hurt her.

Aisla drew a reassuring breath and pushed away from the window. A satisfied smile curved her lips as she recalled the look on his face when he’d first seen her at Tarben Castle, and then took in the fact that she would be staying. Attack was the best form of defense—her sister-in-law, Sorcha, had taught her that. In hindsight, Aisla did not know if her impulsive decision to move her trunks into his home would cost her more than she was prepared to pay.

Tarben Castle was neutral ground. It did not have the memories that the keep at Maclaren did. And while she understood that this was no more than a game, Aisla did not want to be upended by the past. But this was his space. Filled with his allies. One in particular.

Though she’d put Fenella out of her mind, it’d been a shock to see her in the role of Niall’s housekeeper. The venomous look the woman had given her hadn’t changed, nor had her attitude.

“’Tis ye,” she’d said with a sneer upon seeing Aisla on the doorstep.

Aisla had smiled graciously. “Aye, it’s me. You look well, Fenella,” she’d said. “Though I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Why?”

“I would have thought you’d be married with a family of your own by now. You know, moved on from being the cuckoo in her master’s nest.”

Fenella’s scowl had darkened. “Ye’re still a bitch.”

“And you’re still a foul-mouthed parasite,” Aisla replied, all delivered with a smile.

The woman’s mouth had opened and shut like a fish. Aisla had learned more than a thing or two in France when dealing with particularly vicious young debutantes. Bullies didn’t much like it when their victims stood up to them.

“Niall willnae like that ye’re here,” Fenella said, changing tactics when she’d seen Aisla’s portmanteau and trunk. “We’ve nae rooms prepared.”

“I’m certain my husband won’t mind if I share his chambers.” She waved an idle arm. “This was his idea, after all.”

Technically, Aisla’s presence at Tarben Castle wasn’t his idea, but Fenella wouldn’t have known that. Aisla had taken great pleasure in sweeping past the gaping woman and having the groom from Maclaren ferry her things up to his chamber. It hadn’t been hard to figure out which was his, given that Fenella was of no assistance, but thankfully, it’d been the only furnished one.

She had spent the morning redecorating the masculine and spartan space, and making sure her wifely presence was glaringly obvious. Her longtime Parisian maid, Pauline, had not been pleased with the reassignment, though she’d borne the change with her usual grace, even helping with the redesign. And when Niall had returned, Aisla could not have hoped for a more gratifying response.

Delightful satisfaction aside, now that she was alone and evening was upon her, she couldn’t help but realize that there was only one bed. Two armchairs stood in front of the fireplace. Perhaps Niall could sleep there. Or on a pallet. Pauline had taken the tiny antechamber next door. Perhaps, if push came to shove, Aisla could make do there.

Where did Fenella sleep? She was his housekeeper, but she wasn’t exactly a servant. And if she was more…

Aisla glanced at the huge bed and immediately resented the direction of her thoughts, and the host of unwelcome images that followed. She did not care who slept in that bed or whether he housed a harem of women there. It was certainly large enough. Then again, her husband had matured into quite a large man—surely honed by hours of hard, outdoor labor—as she’d discerned when he’d shed his damp shirt. His chest had been chiseled, his skin bronzed by the sun.

When he’d stood there earlier, dwarfing the entire room, Aisla had been hard pressed not to notice just how well built he was. Clad in nothing but a damp tartan, all that was missing was a claymore for him to resemble a Highlander of old. He’d always been tall, but his youthful leanness had given way to an astonishingly broad physique with thick, muscled arms that would wield a broadsword as if it were a toothpick.

The sound of footsteps drew her out of her reveries. “Beggin’ yer pardon, milady,” a young, wide-eyed maid said with a bob. “The rest o’ yer things have arrived. And ye have a caller.”

Aisla’s curiosity was piqued as she went down the stairs. No one apart from Lady Dunrannoch knew she’d removed herself to Tarben Castle. At the bottom of the staircase, her eyes narrowed at the sight of Fenella simpering and giving Julien an inspection worthy of a farmer looking over new steer. The woman was shameless. Then again, it was Julien. He’d always had that effect on women. At least three debutantes each Season went into a dead faint in his presence. It was a wonder that she wasn’t attracted to him, but then again, her tastes seemed to run to hard-eyed and equally hard-hearted, ruthless Scotsmen.

“Lord Leclerc, what a charming surprise,” she said, standing on the last step. “I see you’ve already met Fenella, the laird’s housekeeper, and clearly the latest casualty of your charms.”

Fenella glared daggers in her direction and bustled back to the kitchens, where Aisla hoped she was overseeing an evening meal that preferably did not include poison.

“Chérie,” Julien said, coming forward to kiss her on both cheeks. “I had to see how you were faring.” His pale eyes took in the stone walls and the bare hall that was partially furnished with long eating tables and benches. A few armchairs stood in one corner near a giant hearth. Apart from the occasional maid running in and out, the great hall was deserted. “It is quite provincial, is it not? Charming in its own way, I suppose. Are you well?”

She smiled and drew him toward the chairs. “As well as can be expected. Shall I see if I can get us some tea?” Aisla frowned in the direction of the kitchen. “Though we’re more likely to be served tea made with water from a horse trough.”

“Your nemesis, I take it?” he said with a grin.

Aisla grimaced. “Fenella’s welcome to Niall. If he’d only agree to the divorce, she could have him, free and in the clear. I’d walk them to the altar myself.” She sat and put her head in her hands. “Oh God, Jules, thank the heavens you’re only a short ride away. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know if I can survive six weeks here alone with him. It’s positively…”

“Uncivilized?”

“I was going to say idiotic.” She met her friend’s perceptive gaze. Telling Julien the truth about her past had been difficult, and while he’d proven understanding, she wasn’t certain he’d approve of this wager she’d made with Niall. So far as Julien knew, they were being held in place at Maclaren and Tarbendale upon orders from the family solicitor. Aisla saw no reason to alter that. “I certainly hope Mr. Stevenson comes through with the marriage record sooner rather than later.”

He met her gaze and sharpened his own. “Before there is any danger of dredging up old feelings?”

Aisla gaped at him. “Hardly. It’s over between us.”

“He doesn’t seem to think so.”

She sat forward. “What do you mean?”

“I took a great personal risk in coming here, you know,” Julien told her, lowering his voice in a conspiratorial fashion. “I just saw your very ominous, scowling husband at the tavern. I gather he was not pleased about your new living arrangements. And honestly, Aisla, you could have warned me he has an ego to match his size.”

“I didn’t know,” she said indignantly. “I haven’t seen him in six years! Of course he wasn’t pleased. And he’s always been arrogant.” She vaulted an eyebrow, staring at him pointedly. “Which man isn’t?”

He gave her an affronted, over-the-top Julien look that normally made her laugh, but this time only made her want to hit him. She shook her head and groaned. Scotland brought out her Highlander blood in full force. “What did he say to you?”

“Since we don’t have the opera or the theater, you must indulge my need for drama, chérie, particularly when my life is at stake every second that passes,” he went on. “As I was saying, I was sitting there in the tavern, minding my own business, when your husband sat down for a chat. Sadly, he did not like what I had to say. Most of the men there were well into their cups, and I barely escaped unscathed.”

Aisla fought an eye-roll. She knew exactly the kind of provoking things Julien liked to say. “Then what happened?”

“Nothing happened,” he said, with an infuriatingly blasé laugh. “There was a bit of cock-strutting and posturing, but beyond an empty threat to shoot me should I set foot on Tarbendale lands, it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle.”

She gasped. “He threatened to shoot you?”

“If I set foot here,” he said solemnly and patted his heart. “Oui.”

This time she did roll her eyes and laugh. “You’re safe. If they’re at the tavern, it will be all night before anyone returns.” Aisla signaled to a maid hurrying past. “Please ask Fenella to send in some refreshment for his lordship. Wine, ale, whisky, or whatever is available.”

Julien smiled brightly, nearly knocking the poor girl off her feet. “Whisky, if you have it. Thank you, mignon.”

“You’re incorrigible,” she said, feeling light for the first time in hours. “Flirting in front of your future wife.”

He smirked. “While sitting in the heap of stones belonging to the man my future wife is currently married to.”

“You’re the one who wanted to wed.”

“The prize isn’t worth anything if it’s not worth fighting for.”

They shared a grin of commiseration just as Fenella appeared with a tray. With one glass of whisky. Aisla would have sighed if it wasn’t so predictable. She nodded for Julien to take the drink. After Fenella left with a scowl, he lifted the glass high in toast. “To getting what we both want.”

Aisla frowned thoughtfully at him, sitting there so out of place in his fashionable clothes. “Why would you want to stay when you could go back to Paris? You don’t have to be here.”

“And miss all the fun?” He grinned and drained the whisky. “I wouldn’t leave for all the gold in Scotland. It’s like being in the middle of my own personal bawdy-house theater production. The laird seduces the maiden. The wife seduces the master. Who will win? I’m on tenterhooks.”

“Do be serious.”

He pressed a palm to his chest in mock horror. “I am always serious.”

“Why stay? The truth.”

“If you must know, Maman is on the warpath about my future bride, and I’d rather not drown in swooning virgins being tossed on the sacrificial altar à la Julien.”

“You haven’t told her about us?”

He shot her a look. “After you announced you were already married? No, of course not. It would break her heart, if for some reason you chose to stay married and remain in this barren wasteland.”

“That will never happen.”

“Lie to yourself all you want, chérie, but I have seen the way you look at that man and it makes me blush.”

“Jules.” Mortified, Aisla bit her lips and steered the subject away from her unfortunate attraction to her husband. “I know she’s ill and you wish to make her happy, but why is she being so insistent about marriage now?”

Julien shifted in his seat and looked into his empty glass with a frown.

“She received a letter from her father, the Marquess of Riverley. The old toad’s dying. She’s taken the news hard, even though she hasn’t spoken to the old codger in decades. His illness has made her obsessed about her own mortality. It’s made her declining health all the more real to her, and I suspect she feels backed into a corner with the need to continue the family line.”

“And you don’t?”

“No. I’d much rather be here, being threatened by braw Scotsmen.”

She couldn’t help but laugh then. “Well, then, we must do whatever we can to protect the innocent.”

“I better leave before your beloved returns and makes good on his promise to riddle me with holes.” He tossed her an aggrieved look. “Are all Scots so barbaric?”

She thought of her brothers with a fond smile. “No. Some are worse.”

Aisla rose from her seat, her amusement fading as she walked Julien to the door. “He’s not my beloved,” she added. “I’ll do everything in my power to shorten the six weeks, and put this behind us so we can all move on. I’m glad you’re here, Jules.”

Julien paused to buss a kiss on each cheek. “As am I.” In an uncharacteristic display of seriousness, his expression grew somber. “Are you sure this is truly what you want, Aisla?”

“Of course it is. Why would you ask me that?”

“Because it’s clear that there is still something between the two of you, even to me and my jaded sensibilities.”

Aisla went quiet. Surely, the tension between them wasn’t that transparent? It was on the tip of her tongue to say that the only thing there was, was lust, but she bit her lips. Lust meant nothing. And if she gave in to it, if she lost one ounce of control, Niall would claim his victory.

“No, whatever was there is long gone. I won’t change my mind, either.”

He looked at her a long time before responding, his eyes oddly unreadable. “Very well. Send a Scottish falcon if you need me.” He grinned and winked, the momentary awkwardness disappearing. “And try not to lose your temper, chérie. I shouldn’t like to risk coming back to rescue you. This body is far too precious to be decorated with bullets.”

“Some knight you are.”

“I have a feeling you are more than capable of taking care of yourself, my darling. Adieu!”

After Julien rode back to Maclaren, Aisla’s stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten since breaking her fast that morning. The hour for sup at Maclaren had come and gone, and Niall had not returned. In truth, she didn’t expect him to, and she was too tired to go up to the Maclaren keep. Surely, she’d be able to find something edible here. She didn’t require much, perhaps some bread and cheese, or an oatcake.

She spotted the young scullery maid who’d run through the hall earlier and waved her down. “What is your name?”

“Caitlin, yer ladyship,” she said with a curtsy.

“Might you point me in the direction of the kitchen?” she asked. “I am in need of something to eat.”

“O’ course, milady. ’Tis this way.” She smiled shyly. “Yer caller was very bonny.”

Aisla shook her head and laughed. “And well he knows it, too.”

To her surprise, unlike the rest of the castle, the kitchen was large and well appointed, with shiny pots and pans hanging from various hooks near a large stone hearth. And thankfully, there was no sign of Fenella, for which Aisla was grateful. She couldn’t conceive of dealing with someone so unpleasant on an empty stomach.

“Please sit, milady,” Caitlin said, indicating a stool near a round table.

Aisla looked around at the clearly refurbished kitchen. “How long has the laird been living here?”

“Going on a year now,” Caitlin said. “It took months to repair the castle enough to live in it after so much of it was burned to the ground during the fire, but the laird was busy at the quarry, ye ken.”

“At the what?” Aisla frowned, but there was no answer. Perhaps she had misheard.

The young maid had disappeared into a nearby larder only to emerge with a roast chicken pie. Aisla promptly forgot her question or any other sensible thought in her head. Her mouth watered and she accepted the offering with gratitude. “Bless you, Caitlin.”

The girl smiled. “Me mam made it fer the laird, but he’s at the tavern with the other lads from the mines.”

“Mines?”

“Aye, the work the men do at Tarbendale,” Caitlin explained. “I’m sure the laird willnae fash.”

Aisla wasn’t so sure about Niall not minding his dinner going missing, but wild horses couldn’t have stopped her from eating it. She sat on a stool and bit into the cold but still flaky pastry, sighing with delight. There was nothing to be said for a good, homemade Scottish pie.

“Mmm. Divine.”

“That good, is it?” The deep, amused voice nearly made her tumble off her seat.

She turned, discreetly wiping the crumbs from her lips with one hand, noticing that Caitlin had made herself scarce with the laird’s arrival. Aisla chewed and swallowed her mouthful. Niall’s face was flushed as he lounged on the inside of the doorway, one booted foot propped against the doorjamb, arms folded across his broad chest. His blue eyes sparkled with laughter and he looked so relaxed, so disarmingly boyish, that she almost had an attack of sentimental yearning.

Until he pushed off the wall to walk closer, and she smelled the ale on him.

She sniffed, nostalgia swamped by other, not so pleasant memories. Nights much like this one when he ignored her, or didn’t come home at all. Nights when bitter fighting over his drinking had ended in insults and tears.

“My dinner?” he asked. Before she could blink, he reached down to lift the pie to his mouth and took a bite. The bold intimacy of it made something awaken in her belly.

“That’s mine.”

“What’s yers is mine, leannan,” he said. “Isnae that why ye’re here in my castle?”

“Don’t call me that.”

He smiled, his thumb rising to graze her lower lip. “Ye have a crumb just here.” Aisla sucked in a gasp as he lifted the errant piece of pastry to his mouth, his tongue darting out to lick the flake from his finger. He didn’t take his eyes from hers.

“Ye’re right,” he rasped. “’Tis indeed divine.”

Aisla had to shake herself back to her senses. Hard. This was all part of the game and his way of striking back. The hungry look in his eyes that said he wanted nothing more than to devour her was no more than a farce. A persuasive, chemise-incinerating sham, but one nonetheless.

She inhaled deeply, forcing herself to breathe in the smell of sour ale on his person, and wrinkled her nose. “You stink. Still drowning your woes, I see.”

Niall straightened in confusion and drew away, staring down at the damp, brown stain on his shirt. His expression was earnest. “One of the men at the tavern was over enthusiastic in his toast.”

She’d forgotten how clever he was, how convincing. She’d fallen for his excuses so many times before. But her eyes were open now, and she wasn’t the girl she’d left behind a lifetime ago it seemed. Aisla stood, pushing her plate to the side, her appetite gone.

“Forgive me if I don’t believe you. I’ve had the benefit of too much history, you see. If it smells like a wolf and acts like a wolf, then it is one. I would be a naive fool to believe otherwise.”

“Aisla, I—”

She cut him off with a hand. “Save your explanations and your oaths, Niall. If we’re going to continue this absurd pretense for the next six weeks, then at least do me the civility of not lying to my face. I know you, remember?”

“Ye dunnae ken me,” he said softly. “No’ anymore.”

They stared at each other in combative silence, any pretense of affability gone. Aisla couldn’t quite read the expression in his eyes. If she didn’t trust him or herself where he was concerned so much, she would have thought that his eyes appeared quite lucid. But she’d believed his lies before, fell for them quite willingly because she’d wanted to believe his excuses. She’d let herself be convinced by his promises and his fervent declarations of love. She’d been gullible once, and had had her heart trampled for it.

Once a drunk, always a drunk. How many men had she known at Montgomery like him? And in Paris, too. The only loyalty they had was to the liquor in their cups. She glanced at Niall’s sodden chest. Or on his shirt, as the case may be. She might be blinded by a few bulging muscles, but she was not stupid.

“Find another fool,” she finally said, walking away.